ozarque (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ozarque) wrote,@ 2005-12-15 14:41:00 |
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Barriers to getting rich, part 3....
mamadeb commented:
"This would tie into so many things - poor nutrition, lack of literacy and stimulation for the kids, poor housing (leading to asthma and other respiratory illnesses, which could affect cognition and will also lead to missing school), even lack of hope to improve, so that the parents don't think they can do anything anyway. And...yeah.
There have to be other factors involved besides sheer poverty, though."
The other factors appear to include the "genetic inheritance." That bothers me a great deal; it's one of those things that I don't want to be true.
When I was a child, the subject of "bad blood" was a common topic of conversation; I despised the concept then and I despise it now. After I grew up and had children of my own I always said, "Give me a newborn infant -- any newborn infant -- to raise, and I'll give you a 'gifted child'," and when the solid evidence for the genetic component of intelligence began to accumulate it just horrified me. It still does. It's not that I don't understand that that genetic component is only part of the story; I don't want any of it to be genetic. But that's just my own Irrational Component kicking in.
Suppose we set the nature versus nurture question aside. The thing that causes me the most concern is the evidence that no matter what the genetic intelligence inheritance may be, even if the original configuration is excellent, bad nutrition in the womb and/or the first couple of years of life can wipe that out and damage the brain permanently. That ought to mean that society would knock itself out to be sure that that kind of damage doesn't happen, because the consequences are horrendously expensive for all of us and it's in everybody's best interests to prevent it. Providing good nutrition would be so much cheaper than what we spend on the consequences of failing to provide it.
Instead, we have a large part of the population grimly opposed to the social programs that could turn the situation around and perhaps give us at long last a generation free of that preventable brain damage. I cannot figure this out; it baffles me.
mamadeb commented:"This would tie into so many things - poor nutrition, lack of literacy and stimulation for the kids, poor housing (leading to asthma and other respiratory illnesses, which could affect cognition and will also lead to missing school), even lack of hope to improve, so that the parents don't think they can do anything anyway. And...yeah.
There have to be other factors involved besides sheer poverty, though."
The other factors appear to include the "genetic inheritance." That bothers me a great deal; it's one of those things that I don't want to be true.
When I was a child, the subject of "bad blood" was a common topic of conversation; I despised the concept then and I despise it now. After I grew up and had children of my own I always said, "Give me a newborn infant -- any newborn infant -- to raise, and I'll give you a 'gifted child'," and when the solid evidence for the genetic component of intelligence began to accumulate it just horrified me. It still does. It's not that I don't understand that that genetic component is only part of the story; I don't want any of it to be genetic. But that's just my own Irrational Component kicking in.
Suppose we set the nature versus nurture question aside. The thing that causes me the most concern is the evidence that no matter what the genetic intelligence inheritance may be, even if the original configuration is excellent, bad nutrition in the womb and/or the first couple of years of life can wipe that out and damage the brain permanently. That ought to mean that society would knock itself out to be sure that that kind of damage doesn't happen, because the consequences are horrendously expensive for all of us and it's in everybody's best interests to prevent it. Providing good nutrition would be so much cheaper than what we spend on the consequences of failing to provide it.
Instead, we have a large part of the population grimly opposed to the social programs that could turn the situation around and perhaps give us at long last a generation free of that preventable brain damage. I cannot figure this out; it baffles me.
