[scottmwinters]

I'm rather tired of hearing that people are a product of their environment. "Its not your fault you dont do anything with your life, its what you were born into" is dumb as hell.

Also, this study doesn't look remotely thorough. Correlation does not imply causation. Explain the test parameters better, etc, etc.

People are responsible for their own actions and own lives, not their environments. Lets move on

[scott_s]

The authors clearly understand the limitations of correlational studies, as evidenced by explicitly mentioning such limitations. You are ascribing conclusions to the authors they have not made.

[themartorana]

But... It does matter. I'm personally pretty tired of hearing this "personal responsibility" line. While I agree adults have certain responsibilities, the idea that the cycle of poverty and crime are purely personal responsibility failings on enormous groups of people is not only scientifically wrong, but also terribly laden with consequences.

[wpietri]

Yes. The "let's move on" bit is a tell. It doesn't mean, "this is so obvious that everybody will agree once they think about it." It's a plea to stop thinking about it so as not to disturb his gut-level conclusion.

I can forgive that on some topics. We all have things we'd rather not think about, biases we're inclined to protect. But when the basic line of argument is, "I want to indulge my just-world bias [1] so please let's let young kids continue to live in misery" it seems monstrous to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

[pdex]

Personal responsibility has a great deal to do with it, I think the low income is largely incidental. If the parents have learned through generational poverty to reject the importance of education, critical thinking, mental stimulation, learning and creativity then I doubt these parents would have become financially successful or have a brain running on all cylinders.

One way to increase brain growth is mental stimulation and learning, and children are very dependent on their parents to provide such. When it comes to genetics, unless you're taking about inherited mental disabilities or developmental delays can certainly account for some lack of brain growth. Otherwise it's largely environmental.

If a family embraces the negative values of generational poverty chooses to imprint their children with the same intellectually repressive values/lifestyle upon their children, then the children would not be exposed to any brain-building activities or stimulation. What do you think the brain development differences would be between a kid who watches TV vs. one that's given a 1k piece jigsaw puzzle instead?

Luckily there are some parents in low income brackets that heavily invest in their children's learning and character development because they want them to have a better life. Some kids find mentors and support outside the home. Poverty doesn't doom any child, but it can make learning how to make better choices in life far more difficult if they don't have anyone who can teach or motivate them. Difficult, but not impossible.

I'm another child of poverty, grew up in a ghetto. All things were equal with the exception that my family placed a high value on education and they were highly involved and active in my learning.

[TeMPOraL]

> People are responsible for their own actions and own lives, not their environments. Lets move on

The point is, they are only to a degree. It's actually our cultural meme of pesonal responsibility that makes us blame everything on an individual's lack of discipline - even problems systemic in nature. And then we're surprised we can't solve obesity or poverty. Free will is overrated.

What confuses me a bit is that people are so quick to assume that everything is about discipline, and yet the entire marketing industry is one big proof that free will can be easily overriden by the environment.

[gerbilly]

>It's actually our cultural meme of pesonal responsibility that makes us blame everything on an individual's lack of discipline - even problems systemic in nature

This is the: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

[ZenoArrow]

> "People are responsible for their own actions and own lives, not their environments."

Sure, but their environment informs them about what is normal. To change beyond what is normal takes commitment. To give a silly example, do you walk around shopping malls in your pajamas? There's a social code that makes such an action stand out, even though in other parts of the world pajamas are more socially acceptable in this environment (admittedly, they look different from what we commonly think of as pajamas).

To give another example, if you grew up in a mining town, and your grandfather was a miner, and your father was a miner, and everyone else's father in the town was a miner, what do you think would be normal to aim for? I'm not saying you couldn't aim for something different, I'm saying you'd have to be committed to aim for something different, and be clear about what you want. If you're not clear about what you want, then it's likely you'll end up with the 'default option'.

[ceejayoz]

> Correlation does not imply causation.

https://xkcd.com/552/

"Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."

The article, incidentally, acknowledges this aspect of things. "The only way to really test that is to move beyond correlational studies and conduct experiments."

> "Its not your fault you dont do anything with your life, its what you were born into" is dumb as hell.

Few make that argument. The more nuanced and accurate version is "it's not shocking people with more obstacles to success fail more frequently".

[danharaj]

I think you're being overzealous. Literally all of one's actions are predicated on the environment one is in, and we live in a society where the less money one has the fewer options one has. Someone with your extreme attitude is just willfully blind to their relationship to the rest of society. I'm not sure what anyone gains out of such a mindset.

[jackcosgrove]

Your post is not very thorough. A study of twins raised apart done by the University of Minnesota found that 70% of the variance in IQ can be associated with genetic variation, with the remainder associated with environmental variation.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120227061723/http://www.psych.u...

[eberfreitas]

> People are responsible for their own actions and own lives, not their environments. Lets move on

I also think that correlating income with the shape of the brain is not really the case here. Link bait maybe? But the real question is not if you can blame the action of one on another, but why people act as they act. To downplay the role of environment, upbringing and even income (and how if affects the social life of a kid) seems just as wrong.

[littletimmy]

People don't have the kind of free will that you suggest.

As Arthur Schopenhauer once said, "man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wants." The point being made here is that poverty strikes at the will that is beyond your control, so it is meaningless to say the poor have responsibility for their condition.

[pdex]

For children it is true that they have no control over the income level which they are born into, but that changes in adulthood when one has autonomy. Adults capable of making decisions that can change the course of their lives, whether they do that or not depends on their choices.

[littletimmy]

> Adults capable of making decisions that can change the course of their lives

Excellent, I agree with you. The problem is that a brain raised on poverty makes people less capable of making good decisions. That's what we're concerned about.

[pdex]

Rather, a brain raised by parents who don't foster brain growth and reinforce bad decisions what we're concerned about. Poverty is incidental hence the correlation but not proven to be the cause.

[eevilspock]

> Lets move on

Yeah, right? Inequality is so inconvenient.

[01Michael10]

I just wanted to say congratulations in over coming your horrible childhood...

Personally, I can't relate to growing up in a ghetto with all the poverty, drugs and violence. You had no father? That sucks... It must have been real tough having various new "dads" move in over the years. Those ass beating probably helped keep you line. I am sure you forgive your mother today... When your bother got shot dead at 14 I am sure it inspired you to take a different path then him. Growing up with so little your whole childhood must make you really appreciate everything you have today.

Really, good job being able to take life by the horns and escaping all that to become a productive citizen.

[s73v3r]

Except as has been shown time and again, IT DOES MATTER. Trying to put all of it on just the person, regardless of whether they grew up successful or unsuccessful, is completely ignoring the huge factors at play, most importantly, the factors that we as a society could actually have an impact on.

[pdex]

Like what? That would make for interesting discussion. Unfortunately, throwing money at the generational poor won't change their culture.

How does society ensure that parents are providing proper mental stimulation for their growing children? Crafts, puzzles and books can be incredibly cheap. But even if these are given away for free will they be accepted or shunned for TV and video games?

How does a society fix bad parenting? There's parental rights involved that limit how far that can go. For example, we can't declare a parent unfit just because they're poor, and we can't force them to raise their children in better ways.

How does a society intercept and prevent parents from imprinting generational poverty culture on their children? This is a problem for children of other income brackets as well where the parents are absent and don't teach their children how to be smart, responsible adults. I knew quite a few people in college who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths that are now in poverty once their parents cut them off and they weren't taught how to make it on their own.