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Firstborn Get the Brains
Dekortage writes "Eldest children have higher IQs than their siblings, according to a recent study by Norwegian researchers. The study focused on men, particularly 'on teasing out the biological effects of birth order from the effects of social status,' but indicates that the senior boy in a family (either by being firstborn, or if an elder brother died) has an average IQ two or three points higher than younger brothers. As noted in the New York Times coverage, 'Experts say it can be a tipping point for some people — the difference between a high B average and a low A, for instance... that could mean the difference between admission to an elite private college and a less exclusive public one.'"
They used the records of around 250 000 people, mmmmkay?
The standard error pretty much disappears at that sort of number of participants.
I do not want to make this sound like flamebait, but if I had 50 graphics/web designer/computer geeks and 50 scientists, only 50% of them would say that the difference between them is slight. And they would all be from the first group.
I myself am an engineer who looks down upon both scientists and web designers, but I think scientists are smart (high IQ). Web designers are creative - they COULD have high IQs, but need not necessarily have high IQs. This is why DeVry has a program in web design and not in molecular biology. Cheers! -- Vig
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
Grades aren't meaningless if you have any plans to attend University. They aren't meaningless if you plan to earn an MBA, MD, LLB, or a graduate degree (Masters, PhD, etc.).
It's true that a lot of people have earned a great living despite poor grades or lack of education, but these people represent a minority. For many people, grades are a major factor in determining acceptance or rejection to paths of life that guarantee some amount of financial success.
It's fairly easy to figure out how school grades can translate into money. If you've got top grades, you earn a chance at being accepted to a Law school (for example). Once you've done your time, you are practically guaranteed a six-figure income: that's money in your pocket because you excelled at school. However, if you act as if grades are irrelevant, you're success might just be dancing with Lady Luck.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
I have a bone to pick with that statement.
IQ may not be the *only* thing that corresponds to intelligence, but it definitely is an objective measure of some factors that we consider to be the hallmarks of an intelligent person.
Now, there may be other measures and metrics (objective and subjective) that may correspond to intelligence - good language skills, good social skills, good game playing skills and so on. However, that does not necessarily mean that good quantitative and problem solving skills is also not a good measure.
A quarterback who can gauge how the field looks at a given moment and decide upon a particular action is just as intelligent (in a different way) as someone who is excellent at arithmetic. Similarly, someone who has excellent social skills (i.e. read emotions) is just as intelligent as someone who has a prodigious memory. A marketing person is just as intelligent as a computer programmer in a different way, and a tennis player is just as intelligent as a musician, in a different way.
But none of that means that IQ is *not* a measure of intelligence - it is. It just is not the *only* measure of intelligence.
I think there is a difference. A subtle difference, that's for sure, but a difference nevertheless.
I can't put my hands on the exact set of studies right now so this will only be anecdotal evidence, but there are examples of "quite young" siblings being quite brilliant compared to next older siblings precisely because there was just enough age difference between the youngster and an older (teenage plus) sibling that was close enough to an adult to provide direction in problem skills at a nearly adult level AND still be young enough and close enough to how a little kid thinks to teach those skills in a way that makes sense to littler kid at their lower developmental level.
What I am really saying is that an article built around an averaging statistic like those quoted are useless news, not stuff that matters.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
If you try to apply the results of the study to a specific situation, standard error certainly does come into play. For instance, if the error in an IQ test is 5 points, and my older brother gets 3 more points than I do on that test, you can't claim that the study predicted that particular spread.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Clearly, the first born gets all of the parents attention for some period of time, before the second is born. The second gets only (roughly) half of the parents attention. I would be very surprised if parental attention at a young age does not have a large effect on the child. Giving one child twice as much parental attention as the other, for the first year or two of their respective lives, seems likely to give the one an advantage over the other. A small difference in communication or learning skills acquired during that first year might make the first born better able to learn other things later in life.
The observation that first-born children score higher on standardized tests does not speak to the cause of that difference. A correlation does not imply a cause.
Coincidently, I am the first-born of three. I have a Ph.D., the middle sibling has a masters, and the youngest has a bachelors.
For a large majority of the people and jobs out there, the name of your college will cease to really matter after you get your first real job. Education is great and all, but if you've got a couple years of decent work experience under your belt, where you went to school is only a minor footnote.
It might make a bit more of a difference right out of school, where they employers don't have much else to go on. But in that case, your best bet is get a job through personal connections, relying on your school's name probably isn't your best bet.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.