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<p>The fact that a few do excel coming from poor backgrounds doesn’t imply that all of those from poor backgrounds can excel. I’d argue that the reasoning you showed for arguing that genetics is the biggest factor is true, and the ones who do excel are these outliers. </p>
<p>For the Harvard example, Harvard is already selecting those who are the outliers. The average person doesn’t go to Harvard. Poor people can be just as smart as rich people, but that doesn’t mean the average poor person is just as smart as the average rich person.</p>
<p>The explanation I’ve previously heard of IQ before was something along the lines of…</p>
<p>IQ does a good job of measuring someone’s cognitive ability at the time of their taking the test. Factors which can effect someone’s cognitive ability are whether or not they have to use the restroom, whether it’s rainy or sunny out, if they’re really craving White Castle, if they have a stuffy nose, etc. Other factors can include things like natural intelligence (arguably ~70% of this comes form genetics), previous education, and nutrition/diet. The goal of different tests is to try to make that natural intelligence most prominent factor, and suppress all the other factors as much as possible, which is to say they try to focus on that single factor of cognitive ability, since that is the one which is most likely to be held constant through time. </p>
<p>…Is that something you’d agree with?</p>