Misleading plots on secular trends and education
This mistake is very common, and here we look at an arbitrary example I was sent promoted by Rob Henderson on Twitter. This error is quite common (first example I…
Educational interventions keep not working
We've been over this topic previously in 2017, but since this is the eternal idea, let's look at more data. Let's start historically. 1969 Arthur Jensen's famous article “How much…
Fluoride, good for your teeth, not bad for your brain
Many countries add fluoride to the drinking water in the belief this will improve dental health. As with anything else public health, some people think this is a grave mistake.…
PhD students aren’t what they used to be either
One very basic fact of humans is that ability to do anything varies. This is also true for ability to do cognitively demanding jobs of which the main requirement is…
New paper out: Country of Origin IQ and Muslim Percentage Predict Grade Point Average in School among 116 Immigrant Groups in Denmark
Kirkegaard, E. O. W., & Fedorov, J. (2021). Country of Origin IQ and Muslim Percentage Predict Grade Point Average in School among 116 Immigrant Groups in Denmark. Mankind Quarterly, 61(3).…
Educational socialism
Some people think that human differences are just a matter of throwing enough money at the problem. Naturally, then, they always advocate for more educational spending whenever inconvenient gaps are…
The ‘attitude-achievement paradox’
Speaking of philosophy of science, one of the things about new paradigms is that they are supposed to solve anomalies of older paradigms. A while ago, Dalliard (2014) mentioned (in…
School factors are not important: evidence from classroom separation studies
People commonly ascribe large effects to having this or that teacher, or this or that classmate. They usually cite some anecdotes from their personal lives for this, but large sample…
Strong publication bias in early intervention studies
I apparently did not post this one on the blog, only on Twitter. Or at least, I can't find it. Here's the analysis: http://rpubs.com/EmilOWK/pub_bias_early_intervention Figures
Systematic approaches to learning work better than haphazard ones, probably
May be another case of a zombie idea: one that keeps being refuted only to come back under another term, and then await refutation for 10-20 years. It is also…