Pardon my weekend thought. The post title tends to come off as more curmudgeony than I want it to, but my thinking is this. Suppose we move heaven and earth for the next several decades to make sure that every single person in the United States gets the very best and most equal education. In fact, suppose the science and delivery of education improves so much that every child who gets schooling reaches her maximum possible potential.

There are, nonetheless, already differences in IQ, or “g” or “intelligence” or “cognitive aptitude” or whatever you want to call it. Once we recognize this, ask the question about from where the high performing students will come in this world? In today’s world. there is a serious likelihood that high achievers are high achievers because they have more resources, sort into better peer groups, and so on. But if we end up equalizing “resources” and we also recognize that there will nonetheless some students who do better than others, from which group would future high achievers be coming? The answer would seem to be that in our future the “best and the brightest” would be coming from the actual “best and the brightest” and not just the prettiest and the richest. The implication here is rather startling – if we are finding outcomes to be highly heritable, that is most likely evidence that kids are not getting advantages from their parents.

Go figure.

The tough part of this idea is that it leaves us in a world where ANY possible outcome is subject to straw-man demagoguery.