The main predictor of your income is country of birth… [along with] parental class explain 80% of variance in income… perhaps a combination of our IQ, height, gender, race, risk of mental illness and so on will still do the bulk of the explanatory work.
It wouldn’t surprise me if all of those factors together could “explain” 200% of variance in income, given how strongly correlated many of them are. But the greater problem is that none of these factors explains anything. You just found some correlations. And moreover, you don’t even engage with the arguments for internal locus of control.
Clearly, external factors shape what possibilities are open to you (if you were born in 1253 BC, you didn’t become an astronaut). Equally clearly, internal factors determine what you make of those possibilities (if you never got out of bed, you didn’t become an astronaut). It’s overdetermined. Your argument is like saying that because you’d die without lungs, the lungs must be more important than the heart.
What would it mean for the external view to be “more true” than the internal view? We might unpack it as saying that, on the margin, external factors matter more than internal factors for life outcomes. But what’s are the relevant margins, and what are the units? What’s the robustness? Consider one marginal change—that my mother had given birth to me while on holiday, and so the country of my birth, but nothing else about me, had changed. What difference do you think that would have made to my life outcomes?
When events are overdetermined, I would take a pragmatic marginal view of “causes.” In other words, the fact that the Sun emits UV radiation, the fact that people go outdoors sometimes, and the insufficient use of sun-cream are all the “cause” of skin cancer. Only one of these, however, gives us a sensible way of fixing the problem on the margin, so I’d say failure to use sun-cream is the “cause” in the relevant sense. From this point of view, the internal locus of control is correct by definition.
“All interesting human behavior is overdetermined.” Eric S. Raymond
Seems to be a case of it. I think your point is that if even if you can say predict 80% of outcomes based on external factors only, you it is still possible that you could predict 80% of outcomes based on internal factors only, and this is what overdetermination means.
(This is funny, because it would mean both political sides are right. Lefties are right organizing the world differently could lead to vastly different outcomes, righties are right people choosing to live different would could lead to vastly different outcomes too.)
It wouldn’t surprise me if all of those factors together could “explain” 200% of variance in income, given how strongly correlated many of them are. But the greater problem is that none of these factors explains anything. You just found some correlations. And moreover, you don’t even engage with the arguments for internal locus of control.
Clearly, external factors shape what possibilities are open to you (if you were born in 1253 BC, you didn’t become an astronaut). Equally clearly, internal factors determine what you make of those possibilities (if you never got out of bed, you didn’t become an astronaut). It’s overdetermined. Your argument is like saying that because you’d die without lungs, the lungs must be more important than the heart.
What would it mean for the external view to be “more true” than the internal view? We might unpack it as saying that, on the margin, external factors matter more than internal factors for life outcomes. But what’s are the relevant margins, and what are the units? What’s the robustness? Consider one marginal change—that my mother had given birth to me while on holiday, and so the country of my birth, but nothing else about me, had changed. What difference do you think that would have made to my life outcomes?
When events are overdetermined, I would take a pragmatic marginal view of “causes.” In other words, the fact that the Sun emits UV radiation, the fact that people go outdoors sometimes, and the insufficient use of sun-cream are all the “cause” of skin cancer. Only one of these, however, gives us a sensible way of fixing the problem on the margin, so I’d say failure to use sun-cream is the “cause” in the relevant sense. From this point of view, the internal locus of control is correct by definition.
“All interesting human behavior is overdetermined.” Eric S. Raymond
Seems to be a case of it. I think your point is that if even if you can say predict 80% of outcomes based on external factors only, you it is still possible that you could predict 80% of outcomes based on internal factors only, and this is what overdetermination means.
(This is funny, because it would mean both political sides are right. Lefties are right organizing the world differently could lead to vastly different outcomes, righties are right people choosing to live different would could lead to vastly different outcomes too.)