Race: Adoption, SAT Scores and Genetics

A recent large scale adoption study found that the effect on parenting in determining an adopted child's IQ is marginal and inconsistent .

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289614000889

 

Here's Dr. James Thompson's take on the study:

 

>In summary, this is a carefully presented analysis, showing an importantly negative result. The authors go through a number of possible explanations, and here is my immodest account of why they got their results. They had a much better sample than usual. They measured over a longer period than usual, from adolescence to young adulthood, which is when the finished product of family life hits the streets. They did a thorough job, and have shown that an expected effect of parenting was not present. Contrary to all expectation from strong environmentalism, the supposed formative effect of social class and family life does not accumulate: it diminishes as children leave home.

 

>In the 60s we really thought that socio-economic status was like an artillery shell that fired a shell into the distance. The more wealthy, privileged and powerful the gun, the further the shell was fired (whatever the genetics of the child). It was all those books on the shelves, and the proper use of multisyllabic words at the dinner table that drummed ability into the crania of privileged brats. Take a child, any child, and put them at the dinner table (after a good wash and a medical examination) and by 7 they are on the road to mental adroitness, and by 17 surely ready to rise to the top and triumph over all. However, it turns out that by 17 kids are more like their real parents (whom they may have never met) than their adoptive parents. The “family pushes you forward by environmental means” hypothesis is not supported by the best available data.

 

http://drjamesthompson.blogspot.com/2014/11/adopt-child-but-discard-illusion.html

 

The following study have found that genetics are more important in determining school student than environment.

 

>Genes influence academic ability across all subjects, latest study shows

 

>Around 60% of differences in GCSE results can be explained by genetic factors, with the same genes responsible for maths, science and the humanities

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jul/23/genes-influence-academic-ability-across-all-subjects-latest-study-shows

 

The study was conducted by Robert Plomin. Plomin was interviewed in the Norwegian documentary series "Hjernevask" in the episode "The Parental Effect". Starting at 16:40 if you're not interested in watching the entire episode:

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp0vbf_hjernevask-brainwashing-in-norway-english-part-2-the-parental-effect_news

 

The summary of what he stated is this: adopted children show no similarity to their adopted parents in terms of intelligence by the time the child becomes an adult. However, adopted children do show similarity to their biological parents in terms of intelligence, even though they were not raised by them.

 

This indicates that genetics is more important than environment in determining an individual's IQ.

 

The following study found no link between school spending and student outcomes:

 

>Study: No connection between spending, student outcomes

 

http://watchdog.org/136876/study-school-spending/

 

The SATs and Race:

 

>1) On the SAT, kids of rich blacks do worse than kids of poor Asians and poor Whites. After around $20k family income, Asians outscore Whites with the same family income

 

Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/1995-SAT-Income2.png

 

>2) Blacks are more likely to take SAT preparation courses:

 

>Blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites from comparable backgrounds to utilize test preparation. The black-white gap is especially pronounced in the use of high school courses, private courses and private tutors. The Hispanic-white gap is more modest, and is limited to the use of private tutors.

 

Source: http://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/salon/files/2011/11/Racial_differences_SFJ_89_2_Alon-final.pdf

 

>3) SAT preparation courses don't seem to increase your score by much (20-40 points)

 

>First, test prep has only a modest effect on test scores, on the order of 20-40 points combined for a commercial test preparation service. More expensive services such as a private tutor are towards the high of this range, cheaper sources such as a high-school course towards the lower. Buchmann et al., for example, estimate that private tutors increase scores by 37 points while a high school course increases scores by 26 points.

 

Source:

 

http://www.stat.duke.edu/~dalene/chance/chanceweb/141.briggs.pdf

 

http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/89/2/435.short

 

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/03/the-sat-test-prep-income-and-race.html

 

>2008 SAT Scores By Race By Income:

 

http://www.vdare.com/posts/2008-sat-scores-by-race-by-income

 

>Murray in WSJ: “Why the SAT Isn’t a ‘Student Affluence Test’”

 

http://www.unz.com/isteve/murray-in-wsj-why-the-sat-isnt-a-student-affluence-test/

 

>Mainstream Science on Intelligence

 

>Mainstream Science on Intelligence was a public statement issued by a group of academic researchers in fields associated with intelligence testing that claimed to present those findings widely accepted in the expert community. It was originally published in the Wall Street Journal on December 13, 1994 as a response to what the authors viewed as the inaccurate and misleading reports made by the media regarding academic consensus on the results of intelligence research in the wake of the appearance of The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray earlier the same year. It was drafted by professor of psychology Linda Gottfredson, sent to 131 researchers,[1] and signed by 52 university professors specializing in intelligence and related fields, including around one third of the editorial board of the journal Intelligence,[2] in which it was subsequently reprinted in 1997. The 1997 editorial prefaced a special volume of Intelligence with contributions from a wide array of psychologists.

 

>The letter to the Wall Street Journal set out 25 conclusions:[3]

 

Some of the conclusions:

 

>"Intelligence tests are not culturally biased"

 

>"Heritability estimates range from 0.4 to 0.8 … indicating genetics plays a bigger role than environment in creating IQ differences"

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream_Science_on_Intelligence