Revisionism on the marshmallow test

From the Daily Beast, the sad story of (some of) the details of the famous marshmallow test, in which whether or not four-year-olds could defer gratification for 15 minutes strongly predicted later SAT scores.

Looks like it was just an over-hyped micronumerous mess. Sort of Perry Preschool but with fewer data points.

If only someone at some newspaper (or blog or monthly policy magazine) somewhere actually knew how to read and critique studies, some of this collective foolishness could be avoided.

Hat tip: Dann Millimet