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They are welcome to try. But it seems unlikely to work on China. If I was trying to maximize Chinese future influence I would do my best to support the unscient

They are welcome to try. But it seems unlikely to work on China. If I was trying to maximize Chinese future influence I would do my best to support the unscientific Lysenkoism of the mind that is so fashionable in the west and so completely out of fashion in China.

marmaduke 7y ago
> unscientific Lysenkoism of the mind that is so fashionable in the west I hadn't heard of this guy before, https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201401/the-lasting-lesson-lysenko https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-imprinted-brai... but I still don't understand the relevance
- ZhuanXia 7y ago
  The current fashion among the right-thinking in the west is to assume all characteristics are genetically heritable save for mental traits like intelligence, hand waving the twin studies which proved pretty conclusively that a huge portion of intelligence is genetically heritable. Darwin won the body, Lysenko the mind. Cognitive genomics is already heightening the contradictions of this view. Eventually it will collapse.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - lanstin 7y ago
    You understand that the difference in intelligence between humans and chimps could well be 100% genetic and the difference in intelligence between a poor town and a rich town could be 100% environmental, yeah?
    - ZhuanXia 7y ago
      That is a logical possibility, yes. Imagine a town with a tradition of hitting each other on the heads with baseball bats. In terms of differences in individuals, empirically 60%-80% appears to be genetic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ
      - dbt00 7y ago
        Or environmental lead exposure? Or a tradition of reading to children at a young age?
      - lanstin 7y ago
        But the individual is never the focus on these arguments. You refer to countries having higher intelligence. We have many towns where I live where education and smarts are mocked. The countries with higher intelligence revere education and ensure children are cared for. And the genetic component of the principal factor of taking intelligence tests as children could easily be weird traits like a slower rate of neuronal death during adolescence or not having a fear. Also most of the tests can't actually get a good number for individual variance due to the many subgroups with many related environmental factors. So you have a mathematical artifact of tests with poor experimental conditions getting .6 to .8 hereditabilty. And then you claim we can make a population that is multipme standard deviations away from the biological norms? It seems like a cool sci-fi stretch more not public policy ready. How do you explain the rise in IQ scores over time ? Better genetics?
        jlawson 7y ago
        ZhuanXia never refers to countries having higher intelligence, but to them gaining higher intelligence through engineering.
        lanstin 7y ago
        True. I guess my point is that intelligence being heritable in individuals does not directlt imply that we can now use genetic techniques to improve the average IQ. Inheritability is perfectly consistent with the group average (modulo the environme t) already being as high as possible. 'Too many people with eidetic memories and the group looses topological intuition. Too many Gauss level brains and we lose the ability to do carpentry or CSS.' Maybe not but the evidence needs to be shown. Extraordinary claims and all that.
        jlawson 7y ago
  - benjaminbrodie 7y ago
    He who collapses, must relax, for otherwise he's doomed to relapse.
  - marmaduke 7y ago
    The west is not just its right thinking. I find your generalizations quite hand wavy themselves
- lordgrenville 7y ago
  Opposition to the idea of genetic heritability - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

marmaduke 7y ago

> unscientific Lysenkoism of the mind that is so fashionable in the west I hadn't heard of this guy before, https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201401/the-lasting-lesson-lysenko https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-imprinted-brai... but I still don't understand the relevance

ZhuanXia 7y ago
The current fashion among the right-thinking in the west is to assume all characteristics are genetically heritable save for mental traits like intelligence, hand waving the twin studies which proved pretty conclusively that a huge portion of intelligence is genetically heritable. Darwin won the body, Lysenko the mind. Cognitive genomics is already heightening the contradictions of this view. Eventually it will collapse.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lanstin 7y ago
  You understand that the difference in intelligence between humans and chimps could well be 100% genetic and the difference in intelligence between a poor town and a rich town could be 100% environmental, yeah?
  - ZhuanXia 7y ago
    That is a logical possibility, yes. Imagine a town with a tradition of hitting each other on the heads with baseball bats. In terms of differences in individuals, empirically 60%-80% appears to be genetic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ
    - dbt00 7y ago
      Or environmental lead exposure? Or a tradition of reading to children at a young age?
    - lanstin 7y ago
      But the individual is never the focus on these arguments. You refer to countries having higher intelligence. We have many towns where I live where education and smarts are mocked. The countries with higher intelligence revere education and ensure children are cared for. And the genetic component of the principal factor of taking intelligence tests as children could easily be weird traits like a slower rate of neuronal death during adolescence or not having a fear. Also most of the tests can't actually get a good number for individual variance due to the many subgroups with many related environmental factors. So you have a mathematical artifact of tests with poor experimental conditions getting .6 to .8 hereditabilty. And then you claim we can make a population that is multipme standard deviations away from the biological norms? It seems like a cool sci-fi stretch more not public policy ready. How do you explain the rise in IQ scores over time ? Better genetics?
      - jlawson 7y ago
        ZhuanXia never refers to countries having higher intelligence, but to them gaining higher intelligence through engineering.
        lanstin 7y ago
        True. I guess my point is that intelligence being heritable in individuals does not directlt imply that we can now use genetic techniques to improve the average IQ. Inheritability is perfectly consistent with the group average (modulo the environme t) already being as high as possible. 'Too many people with eidetic memories and the group looses topological intuition. Too many Gauss level brains and we lose the ability to do carpentry or CSS.' Maybe not but the evidence needs to be shown. Extraordinary claims and all that.
        jlawson 7y ago
- benjaminbrodie 7y ago
  He who collapses, must relax, for otherwise he's doomed to relapse.
- marmaduke 7y ago
  The west is not just its right thinking. I find your generalizations quite hand wavy themselves
lordgrenville 7y ago
Opposition to the idea of genetic heritability - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism