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Comment by sambroner | Hacker News Reader

Abstract says: "intelligence contributes 48–90 times more than grit to educational success and 13 times more to job-market success. Conscientiousness also contributes to success more than grit but only twice as much..."

Very challenging to evaluate without paying $40 to read the paper. They mention a difference in how they group the subjects (by intelligence). My gut take (often wrong!) is that they're grouping the subjects in some way that pushes part of my understanding of grit into intelligence.

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I linked to the paper is another comment. They used the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT) for intelligence.

>The AFQT score in the NLSY is the sum of the standardized scores of four tests: arithmetic reasoning, paragraph comprehension, word knowledge, and mathematics knowledge, and is expressed as a percentile score out of the general population

To my non-expert perception this does seem like a test that benefits from studying and general schoolwork (ie: reading books).

They used the The Short Grit Scale to determine grit (http://www.sjdm.org/dmidi/files/Grit-8-item.pdf) which seems like it biases toward un-creativity and "OCD completionism."

Seems to me like intelligence and drive ("grit") are multiplicative factors. Saying either is more important sounds wrong because if either is zero, you have nothing. And if intelligence is fixed, then working harder is the only way to improve your chances. From that perspective, "grit" is the only thing that matters.

There’s inclusive evidence that intelligence is fixed, and there’s evidence that people that believe intelligence is fixed have worse outcomes.

I think it’s very likely environmental factors and personal mindset have considerable impacts both positive and negative on intelligence. I also suspect in the next decade or two research will come out on pharmaceuticals that show improved mental performance. There’s already the beginnings of this.

What evidence do you have that intelligence is fixed? I believe there is evidence that it is mix of fixed and not fixed attributes, but I don't think there's any evidence that it is strictly fixed.

Right. The parent comment I was replaying to stated “if intelligence is fixed” and I was attempting to cast doubt on the clause. I wouldn’t want to take position that intelligence is fixed in an argument.

Aah, I misunderstood what you were saying.

The context was more of a fixed ceiling. Presumably everybody knows and agrees that being tired, drunk, ill, having dementia, etc. can affect apparent intelligence. By "fixed intelligence" the implication is that there is a ceiling where a person's brain has developed and they are fully functional that isn't straightforwardly or easily raised.

We don’t have clear evidence for this being true.

Perhaps for performance on a fixed kind of test or for certain kinds of raw calculation speed, it is true, but handling complexity and problem solving skills can continue to develop based on experience and exposure to concepts.

The belief that intelligence is fixed is a trap for the mind.

I wasn't asserting that it was true, and it seems that you want to argue with someone who both thinks that "it" is true and has a different definition of it from what I was using, in context.

It's a morass I'm uninterested in getting into.

Once again you violate the spirit of the group with ad hominem.

I agree your original comment used the conditional ‘if’ about the truth of fixed intelligence.

Such a proposition naturally invites examination of whether the conditions are in supported by evidence, which is all I am doing.

I am curious if you have a definition of intelligence that sheds light on your original argument.

I have no stake in what truth you believe.

However I think your argument is clearly incorrect.

As you suggest, I could be basing my conclusion on a different definition to the one you are using.

But if you won’t produce a clarifying definition, you can’t reasonably make claim to be operating under any principle of cooperation.

I think you meant to say "inconclusive evidence"

Firstly, neither is ever zero. That would only ever be true in a dead person.

It makes perfect sense to say that one factor is more important than another if it has more effect on the outcome.

Intelligence is not fixed. It can certainly be decreased by long term stress and environmental toxins etc.

It can also be enabled or inhibited by situational factors such as access to information, available time, etc.

Working ‘harder’ is not well defined. Do you mean going faster at doing the same things, or spending more time working? If not, can you define it?

Working harder or faster on something that is systematically unproductive will only make ones situation worse.

Intelligence is the capacity to select valuable activities in which to invest one’s energy.

Therefore grit doesn’t matter at all in the absence of intelligence, or can even be a negative.

>Firstly, neither is ever zero. That would only ever be true in a dead person.

Pedantically speaking, a depressed person can easily have zero drive to do stuff and still be intelligent.

As I said in another comment, "fixed" intelligence implicitly means a fixed ceiling; assuming we all know of intoxication, dementia, etc. is something I think is required by HN standards of being reasonably charitable towards the people you are addressing, also known as the Cooperative Principle.[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle

“Pedantically speaking”, a depressed person doesn’t have zero drive, just a low drive. There is also plenty of debate as to what depression is, and what an intelligent response to it would be.

Implying that I’m being uncharitable is the antithesis of the cooperative principle.

I’m being neither charitable nor uncharitable. I am merely disagreeing with your logic.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I disagree with the idea of a fixed ceiling on intelligence as a general concept.

If you mean performance on narrow tests then I agree there will be ceilings, but that is irrelevant to the general idea.

There’s a trick you can do on the internet that involves the words sci and hub and doi.

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