You have got the cart before the horse, even though you said Prodigy put the horse before the cart [which is of course an excellent place to put it].
I was testing your verbal skills, Mq, and you have received first class honors.
I really think the problem is insoluble. Although I said 'bunk" and 'wacko,' I didn't really mean it.
In order for Prodigy's theory to be proven, or even be mildly convincing, he must take into account the dilution of the effect he relies on through thousands of years. The typical North Asian - if there is such a thing - simply does not inherit the same traits his Honorable Ancestors developed tens of thousands of years ago. There is dilution, change, etc., and no amount of dodgy statistical linking of traits to GDP growth is going to convince me that verbal skills are anything but one factor in determining rates of GDP growth.
Besides, how does one go back tens of thousands of years to determine whether in fact visual/spatial intelligence was predominant over verbal intelligence in North Asians?
It's all a bit too complex, too elegant yet too simple, an explanation.
Economic activity began in earnest when the Industrial Revolution took hold. It did so in places where the rule of law and the protection of property rights became certain and secure. It is my thesis - and that of many economists - that this was the impetus for development. My shorthand for it is the Certainty Principle.
How does one tease out the Certainty Principle from the dodgy statistical analysis Prodigy performs? How does one separate the GDP growth created by the CP from the IQ analysis Prodigy performs so that all that is left is a pure nugget of truth pointing to verbal IQ as a factor and that such a factor leads ineluctably to x% of GDP growth?
Take the Irish as an example. There isn't a single inarticulate Irishman; as a nation their verbal skills are amazing. However, it hasn't been until quite recently that their potential has become realized.
And take the Industrial Revolution itself as an example. Many feats of engineering were required in order to create the tremendous GDP growth it fostered, but this type of intelligence is not verbal; it is almost completely spatial and visual not to mention numerate. Ditto for the CyberRevolution we are undergoing.
I think the proof of the pudding is the manner in which the cream of the visually/spatially and mathematically gifted are compensated in market societies. The really big money is made by the engineers and the financiers who dream up stuff and find a way to make and sell it profitably. The verbally gifted are an afterthought, administrators and managers. Their role is to administer and regulate the economic activity created by the spatially and visually gifted. They are necessary, no doubt, but can be trained to do the required routine chores. Genius, on the other hand, is a completely different animal.
In short, the visual/spatial elites need the verbally skilled and vice versa, a proposition that in my view blows Prodigy's thesis out of the water.
The more I type, the more I think my original use of 'bunk' and 'wacko' were on the mark. |
