Pre-Malthusian Doctrines Of Population: A Study In The History Of Economic Theory

БЂў Matters: The child is adopted. БЂў DoesnБЂ™t: The child is regularly spanked. There is a strong correlationБЂ”a negative oneБЂ”between adoption and school test scores. Why? Studies have shown that a childБЂ™s academic abilities are far more influenced by the IQs of his biological parents than the IQs of his adoptive parents, and mothers who give up their children for adoption tend to have significantly lower IQs than the people who are doing the adopting. There is another explanation for low-achieving adoptees which, though it may seem distasteful, jibes with the basic economic theory of self-interest: a woman who knows she will put her baby up for adoption may not take the same prenatal care as a woman who is keeping her baby. (ConsiderБЂ”at the risk of furthering the distasteful thinkingБЂ”how you treat a car you own versus a car you are renting for the weekend.) But if an adopted child is prone to lower test scores, a spanked child is not. This may seem surprisingБЂ”not because spanking itself is necessarily detrimental but because, conventionally speaking, spanking is considered an unenlightened practice ...»