[Closed] Recession and job loses,whens it going to end....................

anagallis_arvensis - Member
Oxbridge enteries are dominated by the wealthy, its a pretty daft thing to say its on ability. Its on exam succrss the two are vastly different.

It's based on two things - ability to do well at exams and ability to do well at the interview(s). I couldn't have done better on the former, I evidently failed on the latter when I applied (twice as it goes...)

A couple of my friends at school had "background of heads of industry/political leaders ", got excellent grades and still didn't get in to either Oxford or Cambridge...

I'm not naive enough to believe that it never happens but I think that the admission process is much fairer than most people think, it's just that people from poorer backgrounds aren't so well prepared for that process.

Well done to fervouredimage. Losing a job can be a hellish experience but getting a new one is great.

Unemployment is starting to drop and the private sector is not in recession, it is civil servants that are taking most of the job losses. Very very hard for them as individuals but we know why that is happening.

You will all be glad to know that the evil (EVIL I tell you) banking sector has taken a proper knock in terms of size which it isnt coming back from. Financial services did get too large as a proportion of the economy and it was always a little depressing seeing all the incredibly clever and motivated young kids come into the banks rather than doing something a little more useful. One of my clients (a young fund manager) did an engineering degree at Imperial College, London. Not one of his classmates has become engineers......every single one of them is working in a bank or a hedge fund. Hopefully we will see less of that in the future, we have a fantastic engineering and manufacturing sector we should shout about more.

Much as I also like slagging off people that are richer than me out of pure spitefull jealousy

? I am not doing anything of the sort on this thread so stay on topic and keep the slurs for later [ Ps that is a good put down FWIW]

Oxbridge applications are looked at based on ability not money.

Whether the kid had a better head start by going to Eaton first is a different matter.

Is it? It seemed to be the point I made you cannot reply to me and then claim my point is both about money and then irrelevant ,well you can but you are not actually discussing what I said.

Anyway perhaps you could reference with respect to % of public school pupils as a percentage of the population and the % of those at Oxbridge to prove they are not paying for this privilege. Perhaps you could show what % are from "wealthy" backgrounds to again prove that it doe snot matter.

arguably Oxbridge are doing more for undergraduates from poorer backgrounds than the rest of the system.

I await your evidence for this assertion as it would be far easier to show they are perpetuation advantage via the public school network

For example, among schools where pupils achieved an average of 801-850 A-level points each (900 is equivalent to three A grades), 26% of the comprehensive school pupils went on to the selective universities, compared with 45% of the independent school pupils.
And for schools with 851-900 A-level points per student, 50% of independent school pupils got places at the selective universities, while only 32% of comprehensive pupils did

This was of 25 “selective" universities not just Oxbridge
To argue you have just as much chance to get in there if you are poor and state educated as you have if you are rich and privileged is a view that cannot be supported with evidence. Much as the work your way up to the top argument cannot be supported hence we are being distracted by this debate.

Both Oxford and Cambridge are regularly accused of bias against state school applicants – most famously, in the case of Laura Spence, the girl from Tyneside who was refused a place at Magdalen College, Oxford, more than a decade ago. The tutors gathered at this table are aware that Cambridge is committed to admitting between 61% and 63% of its UK students from state-sector schools and colleges. At present, that proportion is 59.3%. The university has also agreed with the Office for Fair Access – an official watchdog set up when the Blair government brought in top-up fees – to increase the share of students from neighbourhoods where few people have gone to university.

Churchill College is a low-rise modernist stack on the edge of the city centre, a series of interlocking brick cubes. It does better on state-school intake than Cambridge as a whole. This is partly because of its reputation for science, which attracts more state school pupils. The split at Churchill is 70/30 in favour of the state sector. That is still out of kilter with the school system as a whole – just 7% of pupils in England attend private schools. But it is a bit closer to the split at sixth form, where private schools account for around 13% of the total number of A-level exam entries.

Using freedom of information requests, I built up a picture of who the Oxbridge dons offer places to. The results provide shocking reading. If Britain has become a "classless society" then Oxford hasn't got the message. David Cameron's alma mater, Brasenose College, Oxford, recruits 92% of students from the top three social classes – the sons and daughters of solicitors and accountants. The average for UK universities is 65%.

The north-south divide is startling. Over the last four years the London Borough of Richmond received more than eight times as many offers from Oxbridge as were awarded to Rochdale, Barnsley, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough and Stoke combined. In fact, that same borough received only 18 fewer Oxford offers than the whole of Scotland. Little wonder that no student from Knowsley in Merseyside has applied to Cambridge since 2003.

The picture on race is no better. Just one British black Caribbean student was admitted to Oxford last year. That is not a misprint: one student. Merton College, Oxford, has not admitted a single black student for five years. At Robinson College, Cambridge, a white applicant is four times more likely to be successful than a black applicant. Last year, 292 black students achieved three A grades at A-level and 475 black students applied to Oxbridge. Applications are being made but places are not being awarded.

Yes they choose for academic excellence but even using this they do not do it fairly and disproportionately choose white, southern , public educated folk, from the top socio economic groups

I realise this is just spiteful jealousy for those richer than me masquerading as [s]a well reasoned and evidence based view of the world [/s]moan about social injustices 😉

The fact that you're on a thread about unemployment, bickering about entry qualifications for Oxbridge proves that you haven't been anywhere ****ing near the pointy end of the present recession!

If you had, you'd know that all that's just pointless irrelevant guff. The fact is that an awful lot of people are suffering horribly. Unemployment is utterly soul destroying. And despite a couple of anecdotal stories, the reality for most people is that most jobs are part time unskilled. For any position worth having, there are vast numbers of applicants.

Oh... And telling someone whose been unemployed for any length of time, and has in all likelihood applied for 100's of positions, to 'get on your bike' to find work, will more than likely result in you getting your head stoved in with a shovel!!

And rightfully so. Jesus! Some of the smugger, more self-satisfied people on this forum could do with a serious dose of what, for a hell of a lot of people, is a cold, harsh, brutal reality!!!

Binners for Prime Minister..!

Actually, make that interim lead administrator of the People's Republic of Singletrackworld

I was about to say - I'm pretty sure there's only one position for PM and it's currently not vacant (well, you could argue CMD is vacant but you know what I meant 🙂 )

Its OK, Binners knows that we have been living beyond our means for way too long, am sure he has some suggestions to cut the defecit that doesnt involve cutting public sector jobs.

The thing is most that have posted job vacancies on this thread , theyre all for either IT people,or highly skilled stuff, neither of which is much good for the great british tradesman,craftsmen/woman, where are the jobs for joiners, construction workers, pattern makers,foundry workers, garage mechanics, plant mechanics, train assembly staff, bus and coach assembly and manufacturing staff.

None, because they have been destroyed.
Once an apprenticeship meant something, a skill to carry you through life,now it means a job in an office or stacking shelves in Morrisons.

You're right McBoo. All the jobs lost have been in the public sector. It was all their fault after all. Nothing to do with the bankers at all. They bear no responsibility at all in your Tory Nirvana, do they?

Is private sector employment back up to pre recession levels? Its it ****!!! Nowhere near. Though plenty of companies have used it to make full time positions part time, to hammer down conditions and reduce wage bills

But you'd know all about that wouldn't you? Like I said:

Some of the smugger, more self-satisfied people on this forum could do with a serious dose of what, for a hell of a lot of people, is a cold, harsh, brutal reality!!!

The thing is most that have posted job vacancies on this thread , theyre all for either IT people,or highly skilled stuff, neither of which is much good for the great british tradesman,craftsmen/woman, where are the jobs for joiners, construction workers, pattern makers,foundry workers, garage mechanics, plant mechanics, train assembly staff, bus and coach assembly and manufacturing staff.

This is a discussion on a website forum dominated by a lot of folk working in hightly skilled (and IT!) areas. They are reporting the jobs they know about around them. Your logic does not work. That's not to say there is a limited supply of these kinds of jobs but the above conversation is not evidence of it.

When you lot start buying British !

Indeed.

Thanks to privatisation, we can buy our electricity from a subsidiary of another country's state owned (well, 85% these days) company, and soon you may be able to travel on the train on the Yookay courtesy of SNCF. (I am told you can already pay into the still-nationalised Dutch railways of you travel in East Anglia)

People just don't realise they are doing it it half the time though: on his meet 'n' greet down here recently, our Dear Leader met his public in a large out of town garden/leisure centre owned wholly by a large Netherlands-based multinational. (he could have [s]done his[/s] had his researchers do their homework and chosen one of the three other comparable sized ones locally that are UK owned) Hoorah for Growth!

Mate I spent the whole of 2008 unemployed and stressing my t1ts off. No smugness here I can assure you.

I'm not naive enough to believe that it never happens but I think that the admission process is much fairer than most people think, it's just that people from poorer backgrounds aren't so well prepared for that process.

This post makes no sense.

In what way? Maybe I didn't explain very well previously

By fairer I was talking about the idea that if your Dad is rich/powerful, you'll get in easier than otherwise. I don't think that's really the case.

What I do think could be considered unfair is that kids from better off (not rich/powerful) families are usually better prepared for the interviews/etc than those from a poorer background.

Again the first bit you write contradicts the second.

So the better prepared ones should habe to perform better surely.

mcboo - Member

Its OK, Binners knows that we have been living beyond our means for way too long, am sure he has some suggestions to cut the defecit that doesnt involve cutting public sector jobs.

taxmore -up to the level of Germany perhpas? wher eyo pay more tax then pay for your healthcare on top - equivalent to around 10% more taxation. No deficit then.

Cutting tax avoidence would help ans would stopping wasting money on huge vanity projects.

By fairer I was talking about the idea that if your Dad is rich/powerful, you'll get in easier than otherwise. I don't think that's really the case.

I'm saying that the comment earlier in the thread that suggests that if you're really rich or your dad is a politician/etc you'll get in easier isn't correct.

I am saying that being better off (without having to be super rich or have a politician/etc for a parent) - eg most middle class families - is a benefit compared to someone from a poor background and poorly performing school. I don't see a contradiction.

Going to get hung up for this......

My own education was in the state sector and I've taught in tough city state schools, some very middle class state schools and now a very expensive independent school so I think I’ve got a pretty reasonable experience. Here goes....if I was going to breed a race horse I could get any two dobbins from the local riding school and chances are eventually, after numerous attempts, a race winning foal would be born. If I got two ex race winning race horses however and bred them there is a much higher chance that the foal would be a winner. I believe they call it natural selection.

Now I’m not saying every parent of every child in an independent school is a metaphorical race horse and money definitely still goes to money but a lot of the parents that send their kids here can afford to because they used their superior intellect to good effect and earned a shed load of cash. Their kids are not just successful at getting into the best universities because I’m a great teacher (no need to agree here!) or because of the school name, but sometimes, just sometimes because they are quite bright!

Don’t get me wrong, every individual should have the opportunity to achieve their potential and some of the best minds come from the most humble back grounds (I kind of hope I’m one of those, sort of if you squint a bit) but it should not come as a surprise to any rational thinking person that more than the 7% of the best university places are taken by the independently educated and children (state educated or otherwise) of successful high achieving middleclass parents are also over represented . Some of it might be the better educational experience; some of it the helping hands and family support and “pressure” but a lot of it....it’s the genes!

Convert, my old history teacher had a similar view and theorised that unless clever people put raising a family first and career second, the nation would get stupider and stupider.

IMHO genes are a part of it, but posh and/or high-achieving families produce academically challenged offspring too. Someone on another thread a couple of months ago (I wish i could find it, it was a rather funny post) said that the less bright posh kids are encouraged to enter politics to avoid running their families' businesses into the ground. 😆

Well **** me convert do you think anyone else has spouted such bullshit before. I think some famous fella who died in a bunker in Berlin.

So... To summarise.... PROLES!!!! KNOW YOUR PLACE!!!!

*doffs cap*

My own education was in the state sector and I've taught in tough city state schools, some very middle class state schools and now a very expensive independent school so I think I’ve got a pretty reasonable experience. Here goes....if I was going to breed a race horse I could get any two dobbins from the local riding school and chances are eventually, after numerous attempts, a race winning foal would be born. If I got two ex race winning race horses however and bred them there is a much higher chance that the foal would be a winner. I believe they call it natural selection.

no its called selective breeding.

Don’t get me wrong, every individual should have the opportunity to achieve their potential and some of the best minds come from the most humble back grounds (I kind of hope I’m one of those, sort of if you squint a bit) but it should not come as a surprise to any rational thinking person that more than the 7% of the best university places are taken by the independently educated and children (state educated or otherwise) of successful high achieving middleclass parents are also over represented . Some of it might be the better educational experience; some of it the helping hands and family support and “pressure” but a lot of it....it’s the genes!

Any evidence for how much is based on genes, or have you just made this up?

If I got two ex race winning race horses however and bred them there is a much higher chance that the foal would be a winner. I believe they call it natural selection.

Some of it might be the better educational experience; some of it the helping hands and family support and “pressure” but a lot of it....it’s the genes!

ps the correlation on genetics and intelligence is 0.5 to 0.8 with 0.6 being from the largest study - American and I forget the name.

ps the correlation on genetics and intelligence is 0.5 to 0.8 with 0.6 being from the largest study - American and I forget the name.

how did they measure intelligence? Bet it wasnt on exam success or oxbridge entry!

how did they measure intelligence? Bet it wasnt on exam success or oxbridge entry!

They got the test subjects to type something on an internet forum and they were scored on grammar, spelling, use of lolcats and links to wiki/guardian/telegraph. 😀

[img] [/img]

Would be illuminating to see how close the correlation between iq and exam success is across all sectors.

Seems these thoroughbreds are wasting their money paying convert as according to him its all in the genes. But maybe this proves they are really stupid, I dont know I've confused myself now.... I'm just glad he no longer teaches in the state sector as his somewhat right wing views must have influenced his teaching on some level.

1tv 1 19.30 a programe about how employers cant recruit staff.

Obviously made by some who have no idea about real life, and the work ethic that wa destroyed along with british industry.

I'm just glad he no longer teaches in the state sector as his somewhat right wing views must have influenced his teaching on some level.

For your information I have always treated every child I have taught as an individual and helped them to the very best of my ability to get to the very best for their personal ability. I wish I could say I don't even think about who their parents are or what their background is but that would be a lie - along with most other good teachers I think I always go the extra mile when you know the child is disadvantaged in their home situation (does not have somewhere of their own to study, abusive or negligent parents etc).

As I said, as someone who does not have to feel like I have to defend the independent sector or those that populate it as this was not my background by any stretch (I often feel like the spy in the camp!) I can be pretty rational and say it as I see it with no axe to grind or chip on my shoulder. This is not any area of special interest for me, I have read few papers on it and I don't pretend to be any expert except through my own experiences so can't spout you any knowledgeable figures but this is my perception. And I'm pretty shrewd at cutting through an accent and perceiving the inner intellect so I don't think I am overwhelmed by the plummy parent's into crediting them more intellectual credit than they deserve. Similarly I've "walked among them" enough not to have a might be chip on my shoulder and perceive them as "nice but dim". I would be really interested in any study (not aware there has ever been one) that correlated the CAT scores (or similar non prior education orientated "intelligence" tests) of parents in a catchment or of a school and the students of the catchment or school.

wasting their money paying convert as according to him its all in the genes.

Probably truer than you think! When I was still in the state sector an OFSTED report came out that concluded the difference a school could make to GCSE A-C rates between an outstanding and failing secondary school was 16% - the rest (the difference in %age of 5 A-C grades) was down to catchment area. This study has most probably been superseded by now (about 8yrs ago) but was taken seriously at the time. From my experience an outstanding state school could challenge most independent schools in terms of education received (maybe not fixtures and fittings).

In the scenario we are discussing you would have two foals and one goes to the poshest bestest race course training camp and one goes to the worst/poorer /inferior. Is your argument that this has no impact on the outcome of said horses in terms of outcome?

Not at all, and I think you know I don't think that. But it would be an error to take the genes out of the equation when looking for the reasons behind the differences in oxbridge "success" between different schooling and socio economic backgrounds - it's just not very PC to acknowledge it. As I said in my original text, I concede lots of other factors play a part too.

I can be pretty rational and say it as I see it with no axe to grind or chip on my shoulder.

From my experience an outstanding state school could challenge most independent schools in terms of education received but they still wont get as many into oxbridge as the posh toffs

You teach an arts subject dont you 😉

EDIT: Re your above post ; now we all agree that the school matters in terms of your chances of getting into Oxbridge...what are we discussing now?
Are we discussing gentics?
My example was a much better example of what we are discussing than yours. I agree genetics is a large factor [ you cannot polish a turd *] but as figures show even with the same academic achievement you are more likely to get into the top universities i you went to an Independent school. Whatever they are basing the decision on it is not academic ability and it is therefore "unfair"

* You can actually

Probably truer than you think! When I was still in the state sector an OFSTED report came out that concluded the difference a school could make to GCSE A-C rates between an outstanding and failing secondary school was 16% - the rest (the difference in %age of 5 A-C grades) was down to catchment area. This study has most probably been superseded by now (about 8yrs ago) but was taken seriously at the time. From my experience an outstanding state school could challenge most independent schools in terms of education received (maybe not fixtures and fittings).

eh?whats your point that all the genetic failures also live together. Do you not think a catchment area has a significant impact on exam success beyond genetics? Please tell me you dont teach maths or science.

Yep - colouring in 🙂 (actually, whilst my dept does furniture and fashion my specialist areas are the engineering, CADCAM electronics, computer control geeky stuff but colouring in sounds cooler 😉 )

The public sector comparisons are difficult as so many independent schools are selective (academically as well as financially!) so their %ages are off the scale. I'm not aware of any "value added" research carried out on independent schools in a similar way to the ofsted report.

Whats value added got to do with genetics?

A_A

You are treading on very thin ice now - I never called anyone a "genetic failure" and would never think that! Maybe you have issues that all those that don't "succeed" academically are failures - certainly not my view. Predisposal to academic success is only one tiny aspect of what makes a person.

I absolutely think that a catchment area can have a huge effect on a child's chances in lots of different ways but I do think that taken as a group (very dangerous to take group assumptions and make judgements about individuals within that group based upon them) a lower socio economic group catchment will have a lower average CAT score than a higher socio economic group. Within both groups there will be individuals which MASSIVELY buck the averages.

Yep - colouring in

I'm not aware of any "value added" research carried out on independent schools in a similar way to the ofsted report.

me neither tbh.

I'm treading on thin ice!!!! Ffs that proper special! Go back and read what you wrote on the last page. To summarise it was that rich, successful people are cleverer and cleverer kids (if you ignore some crap about horses which you claimed was an example of natural selection when it wasnt.

I have read it (although I said clever and successful) and believe it (as does Junkyard I think, save the poor analogy- I admit it - not good, but it started the ball rolling). I however never branded anyone a failure.

The rich bit is a red herring you added though - there are some inherited wealthy that left the family brain cell behind on the third generation of inter-family wedlock (the Windsor's? 😮 ). The clever and successful often tend to be rich though- hence why their kids are in independent schools.

the thing is with private or paid for education the parents have the csh to pay, and want added value, they force the child to accept that ideal, and brainwash the kid from birth thats the way to go.

Where as the local comp, takes what ever kid is in its catchment area, some/most kids want to learn something, and if given the right prompts and training will do well,some kids are academic and some practical,there needs to be some design that enables both to achieve.

Sadly non of the above helps with the current unemployment in the uk plc.

Sadly non of the above helps with the current unemployment in the uk plc.

Agreed - the last couple of pages are irrelevant to what we were meant to be talking about - sorry.

I give up convert i cannot cope your special brand of logic. You can believe your abhorrant beliefs and bizare horse racing analagies. Just one question, whats the opposite of success?

Do i believe genetics plays a part [ and probably the biggest part] YES
DO i believe the rich are the brightest? Not particularly
Do i belive the quality of the school gives added value particulatuy with huge fee paying public schools, yes
Do i believe Oxbridge takes more than their fair share/a representative sample [ even when we consider academic ability] YES
Does this have anything to do with the topic ? NO
😳

* pops in to thread to see what the fuss is about*

* leaves *

What do you think you are druidh, a panda.
Next you'll be eating and shooting.

Genetics plays the biggest part in what? Exam success or intelligence or oxbridge entry?
To my eye intelligence could well be genetic in basis but the fact that i see siblings with such varying difference in intelligence suggests that its controlled by a huge number of genes (as well as large dose of env) and what this means is that it is not a trait easily passed from one generation to the next and so converts theory is flawed. If we go back to the race horse analagy race horses have been selectively bred for speed and thay are all fast. The genes for those traits that make them fast are very much concentrated at the fast end, there is little variation. In humans even thickos get to breed. The evolution of man has largely stopped as far as natural selection is concerned. So the genes for intelligence show massive variation in individuals and the population. What this means is its hard to predict the intelligence of offsprings. It would be like expecting a true breeding colour of flower to be produced from a population with almost infinate numbers of different colours available in the genes.

Genetics plays the biggest part in what?

i see siblings with such varying difference in intelligence suggests that its controlled by a huge number of genes

it is not a trait easily passed from one generation to the next

In humans even thickos get to breed. The evolution of man has largely stopped as far as natural selection is concerned.

So the genes for intelligence show massive variation in individuals and the population.

What this means is its hard to predict the intelligence of offsprings.

It would be like expecting a true breeding colour of flower to be produced from a population with almost infinate numbers of different colours available in the genes.

siblings are not that similiar [>50% iirc] but it still stays at .5 for dizygotic [ two egg] twins.

if you dont realise why this is an idiotic statement theres not much point me trying to explain the rest of it to you.

It is not unreasonable to expect that , on average, bright people have bright kids. It is also what the evidence shows.

how did they measure "bright". You said yourself that theres only a 50% chance that bright people have bright kids acording to your "evidence".

But even thick kids from well of parents get to have good well paid jobs, even if they cant do the job to start with.

Surely the answer is that British industry will not recover while trade unions are allowed to run a protection racket. Employers should not be required to pay the lazy the same amount as those willing to work. Collective bargaining simply removes any form of work ethic. That's fine until you find people in China, Spain, and anyone without a job in the UK all willing and able to work for less than the union rate.

Professor Steve Jones, a geneticist at University College London, said: "In Shakespeare's time, only about one English baby in three made it to be 21."
"All those deaths were raw material for natural selection, many of those kids died because of the genes they carried. But now, about 99% of all the babies born make it to that age."
The bulk of medical and other technological developments which protect us from our environment have come in just the past century. So in the developed world today, what is there left for natural selection to act on?
"Natural selection, if it hasn't stopped, has at least slowed down," says Jones.

and human breeding isnt nat selection if there is no selection pressure.

🙄
why call me an idiot just get some research and humiliate me with it

This number is characterized by a decimal, or .XX. Some have argued that this estimate is as high as .75, meaning that fully 75% of all IQ variances can be attributed to genetic differences. Studies have shown this to be high, except in monozygotic (MZ) twins raised together. These twins share the same exact genotype. In this case, the correlation was as high as .88. In the study of MZ twins raised apart, the correlation was as high as .75. In contrast, Dizygotic twins, who share 50% of their genes on average, had a correlation factor of .53 when growing up together and .46 when raised separately. This seems to indicate that similarity of a genetic component has a direct influence on IQ scores. At the very least, it indicates a much higher influence than that of non-related children having a correlation of just .17 (Loehlin, Lindzey, and Spuhler, 1975).

The 50% refers collectively how much "genetic material" you get from each parent. You get 50% of your genes from your mom and 50% of your genes from your dad.

Essentially you have two copies of each gene -- one copy from your mom and one copy from your dad. Here is the strange part, the copy that you get from your mom may or not be the same copy that your sibling gets from your mom.

Remember each of your parents has two copies of most of their genes too. When the egg or sperm that made you got made, only one copy of each gene was put in.

The copy that gets put in is chosen randomly through a process called meiosis. What this means is that you have a 50% chance of getting one of their two copies.

That probability doesn't seem impressive until you consider that you have around 25,000 genes. Throw in a 50% chance of getting one copy versus your sibling getting another copy and that makes meiosis a serious gene scrambler.

So, because of this scrambling you and your siblings are 50% genetically identical and are not 100% biochemically identical. You and your siblings are closer to 99.95% biochemically identical.

Of course, since we have 6 billion bases, a 0.05% difference still translates to 3 million differences! Now explaining how people are so different and yet be 99.95% "identical" is another topic and we are just starting to understand this phenomenon.

I would google before shooting of next time or get some actual understanding. this is not really an opinion based argument it is about facts. It i sis clear your level of ignorance is so great you dont even know where it is
Sorry or being so rude but really that was an idiotic point you just made.

how did they measure "bright". You said yourself that theres only a 50% chance that bright people have bright kids acording to your "evidence".

skooby even a delicious troll like that wont be enough to drag this back OT but chapeau for your sterling efforts but a tad too obvious

Wow your ability to cut and paste is astounding Junkyard can you explain any of it in your own words?

Nothing that you have posted says that intelligence is reliably passed from one generation to the next though. If you have something under the control of many genes the random assortment means is less likely to be true breeding. So siblings can be very different to parents, the balance of probabilities means its more likely but not that predictable that intelligent parents have intelligent kids and going back to why i started this its certainly notr reliable enough to suit converts theory that successful parents send kids to private schools and they are more successcul at getting oxbridge places due to their superior genes rather than the more easily controllex and predicatble environment they grow up in.

So anyway siblings and dizygotic twins, why is it not suprising they show similar genetic relationships?

So the first bit you post suggests that siblings have about a 50% chance of having the same intelligence as each other? Is that right its hard to tell without looking at the complete article, it doesnt however make any suggestion how they relate to parents. It just shows that it has a genetic basis. The second part about meiosis supports my view and remember whilst you got 50% of your genes from your mum 50% of that could well have been recessive genes that were not expressed in your mum which could, depending on what you got from your dad be expressed in you.

NorthernStar - Member

That's why these people often complain that all the immigrants have 'stolen' their jobs. No, the immigrants have taken the jobs because they got off their arses and have moved to find work. They also tend to have the motivation to work hard and to turn up on time.

Some of these jobless British think that the lower paid work that immigrants often take is 'beneath them'.

The obvious logic of your comment is that if no British person was lazy all immigrants would be unemployed.

How have you come to the conclusion that immigrants wouldn't be able to find any work if British people were willing to work ? Is it something you have read somewhere ?

I was working on building sites long before the influx of East Europeans arrived to the UK, I cannot recall one single solitary example where construction work was unable to progress because potential British workers were too lazy or unwilling to 'get off their arses' - there were no empty plots waiting for East European to arrive so that construction work could begin.

Every Lithuanian or Romanian working on British building sites is stopping a British national from doing that particular job - simply because they are here, it has nothing to do with your rather racist and insulting suggestion that British workers are lazy.

Talk Talk and British Gas are now closing call centres, in the NW and Southampton, along with Peacocks stores sacking more staff.

But Tata Jaguarlandrover, at liverpool are taking on staff, hopefully some to send out rejection letters to those who where deemed unsuitable.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-17822815

Now we have a double dip recession, a huge costly sports games,2 posh boys are still in jobs.

00soppd - Member
I work for a large diesel engine manufacturer as a design engineer

Just curious.
Peterborough based?

slainte rob

No not that one. Just down the road in Daventry.