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The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success

nytimes.com

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Re: The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success

#61

Post by asianthrowaway »

openasocket wrote: post #38
asianthrowaway wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetical situation: if there was devised a cheap and easy to administer "genetic IQ test", would you oppose an NGO whose mission statement would be to administer this test to low income inner city kids, and offer scholarships or vouchers to good schools to those exhibiting the highest "genetic IQ"?

I reject the premise: I don't think it is possible to predict intelligence accurately from DNA. While some degree of intelligence is heritable, perhaps even a substantial degree, environmental factors still play a big role in intelligence. A poor prenatal environment, malnutrition, toxins like lead, and disease all negatively impact intelligence, none of which you could measure or account for from just DNA. But let's…

I don't think you're very informed on the current state of IQ research (which is totally fine, not many people are, it's a very taboo subject). Perhaps you would gain from reading a bit on the subject (wikipedia has good articles on IQ). But I'll try to address your points.

>I reject the premise: I don't think it is possible to predict intelligence accurately from DNA. While some degree of intelligence is heritable, perhaps even a substantial degree, environmental factors still play a big role in intelligence. A poor prenatal environment, malnutrition, toxins like lead, and disease all negatively impact intelligence, none of which you could measure or account for from just DNA

That's true, but the degree of heritability here is important. If intelligence was 10 percent heritable, then I would agree that trying to predict intelligence from DNA would be an absurd endeavor since most of the variance in intelligence would be caused by environmental factors.

But in fact, most recent studies converge towards the fact that IQ is 80 percent heritable. This leaves a lot of wiggle room for the 20 percent of environmental factors to either increase or decrease this genetic component, but I think you really overestimate the effect of environmental factors. Intelligence is predominantly determined by genes, with the environment having mild influences. In the USA they are especially mild since most children thankfully do not grow up starving or suffering from tropical parasites.

>Then I would say to allocate the money to provide the best net increase in intelligence

You can't influence intelligence through education. Study after study has shown that effect of education on adult IQ is exactly zero. The point would not be to increase a kid's intelligence, but rather to identify kids with potential and transfer them to an environment where they could flourish.

>Though I think you'll find that, if the goal is improving the intelligence of the average population, putting funds into prenatal care and lead abatement programs will probably have the same impact for a lot less money than college scholarships.

Oh definitely, my hypothetical scenario would not increase the average intelligence in the least, that was not the point of it. I agree that prenatal care and policies for a clean environment would probably raise the general intelligence.

Re: The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success

#62

Post by pdonis »

tynpeddler wrote: post #31
vtange wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That line is taken out of context a lot - the Declaration of Independence does not try to assert that all humans are equal in ability, its main focus was to state that all humans have equal rights to their life, liberty and freedom to pursue happiness. That means that even if a human is weaker, or even disabled, he or she still has equal rights to a human who is in good health.

Yes and no. Classical liberalism uses the assumed equality of all people to argue that the people are capable of and ought to engage in self rule. If by some miracle of science we can prove that this presumed equality is mostly false, then you can begin to attack the fundamental justification for self rule. There is a lot of complexity here (for example, what does it even mean for for a disabled person to have an equ…

> Classical liberalism uses the assumed equality of all people to argue that the people are capable of and ought to engage in self rule.

"Equality" in the sense of equal rights, yes. Not in the sense of equal capabilities. Classical liberalism, as exemplified in documents like the Declaration of Independence, was based on the idea that, even though people have differences in ability, those differences do not give any person a right to rule over any other person. That's where the justification for "self rule" comes from.

Since this reasoning already recognizes that people have differences in ability, "science" showing that people have differences in ability (did we really need "science" to tell us this? isn't it obvious?) does not invalidate the reasoning at all.

Re: The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success

#63

Post by robotrout »

When we constantly pound the table and shout that all people are all exactly the same, they often self-identify as oppressed victims, if they look around themselves and see others that are better off than they are.

This is a recipe for societal tension, although it is handy in politics.

Minorities and non-minorities alike, after having been assured that everybody is exactly the same, often feel that they have been cheated in some way. This is sadly often used by politicians to marshal them against their fellow citizens in the next election or referendum.

Re: The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success

#64

Post by coldtea »

asianthrowaway wrote: post #55
coldtea wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Who said those with the highest IQ should be educated with priority? If anything, those with lowest IQs could use quality education some more...

Low IQ people can only be educated to the extent of their abilities. If anything, they need specialized education which is more rote-learning based and slower than that of the general population. Maybe you think that education increases intelligence? Education increases intelligence about as much as playing basketball makes you taller.

You'd be surprised.

"A new meta-analysis blends the results of 28 studies that all took measures to mitigate this problem. Based on data from more than 600,000 participants, all told, psychologists Stuart Ritchie and Elliot Tucker-Drob have arrived at a rough estimate of how much an added year of education lifted participants’ IQ scores, on average: between 1 and 5 points."

"The new report does reaffirm the conclusion of psychologists that intelligence—despite being heavily influenced by genetics—is subject to change. The public may not yet be on the same page, according to Ritchie, despite previous research reviews in tune with his paper. “I think the idea that IQ is completely set in stone is still hanging around,” he says. “I think, in this case, we have some of the strongest evidence that it’s not.”"

Re: The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success

#66

Post by hirundo »

coldtea wrote: post #53
hirundo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just means that all people are equally worth, not to some utility function, but absolutely as human beings. In order to believe that worth can be determined independent of a utility function, you need a standard of absolute worth. Even religious statements of worth are based on utility to the deity. Biological statements of worth regard utility toward the population or ecosystem. I can't think of a non-utilitari…

> In order to believe that worth can be determined independent of a utility function, you need a standard of absolute worth Or you can just dispense with the notion of worth of a person as person altogether -- then you don't need to "determine" anything. That's what the "equal" part means in that sentence: don't try to determine". You can determine the skills of a surgeon, the education of a scholar, the speed of an…

> At least in (non-protestant) christianity people have absolute utility.

Christianity allocates some souls to hell and others to heaven. Isn't that an expression of differential utility to God's purpose?

> But you should not try to determine the worth of a person as person

I agree that should usually be the case before the law, and in that context we should generally pretend that all people are created equal. But for most other purposes it is valuable to determine individual fitness for that purpose. And there are few purposes for which that fitness is uniform.

Re: The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success

#67

Post by openasocket »

asianthrowaway wrote: post #61
openasocket wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reject the premise: I don't think it is possible to predict intelligence accurately from DNA. While some degree of intelligence is heritable, perhaps even a substantial degree, environmental factors still play a big role in intelligence. A poor prenatal environment, malnutrition, toxins like lead, and disease all negatively impact intelligence, none of which you could measure or account for from just DNA. But let's…

I don't think you're very informed on the current state of IQ research (which is totally fine, not many people are, it's a very taboo subject). Perhaps you would gain from reading a bit on the subject (wikipedia has good articles on IQ). But I'll try to address your points. >I reject the premise: I don't think it is possible to predict intelligence accurately from DNA. While some degree of intelligence is heritable,…

I am aware of the current state of IQ research, and I think you overstate some of the conclusions. The biggest is that heritability of IQ is 80%, but that does not mean that it is entirely the consequences of genetics. Parents raise their children, and thus affect their child's environment, both in the womb and early life. That can't be accounted for in DNA.

Re: The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success

#68

Post by dragonwriter »

asianthrowaway wrote: post #58
dragonwriter wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would you oppose an NGO whose mission statement would be to administer this test to low income inner city kids, and offer scholarships or vouchers to good schools to those exhibiting the highest "genetic IQ"? I'd think it was flawed even before any ethical considerations, since the environmental factors that the poor tend to be more exposed to that lead to downward deviations from genetic potential have had signifi…

> since the environmental factors that the poor tend to be more exposed to that lead to downward deviations from genetic potential have had significant impact before schooling starts (in many cases even in utero), It's true that adverse environmental conditions can lower IQ, but not whole standards of deviation. There are many people who grew up dirt poor and yet managed to achieve academically, which if intelligence…

> Which is exactly why a genetic test would be more accurate!

Accurate at...what?

They'd be less accurate at measuring IQ than actual IQ tests, and they'd be less accurate than IQ tests plus evaluating parental socioeconomic background at predicting academic performance.

Re: The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success

#69

Post by nabla9 »

asianthrowaway wrote: post #51
nabla9 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to misunderstand what heritable or even genetically heritable means. Consider just few hypothetical ways genes can increase g-factor: * Metabolic trait increases nutrition intake in high calorie low nutrition junk food environment. This leads to faster brain development. * Improved immune system against certain parasites that makes individual healthier and leads to statistically higher g-factor. Genes that…

Huh, what? Are you talking about the appearance of new genetic mutations? I think evolutionary timescales are a bit longer than a few generations. Anyway, I don't understand how this is supposed to explain what heritability is...

No. I was talking about existing genes interacting with rapidly changing environment.

Re: The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success

#70

Post by Avshalom »

searine wrote: post #32
nonbel wrote: post #27

Combining GWAS data with social science... sounds like a recipe for generating incorrect conclusions from noise to me. >"before the Human Genome Project had fully sequenced human DNA" The human genome is still not complete by any normal definition, they just redefined "complete" to mean "we did our best". It is like if someone turns in homework with only half the questions answered and argues they should get 100% sin…

>The human genome is still not complete by any normal definition Well considering that the human genome is a moving target, it can never be "complete". However, it can be 99.9% complete, which is all but complete for all scientific intents and purposes. The rest is just semantics.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/our-human-reference-...
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