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Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

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Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#161

Post by ludston »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #152

In these comments: people doing apologetics for a vision of the world where everyone is born with equal potential. I am a scientist, I work on these things, and I am here to tell you that: --Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited --Your personality is largely determined by genetics and is pretty much settled in to what it will always be by ~30 --If you don't learn to count right by ~4 you never will…

How does your science control for differences between parenting, access to education and nutrition though? I would expect doing so to be unethical and therefore not allowed.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#162

Post by tgv »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #152

In these comments: people doing apologetics for a vision of the world where everyone is born with equal potential. I am a scientist, I work on these things, and I am here to tell you that: --Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited --Your personality is largely determined by genetics and is pretty much settled in to what it will always be by ~30 --If you don't learn to count right by ~4 you never will…

I've never heard a number as high as 70%. Where does that come from? Otherwise: any idea how intelligence was operationalized?

I also think we can only accept that we're born different, but human. If we should aspire to anything, it should be to make life good for every individual, taking their capacities into account, not to give everyone an academic degree.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#163

Post by colordrops »

tnzm wrote: post #146
DanHulton wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a lot of leaps of logic here, which might be why your colleagues are disagreeing with you. You go from "not everyone can learn algebra or calculus" and "mental disabilities exist" to "therefore intelligence is a scale and controlled by genetics and unalterable," which doesn't really track. Your previous education, your upbringing, your cultural values, these things all also have huge effects on your apt…

"Nature vs nurture" in the hairless ape presupposes free will, which is a linguistic universal but a metaphysical unprovable. Look closely enough and there is no essential difference between genetics and other causative factors. Other than maybe some people jumping to the conclusion that one has an axe to grind with minorities when one attempts to explain certain things with genetics. Which is just as much an arbitra…

> Look closely enough and there is no essential difference between genetics and other causative factors.

How is this any different from saying "all is one, separateness is an illusion"?

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#164

Post by smhost »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #154
DanHulton wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a lot of leaps of logic here, which might be why your colleagues are disagreeing with you. You go from "not everyone can learn algebra or calculus" and "mental disabilities exist" to "therefore intelligence is a scale and controlled by genetics and unalterable," which doesn't really track. Your previous education, your upbringing, your cultural values, these things all also have huge effects on your apt…

I think the more people can learn algebra than OP implies, but as a former math educator my experience also indicates some people are genetically limited in mathematics. For reference, my specialty was working with very remedial students and only ever had a few students not make progress (~2%) but I do think that small percent was genuinely hopeless and I don't say that lightly. I have a pet theory as to why those st…

HN crowd doesn't think twice about people who try to run DOOM on a stack of pennies, but are ready to give up before trying to get algebra to run on someone with less working memory. It's weird how different the attitude is.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#165

Post by tgv »

Tade0 wrote: post #157
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #152

In these comments: people doing apologetics for a vision of the world where everyone is born with equal potential. I am a scientist, I work on these things, and I am here to tell you that: --Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited --Your personality is largely determined by genetics and is pretty much settled in to what it will always be by ~30 --If you don't learn to count right by ~4 you never will…

> --Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited Citation needed, especially given that there are enormous differences in intelligence between people who acquired speech and those who didn't.

I think the number of people that haven't acquired overt communication is so low, it can hardly affect the average.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#166

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

ludston wrote: post #161
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #152

In these comments: people doing apologetics for a vision of the world where everyone is born with equal potential. I am a scientist, I work on these things, and I am here to tell you that: --Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited --Your personality is largely determined by genetics and is pretty much settled in to what it will always be by ~30 --If you don't learn to count right by ~4 you never will…

How does your science control for differences between parenting, access to education and nutrition though? I would expect doing so to be unethical and therefore not allowed.

Twin studies is the oldest, best answer. People have fancy statistical trickery these days too.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#167

Post by ZephyrBlu »

ludston wrote: post #161
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #152

In these comments: people doing apologetics for a vision of the world where everyone is born with equal potential. I am a scientist, I work on these things, and I am here to tell you that: --Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited --Your personality is largely determined by genetics and is pretty much settled in to what it will always be by ~30 --If you don't learn to count right by ~4 you never will…

How does your science control for differences between parenting, access to education and nutrition though? I would expect doing so to be unethical and therefore not allowed.

I think at least some of those statements are independent of parenting, access to education and nutrition.

Give everyone perfect parenting, a great education and lots of nutritious food and some of them still won't be able to learn calculus.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#168

Post by EllieEffingMae »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #152

In these comments: people doing apologetics for a vision of the world where everyone is born with equal potential. I am a scientist, I work on these things, and I am here to tell you that: --Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited --Your personality is largely determined by genetics and is pretty much settled in to what it will always be by ~30 --If you don't learn to count right by ~4 you never will…

Regardless of your credentials, as far as I am aware the scientific consensus on this topic is that genetics is nearly impossible to separate from other causal factors. Mainly other causal factors that we have clearer and more direct evidence of having an influence on cognitive ability.

So, quite frankly, I don't care if you spend a lot of time thinking about it, it's irrelevant. The consensus is clear.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#169

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

tgv wrote: post #162
NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #152

In these comments: people doing apologetics for a vision of the world where everyone is born with equal potential. I am a scientist, I work on these things, and I am here to tell you that: --Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited --Your personality is largely determined by genetics and is pretty much settled in to what it will always be by ~30 --If you don't learn to count right by ~4 you never will…

I've never heard a number as high as 70%. Where does that come from? Otherwise: any idea how intelligence was operationalized? I also think we can only accept that we're born different, but human. If we should aspire to anything, it should be to make life good for every individual, taking their capacities into account, not to give everyone an academic degree.

Here's a relatively recent study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/

I agree with your sentiment in the second paragraph. Human gets a little fuzzy, though...I think you really mean to point at personhood. There are humans who definitely aren't people, like those born without brains. And with the computers our grandkids will install--oh my! I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#170

Post by vagrantJin »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #152

In these comments: people doing apologetics for a vision of the world where everyone is born with equal potential. I am a scientist, I work on these things, and I am here to tell you that: --Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited --Your personality is largely determined by genetics and is pretty much settled in to what it will always be by ~30 --If you don't learn to count right by ~4 you never will…

> Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited

I'd like your definition of intelligence.

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