[myWindoonn]

Hello, fellow mathematician. The first step in your proof which doesn't convince me is the claim that, in general, "levels of intelligence" exist, admit a partial order, and can reliably predict whether certain people can learn certain topics.

In general, you'll find that "leftists" believe that psychometrics is bogus in terms of science. Instead, it masquerades as science in order to fool the public into believing that biased public policy is neutral. There's no denial that some folks have brain damage, developmental disabilities, etc. but a denial that standardized tests are an appropriate proxy for genuine medical diagnoses.

Community colleges should present themselves as a public benefit. We shouldn't ask that everybody pass any class, simply that everybody has the opportunity to attend/audit any class. It is unfortunately true that the typical university administration is clueless and money-grubbing, preferring graduation rates to other metrics.

[syops]

I don’t claim that there is a partial order to intelligence. Indeed, I think it’s clear that no such can exist. Let me put it this way. The set of people who can’t learn algebra (using any reasonable standard for this) is nonempty as it includes the set of mentally retarded people. I further suspect that this set is considerably larger than the set of mentally retarded people.

I further suspect but didn’t state this that if one doesn’t have exposure to algebra growing up then it is extremely difficult to learn as an adult. Children are easier to brain wash and in low level Mathematics we do a great deal of brain washing.

[concordDance]

"Leftists" don't think the correlations between results in IQ tests and many other things (such as memory, income and reflexes) exist?

[myWindoonn]

Correlation doesn't always imply causation, right? For example, there's a correlation between IQ and income. There are several causative possibilities:

* IQ causes income

* Income causes IQ

* Some unknown thing causes both income and IQ

* The correlation is spurious; IQ and income are unrelated

Evidence strongly suggests that the third bullet point is true; socioeconomic class causes both income and IQ. Richer people living in nicer neighborhoods both have better opportunities for income, and also better opportunities for education; education causes IQ. This is why redlining is brought up so often as a root cause of so many of the disparities in quality of life; redlining deepened socioeconomic divides.

[concordDance]

Haven't there been studies untangling causation here? Using random events that hit socioeconomic class as a natural experiment?

Adoption studies might also be informative.