Every so often I read an article that (I hope) confirms what we know is right. Remember “Trading
Places”? Dan Akroyd is stripped of his upper-class environment and fails. Eddy Murphy is plucked form the gutter and succeeds, and the experiment “proves” that it’s “nurture not nature.”

In this op-ed, All Brains Are the Same Color, psychology professor Richard Nisbett shows that IQ scores are remarkably influenced by the environment in which kids are brought up, and race has basically nothing to do with it. After he demonstrates that fairly conclusively, Nisbett gets to the punchline:

What do we know about the effects of environment?

That environment can markedly influence I.Q. is demonstrated by the so-called Flynn Effect. James Flynn, a philosopher and I.Q. researcher in New Zealand, has established that in the Western world as a whole, I.Q. increased markedly from 1947 to 2002. In the United States alone, it went up by 18 points. Our genes could not have changed enough over such a brief period to account for the shift; it must have been the result of powerful social factors. And if such factors could produce changes over time for the population as a whole, they could also produce big differences between subpopulations at any given time.

In fact, we know that the I.Q. difference between black and white 12-year-olds has dropped to 9.5 points from 15 points in the last 30 years — a period that was more favorable for blacks in many ways than the preceding era. Black progress on the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows equivalent gains. Reading and math improvement has been modest for whites but substantial for blacks.

Most important, we know that interventions at every age from infancy to college can reduce racial gaps in both I.Q. and academic achievement, sometimes by substantial amounts in surprisingly little time. This mutability is further evidence that the I.Q. difference has environmental, not genetic, causes. And it should encourage us, as a society, to see that all children receive ample opportunity to develop their minds.

Health economists will tell you that the single best predictor of future health, as well as societal success in general, is education.

Last weekend I went to a party and talked with several San Francisco public school teachers. I knew that there were large variations between school districts, but I was fairly stunned to learn that within the one San Francisco Unified School District there are marked variations in resources between the schools in the nicer neighborhoods which have computers and smart boards in the classroom, and in those in the predominantly African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods. Apparently in some of those schools they don’t even have text books. Much of this difference is accounted for by the roles of the respective PTA’s in contributing resources — but not all.

Yet if Nisbett is correct, we can target this environmental problem and make a difference. This is really important for our society.

Why does this matter for health care? Because the resources we need to improve education and nurture are currently locked up in areas of waste in our society and economy. Whatever David Cutler says we’re spending too much on health care where it makes little difference, and not enough on education and nurture—where it can matter. And if we can do a better job on the “nurture” side it will show up in our society’s and our people’s health eventually.