Why Does It Appear that The Relationship Between Intelligence and Income Disappearing

WHY DOES IT APPEAR THAT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTELLIGENCE AND INCOME DISAPPEARING

—“Great study, but very puzzling that intelligence does not predict income in this study. Too young age at follow-up? Intelligence income relationship is confounded by age (at younger ages, lower intelligence people make more money).

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wps.20763”—Emil O W Kirkegaard @KirkegaardEmil

(Short version: college eduction is no longer a proxy for intelligence).

We have a set of problems in making that assessment.

(a) between women and underclass preference for pseudoscience, the use of degrees as proxy for intelligence has been eliminated.

(b) IQ doesn’t determine wealth: conscientiousness does.

(c) IQ determines complexity of work.

(d) BUT IQ also determines rate of adaptation, abstractions,

error (and FRAUD) detection. So while we can make wealth anywhere on the spectrum there’s an increasing premium on learning, error detection, and abstraction (engineering, tech, law, finance, science, mathematics).

(e) the net (uncomfortable truth) is that, confirming tradition, there is a premium on ethics and discipline at the bottom and middle with increasing incentive for ‘cheating’ hidden in complexity at the top (finance, economics, politics), with the middle holding moral high ground.

(Which is why I specialize in expansion of the law to reverse the innovations in free riding, cheating, fraud, parasitism, and predation made possible by the expansion of complexity during the 20th century. Particularly using math, econ, and academic pseudosciences. 😉 )