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AllanfromWales1 t1_is9ws4k wrote

  1. Tiny study. 20 children is hardly a large sample.
  2. The fact that the children enrolled in a Mahjong class sets them apart from most other children anyway. As such having a control group from the general population, rather than from people who might have enrolled for Mahjong but for some reason didn't, introduces a potential for bias.

Note, incidentally, that I'm not trying to discourage kids from playing Mahjong at that age. I did and look where it got me (!)

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Data_Really_Matter t1_is9xa3j wrote

Hmmm. Let compare to groups that play chess, sports, study advanced math, read more books, etc ..

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Datapunkt t1_isak3nq wrote

I guess the historic control group didn't exclusively consist of children who were locked up in a basement their whole life. Other activities like playing chess might also increase their IQ.

The problems with the study are:

  • small sample size
  • children who enrolled in Mahjong classes might come from a more supportive family for some reason and therefore develop faster regardless.
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footcandlez t1_isbt98p wrote

Interesting possibility but definitely needs more work. They faced some COVID challenges. Their control group wasn't even a matched sample of other Japanese children, but rather a historical sample of what appears to be data collected from American children. There may be reasons, other than participating in Mahjong, that led the Japanese children to have higher IQs relative to the American control data (e.g., cohort effects, time of data collection, cultural differences, etc.).

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The_WarpGhost t1_isbw88r wrote

I really want to play Mahjong now, it's been years...

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mushroom4two t1_isd52n4 wrote

Meh, genetic engineering could probably do better than that, and not even the controversial kind.

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