https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/07/the-science-behind-winning-nobel-prize-being-man-from-wealthy-family-torsten-bell.
Any explanations?
It gives it's simplified explanation in the text, although given the idea that social mobility would result in better performance it's curious that the overwhelming majority of Nobel Laureates are American, given their performance on social mobility compared to other developed nations.
Which highlights the logical error in this section: "Reinforcing the case that a more equal sharing of opportunity would mean more scientific progress, the authors show that cities that have more intergenerational mobility produce more laureates."
The assumption is that these scientific developments are somehow the sole purview of the right intellect, and not an inevitable result of the current state of science collectively. Given how much trouble there can be narrowing down which two or three people to cite, because so many parallel developments are occuring all over the world, there's as much of a case to be made the the likelihood of a Nobel Laureate having rich/well-connected parents is because those connections can be leveraged into getting their names attached to an achievement rather than someone less well-connected. Given the wealth poured into the US scientific publishing machine, it also starts to account for that discrepancy, too.
It's almost as though it's not a simple just 'have a rich dad'.
O.
