This one is for the bucket "Geniuses are made, not born", and kind of supports the thesis that early habits are important.
Another point the author misses is the medical trajectory. If you have ever done math under viral fatigue or low blood sugar, you can appreciate that many people probably operate their whole life under what others would consider "brain fog".
A set of [humans] start with a genetic baseline that allows them to more naturally jump higher or throw a ball faster than others. This is an indisputable fact. A different set have a more baseline genetic natural ability in other intellectual domains. This is also a fact.
These facts are absolutely disputable, in the sense that they might be very theoretically sensible, but not relevant in practice.
What good is a "genetic natural ability" that is theoretically there, when it cannot be extracted from the statistical noise. Not just for the person itself, but also for the parents.
The nature vs nurture debate is really hard because the data is so hard to get and disentangle. And that actually leads to another conclusion, that no matter where the truth falls, this "genetic predisposition" property only observable on big populations doesn't matter on the individual level in terms of decision making. And even on the population-level decision making it might not be relevant.
If an effect is too weak to measure, it's too weak to base decisions on.
4 comments
[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 5.8 ms ] threadThis one is for the bucket "Geniuses are made, not born", and kind of supports the thesis that early habits are important.
Another point the author misses is the medical trajectory. If you have ever done math under viral fatigue or low blood sugar, you can appreciate that many people probably operate their whole life under what others would consider "brain fog".
What good is a "genetic natural ability" that is theoretically there, when it cannot be extracted from the statistical noise. Not just for the person itself, but also for the parents.
The nature vs nurture debate is really hard because the data is so hard to get and disentangle. And that actually leads to another conclusion, that no matter where the truth falls, this "genetic predisposition" property only observable on big populations doesn't matter on the individual level in terms of decision making. And even on the population-level decision making it might not be relevant.
If an effect is too weak to measure, it's too weak to base decisions on.