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by dcolkitt 1888 days ago
Shared family environment (which by definition includes where your parents choose to live) has near zero impact on long term adult outcomes. This has been confirmed again and again by countless twin studies.
2 comments

Do you mean twin studies where the twins are separated at birth and raised by different parents? This is a rare thing for parents to do so I think you are exaggerating when you say there are "countless" twin studies saying family environments don't matter? I would be surprised if there were more than a few such studies?

Or are you claiming something else?

And yet, we know anecdotally that certain places produce far more than their share of "talented" people, so I don't think those twin studies are complete or conclusive.
That's just the genetic heritability of intelligence and other personality factors. High IQ, high achieving people are disproportionately attracted to certain job markets. Those people tend to have high IQ kids. Those high IQ kids tend to grow up and become high achieving adults. The outcomes would largely be the same whether those same kids grew up in Palo Alto or Peoria. Don't confuse correlation for causation.

Similarly, I'd be virtually certain that children who grew up with a Tesla as their family car are much more likely to attend elite universities. That doesn't mean that Elon Musk has solved the problem of getting your kids into Harvard. It's just that Teslas are expensive, and therefore rich, high-achieving families are more likely to own them.

You're not addressing the thing I was talking about.

Take for instance the bevy of amazing mathematicians produced by early 20th century Budapest. That wasn't just genetics, it was the culture of the city and the teachers those people had. Likewise you could look at the rise of soccer greatness in Rio; that wasn't genetic, it was due to features of life in Rio and a culture of passion for soccer.

IQ is less important and more malleable than you think. It should be called nutrition and nurturing quotient instead.

> Take for instance the bevy of amazing mathematicians produced by early 20th century Budapest. That wasn't just genetics

That's up for debate in some circles.[0]

[0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid...