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Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years

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Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years

#81

Post by quotz »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #15
quotz wrote: post #13

We are gonna look back on this just how we look back on Giordano Bruno. Future generations would find it ridiculous that he was jailed for technological progress and science.

He was completely irresponsible, did no do what he advertised he would do, and endangered the health of many people. Don't get seduced by the dream he was selling. He was in fact a fraud, not a researcher.

You could say that for any invention ever. Even the internet, our greatest invention so far. However, the net benefit is a non-negative value.

Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years

#82

Post by danmg »

lxe wrote: post #76

What is up with these comments? State sponsored behavior modifications? Eugenics? Public propaganda while hiding some sinister truth? China isn't some kind of dystopian conspiracy-laden techno-thriller enemy state. The team simply wanted to sneak this experiment past medical practice laws and scientific ethics -- they probably would have been fined and punished in a similar fashion have they done it in the U.S or Eur…

People really like sino bashing for some reason.

Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years

#83

Post by nitrogen »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #69
nitrogen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> poor people are allowed to sell their blood 2 times a week. Plasma "donation" is paid in the US.

Yes, but incarcerated persons are not allowed to participate.

I guess I'm reading the sentence I partially quoted as referring to two different groups both with negative circumstances -- immigrants in detention on one hand, and on the other poor people selling blood.

Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years

#84

Post by alach11 »

pcrh wrote: post #68
ZhuanXia wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They conclude that high IQ (>170) is mostly not caused by genetic variants. The abstract does not mention that; they claim: "This study shows the utility of extreme trait selection for genetic study of intelligence and suggests that extremely high intelligence is continuous genetically with normal-range intelligence in the population." I don't think anyone would seriously claim that high IQ is mostly not caused by g…

The full text is available here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5987166/ In the conclusions section they state: >Focusing on the core 4-test g measure, we think that accounting for 1.6% of the variance of intelligence is exciting for several reasons. First, this effect size is greater than the effect sizes from previous GWA studies of the normal range of intelligence.45 The effect size of 1.6% represent…

> Previous studies demonstrating high heritability of IQ did not discriminate between genetic inheritance and social/cultural/environmental inheritance.

This simply isn't true. Studies of twins not raised together provide evidence that IQ is more than 50% heritable. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/neu.10160

Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years

#85

Post by gwern »

pcrh wrote: post #25
ZhuanXia wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t need the causal variants for embryo selection, just the predictive variants. We have this for height now. The only reason we don’t have this for IQ now is everyone doing GWAS studies are too chicken to put an IQ test in with their other measures. As the cost of a sequence declines, this will not last. Obviously, this is not an issue if there is state involvement.

People have done IQ vs genetic variation in GWAS. They find that there is almost no impact of common variants on IQ. Example: >A genome-wide polygenic score constructed from the GWA results accounted for 1.6% of the variance of intelligence in the normal range in an unselected sample of 3414 individuals, which is comparable to the variance explained by GWA studies of intelligence with substantially larger sample size…

You are making some serious mistakes in your citation of that:

1. a polygenic score is not 'the impact of common variants'; that's the SNP heritability, such as the GCTA or LDSC. It's not 1.6%, it's closer to 30%. You edited out the part of the abstract which correctly specifies this: "the single-nucleotide polymorphism heritability for the extreme IQ trait was 0.33 (0.02)"

2. that is not the best predictor of intelligence; it is not now (that would be Allegrini et al 2018), and it was not then either - you have to go all the way back to like 2014 for 1.6% to be SOTA and I'm puzzled why you cite Zabaneh at all, which is one of the most obscure IQ GWASes... The actual SOTA is 11% or higher.

3. your claims about power are obviously wrong, as Allegrini et al 2018 uses far less than 'tens of millions' and still greatly outperforms it. (Which has something to do with those rare beneficial variants not existing which they were looking for...)

So, we can predict 11%, not 1.6%, and common variants have a large impact, 3x that, and rare variants account for even more, easily 50% including what you might call semi-rare variants (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/106203v2).

Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years

#86

Post by gwern »

pcrh wrote: post #68
ZhuanXia wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They conclude that high IQ (>170) is mostly not caused by genetic variants. The abstract does not mention that; they claim: "This study shows the utility of extreme trait selection for genetic study of intelligence and suggests that extremely high intelligence is continuous genetically with normal-range intelligence in the population." I don't think anyone would seriously claim that high IQ is mostly not caused by g…

The full text is available here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5987166/ In the conclusions section they state: >Focusing on the core 4-test g measure, we think that accounting for 1.6% of the variance of intelligence is exciting for several reasons. First, this effect size is greater than the effect sizes from previous GWA studies of the normal range of intelligence.45 The effect size of 1.6% represent…

They're obviously wrong and engaged in puffery when they claim to be SOTA. Look at http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v20/n2/full/mp2014188a.html , for example - that was 3 years before and had a similar PGS of 1.2%. Or, if that's too obscure, look at the SSGAC EA2 / Okbay/Selzam et al 2016 (no excuse for not knowing that one), 2 years before, and more than double, at 3.5%.

Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years

#87

Post by dysy2u37u »

lxe wrote: post #76

What is up with these comments? State sponsored behavior modifications? Eugenics? Public propaganda while hiding some sinister truth? China isn't some kind of dystopian conspiracy-laden techno-thriller enemy state. The team simply wanted to sneak this experiment past medical practice laws and scientific ethics -- they probably would have been fined and punished in a similar fashion have they done it in the U.S or Eur…

A lot of it comes down to appearances it seems like. For awhile a year or two ago there were articles coming out about how some American scientists would do difficult to get approved work done in South America. If rules aren't universal then the global system just incentives skirting regulations to keep up with less inhibited peers.

Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years

#88

Post by pcrh »

ericd wrote: post #80
pcrh wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... Accounting for 2.5% of the intelligence variation through genetics does lead to the conclusion that 97.5% of high IQ is not accounted for by (known) genetic variation.

Doesn’t that just mean we don’t definitively know the vast majority of the causal factors? Which is not at all the same as saying we know it’s not genetically determined?

Depends on the weight you assign to "just". At the current level of knowledge it would mean that genetics is not an important contributor to the differences in "intelligence" between individuals in the general population.

What the important factors are is obviously an interesting question.

Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years

#89

Post by pcrh »

gwern wrote: post #86
pcrh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The full text is available here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5987166/ In the conclusions section they state: >Focusing on the core 4-test g measure, we think that accounting for 1.6% of the variance of intelligence is exciting for several reasons. First, this effect size is greater than the effect sizes from previous GWA studies of the normal range of intelligence.45 The effect size of 1.6% represent…

They're obviously wrong and engaged in puffery when they claim to be SOTA. Look at http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v20/n2/full/mp2014188a.html , for example - that was 3 years before and had a similar PGS of 1.2%. Or, if that's too obscure, look at the SSGAC EA2 / Okbay/Selzam et al 2016 (no excuse for not knowing that one), 2 years before, and more than double, at 3.5%.

3.5% genetic association with intelligence means that 96.5% is not genetic.

So your your citation does not support a strong link between genetics and intelligence?

Re: Chinese scientist who edited twin babies' genes jailed for 3 years

#90

Post by pcrh »

alach11 wrote: post #84
pcrh wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The full text is available here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5987166/ In the conclusions section they state: >Focusing on the core 4-test g measure, we think that accounting for 1.6% of the variance of intelligence is exciting for several reasons. First, this effect size is greater than the effect sizes from previous GWA studies of the normal range of intelligence.45 The effect size of 1.6% represent…

> Previous studies demonstrating high heritability of IQ did not discriminate between genetic inheritance and social/cultural/environmental inheritance. This simply isn't true. Studies of twins not raised together provide evidence that IQ is more than 50% heritable. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/neu.10160

Heritability is not only genetic, it includes a wide variety of social factors.

Strict genetic heritability studies do not support a stong association of genetics with intelligence.

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