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The Latest On Intelligence

danielwillingham.com

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Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#11

Post by Xcelerate »

I didn't read the entire paper, but to someone who did, how much of a link is there between genetics and IQ? I know this isn't a popular subject, but if I remember correctly I believe that Ashkenazi Jews constitute 3% of the population yet have won 27% of the Nobel prizes in science.

I would think that much like how different types of people from different regions have differing athletic capabilities, there would also be differences in mental facilities as well -- some better at music, some better at math, etc. Thoughts?

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#12

Post by readme »

Xcelerate wrote: post #11

I didn't read the entire paper, but to someone who did, how much of a link is there between genetics and IQ? I know this isn't a popular subject, but if I remember correctly I believe that Ashkenazi Jews constitute 3% of the population yet have won 27% of the Nobel prizes in science. I would think that much like how different types of people from different regions have differing athletic capabilities, there would als…

>but if I remember correctly I believe that Ashkenazi Jews constitute 3% of the population yet have won 27% of the Nobel prizes in science.

Can we get a citation on this?

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#13

Post by scott_s »

readme wrote: post #12
Xcelerate wrote: post #11

I didn't read the entire paper, but to someone who did, how much of a link is there between genetics and IQ? I know this isn't a popular subject, but if I remember correctly I believe that Ashkenazi Jews constitute 3% of the population yet have won 27% of the Nobel prizes in science. I would think that much like how different types of people from different regions have differing athletic capabilities, there would als…

>but if I remember correctly I believe that Ashkenazi Jews constitute 3% of the population yet have won 27% of the Nobel prizes in science. Can we get a citation on this?

"Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 800 individuals, of whom at least 20% were Jews, although Jews comprise only 0.2% of the world's population.": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates

Although this need not be explained by genetics. It could just as easily be explained by culture.

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#14

Post by praptak »

Xcelerate wrote: post #11

I didn't read the entire paper, but to someone who did, how much of a link is there between genetics and IQ? I know this isn't a popular subject, but if I remember correctly I believe that Ashkenazi Jews constitute 3% of the population yet have won 27% of the Nobel prizes in science. I would think that much like how different types of people from different regions have differing athletic capabilities, there would als…

Both scientific and athletic achievements have an alternative explanation: culture. If there was a good sample of adopted children from a group with such achievements, one could examine these hypotheses in more detail.

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#15

Post by psykotic »

readme wrote: post #12
Xcelerate wrote: post #11

I didn't read the entire paper, but to someone who did, how much of a link is there between genetics and IQ? I know this isn't a popular subject, but if I remember correctly I believe that Ashkenazi Jews constitute 3% of the population yet have won 27% of the Nobel prizes in science. I would think that much like how different types of people from different regions have differing athletic capabilities, there would als…

>but if I remember correctly I believe that Ashkenazi Jews constitute 3% of the population yet have won 27% of the Nobel prizes in science. Can we get a citation on this?

Page 3 of Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence: "During the 20th century, they made up about 3% of the US population but won 27% of the US Nobel science prizes and 25% of the ACM Turing awards. They account for more than half of world chess champions."

http://harpending.humanevo.utah.edu/Documents/ashkiq.webpub....

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#16

Post by Xcelerate »

praptak wrote: post #14
Xcelerate wrote: post #11

I didn't read the entire paper, but to someone who did, how much of a link is there between genetics and IQ? I know this isn't a popular subject, but if I remember correctly I believe that Ashkenazi Jews constitute 3% of the population yet have won 27% of the Nobel prizes in science. I would think that much like how different types of people from different regions have differing athletic capabilities, there would als…

Both scientific and athletic achievements have an alternative explanation: culture. If there was a good sample of adopted children from a group with such achievements, one could examine these hypotheses in more detail.

Right, but my question is for only the genetic effects (even with adopted children of different cultures there will be other differences that are not genetic). It would be difficult to determine, but there are enough statistical techniques that one could get a good idea. Surely different races can't have identical distributions of various "skills" -- the only question is how much they are offset from each other.

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#17

Post by scott_s »

kenjackson wrote: post #9
mistercow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is actually more subtle than that though. What they're saying is that holding social class constant , genetic difference is more important for the wealthy than the poor. For example, kid A and kid B are both wealthy and have significant genetic differences related to factors affecting intelligence. In this case kid A and kid B are likely to have significantly different intelligence from each other. Converse…

Right. The implication, in my mind at least, is that fighting poverty should be one of the key goals of society. Being in poverty effectively hides gifts as poverty will dominate "natural" ability.

Perhaps related, "Preschool: The Best Job-Training Program": http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/12/139583385/preschoo...

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#18

Post by jessriedel »

praptak wrote: post #14
Xcelerate wrote: post #11

I didn't read the entire paper, but to someone who did, how much of a link is there between genetics and IQ? I know this isn't a popular subject, but if I remember correctly I believe that Ashkenazi Jews constitute 3% of the population yet have won 27% of the Nobel prizes in science. I would think that much like how different types of people from different regions have differing athletic capabilities, there would als…

Both scientific and athletic achievements have an alternative explanation: culture. If there was a good sample of adopted children from a group with such achievements, one could examine these hypotheses in more detail.

These kind of studies have been done, and it is my recollection that genetics still appear to have a significant impact. Of course, people can still argue that various sociological effects can explain most of this, like lowered expectations for certain races, etc.

Would love to see some cites.

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#19

Post by tokenadult »

scott_s wrote: post #10
tokenadult wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scott, that is a correct point, but that important warning works both ways in many controversies about scientific findings on issues that people think they know about from personal experience. Human intelligence research, when discussed among laymen, is particularly an area in which people make strong claims on the basis of "it's obvious that" or "everyone knows" when the strong claims are neither obvious nor things…

A mental test, perhaps, to determine if something truly is "obvious": if the fact is reversed, and you can come up with a reasonable sounding explanation for the reverse, then the original fact is not obvious. In other words, only consider something obvious if you could not explain the opposite.

A mental test, perhaps, to determine if something truly is "obvious": if the fact is reversed, and you can come up with a reasonable sounding explanation for the reverse, then the original fact is not obvious.

This experiment has been tried, by a scientist who presented the exact opposite of various findings to undergraduates, who were readily able to invent rationales for the counterfactual statements, as reported in "A Sociologist’s Apology" (as posted on the website for the book Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer).

http://everythingisobvious.com/wp-content/themes/eio/assets/...

Re: The Latest On Intelligence

#20

Post by bluekeybox »

scott_s wrote: post #4
Symmetry wrote: post #2

"The extent to which genes matter to intelligence varies by social class (genetic inheritance matters more if you're wealthy, less if you're poor)." It's always seemed obvious to me that this ought to be true - that is that environment will matter more if you have greater differences in environment. In the extreme case if you feed kid A and don't feed kid B, then kid A will end up with an infinitely greater IQ than k…

Be careful about coming up with an explanation for a result, and then thinking it is obvious : http://lesswrong.com/lw/im/hindsight_devalues_science/

Very interesting point, but I'd argue it has different implications to different fields of study. In physics, for example, if ten years from now it turned out that the existence of Higgs boson, in hindsight, was an "obvious" part of a wonderfully intuitive theory, most physicists would be elated and consider it a proof of the strength of their theory. Arguably a different story in social science.
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