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The Problems With Predicting a Child’s Future

To what extent can science predict the future? Both TIME Magazine and Aeon Magazine looked at predictive scientific studies this week. Their stories described more ethically questionable research, perhaps, than most: one calculated the “fate” of first-graders, the other neurological tendencies in Romanian orphans. TIME considered an Education Week study that purports to show whether […]
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To what extent can science predict the future? Both TIME Magazine and Aeon Magazine looked at predictive scientific studies this week. Their stories described more ethically questionable research, perhaps, than most: one calculated the “fate” of first-graders, the other neurological tendencies in Romanian orphans.

TIME considered an Education Week study that purports to show whether a first-grader will become a high school dropout. The study analyzes predictive factors like behavioral problems, frequent school absences, and below-average reading skills. These weaknesses tend to escalate by third grade. If reading development does not happen here, students may fall into the “fourth-grade slump,” and fall into a vicious cycle of academic straggling. While the study’s author cautioned that his formula only identifies “signs of students who drop out—it doesn’t mean they are dropouts,” it also seems this scientific labeling system could create problems for students who need encouragement in order to succeed. How would you like to know, at seven years old, that you will likely become a high school dropout?

Meanwhile, Aeon described a scientific study hoping to improve Romania’s terrible orphanages. Despite international outcry, Romanian officials “staunchly believed that the behavioral problems of institutionalized children were innate” rather than a result of organizational deficiencies. The report’s scientists sought to prove them wrong. They enrolled 136 institutionalized children, placed half in foster care, and tracked their physical, psychological, and neurological development. “They knew from the outset that the project would be ethically precarious,” author Virginia Hughes writes. “Could there be a more vulnerable study population, after all, than orphans with physical and psychological disabilities living in an economically feeble and politically unstable country?”

Nevertheless, scientists proceeded cautiously, and published their findings in Science in 2007. They were able to demonstrate that children placed in foster care “showed significant gains in IQ, motor skills, and psychological development” – but unfortunately, the study did little to change Romania’s orphan situation: an international adoption moratorium was made permanent in 2005. Domestic adoption exists, but with “onerous regulations.” Children in orphanages are often “undeniably miserable.” Nelson, the Romania report’s leading scientist, “has become desensitized, holding on to the idea that scientific data will eventually pave the road for better social policy.”

Both reports strive to help vulnerable or troubled children succeed in life. However, one must ask: What good can this data actually do in improving subjects’ circumstances? The Romanian project hoped to pave the way to a national foster care system. But Romania’s most destructive policies are still in place. Telling a first-grader’s parents that their child is likely to fail could motivate action. But what of the parents who see this as a scientifically-determined outcome? What of students who believe they are marked out for failure?

Consequentalist studies, though useful, cannot ultimately create change. Life is made up of human choices that are unpredictable and unprecedented. Patterns of destruction can be broken – even in Romania. In a 2005 article, the Guardian shared one Romanian orphan success story:

“She tells of a mother of four children, all by different husbands, who had abandoned the first three one after another. Then the mother arrived at the day-care centre with her fourth. ‘She didn’t want to touch the baby. She wouldn’t kiss her. We had to teach her how. Then she learned to kiss the baby. And now they’re still together.’”

Whether dealing with abandoned orphans or rebellious seven-year-olds, the key is personal investment – not data. Sometimes the vulnerable needed to be taught, nurtured, and encouraged. Their “fate” is determined by those who invest and intervene despite – not because of – the numbers.


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