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Most Reported Genetic Associations with Intelligence are Probably False

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Re: Most Reported Genetic Associations with Intelligence are Probably False

#21

Note that the article is not saying that intelligence is not heritable. In fact it makes it quite clear that despite the controversy, the opposite is true: > Although the exact figures have been the topic of much debate, the claim that IQ is at least moderately heritable is widely accepted. IQ may in fact be similar in heritability to the physical trait of height What the article is saying is that intelligence cannot…

For all practical purposes, "intelligence is largely not heritable" is actually closer to the truth than the opposite. As long as you can't tie intelligence to particular genes, as long as you can't tell what amount of intelligence in an individual is inherited, and how much isn't, there is no use for this in education, politics or social welfare. What I see the argument being used for, mostly, is to justify racism a…

I'm not sure if you are misreading the article or disagreeing with it, but in either case you're wrong.

The fact that a 'wrongness gene' hasn't been, and may not ever be, identified does not undermine my assessment, but rather indicates current models of the interaction of genes and wrongness might be naive, and the interactions are probably deeper and more complex.

Re: Most Reported Genetic Associations with Intelligence are Probably False

#22

Note that the article is not saying that intelligence is not heritable. In fact it makes it quite clear that despite the controversy, the opposite is true: > Although the exact figures have been the topic of much debate, the claim that IQ is at least moderately heritable is widely accepted. IQ may in fact be similar in heritability to the physical trait of height What the article is saying is that intelligence cannot…

It may be useful for the discussion here to define what "heritable" means. I like what Eric Turkheimer, a psychologist who investigates the heritability of human intelligence, says about that. "But back to the question: What does heritability mean? Almost everyone who has ever thought about heritability has reached a commonsense intuition about it: One way or another, heritability has to be some kind of index of how…

> Heritability isn't an index of how genetic a trait is.

I am totally confused. My understanding is that heritability is a measure of how much genetics accounts for the observed variability in a given environment. I understand both that we don't understand the genetic recipe for height, but also that identical twins grow to be the same height. What is the author saying that I am missing?

Re: Most Reported Genetic Associations with Intelligence are Probably False

#23
"African Americans currently score lower than European Americans on vocabulary, reading, and mathematics tests, as well as on tests that claim to measure scholastic aptitude and intelligence. This gap appears before children enter kindergarten (figure 1-1), and it persists into adulthood. It has narrowed since 1970, but the typical American black still scores below 75 percent of American whites on most standardized tests. On some tests the typical American black scores below more than 85 percent of whites"- http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/j/jencks-gap.html

"Intellectual and personality measures were available from unwed mothers who gave their children up for adoption at birth. The same or similar measures have been obtained from 300 sets of adoptive parents and all of their adopted and natural children in the Texas Adoption Project. The sample characteristics are discussed in detail, and the basic findings for IQ are presented. Initial analyses of the data on IQ suggest moderate heritabilities." - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/496798

"Adolescents' IQ test scores were similar to those of their parents and siblings only if they were biologically related. Our interpretation of these results is that younger children are more influenced by differences among their family environments than older adolescents, who are freer to seek their own niches." - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6872626

Notice how carefully worded the "interpretation" of that last one was. Rather than suggest that genetics has to do with older adolescence not having IQ scores that match their adoptive parents their "interpretation" is that the adolescences simply chose not to perform as well as their adoptive parents...Anything to avoid controversy.

White guilt is getting in the way of a lot of racial/genetic/intelligence/violence studies. People don't want to go back to a time when one group of humans were seen as superior and another inferior. The funny part is, Intelligence wise, whites are NOT superior. Jews are.. Their intelligence levels are higher, achievement levels higher, hackers should know this. Many of Silicon Valleys most prominent companies were started by jews. Facebook, Craigslist, Google. Also a report by Joel Stein from the New York Times showed that every major Hollywood studio was founded by jews. In the fashion world: Ralph Lauren, Levi (Jeans), Guess, Mark Ecco, Men's Warehouse, and most of the brands you see in stores today were also started by jews.

"In 1921 Budapest, 88% of the members of the stock exchange and 91% of the currency brokers were Jews, many of them ennobled. In interwar Hungary, more than half and perhaps as much as 90 percent of Hungarian industry was owned or operated by a few closely related Jewish banking families. Jews represented one-fourth of all university students and 43% percent at Budapest Technological University. In 1920, 60 percent of Hungarian doctors, 51 percent of lawyers, 39 percent of all privately employed engineers and chemists, 34 percent of editors and journalists, and 29 percent of musicians identified themselves as Jews by religion. Resentment of this Jewish trend of success was widespread." - Yuri Slezkine. The Jewish Century. Princeton, 2004. ISBN 0-691-11995-3

Since 1921 theres been a lot of catching up by Whites, Blacks, Asians, etc... but Jews are still disproportionately successful and score high.

Re: Most Reported Genetic Associations with Intelligence are Probably False

#24
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all practical purposes, "intelligence is largely not heritable" is actually closer to the truth than the opposite. As long as you can't tie intelligence to particular genes, as long as you can't tell what amount of intelligence in an individual is inherited, and how much isn't, there is no use for this in education, politics or social welfare. What I see the argument being used for, mostly, is to justify racism a…

IQ is highly heritable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Estimates_of... (estimates of adulthood heritability are 0.7-0.8, similar to height). We can reject the existence of an observed natural phenomenon because we can't explain it. We still haven't unified gravity with the standard model, but that doesn't mean we reject that gravity exists (for practical purposes or otherwise). The fact that a natura…

I qualified my statement with "for all practical purposes". I have often claimed that there is no practical relevance and no reasonable way to use this "fact" in practical real world decisions. Nobody was able to tell me one that holds up to even superficial checking.

"Socially inconvenient" doesn't even come into it, because twin studies don't tell us anything about differences between two ethnicities. For that matter, genetic diversity within populations might have a larger effect...

The "intelligence is genetic" "fact" is often used to justify refusal to tackle socio-economic problems (like "under-achievement" in blacks or hispanics in the US, or the turkish minority in my home country) with socio-economic solutions. Because hey, it's all genetics, so we can't change it. Even if measures for improvement have been proven...

Re: Most Reported Genetic Associations with Intelligence are Probably False

#25
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all practical purposes, "intelligence is largely not heritable" is actually closer to the truth than the opposite. As long as you can't tie intelligence to particular genes, as long as you can't tell what amount of intelligence in an individual is inherited, and how much isn't, there is no use for this in education, politics or social welfare. What I see the argument being used for, mostly, is to justify racism a…

I'm not sure if you are misreading the article or disagreeing with it, but in either case you're wrong. The fact that a 'wrongness gene' hasn't been, and may not ever be, identified does not undermine my assessment, but rather indicates current models of the interaction of genes and wrongness might be naive, and the interactions are probably deeper and more complex.

Please tell me one "practical purpose" were "Intelligence is largely genetic" as a use...

Re: Most Reported Genetic Associations with Intelligence are Probably False

#26
Genes are to humans in the same way CPU instructions are to computers [1]. So this experiment is analogous to measuring the capability /throughput of a computer only by inspecting existence of arbitrary instruction sets. They may be the atomic enabling factors, but can't really say much about something so complex as intelligence.

[1]: Richard Dawkins

Re: Most Reported Genetic Associations with Intelligence are Probably False

#27

"African Americans currently score lower than European Americans on vocabulary, reading, and mathematics tests, as well as on tests that claim to measure scholastic aptitude and intelligence. This gap appears before children enter kindergarten (figure 1-1), and it persists into adulthood. It has narrowed since 1970, but the typical American black still scores below 75 percent of American whites on most standardized t…

[deleted]

Re: Most Reported Genetic Associations with Intelligence are Probably False

#28
Genes are to humans in the same way CPU instructions are to computers [1]. So this experiment is analogous to measuring the capability /throughput of a computer only by inspecting existence of arbitrary instruction sets. They may be the atomic enabling factors, but can't really say much about something so complex as intelligence.

[1]: Richard Dawkins

Re: Most Reported Genetic Associations with Intelligence are Probably False

#29

"African Americans currently score lower than European Americans on vocabulary, reading, and mathematics tests, as well as on tests that claim to measure scholastic aptitude and intelligence. This gap appears before children enter kindergarten (figure 1-1), and it persists into adulthood. It has narrowed since 1970, but the typical American black still scores below 75 percent of American whites on most standardized t…

Continued: I think it's pretty obvious that genes have quiet a bit to do with intelligence and achievement. There have been too many studies done on race and iq, race and crime, race and achievement to just throw out. I'm not the smartest but at least I'm living in reality. And I'm proud to see so many HNers here doing the same and acknowledging the important role genetics has in our lives. It's good to know there's more people following truth and science no matter how blasphemous it may seem to a delusional emotion-oriented general population hell bent on believing that everyone is "100% equal" in order to feel good about themselves.

Nature is racist. Us finding out about it is not.

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