Brett Knowlton wrote: "[big snip] Saying that there is no relation between income and cognitive skill is very different from saying that there is some fuzziness in the relationship. Cognitive abilities ...."
The argument on this thread remains at a superficial (merely phenomenal) level as long as such mostly meaningless terms as "cognitive abilities" or [worse] IQ (or *g*, "general intelligence") are not subjected to critique but continue to be used as if the writer were naming something. IQ, of course, is as empty of any content whatever, except in the feverish imaginations of reactionary psychologists, untaught school teachers, etc. etc. (Gould established this decades ago, and surely the news has reached most or all who post on this list. Its use as never been so positive as "merely neutral." It poisons irredeemably any discourse in which it appears (and this applies to careless metaphorical or synechdochic uses made of the term). It should never be used except for the specific purpose of condemning it. It is inherently (historically) racist and sexist.
"Cognitive abilities" at first sight seems more acceptable, for there is no harm in acknowledging (with proper qualifications) that there are such things. But there are such things in the same way that there are such things as "flying life forms" (wind-blown bacteria, bats, grasshoppers, flying fish, hang-glider enthusiasts, birds, etc.). In other words, it has no more real use in discourse than does IQ. As far as I know, neuroscience and related disciplines has not even begun to provide any typology or taxonomy of "cognitive abilities." Five or so years ago they had discovered about 55 neurotransmitters, of which they had some slight knowledge of the functions of fewer than ten. Moreover, there is reason to suppose that many, even many hundred, neurotransmitters have not yet been identified. The list of cognitive abilities is probably, for practical purposes, infinite: in other words, most of them will *never* be identified, and hence grouped into categories according to some principled analytical scheme. The usefulness of a given (unknown) "cognitive skill," moreover, depends on the emergence of historical relations demanding that particular skill. And so on and on and on an on.
IQ tests do measure the ability to take IQ tests, though that ability is almost certainly a learned (socially ). So what the contributors on this thread have been discussing, essentially, is the affect unicorns or golden mountains have on economic success.
Carrol