Hi James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax [email protected]
>>> "Mike Palij" <[email protected]> 31-Aug-09 2:12:45 PM >>> On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 22:18:52 -0700, Jim Clark wrote: >These lists, especially by themselves, do NOT allow the kinds of >inferences Mike appears to make. I'm not sure I understand what kind of inferences you're referring to. ... JC: I was referring to inferences like Mike's in the next few lines. Mike: If it is reasonable to expect Nobel prize winners to have advanced academic degrees, why isn't it reasonable to expect that the richest people in a society should also have an overrepresentation of people with advanced academic degrees? ... If Ph.D.s and other advanced degrees are not overrepresented in the richest segment of a society what does that say about intellect and its cultivation and the attainment of power and influence in a society? ... Perhaps the best way of thinking about the role of education and attainment of an advanced degree is that it allows most people with educational acheivement to enter the middle class (though there are individuals for who this is not true) and maybe the lower rungs of the upper class but might actually serve as an impediment to becoming truly rich and powerful. JC: My earlier posting presented evidence that in fact PhDs are over-represented in Mike's list, being about 1% or less in the general population and 4% in the list. For those over 65, people not completing HS were UNDER-represented in Mike's list compared to the over 65 general population. So Mike's inferences from JUST the list were incorrect. Of course, even this association does not say anything about causality given people from wealthy families are more likely to go further in school AND more likely to end up wealthy themselves. Finally, I also presented links to a few of the many many sites that would show a robust association between education and income in more representative samples (sometimes populations, as in the Census). Take care Jim --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
