241–250 of 756 posts
Sperm banks select highly-educated males (i.e. recruiting at Stanford and Harvard) for sperm donors, so it seems obvious that most people know there is a hereditary component.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> --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.
Yeah, as the other child comment says I'm not sure what you're getting at with speech acquisition. Here's a study I plucked: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/
> However, for intelligence, heritability increases linearly, from (approximately) 20% in infancy to 40% in adolescence, and to 60% in adulthood. Some evidence suggests that heritability might increase to as much as 80% in later adulthood but then decline to about 60% after age 80.
It does not corroborate the claim "Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited".
As a somewhat progressive from the US-perspective (so: European, living in Germany) I don't recall saying genetics didn't impact things. Genetics is just not a lever I am willing to pull in order to influence things. As some of you might recall, the last time Germany tried just that it went into the direction of ultimate genocidal horror. Also there are much more low hanging fruits with a bigger impact on a societies…
Since when does fascism / alt right need facts to further their agenda? Cutting off research funding for sensitive topics does nothing to stave off our fall into dystopia. If it's ok to do affirmative action based on race, it's also ok to do it based on other genes. I wonder why every progressive in this thread is suddenly afraid of having to discriminate people based on yet-unknown gene factors when their crowd is o…
Did I say I wanted to cut funding to genetics? What I did was explaining a perspective which I don't share for the most part. What I said is that the idea of willfully designing the shape of a society based on some features of the body (blood, genes, shape of the skull, ...) stands in the tradition of horrible genocides. My grandfather was a Nazi, so this is not some abstract thing for me, but him explaining that e.g. people from the balkan region are "just thieves" because it is "in their blood" would be a thing that he would certainly also read out of genetics.
I am all for research of genetics for medical purposes, there lies great potential there. I think exploring links between sociology and genetics is also quite interesting.
What I am vehemently against is to divide people based on genetics and make policy based on that alone.
> I wonder why every progressive in this thread is suddenly afraid of having to discriminate people based on yet-unknown gene factors when their crowd is ok to discriminate based on known skin color (as long as it matches their notion of who should be discriminated against).
I guess american progressives think they need to do this to correct centuries of the pendulum leaning into the other direction. While I aknowledge the fact (centuries of opression against non-white people), I don't agree with the conclusions in extremo. Of course a majority white society has the duty to deal with it's racist heritage pay reparations to the ancestors of that violence and opression etc. If Germany pays reparation to victims of the Holocaust this isn't racism against Germans, it is the pure minimum any decent free society would do. Similarily the significant injustice that has been dealt to native americans or people of color has to be confronted in a serious and fair manner. Giving justice to that injustice can of course look from the outside as if they get a unfair advantage over us who had the luck not to have had such a history. That doesn't feel good, because one has to accept the injustices the own society and nation has done and it lessens our role in the story. But it is necessary.
From the article: Over the next year, a biosciences working group revised the program’s funding guidelines, stipulating in the final draft that it would not support any research into the first-order effects of genes on behavior or social outcomes. The fact that this area is controversial suggests to me that it is worth exploration. I’ve taught mathematics at community colleges for over 20 years and I’m absolutely con…
I like to feel the same way as your colleagues about "everyone can learn to code". I can definitely say that there are many people for whom it is a struggle - even those on college courses. But a hundred years ago we could easily have the same conversation about simply reading and writing - they (the poor, women, or "lower class" ) luke not be taught to read. But it turns out that if you start young enough, and put e…
There is a thing called functional illiteracy [1], where people can write and read but mostly only their name and some very basic things like grocery lists. They also cannot comprehend texts even if they can read most words. It's more or less equivalent to being able to add numbers, maybe multiply numbers 1-10 but very far from algebra.
No first world country can claim a 99% literacy rate unless you count in these people, which would stretch things quite a bit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not fluent in e-prime, sorry.
Saying "there is no essential difference between genetics and other causative factors" is arbitrarily different from saying "all is one, separateness is an illusion". That is, it differs in connotations and not in the essential content of the statement. Which is exactly what you said, except that you chose to ignore that connotations conduct meaning, when you asked your rhetorical question. This is not e-prime, it is…
From the article: Over the next year, a biosciences working group revised the program’s funding guidelines, stipulating in the final draft that it would not support any research into the first-order effects of genes on behavior or social outcomes. The fact that this area is controversial suggests to me that it is worth exploration. I’ve taught mathematics at community colleges for over 20 years and I’m absolutely con…
My english teacher/class master till 8th grade insisted I follow a profession that doesn't involve math -- she even recommend me to be a radio host for a children program -- she thought highly of me, but she thought math was not my thing.
She was half right -- I have ADHD and even though my blood relatives are highly successful (doctors, lawyers, judges) NOBODY was good at math.
Anyway, my parents thought otherwise and promised to buy me a PC if I get admitted to a math/programming class in highschool and paid for math tutoring. My math skills completely turned around in a year and I ultimately loved math, especially calculus.
People strongly want to believe that intelligence doesn't have a strong genetic component, I think mainly for moral reasons. If not everyone can be expected to learn and be proficient in everything due to genetics, then suddenly merit itself is also based strongly on luck, and now the belief that people with greater merit should have better lives no longer seems fair. Intelligence is now just another gift to the fort…
I don't believe this idea because few or nobody sees a moral problem in acknowledging there is a strong genetic component to physical attractiveness, or physical features (like height) that give an advantage in "merit" in some paths of life. Nor do people have a problem acknowledging your parents, the country in which you were born, their wealth and fitness as "good parents" for the early years of your life plays a m…
It's hard to change you height, but your mind? Of course you can change that!
As a somewhat progressive from the US-perspective (so: European, living in Germany) I don't recall saying genetics didn't impact things. Genetics is just not a lever I am willing to pull in order to influence things. As some of you might recall, the last time Germany tried just that it went into the direction of ultimate genocidal horror. Also there are much more low hanging fruits with a bigger impact on a societies…
> So cool — genetics matter, just like education, nutrition, social situation, security of ones environment etc — but what do we do with this? Not claim that everything is due to a secret cabal of structural racism/sexism/hate on the poor? As long as you have that as your perfect explanation for the state of the world, you won't really make a difference, because you're attacking the wrong issue.