A wee overstatement, perhaps.
Certainly, the distribution of educational resources could be better optimized, but that won't happen in places where experimentation on educational styles is impossible.
If the market for education was open to this discovery process, there would be a lot more gods walking around. As for stupid people, there would be no incentive to spend more resources on them than necessary for what they'll end up doing. Sure, parents are free to spend a fortune on their stupid kids, but it won't do anyone any good, and it's their choice to make.
An article by Lew Rockwell on the subject: http://mises.org/daily/2937
Also: When I say "god", I really mean a smart person that is able to reach his full potential.
Am I using language in a way counter to what it is for? Maybe. Am I trying to convey a point I think is important by doing so? Certainly.
Because that has happened and is described in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, about a school in a poor area of a big city which has good results, and their secret is school every weekday and Saturday, starts early, finishes late, focused work.
I reject the notion that all kids should have high scores on their government demanded tests. It's easy to become blinded by flashy results. But remeber the tests you had to take in school. There were always two approached. 1) Study a lot, fill your brain with all the details before the test. 2) Just understand whatever it is you're doing.
Method #1 is hard, you have to focus, and you won't really learn anything either, al you will learn is how to repeat something you've heard before. It's likely that you'll forget what the test said you had supposedly "learned" within a year. Method #2 is easy if you're smart, especially in High School, later on in life you actually have to practise
I'm saying that the market would produce what we demand, not what some social engineer deems fitting.
I don't think it's possible to judge your own smartness. Who wouldn't say that they are smart? Either way, at least you have humility.
It's not hard to know if you're smart or not, what's hard is knowing really how smart you really are. I'm probably not the smartest person on HN, I might very well be among the dumber ones? How would I really determine that? I have no good answer to that. But I am smart. You probably are, too, and the sooner you realize that and admit it openly, the better.
citation needed. These tone deaf kids who practised a lot ; how much focused practise did they do to improve their tone recognition, exactly? Any at all? Or was their instrument practise of the "play the same tunes over and over" kind? Was it actually "a lot" or just "some"? In what kind of environment with what kind of support?
"The fact is that no one is born with innate talent. Everyone is born with a potential for musical pitch."
Seriously? I've heard so many tone-deaf kids play an instrument they've practised a lot, only to start out on the wrong note, and continuing all the way through the song without even notcing. The statement is outrageous to anyone remotely musical. Some people are born tone-deaf, technique can make up for that for some beginners, but it will become instantly noticeable for people who want to master music.
"Every time we learn about which things are teachable, we can improve the way we educate people and make changes on a policy level."
Now it gets scary, because this is what we do in Sweden. We spend a lot of resources on stupid people, and we are just fooling ourselves. The stupid people continue to be stupid, they are unable to learn the concepts behind math or any other subject they fail to learn, and they continue to fail.
As a smart person, this is downright scary. I have innate ability, spend resources on me, and I will become a god. This is not true for stupid people.