An example of illogical science

Social science can be tricky, and in many cases, an opinion was formed first, and then evidence was sought after to support that opinion.

Birth lottery?  http://www.futurity.org/birth-lottery-economics-970332/

It is totally expected for "scientists" to flock into the inequality bandwagon as it is so popular now (actually in any given time, relatively poor people out numbers "rich", and that is actually by definition, rich and poor are not quantifiable terms, they are relative vague terms).

The fundamental flaw in his logic was apparent in this idea of "American Dream" which Grusky was quoted as saying
“The American dream is about ensuring that all children, no matter how poor their parents may be, have an opportunity to be mobile by climbing the economic ladder and moving into a higher income group,”

The logic problem of this statement is "higher" is a comparative adjective, by definition, if you move one "higher", you will have to move another "lower".   So to realize Mr. Grusky's "American Dream" an equally statement must also be true: “The American dream is about ensuring that all children, no matter how successful their parents may be, have an opportunity to be mobile by dropping the economic ladder and moving into a lower income group,”

Now, is that anyone's dream?   Is my dream really achieving something in the cost of another person's fortune?  If I do, that's not a decent dream to have.  The problem of Mr. Grusky's study hence opinion described by Clifton B. Parker-Stanford is that his measure of "dream" is all relative to a limited group (your country men in his particular study).  In essence he put everyone in competitive mode, instead of an absolute measure of success -- i.e. the absolute change of quality of living, PPI, etc. 

This innate deficiency came from a combative inclination - that one's success has to come from another demise (or failure).   

Heritage is a very culture sensitive topic and the way Mr. Grusky described his passion of American Dream and broader - his sense of fairness shows how much he culture insensitivity is. 
Actually due to his limitation in imagining "American Dream", his analysis was already pre-determined.  


To improve the study, Two fundamental questions should be considered to amend the flaw of Mr. Grusky's analysis:
1) Do we allow parents to influence their children.  In other words, are children considered "objects that belongs to the government, and are centrally managed?"  (If we do live in a society where parents influence are eliminated, do we still call our society "free");
2) Does genetic inheritance exist and could it affect social success?  (Do we acknowledge that while Olympians come from all backgrounds, parents who are athlete tend to have a higher rate of children succeed in sports?)

For first question, the study clearly shows its tendency of "do something to eliminate parents influence on their children".  As long as we live in a free society (more or less), and as long as we allow nature Parent love, an argument that loving parent can have a positive influence on their children sounds scary to me.  The closest thing I could imagine was the concentration camps where children were wiped of their identity, and was only to be know by a number, they subject to no parents unique love, and are to be treated by a dictatorship who suppress the most fundamental human relationship.  The author may not know that in mainstream Asian culture, they do not worship a "supreme creator", instead worship their ancestors.  Family bound is the religion.  Apparently Mr. Grusky consider such family bound as an adverse that "need to do something about".

For the second question, sports is a very good area to explore, because the "quantified" achievement at individual level, the measurement of success is much more "absolute" (if you run 9.70 sec, it's and better than 9.71sec).  And it is common sense (just look around your school mates) parents who are more athletic have a better chance to have athletic children - not 100%, but a notable correlation.   If we establish a study "American Athletic achievement mobility - how many children, no mater how un-athletic their parents are should show chances of moving higher in their sports ranking".  Is this even desirable?
Now, we know our brains are probably hundreds of times more complex than our Muscle, and if their is a trace of inheritance in sports achievement, what makes us think their is no overall inheritance to affect children's broader capabilities and success?

There was a Chinese saying answered Mr. Grusky's "concern" of inequality thousands of years ago, it goes like "Chaos Era Creates Fierce and Ambitious" it basically says, "troubled time, usually associates with war" are the most effective way of destroying people's previous success and give ambitious people opportunity to forcefully redistribute power and wealth (often result in other people losing their hard earned success under previous rule).

In a society where commonly accepted rules are relatively stable, and people's ability and efforts are somewhat equally recognized cross generations, can (and should) people with certain ability and hardworking attitude succeed, and if we do not deny genetic inheritance, those who took their hardworking parents gene should be able to succeed also.

The most problematic foundational assumption in Mr. Grusky's analysis is: If you take his view to a broader scope, do you think those who were born in China or India, (or Japan in the 70s, and Hongkong, Taiwan, Korea in the 80s), should American gave its fortune to level the play field between American kids and let's say a Chinese kid?  Should they both be taken to a 3rd country and be treated same way?  The answer was very inconvenient though, as much as Chinese and Indean kids were much worse to begin with, they both surpassed American kids and achieved more success.

Not only they succeeded, but also their success was achieved without government enforced "level play ground".

Instead of "point out the son of American #999, did not surpass the daughter of American #25, we should ask, how could Chinese and Indian kids succeeded while they started far poorer than even the poorest American family.  That's actually the real issue: how can countries much poorer than American had their children achieve so much more than American children?