| "You can prove anything if you pretend wildly improbable freak situations are somehow representative of reality." That's true, but what is represented in the comic is far from "wildly improbable" and in fact comes across as pretty realistic. That's why many people like it. It can't be that hard to believe that there are many situations where a person has several small things, often not worth studying, wrong in their lives that compound over time. That's the point. At the end of the day, I think that we both agree more than not and that you're more taking issue with the fact that I said "impossible to argue" than the larger point, which is totally fine because it was a melodramatic thing to say. Details the comic got right (btw, comic depicts Australia I believe, but it's equally applicable to US so we'll go with that, it's also hard to attribute the later panels to one given, testable factor, as what's depicted is the result of all the small things in life): Houses with extended family: "57 million Americans now live in some sort of multigenerational configuration. That number has doubled since 1980," including 36% of young adults [1] Frequent illness: "The Connecticut Commission on Children reports that children who live in poverty experience more illness than children in more affluent homes." [2] Parents working 2 jobs: "more than 7 million people in this country were holding 2 or more jobs. That’s 5% of the total workforce" [3] The Bureau of Labor Statistics number doesn't count jobs for cash etc. low income=shitty schools. not even going to bother to search that one. working while in school (less time to network, study etc.): "over 78% of undergraduate students work" DOE [4] Anyways, I'm glad you read the comic. A lot of that stuff seems really self evident to me, but here are just some sources from random googling.
[1]: http://www.newsweek.com/why-multiple-generations-families-ch...
[2] http://www.livestrong.com/article/229181-effects-of-low-fami...
[3] https://toughnickel.com/finding-job/Working-2-or-More-Jobs (from Bureau of Labor Statistics)
[4] http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=77 |
It's quite true that people with lots of money (like Richard's parents) tend to work long hours. And 5% of the workforce - most of them non-poor - might work 2 jobs. That's almost exactly the opposite of what the comic portrays.
Similarly, attributing things like poor people getting sick more on things like a damp house (or otherwise lacking money) is simply wrong. We now have an actual randomized trial to demonstrate this. http://m.qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/131/2/687
Most likely some third hidden factor (for example low conscientiousness resulting in poor work habits and poor health habits) causes both poverty and poor health.
I'm not disputing the idea that some folks have a leg up on life. I'm simply disputing a comic that wildly misleads about the actual nature of that leg up.
Also, on the thing you are "not even going to bother to search", the question is not whether poor schools have bad outcomes. The question is whether those schools are significantly worse themselves - i.e., if we were to reduce class sizes, would outcomes improve? (Most studies suggest that small class sizes - like virtually every educational intervention - would barely change outcomes.)