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Well adoption studies show that environment doesn't matter much to IQ. Kids raised in the poorest families didn't have higher IQs than kids raised in the riches

Well adoption studies show that environment doesn't matter much to IQ. Kids raised in the poorest families didn't have higher IQs than kids raised in the richest families (http://sci-hub.la/10.1007/s10519-007-9142-7 http://sci-hub.la/10.1007/s10519-007-9142-7). Adopted siblings have little correlation in IQ (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21807642 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21807642). And intervention programs to increase IQ in disadvantaged populations always fail (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028961500135X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028961...). Lung cancer is one of the biggest correlation found here. And smoking is pretty genetic (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15971021 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15971021). Other things might be affected by diet and BMI, but that's also highly genetic. This study also controlled for socioeconomic status.

fao_ 9y ago
> Well adoption studies show that environment doesn't matter much to IQ. Really? I remember a few adoption study where they found the opposite: They measured the IQs of genetically identical twins that were adopted into different families, and found that family environment mattered a hell of a lot. I can't find the study that I remember, but here are some adjacent studies that have done similar things with similar results: http://sciencenordic.com/adopted-children-have-higher-iqs-their-non-adopted-siblings http://sciencenordic.com/adopted-children-have-higher-iqs-th... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6872626 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6872626 http://www.pnas.org/content/112/15/4612 http://www.pnas.org/content/112/15/4612
- Houshalter 9y ago
  That's interesting. I don't think half siblings should be considered a representative random sample though. It may simply be that babies adopted away were more likely to be from low IQ fathers. The ncbi link seems to support my hypothesis, maybe I'm missing something.
- kiliantics 9y ago
  Yes, there are publications with support both ways. IQ is basically meaningless and it pains me to see it constantly brought up here.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    People who need to believe in some Randian meritocracy require cheap and easy metrics to convince themselves and sort people. If you can’t feel confident in your ability to discriminate, then you might have to question the foundations of your ideology, which is painful for many.
    - s_m_t 9y ago
      How could there possibly not be a thing like general intelligence?
      - IntronExon 9y ago
        Please don’t put words in my mouth. I’m skeptical of our ability to accurately define intelligence, never mind accurately measure it (especially with a one-size-fits-all test), but I don’t doubt its existence. Although some people do make me wonder...
    - Houshalter 9y ago
      I just love the armchair experts who come out of the woodwork whenever this topic comes up. I'm sure you can accurately psychoanalyze the hidden motives. Of a subject you haven't even read the wikipedia page on.
- TangoTrotFox 9y ago
  Your middle link there refers to the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study [1]. That brief seems to assume the reader is familiar with the studies as otherwise it would be very easy to misunderstand what they're saying - which is not what you're saying. Their study was a large undertaking studying the differences in black/interracial/white children who were all adopted by wealthy white families in Minnesota. It found that at age 7 the difference in IQ between a adopted white child and adopted black child was 20.1 points. At age 17 this changed to 17.8 points. The difference for a half black child and a white child was 6.1 at age 7, and 8.3 at age 17. The goal of the study was to show the opposite of what it ended up showing. Consequently many individuals, including the authors of the study themselves, have tried to argue that this is not evidence of a genetic link to IQ. Arguments against it have run the gamut from environmental factors from before the children were adopted (which was at less than 1 years old in all cases) to skin color causing environmental effects. These are certainly contributing factors, however they would undermine any and all results of the study - which is indicative of an after-the-fact effort to undermine their own results. In either case, that result certainly showed nothing like "family environment mattered a hell of alot." The misunderstanding here probably comes from one questionably phrased sentence in that abstract, "Black and interracial children scored as well on IQ tests as adoptees in other studies." That is more clearly read as "Black and interracial children scored as well on IQ tests as black and interracial adoptees in other studies." In other words, they're comparing differences between 'same group' individuals and trying to see what determines the variance there. And they found that at a young age this is frequently related to environmental factors, whereas at older age genetics becomes dominant even among 'same 'group individuals. In the abstract's rather kinder phrasing, "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.".
  - TangoTrotFox 9y ago
    I seem to be unable to edit my post. The link was to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption_Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption... The study itself is paywalled. And given the decades of controversy it sparked, the Wiki entry is quite expansive.
zzzzzzzza 9y ago
your first link is broken
- Houshalter 9y ago
  Science may be blocked in your country.
Amygaz 9y ago
I think you should update your reference baseline. Start with looking for papers who cite those papers, see what they think and what they found. For one, with recent advances in genomics, we now realise that conclusions from twin studies in general aren't aging so well. And all the above don't really do genetics, they used seemingly close-knitted cohorts. In themselves I find all the papers you pointed dubious at best, and more likely garbage. The experimental setups in all of these were rather weak to start with, and did not allow to discriminate between causation and correlation, and the authors all achieved/generalized conclusions that were not supported by their own data. Our societies fascination and obstination with deriving things from IQ is, well, fascinating... No of these start with asking a question to understand a tractable and useful problem. They're all a my "d!ck is bigger than your d!ck" kind of ranking problem.
- Houshalter 9y ago
  This are quite unspecific criticisms. IQ is very well researched and widely supported, as are twin studies.

fao_ 9y ago

> Well adoption studies show that environment doesn't matter much to IQ. Really? I remember a few adoption study where they found the opposite: They measured the IQs of genetically identical twins that were adopted into different families, and found that family environment mattered a hell of a lot. I can't find the study that I remember, but here are some adjacent studies that have done similar things with similar results: http://sciencenordic.com/adopted-children-have-higher-iqs-their-non-adopted-siblings http://sciencenordic.com/adopted-children-have-higher-iqs-th... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6872626 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6872626 http://www.pnas.org/content/112/15/4612 http://www.pnas.org/content/112/15/4612

Houshalter 9y ago
That's interesting. I don't think half siblings should be considered a representative random sample though. It may simply be that babies adopted away were more likely to be from low IQ fathers. The ncbi link seems to support my hypothesis, maybe I'm missing something.
kiliantics 9y ago
Yes, there are publications with support both ways. IQ is basically meaningless and it pains me to see it constantly brought up here.
- IntronExon 9y ago
  People who need to believe in some Randian meritocracy require cheap and easy metrics to convince themselves and sort people. If you can’t feel confident in your ability to discriminate, then you might have to question the foundations of your ideology, which is painful for many.
  - s_m_t 9y ago
    How could there possibly not be a thing like general intelligence?
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      Please don’t put words in my mouth. I’m skeptical of our ability to accurately define intelligence, never mind accurately measure it (especially with a one-size-fits-all test), but I don’t doubt its existence. Although some people do make me wonder...
  - Houshalter 9y ago
    I just love the armchair experts who come out of the woodwork whenever this topic comes up. I'm sure you can accurately psychoanalyze the hidden motives. Of a subject you haven't even read the wikipedia page on.
TangoTrotFox 9y ago
Your middle link there refers to the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study [1]. That brief seems to assume the reader is familiar with the studies as otherwise it would be very easy to misunderstand what they're saying - which is not what you're saying. Their study was a large undertaking studying the differences in black/interracial/white children who were all adopted by wealthy white families in Minnesota. It found that at age 7 the difference in IQ between a adopted white child and adopted black child was 20.1 points. At age 17 this changed to 17.8 points. The difference for a half black child and a white child was 6.1 at age 7, and 8.3 at age 17. The goal of the study was to show the opposite of what it ended up showing. Consequently many individuals, including the authors of the study themselves, have tried to argue that this is not evidence of a genetic link to IQ. Arguments against it have run the gamut from environmental factors from before the children were adopted (which was at less than 1 years old in all cases) to skin color causing environmental effects. These are certainly contributing factors, however they would undermine any and all results of the study - which is indicative of an after-the-fact effort to undermine their own results. In either case, that result certainly showed nothing like "family environment mattered a hell of alot." The misunderstanding here probably comes from one questionably phrased sentence in that abstract, "Black and interracial children scored as well on IQ tests as adoptees in other studies." That is more clearly read as "Black and interracial children scored as well on IQ tests as black and interracial adoptees in other studies." In other words, they're comparing differences between 'same group' individuals and trying to see what determines the variance there. And they found that at a young age this is frequently related to environmental factors, whereas at older age genetics becomes dominant even among 'same 'group individuals. In the abstract's rather kinder phrasing, "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.".
- TangoTrotFox 9y ago
  I seem to be unable to edit my post. The link was to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption_Study https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption... The study itself is paywalled. And given the decades of controversy it sparked, the Wiki entry is quite expansive.

zzzzzzzza 9y ago

your first link is broken

Houshalter 9y ago
Science may be blocked in your country.

Amygaz 9y ago

I think you should update your reference baseline. Start with looking for papers who cite those papers, see what they think and what they found. For one, with recent advances in genomics, we now realise that conclusions from twin studies in general aren't aging so well. And all the above don't really do genetics, they used seemingly close-knitted cohorts. In themselves I find all the papers you pointed dubious at best, and more likely garbage. The experimental setups in all of these were rather weak to start with, and did not allow to discriminate between causation and correlation, and the authors all achieved/generalized conclusions that were not supported by their own data. Our societies fascination and obstination with deriving things from IQ is, well, fascinating... No of these start with asking a question to understand a tractable and useful problem. They're all a my "d!ck is bigger than your d!ck" kind of ranking problem.

Houshalter 9y ago
This are quite unspecific criticisms. IQ is very well researched and widely supported, as are twin studies.