Why is infant mortality so low in Cuba?

A list of the most interesting academic and popular articles shared in our network.

Welcome to the Aporia Research Roundup. Every Monday (at 7am New York, 12pm London), we compile the most interesting studies and articles being shared in our network.

The first three links are always free, but we put our favourites (including the less politically correct ones) behind a paywall.

* Note: This is the last week in which the RRU will be sent out to free subscribers. The first three links will remain free, but only paid supporters will receive the email. Therefore, if you want to see the RRU, you have a few options: check the section on Aporia, follow us on Twitter, or just become a paid supporter!

**Also, apologies if you couldn’t access the Rufo interview on Saturday. It was on YouTube, but the post didn’t unlock on Substack. It’s now unlocked.

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Literacy and Numeracy Are More Heritable Than Intelligence in Primary School. Yulia Kovas and colleagues compare the heritability of literacy, numeracy and general intelligence in a sample of UK twins aged 7–12. They find that heritability is higher for literacy and numeracy, which they argue is because universal education reduces environmental differences in these traits to a greater than it reduces environmental differences in g.

Just one g: consistent results from three test batteries. In a classic article from 2004, Wendy Johnson and colleagues examine how closely related are the general factors of intelligence extracted from three different batteries of tests. Consistent with the existence of g, they find that correlations between those general factors are extremely strong (r = .99, r =.99 and r = 1). 

In the decade before crime rose, ‘broken windows’ policing stopped. Charles Murray analyses arrest data for New York, Los Angeles and Washington D.C., and shows that in the decade preceding 2020’s homicide surge, the number of arrests for minor offences declined substantially. This supports broken windows theory: when criminals see they can get away with minor offences, they’re more likely to commit serious offences. 

Arrests for “broken windows” offences in three cities as a percentage of the 2013 value.