The sequence is a necessary, not a sufficient condition to escape poverty, although with the success rate cited, it would appear to be 97% sufficient as well.
I think it's hard to say. Basically I feel like it's an issue of conflating correlation with causation. Based on Ian's logic one could look at the data and conclude that since people with PhDs in Economics from MIT tend to do especially well in life on average, we should aim to get everyone through the Economics PhD program at MIT. Obviously that would be an absurd conclusion though because most of us realize that the characteristics of the pool of MIT Economics PhD candidates are probably very different on average from the characteristics of the broader population at large.
The sequence is a necessary, not a sufficient condition to escape poverty, although with the success rate cited, it would appear to be 97% sufficient as well.
I think it's hard to say. Basically I feel like it's an issue of conflating correlation with causation. Based on Ian's logic one could look at the data and conclude that since people with PhDs in Economics from MIT tend to do especially well in life on average, we should aim to get everyone through the Economics PhD program at MIT. Obviously that would be an absurd conclusion though because most of us realize that the characteristics of the pool of MIT Economics PhD candidates are probably very different on average from the characteristics of the broader population at large.