Why is the cerebral cortex in children rich parents thicker than in children of poor parents?
Underlying Bashing is En Vogue in Germany. Intelligence research on the other hand has a heavy stand. Many see it an ideology for justification of social inequality. But the society becomes really fairer if one simply does not take out genetic differences? Some suggests that exactly the opposite is the case.
The intelligence research frees up in Germany a suspicious existence. New insights come big parties from the Anglo-Sachsian countries. "Rich children have coarse brains" The online edition of the FAZ briefly posted a report on a recent study from the USA.
Researchers of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (with) and Harvard University have found that the cerebral cortex in those areas that are state-of-visual perception and knowledge accumulation, in children rich parents rich parents is thicker than in children of poor parents. With the thickness of the cerebral cortex in these areas, the cutting of the subjects correlated with standardized cognitive tests. Investigation manager John Gabrieli of with regarding this personally as "Call for action", namely those who growing up in one of the spiritual development little-demanding environment.
According to the observed differences in the brain anatomy, the researchers do not search. However, they referred to early studies that had that the sprouts of parents with low income are frequenting in the early childhood stress that they come in contact with mentally stimulating resources and that less with them is spoken. All these disadvantages were identified as factors for lower school success.
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About approximately, the FAZ author brings together the results of the study, but conceals that the researchers have not conducted causes and that alternative explanations are in question. Instead, in their consistent article in chatting tone, it challenges that children of wealthy parents "Between clarinet lessons and hockey training" had less stress. Dafur became a school "better" Familys "probably fed more with unscheded apple and organic yogurt as the socially weak comparative group, which is helpful in the body development". Daring claims, for which there is no clue. The FAZ article is symptomatic for dealing with German media with research results, especially on the field of intelligence research. Either one pins the horizontal press release thoughtless or you simply pick themselves out what you just like in the stuff. Rarely is you trusted to critically classify research results or to question other experts after their association.
That it is different, the Washington Post proves that also reported on the co-study. Here, among other things, the reader experiences that the study rows in an increasing number of research on the brain structures of children, which were measured by technical progress in the field of magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The new one is that the detected anatomical differences were linked to standardized tests for reading and mathematics. Investigation Manager Gabrieli said the Washington Post, some were considered the publication of such research results as disregard of the poor. But the opposite is the case, because only if you displace such deficits, you can try to minimize them.
The neuroscientist Kimberley Noble from Columbia University has published in Marz the most extensive study on this field of research. 1.100 children and adolescents aged 3 to 20 years participated. Noble came to similar results like Gabrieli and sees according to Washington Post two possible explanations for this: stress due to the rather chaotic life poor families as well as an unhealthy lifestyle and diet. However, she does not mention a lack of biocost. With James Thompson, psychologist at University College London, the newspaper responded another expert who introduces another view into the debate. Thomson tends to climb a third explanation: "If little fabricated people marry little-made people, then their children are very little helpful in all average." Him flap down the chin charat, when researchers ignored what has been known for a long time, that intelligence was inheritable, and exclused genetic causes from the outset, said Thomson.
Today, only a few scientific tourists doubt that intelligence differences in a population are sometimes back to genetic differences. At most, if the proportion is now 50 or 75 percent. The extent to which this knowledge has spoken around in the German publicity is another question. In the Sarrazin debate, which raged in Spatsummer 2010 through the land, two leading SPD politicians highlighted with as much lack of suspicion as shipment awareness. Andrea Nahles decreed that, in the opinion of Social Democrats genes, the development and characteristics of people did not influence fundamentally. Sigmar Gabriel explained who like Sarrazin – and practically all serious scientists – from the inheritance of intelligence differences "Of course, very close to the whole racial theories that have produced a lot of spoiling in the last hundred years", and not only clear "Against elementary values of Social Democrats", but possibly "Against elementary values of our emphasis." Underlying Bashing finds Gabriel but apparently O.k. So he compared recently "Hartz IV receiver" With unprofitable coal-fired power plants: "Do not work, but make money."
To the science of the science of many journalists, unfortunately, it is no German better ordered. This showed, for example, when Thilo Sarrazin was exceptionally once again with a correct reproduction of scientific insights around the corner. In an interview with the "Picture on Sunday" he said: "Manner have more deviations from average than women. Significantly more men have an IQ of over 130. But even with the less intelligent, so those with an IQ of under 70, there are more manner." This quite simply gaining knowledge is occupied by various studies. After that, there are about three times as many men as women with an IQ of 130 and more than five times as many with an IQ of over 145. What the "Picture on Sunday" did not depend on a survey with EMNID commissioned. Result: Only 13 percent of respondents believed, "that there are more highly gifted manners than women". Probably the result was a little different unless the second part of Sarrazin’s statement was involved with goods. The fact that science has needed quite a long time to gain the cognition, has a very simple reason: the IQ values of women and manners are always evaluated separately and so evaluated that the average of 100 is 100 in both sexes. So it’s not just politicians and media that are often difficult to distinguish between faith and knowledge. In part, researchers also have themselves in self-center in order not to have unavoidable results not incurred.
What is available and what is not awarded, can often read at the headlines of press reports on scientific studies. Thus, the otherwise not for a slope to feminism was known "world" A report on one of the studies, to which Sarrazin apparently referred to: "Provocation: Manner are smarter than women", Even if that had claimed so no one. In 2012, when the prestigious intelligence researcher James Flynn explained that women had increased their intelligence in recent years as a manner as a manner, the medium goal was – also false-shaped, as Flynn later reclaimed -, women were smarter as a manner, and nobody spoke of provocation.
In such a case, an exception to the basic rule: the designation of genetic causes for intelligence differences should be avoided. This rule does not only apply to Germany. The Norwegian sociologist and comedian Harald Eia, who illuminated the role of social factors and genes in various social areas in a television series, said in an interview with the FAZ: "I’ve observed the tendency that you could not talk about genes without being stigmatized as conservative, old-fashioned or even politically right. People connect genes with racism."
Better promotion opportunities for the one bring coordinous relegation hazards for the others
But why is it actually considered provocation when it is determined that the average smaller intelligence of underlayer children has genetic causes? Let’s take on, Nahles and Gabriel were right and the grozes of the scientists injustice. Then in principle everyone could complete with the appropriate recovery, a university degree. In an ideal society with complete "Equal opportunity" à la SPD was therefore applicable to everyone. Anyone who is allowed to become chief physician or investment bankers and who has to save as a hairdresser, then had to decide the river or the glow wheel. Not only politics, also allegedly after "clever" Dursting economy had to put everything to realize this ideal society in which everyone studies, as it can everyone.
The reality is different. When a study revealed that academic chillers have a six times so gross opportunity to study like children "Educational layers", The Ministry of Education only fell on that training occupations are also a prime thing. And when today’s Minister of Education Johanna Wanka was confronted in a Taz interview in 2005 "Topshade kids a four times greater chance of the high school as a member children" had, she answered that "a just educational participation" not "Only at access to the Abitur" be measured thirst. The same melody also belongs in connection with the recently of some diagnosed academic swemgers: the children from the "socially weak", "educational" or optional "remote" Layers should do better as anyway and one training, so that a degree in view of education inflation is still worth a little value. This is not so openly not a politician. A time-online forest printed in short: "As a father of three children, all of which go to the high school, I have no interest in the elimination of social barriers to the Gymnasium."
In order for such interests and the insignificant of the relegated middle class to be tacitly considered, it is helpful to save the intelligence factor with debates on educational equity. For example, the result of the IGLU-2 study, according to which children from the two highest layers with the same cognitive feelings and equal reading competence have a 2.6 times so high chance to get a high school recommendation like children from the lower layers. Because as long as it blobs that topsheet children are more likely to go to the high school as a middle-class children and these rather than underlay children, this can easily justify that the latter are just stupid, as they are without exception "Education remote layer" come from.
It is also practical as well if your education remnants, say: stupidity, is not innate, but by your education-proof environment, ie: the parents, has been in debt. Because then the state can only change at her bad chance. Above all, however, he does not have to ask himself to demand the smarter underlayer children, as there is no definition. Or imagine among children "Educational layers" There is not a monolithic block of chips-eating dull jaws in front of the telly or the PlayStation?
This presumptuous ursocial democratic attitude fits – random? – Perfect for neoliberal ideology, according to which every one of his smith is blacksmith. Apparently, it is also the basis for the efforts of the Federal Ministry of Education "For more education justice in Germany". The ministry demands everything possible from vacation premises on literacy programs to music and theater projects – only nothing, which had something directly with equal opportunities. How goods, for example, with a training program for teachers, so that these ability to pronounce adequate school career recommendations? Did not have to be in the interest of the economy, which ensures that you "smart heads" be lost?
The Psychologist Elsbeth Stern on the Eidgasisches University of Technology Zurich noticed online onwards: "From a covert study, we know that children from the top social layer with a intelligence quotient of less than 100 points with a probability of 50 percent receive a recommendation for a gymnasium. On the other hand, a child from the lower social layer with the same 50 percent probability is only recommended with an IQ of 115 points on the Gymnasium. Is not that a scandal?"
Why, for now, many answers, the top-class parlors can now be better around their children’s codes or tutoring, and intelligence is overhearted anyway. Yes, this seems to be the attitude in our country, where it is repeatedly acoustically acknowledged to lie in the international ranking of education at one of the foremost sites. Better promotion opportunities for the one will now bring rough relegation risks for the others, especially as in a country with one of the largest low-wage sectors in Europe. Therefore, a serious chairman was not to fit more educational rights to Germany.