De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum

Outro dia eu coloquei aqui um link para o post  do Arnold Kling para Caplan, no qual se perguntava a este último sobre educação, sinalização e a famosa irracionalidade racional. Eis a resposta do Caplan. Reproduzo, abaixo, parte do texto:

1. Steve Miller and I have a paper where we examine the extent to which the tendency of education to “make people think like economists” is actually a disguised effect of IQ. We find that at least one-third of the apparent effect of education should actually be attributed to IQ. So while there is something to Arnold’s concerns, there is still plenty of room for education to matter.

2. You might object that it will be extremely costly to significantly raise the average education levels of people with average or lower IQ. I’m sympathetic, but this ignores a cheaper, more realistic alternative: Revising the curriculum to emphasize subjects, like economics, with large political externalities.

3. Just because education is largely signaling, it does not follow that students are not learning anything! The point, rather, is that students are not learning job skills. I don’t deny that students learn history in school; I just deny that knowledge of history makes people (historians aside) into measurably better workers.

Ok, é o bastante para este tema.