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Comment by jjs | Hacker News Reader

"Grades correlate reasonably well with ability."

... as measured by grades.

Seriously? Do you really believe that? Given a room of people do you honestly believe that in talking about, let's say Math, or Physics, or Chemistry that you couldn't immediately identify which of them had grades in the top 25th percentile versus the lower 25th percentile? I bet I could _even without having studied those domains_ in 20+ years.

Now, I'll agree that grades don't correlate _perfectly_ with ability for _everyone_ - we all know the bright slacker who doesn't turn in his homework, and maybe skips a test or two. But, in general, a student who score 95% in physics knows their material very well. A student who scores 15% in physics is probably clueless.

Math, Physics, and Chemistry are easy to objectively grade, so I'd accept that they tend to have higher grade quality (a notional metric of the correlation of grades to ability) than e.g. literature, drama, sociology, pottery, etc, where the grade quality correlates to the ability of the grader.

Physics classes don't prove a blanket statement regarding grade quality over all subjects, any more than Yao Ming proves that Chinese people tend to be seven feet tall, or the King of Sweden proves that Swedes tend to be kings.

Lets test your hypothesis. I put your written communication skills in the bottom 50%. Did you earn good marks in English?

Horrible marks in English. And yes, I do apologize for subjecting everyone to my subpar written communication skills.

Touche: hypothesis supported

Also sorry for being snooty. It is easy to get riled up whenever someone tells you how smart you are.

This is especially true of people who make a living from ostensibly being clever. Some of us, clearly including myself, are insecure.

If nothing you did in school had any relation whatsoever to the real world, you got screwed.

"If nothing you did in school had any relation whatsoever to the real world, you got screwed."

And, since no one ever gets screwed, we can therefore conclude that your original argument is correct!

Except that's not what I said. Too many people around here try to pretend that grades mean absolutely nothing. I doubt that nothing you did in school had any relation to the real world, and I pointed that out to you in the hope that you'd realize that the burden of proof in this argument rests on those who would try to argue that grades mean nothing. In the absence of actual data, which no one has provided, it doesn't make sense to give any merit to the anecdotal arguments of the minority rather than the equally anecdotal arguments of the majority.

On the contrary, I stated that grades measured the ability to get grades, which is almost tautological.

Demonstrating anything beyond that would require proof, hence the burden of proof is squarely yours. :)

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