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We know IQ is heritable the same way we know height is heritable. People resemble their relatives more as their shared inheritance grows. BGI found no common g

We know IQ is heritable the same way we know height is heritable. People resemble their relatives more as their shared inheritance grows. BGI found no common genes of large effect. That means intelligence is more like height than skin colour. There are lots of genes that have a small effect. We know there are rare genes of large effect because Ashkenazim have at least two, the ones that lead to torsion dystonia and Tay-Sachs disease lead to greater IQ in heterozygotes. We know evolution in intelligence has not stopped because human populations differ in intellectual productivity to absurd degrees of that wasn’t true. Evolution requires heritability, variation and selection and all those clearly exist.

ramraj07 8y ago
>We know evolution in intelligence has not stopped because human populations differ in intellectual productivity to absurd degrees of that wasn’t true. Evolution requires heritability, variation and selection and all those clearly exist. Do you have any references to it? I'd like to learn more...
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  If you’re asking about the degree of difference Ashkrnazim have ~25% of science Nobel prizes having never been more than 1% of global population. That’s one group that’s highly over represented in intellectual achievement. For a more prosaic example look at the list of US spelling bee finalists or national science foundation merit scholarship finalists. There will be a great deal more Asian names than their share of the US population. As to evolution and its necessary precursors it’s all in Darwin, or shorter on the Wikipedia page for evolution.
  - ramraj07 8y ago
    I hope that's not all you had in mind when you wrote your comment. All of that shows no proof that it's the genetics that propels the disproportionate level of intellectual achievement. Both of those cases can easily be explained by sociocultural influences within families of various races propelling more intellectual endeavors, and if you don't have peer reviewed references showing otherwise it's probably a good idea to stop thinking that way.
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      Quite, and sociocultural influences are why long distance running is dominated by East Africans and to an even more absurd degree by the Kalenjin, an ethnic group of less than five million people who take more than a third of top three places in competitive marathon running worldwide. Sociocultural influences are also obviously why there have been at most two men not primarily of West African ancestry who ran 100m in under 10s, and almost 70 men of that ancestry who did. Sociocultural influences must also be why the Dutch are the tallest people in the world. They really, really want to be tall and that explains their height.
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      Torsion dystonia and IQ SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE IN RECESSIVELY INHERITED TORSION DYSTONIA https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673670918489 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067367... NATURAL HISTORY OF ASHKENAZI INTELLIGENCE GREGORY COCHRAN, JASON HARDY, HENRY HARPENDING http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/pdfs/ashkiq.webpub.pdf http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/pdfs/ashkiq.webpub.pdf >Ever since torsion dystonia among the Ashkenazim was first recognized, observers have commented on the unusual intelligence of patients. Flatau and Sterling (Eldridge, 1976) describe their first patient as showing ‘an intellectual development far exceeding his age’, and their second patient as showing ‘extraordinary mental development for his age’. At least ten other reports in the literature have made similar comments. Eldridge (1970, 1976) studied fourteen Jewish torison dystonia patients:

ramraj07 8y ago

>We know evolution in intelligence has not stopped because human populations differ in intellectual productivity to absurd degrees of that wasn’t true. Evolution requires heritability, variation and selection and all those clearly exist. Do you have any references to it? I'd like to learn more...

barry-cotter 8y ago
If you’re asking about the degree of difference Ashkrnazim have ~25% of science Nobel prizes having never been more than 1% of global population. That’s one group that’s highly over represented in intellectual achievement. For a more prosaic example look at the list of US spelling bee finalists or national science foundation merit scholarship finalists. There will be a great deal more Asian names than their share of the US population. As to evolution and its necessary precursors it’s all in Darwin, or shorter on the Wikipedia page for evolution.
- ramraj07 8y ago
  I hope that's not all you had in mind when you wrote your comment. All of that shows no proof that it's the genetics that propels the disproportionate level of intellectual achievement. Both of those cases can easily be explained by sociocultural influences within families of various races propelling more intellectual endeavors, and if you don't have peer reviewed references showing otherwise it's probably a good idea to stop thinking that way.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Quite, and sociocultural influences are why long distance running is dominated by East Africans and to an even more absurd degree by the Kalenjin, an ethnic group of less than five million people who take more than a third of top three places in competitive marathon running worldwide. Sociocultural influences are also obviously why there have been at most two men not primarily of West African ancestry who ran 100m in under 10s, and almost 70 men of that ancestry who did. Sociocultural influences must also be why the Dutch are the tallest people in the world. They really, really want to be tall and that explains their height.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Torsion dystonia and IQ SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE IN RECESSIVELY INHERITED TORSION DYSTONIA https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673670918489 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067367... NATURAL HISTORY OF ASHKENAZI INTELLIGENCE GREGORY COCHRAN, JASON HARDY, HENRY HARPENDING http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/pdfs/ashkiq.webpub.pdf http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/pdfs/ashkiq.webpub.pdf >Ever since torsion dystonia among the Ashkenazim was first recognized, observers have commented on the unusual intelligence of patients. Flatau and Sterling (Eldridge, 1976) describe their first patient as showing ‘an intellectual development far exceeding his age’, and their second patient as showing ‘extraordinary mental development for his age’. At least ten other reports in the literature have made similar comments. Eldridge (1970, 1976) studied fourteen Jewish torison dystonia patients: