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Well I hope this turns out to be true instead of another one of those sci pop headlines that never turns into anything (looking at you type 2 diabetes). It wou

• stormbrew 9y ago
  I'm sure segregating students based on a genetic test that tries to predict their intelligence wouldn't cause any kind of reinforcement of those trends at all or create disadvantages for those now branded dumb for their entire school career. Surely this could never happen.
  • Scaevolus 9y ago
    Why bother doing that when we already segregate students by more accurate IQ tests for gifted programs?
    • barry-cotter 9y ago
      Indeed. And the older the testees get the more stable the results are. Infant and early childhood tests are predictive but by 14 or so the results are basically the adult results
    • behindmyscreen 9y ago
      Was that meant with a tongue in cheek?
    • MagnumOpus 9y ago
      Selection of the smartest (also tallest, least disease-prone etc) embryo during IVF. A trillion dollar industry once it is accurate enough - in 15-20 years.
  • Cyberdog 9y ago
    Giving ammo to racists that already take delight in associating intelligence with race… prompting individual or institutional abortion of fetuses that don't appear they will be smart enough after birth… I, for one, hope that this story isn't true.
    • Ancalagon 9y ago
      Thank you. I don't understand the optimistic smell coming from HN regarding this story.
      • swebs 9y ago
        Denying science because it doesn't fit your preconceived notions? How is that any different than anti-vaxers or global warming deniers? I'm afraid that soon we'll have anti-genomers.
        • TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
          Because anti-vaxing is bullshit, but the science of heritability is vastly more subtle and complex. As is the psychology of intelligence. And the relationship between g and being a good developer. All of this is called doing science - because it's currently a work in progress - not denying it.
        • mattnewton 9y ago
          The definition of intelligence and how it should be interpreted is what’s being debated. There is a rich history of people making pseudo-scientific claims based on hereditary intelligence. It’s not clear how close this is from anti-vaxing and how close it is to anti-phrenology to me right now.
  • flukus 9y ago
    > create disadvantages for those now branded dumb for their entire school career We already do this too an extent, schools have "smart" classes and "dumb" classes, typically for things like math. The biggest problem is that they don't apply this until high school. Aside from any innate ability, kids have different learning speeds and letting them fall behind on a subject they don't understand while the rest of the class moves on does no good for anyone.
    • j4mes_w 9y ago
      It also doesn't help children that do understand what is being taught to have to repeat basic concepts multiple times for the benefit of children that are slower. Intelligence, physical ability, beauty are not distributed evenly about the population of humans. Pretending it is for the sake of feelings is foolish and short-sighted. If we could be adults about the facts and foster each individual's strengths and weaknesses without being cts to each other we would be much better off. Why is intelligence such a touchy subject??? Some people are short, some tall. Some fast, some slow. Some smart, some dumb. It doesn't make them any less human. And denying that certain identifiable groups have clusters of one or the other attribute around their genetics is equally unproductive. Obviously it isn't deterministic in EVERY individual but its a starting point. Give everyone a chance but please stop pretending that everyone is the same or capable of the same things. Human biodiversity is real
    • stormbrew 9y ago
      There is a huge huge difference between recognizing a student's need for a different learning style empirically and forcing them into a path based on a genetic test from kindergarten. I am absolutely not in favour of one size fits all education styles, but this is definitely not the answer.
• mattnewton 9y ago
  “Alpha children wear grey They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able…“
  • andrei_says_ 9y ago
    A class divided is a timeless classic. http://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-class-divided/ http://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-class-divided/ Race is one of the triggers for ignorance and hate, it is so visible. Once we make genetic makeup visible, it will change how we see each other.
  • antisthenes 9y ago
    Is it really so bad if it makes them happier? And if the society is happier in aggregate? I have friends like these, who, if they were to be shoehorned into doing highly abstract creative work, would be downright miserable and would eventually burn out. People look at BNW as some type of dystopia, but I felt like the novel handled it rather well in the sense than there is a place for outliers to be free as well, without coercion (Iceland). The people who thought they didn't fit in their 'caste' so to speak weren't forced to work at gunpoint.
    • mattnewton 9y ago
      The idea of being born into a caste chosen for you before birth and reinforced through biology absolutely horrifies me. The point of BNW was that there could be effective “coercion” based on molding our desires instead of stamping them out with fear and force. The gunpoint wasn’t necessary; your prison walls were built in your head by chemistry and psychological conditioning.
      • antisthenes 9y ago
        It sounds bad to you because you weren't conditioned. People are stuck in lower 'castes' even these days in the most progressive countries in the world. Where's the justice in that? You have thousands if not millions of intelligent people across the world having a bad stroke of luck and being born in a different country to the wrong parents. We all have our prison walls. To pretend that the biological walls are somehow more horrifying and cruel than sociological or economical is, in my opinion, lunacy.
• stale2002 9y ago
  Small differences in intelligence are overrated. Success in academics is almost entirely derived from motivation and the amount of work and interest that the student puts into it. ESPECIALLY at the elementary school level.
  • ohf 9y ago
    Almost all "ex-gifted" students will tell you this. People who accomplish a lot while trying very little are an anomaly.
• ohf 9y ago
  > It would really help a lot of people if we could segregate children as they enter the school system into more refined groups based on their needs rather than waiting for someone to select you for gifted programs like we do now. This makes me distinctively uncomfortable. Also, you've made the conclusion that relative intelligence, if even very accurate, implies specific, categorical needs. I'm very confused by this.
  • matte_black 9y ago
    Are you against the entire gifted program then? Because current methods leave out some kids who should be in it and probably sign on kids who shouldn’t. What is wrong with having a more foolproof and efficient way?
  • purple-again 9y ago
    Lots of people have seem to taken your similar reading and it wasn’t the intention. We have gifted programs right now. This would be no diffrent on that front. Where it would be diffrent is very young disadvantaged students that never made it into the gifted program because they didn’t get any attention when they were young will have a much harder time getting missed.
    • fjsolwmv 9y ago
      The gifted programs we have now are highly controversial for exactly the reasons debated in this thread.
• chrisabrams 9y ago
  My grades in AP classes were much better than my regular classes primarily because of who I was surrounded by. I would haven loathed your proposal.
• almostApatriot1 9y ago
  Absolutely. Top tier schools could also start accepting the most genetically superior applicants. Given two students with equal test scores, one might already be 'maxed out' due to environmental advantages. We can start screening for the most potential and get rid of AA while we're at it.
• OrganicMSG 9y ago
  Have you read up much on the education system of Finland? As this is more or less the opposite of their approach. They do not stream the education system and the quicker children are expected to help explain what they have learned to those still getting to grips with the material. Integrating this method within the lesson structure has the effect of raising the standard of both the slower and quicker kids, for fairly obvious reasons.
  • matte_black 9y ago
    How do they prevent slower children from slowing down the quicker ones?
    • barry-cotter 9y ago
      Not Finnish, working off memory of a comment on an old message board. They have many theoretically equal voluntary high school subjects and tests. More able students take many more, known harder ones. This allows self segregation, much like AP classes in the US will have few people with reading difficulties. No one particularly cares because if you want to go to a third level institution after high school you can.
    • OrganicMSG 9y ago
      Have you never had the experience of only really getting a deep understanding of something that you are learning, when you take the time to try and teach it to someone else?
      • matte_black 9y ago
        I’m talking about the experience where you are trying to learn but other kids are distracting you with hyperactive nonsense or disruptive behavior.
        • OrganicMSG 9y ago
          Streaming by ability wouldn't solve that. To illustrate why, I am reminded of a quote by Stephen Hawking; “The prevailing attitude at Oxford at that time was very anti-work. You were supposed to either be brilliant without effort or accept your limitations and get a fourth-class degree. To work hard to get a better class of degree was the mark of a ‘grey man’, the worst epithet in the Oxford vocabulary.” You could stream by behavioural attributes to achieve that if you wanted, but then you would have to accept that the classes would be very wide in ability, unless you stream by both behaviour and ability and then end up with a massive logistical nightmare.
• nsnick 9y ago
  I think this is inevitable. Private schools will absolutely use genetic information for admission if they can. You can outlaw it in state schools, but if the private schools do it, it won't matter what the state system does. You can outlaw the use of genetic information in hiring, but then all you have to do is list your primary school on your resume.