5 ms·

I think the study is controversial because there is huge bias in the way people are educated in these different countries. No human capability is likely to be

by js8 7y ago

I think the study is controversial because there is huge bias in the way people are educated in these different countries. No human capability is likely to be 100% genetic.

fastball 7y ago
I mean, some capabilities are going to be nearly 100% genetic -- see Kenyans and running. But my concern is that if there is a genetic component to intelligence at all, that is a problem. 40 IQ points less on average is no joke.
- squirrelicus 7y ago
  It's not just a problem, it's an incredibly tragic reality that we're not socially equipped to dispassionately discuss how we should respond to it
  - danenania 7y ago
    It’s only a problem due to obsession with the very narrow component of intelligence that IQ tests measure. If we didn’t place such an undeserved and inordinate emphasis on this single trait, it wouldn’t be an issue. High IQ may or may not correlate with success in our civilization, but considering that our civilization is highly dysfunctional and has positioned itself on the verge of numerous forms of self-destruction, how much does that really matter? There are clearly many more components than IQ-style intelligence that contribute to a good life and a stable society. Anyone who thinks that either a person’s or an ethnic group’s performance on an IQ test says anything about that person’s or group’s value to the world is an idiot regardless of what their IQ might be.
    - fastball 7y ago
      Things that are not important at an individual level can absolutely be important at a societal level.
    - squirrelicus 7y ago
      I agree with all the things you said. I have one commentary: The fundamental problem with racists and group identitarians in general is that the things you know about a group don't tell you anything about the individual. The promise of the West is supposed to be (and i argue still is, despite Twitter) that we judge individuals by the content of their own character and not by their group memberships.
    - papln 7y ago
      I've noticed that people who invest a lot of their ego into defending the primacy of IQ tend to low on non-IQ measures of talent/potential (such as "EQ" or physical abilities), even bending into logical contortions about how people who are high achievers despite supposedly low IQ (such as the MBA and Jock stereotypes that some engineers throw around) are somehow "cheating" at life.
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  > 40 IQ points less on average is no joke. Which is why it's almost certainly junk science. 40 points on a scale normalized around 100 is an absurdly large disparity to try and hang on genetics. Are there any heritable traits that show that kind of variation between human populations? Height is a pretty obvious one that ranges dramatically worldwide, but the gap is more like 13%, not 40%! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_human_height_worldwide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_human_height_w...
- paganel 7y ago
  I was among those who believed until not that long ago that there was something genetic about the Kenyan and Ethiopian racers, but a few years ago I started reading about more and more cases of Kenyan long-distance runners having been caught doping. And then two white American female runners won Olympic gold and silver in 2016 at the 3000m steeplechase (I think it was at the Olympics), a race dominated until then by Kenyan female runners. The second American runner even beat her personal best by 30 seconds or so, anyway, a crazy number, which only proves that she was doped out of her mind. Most probably her colleague who came in first place was also doped. Which goes to say that no matter which genetic advantage you might have at birth there’s nothing that the socio-economic factors cannot surpass. In this particular case the socio-economic factors were very much in favor of an American runner being allowed to win an Olympic Games race while being doped, and that happened because the US is a huge market for all the athletics/related producers and almost all of the Olympic Games sponsors.
  - papln 7y ago
    You example being about women runners weakens the argument. Top women are much slower than top men runners, so there are a lot of relatively obvious anatomical/physiological adjustment that could improve performanec beyond the current known best. This is an ongoing issue regarding the classification of transgendered and intersex athletes. With male runners, doping would stilll be a factor, but there is less headroom for manipulation. You can't dope someone into arbitrarily high performance, and if you could, other physical characteristics wouldn't matter at all, which is clearly not the the case becasue we don't constantly see short, fat dopers popping up in elite contests.
    - paganel 7y ago
      > You example being about women runners weakens the argument. Don’t know if it’s anywhere on the Internet but I remember an East German trainer saying something along the lines of: “It’s much easier to make a man out of a woman than it is to make a Superman out of a man”, all this in relation to East-Germany’s official doping policy. So I’d rather trust a professional in this matter (the East-Germans were truly the masters of doping) when saying that it is indeed easier to artificially increase the performances of female athletes compared to male athletes. Not to end it all on a pessimistic note, there are also “happy” cases of naturally gifted athletes being at the right time and at the right place in terms of external socio-economic factors. The latest such example is the recent Tour de France winner, 22-year old Bernal, who won the Tour on its highest stage which I think reached 2700 meters, while he himself was born and grew up at 2800 meters of altitude. But he also won the Tour because he is a member of the infamous British team Ineos (the former Sky), which also gave the winner of last year’s Tour, Geraint Thomas, a guy born and bread in seaside Cardiff and who until last year’s victory had never had a Top 10 finish in any of the big 3 tours. He’s 32 now, if I’m not mistaken, cyclists much greater than him (like Pantani or Ulrich) were basically lynched by the public opinion for doing less egregious stuff (they at least were talented at climbing).
- timerol 7y ago
  > nearly 100% genetic -- see Kenyans and running Kenyans/Ethiopians have held the world record in the marathon since 2003. An Ethiopian also held it for a few months in 1998, and most of a year in 1964. Were Kenyans not genetically dominant until 20 years ago? Or are there other factors that caused the rise of a large number of elite runners from a particular area of the world? Running is one area where it is mindbogglingly obvious that there are significant genetic factors involved, yet there are clear and significant changes in running ability by country of origin for reasons that have nothing to do with genetics. 40 IQ points less on average is no joke, but also doesn't point the finger at genetics any more than it does at culture or primary education.
  - papln 7y ago
    https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a20814362/50-years-ago-kenya-established-its-distance-running-dominance/ https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a20814362/50-years-ago-ken... "50 Years Ago, Kenya Established Its Distance Running Dominance The African country became a medal-winning power at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in August 1966, and hasn’t looked back." Obviously (1) getting invited to the event and (2) learning the rules of a particular event are major selection factors when drawing conclusions from event results.
    - foldr 7y ago
      The dominance of Kenyan athletes in these events is probably mostly due to altitude rather than genes. There's certainly no direct evidence of any significant genetic component, whereas we know that growing up at higher altitudes confers certain advantages.
      - EForEndeavour 7y ago
        It's both. High-altitude populations do show genetic adaptations. There is in fact plenty of evidence of genetic adaptation to altitude. If you grew up at high altitude and are not of Kenyan/Ethiopian descent, you'd be pretty well-adapted, but not as well on average. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_adaptation_in_humans#Ethiopians_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_adaptation_in_hu...
- mcguire 7y ago
  "40 IQ points less on average is no joke." This is such a brilliant quote that I have to bring it in again: "Another item that ought to prompt the thoughtful reader to question the very large discrepancy in intelligence that the authors assert to exist between various human sub-populations is the extraordinarily low average IQs assigned to many African nations. For example, the authors claim that the mean IQ in Equitorial Guinea is only 59, well shy of the threshold score of 70 below which the testee is classified as mentally retarded. Anyone who has spent significant time with an American or a European whose IQ is that low (as I did for a year while assisting in a special education program) can attest that such an individual is not capable of independently managing his own life, and will require constant caretaking to get on in the world." [Edit: https://mises.org/library/does-iq-determine-wealth-nations https://mises.org/library/does-iq-determine-wealth-nations And it's the Mises Institute.] Giving "IQ points" any meaning at all, 40 of them is an obvious difference. As in, big enough that this shouldn't be an issue.
  - papln 7y ago
    I don't for a second belief that the mean IQ in Equitorial Guinea is only 59, but it's certainly possible to have a society where half the people have a reasonably functional level of intelligence, but due to some debilitating recessive genetic disorder have a huge population of disabled individual who are cared for by the unaffected part of the population and who even supported in their moral right to mate and produce children -- perhaps even exploited as manual laborers.
- tfha 7y ago
  Are you completely sure there isn't some culture reason they are so good at running? There are so many variables at play beyond our modern understanding. It's just a topic we really don't have a good grasp of, as is the case with most of medicine. We understand a lot of strategies, but our understandings of root causes is still very poor.
squirrelicus 7y ago
That's part of the problem. IQ does predict educational achievement, but education has very little effect on IQ. For example, early intervention education has a temporary effect on children that disappears as they age. In other words, IQ does not measure how educated one is.
- matthewdgreen 7y ago
  And yet directly practicing for an IQ test can improve test scores significantly. And simultaneously, some large-scale IQ measurement papers seem to use "proxies" -- things like standardized tests that are the sort of thing that educational curricula tend to include practice for. So I'm not sure how completely I can accept this claim.
  - Chathamization 7y ago
    Also, a county closing all schools for several years lead to significant drops in IQ scores[1]. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2294274?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/2294274?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con...
  - papln 7y ago
    IQ tests scores are on the same as IQ, which puts a hge asterisk on every test score. It's an unfortunate cloudiness of using maps for territories. This phenomenan is especially notable nowadays where wealthy parents canb buy a diagnosis to givetheir children extra time on IQ tests. And then of course ADHD drugs and other stimulants raise the question of what it means for a person to "have" an IQ, if that IQ (and/or test score) is influenced by doping. Stimulants and the brain question our notion of what is an "individual", much as the bacteria in our gut do. The idea of an "individual" is a very synthetic Western mathematical concept that does not have a strong basis in the science of the natural world. https://www.sciencealert.com/this-tree-stump-is-mysteriously-being-kept-alive-with-a-little-help-from-its-friends https://www.sciencealert.com/this-tree-stump-is-mysteriously... "Scientists Find Weird, Zombie-Like Tree Being Kept Alive by a Forest 'Superorganism'"
- skybrian 7y ago

by js8 7y ago

I think the study is controversial because there is huge bias in the way people are educated in these different countries. No human capability is likely to be 100% genetic.

fastball 7y ago

I mean, some capabilities are going to be nearly 100% genetic -- see Kenyans and running. But my concern is that if there is a genetic component to intelligence at all, that is a problem. 40 IQ points less on average is no joke.

squirrelicus 7y ago
It's not just a problem, it's an incredibly tragic reality that we're not socially equipped to dispassionately discuss how we should respond to it
- danenania 7y ago
  It’s only a problem due to obsession with the very narrow component of intelligence that IQ tests measure. If we didn’t place such an undeserved and inordinate emphasis on this single trait, it wouldn’t be an issue. High IQ may or may not correlate with success in our civilization, but considering that our civilization is highly dysfunctional and has positioned itself on the verge of numerous forms of self-destruction, how much does that really matter? There are clearly many more components than IQ-style intelligence that contribute to a good life and a stable society. Anyone who thinks that either a person’s or an ethnic group’s performance on an IQ test says anything about that person’s or group’s value to the world is an idiot regardless of what their IQ might be.
  - fastball 7y ago
    Things that are not important at an individual level can absolutely be important at a societal level.
  - squirrelicus 7y ago
    I agree with all the things you said. I have one commentary: The fundamental problem with racists and group identitarians in general is that the things you know about a group don't tell you anything about the individual. The promise of the West is supposed to be (and i argue still is, despite Twitter) that we judge individuals by the content of their own character and not by their group memberships.
  - papln 7y ago
    I've noticed that people who invest a lot of their ego into defending the primacy of IQ tend to low on non-IQ measures of talent/potential (such as "EQ" or physical abilities), even bending into logical contortions about how people who are high achievers despite supposedly low IQ (such as the MBA and Jock stereotypes that some engineers throw around) are somehow "cheating" at life.
ForHackernews 7y ago
> 40 IQ points less on average is no joke. Which is why it's almost certainly junk science. 40 points on a scale normalized around 100 is an absurdly large disparity to try and hang on genetics. Are there any heritable traits that show that kind of variation between human populations? Height is a pretty obvious one that ranges dramatically worldwide, but the gap is more like 13%, not 40%! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_human_height_worldwide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_average_human_height_w...
paganel 7y ago
I was among those who believed until not that long ago that there was something genetic about the Kenyan and Ethiopian racers, but a few years ago I started reading about more and more cases of Kenyan long-distance runners having been caught doping. And then two white American female runners won Olympic gold and silver in 2016 at the 3000m steeplechase (I think it was at the Olympics), a race dominated until then by Kenyan female runners. The second American runner even beat her personal best by 30 seconds or so, anyway, a crazy number, which only proves that she was doped out of her mind. Most probably her colleague who came in first place was also doped. Which goes to say that no matter which genetic advantage you might have at birth there’s nothing that the socio-economic factors cannot surpass. In this particular case the socio-economic factors were very much in favor of an American runner being allowed to win an Olympic Games race while being doped, and that happened because the US is a huge market for all the athletics/related producers and almost all of the Olympic Games sponsors.
- papln 7y ago
  You example being about women runners weakens the argument. Top women are much slower than top men runners, so there are a lot of relatively obvious anatomical/physiological adjustment that could improve performanec beyond the current known best. This is an ongoing issue regarding the classification of transgendered and intersex athletes. With male runners, doping would stilll be a factor, but there is less headroom for manipulation. You can't dope someone into arbitrarily high performance, and if you could, other physical characteristics wouldn't matter at all, which is clearly not the the case becasue we don't constantly see short, fat dopers popping up in elite contests.
  - paganel 7y ago
    > You example being about women runners weakens the argument. Don’t know if it’s anywhere on the Internet but I remember an East German trainer saying something along the lines of: “It’s much easier to make a man out of a woman than it is to make a Superman out of a man”, all this in relation to East-Germany’s official doping policy. So I’d rather trust a professional in this matter (the East-Germans were truly the masters of doping) when saying that it is indeed easier to artificially increase the performances of female athletes compared to male athletes. Not to end it all on a pessimistic note, there are also “happy” cases of naturally gifted athletes being at the right time and at the right place in terms of external socio-economic factors. The latest such example is the recent Tour de France winner, 22-year old Bernal, who won the Tour on its highest stage which I think reached 2700 meters, while he himself was born and grew up at 2800 meters of altitude. But he also won the Tour because he is a member of the infamous British team Ineos (the former Sky), which also gave the winner of last year’s Tour, Geraint Thomas, a guy born and bread in seaside Cardiff and who until last year’s victory had never had a Top 10 finish in any of the big 3 tours. He’s 32 now, if I’m not mistaken, cyclists much greater than him (like Pantani or Ulrich) were basically lynched by the public opinion for doing less egregious stuff (they at least were talented at climbing).
timerol 7y ago
> nearly 100% genetic -- see Kenyans and running Kenyans/Ethiopians have held the world record in the marathon since 2003. An Ethiopian also held it for a few months in 1998, and most of a year in 1964. Were Kenyans not genetically dominant until 20 years ago? Or are there other factors that caused the rise of a large number of elite runners from a particular area of the world? Running is one area where it is mindbogglingly obvious that there are significant genetic factors involved, yet there are clear and significant changes in running ability by country of origin for reasons that have nothing to do with genetics. 40 IQ points less on average is no joke, but also doesn't point the finger at genetics any more than it does at culture or primary education.
- papln 7y ago
  https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a20814362/50-years-ago-kenya-established-its-distance-running-dominance/ https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a20814362/50-years-ago-ken... "50 Years Ago, Kenya Established Its Distance Running Dominance The African country became a medal-winning power at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in August 1966, and hasn’t looked back." Obviously (1) getting invited to the event and (2) learning the rules of a particular event are major selection factors when drawing conclusions from event results.
  - foldr 7y ago
    The dominance of Kenyan athletes in these events is probably mostly due to altitude rather than genes. There's certainly no direct evidence of any significant genetic component, whereas we know that growing up at higher altitudes confers certain advantages.
    - EForEndeavour 7y ago
      It's both. High-altitude populations do show genetic adaptations. There is in fact plenty of evidence of genetic adaptation to altitude. If you grew up at high altitude and are not of Kenyan/Ethiopian descent, you'd be pretty well-adapted, but not as well on average. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_adaptation_in_humans#Ethiopians_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_adaptation_in_hu...
mcguire 7y ago
"40 IQ points less on average is no joke." This is such a brilliant quote that I have to bring it in again: "Another item that ought to prompt the thoughtful reader to question the very large discrepancy in intelligence that the authors assert to exist between various human sub-populations is the extraordinarily low average IQs assigned to many African nations. For example, the authors claim that the mean IQ in Equitorial Guinea is only 59, well shy of the threshold score of 70 below which the testee is classified as mentally retarded. Anyone who has spent significant time with an American or a European whose IQ is that low (as I did for a year while assisting in a special education program) can attest that such an individual is not capable of independently managing his own life, and will require constant caretaking to get on in the world." [Edit: https://mises.org/library/does-iq-determine-wealth-nations https://mises.org/library/does-iq-determine-wealth-nations And it's the Mises Institute.] Giving "IQ points" any meaning at all, 40 of them is an obvious difference. As in, big enough that this shouldn't be an issue.
- papln 7y ago
  I don't for a second belief that the mean IQ in Equitorial Guinea is only 59, but it's certainly possible to have a society where half the people have a reasonably functional level of intelligence, but due to some debilitating recessive genetic disorder have a huge population of disabled individual who are cared for by the unaffected part of the population and who even supported in their moral right to mate and produce children -- perhaps even exploited as manual laborers.
tfha 7y ago
Are you completely sure there isn't some culture reason they are so good at running? There are so many variables at play beyond our modern understanding. It's just a topic we really don't have a good grasp of, as is the case with most of medicine. We understand a lot of strategies, but our understandings of root causes is still very poor.

squirrelicus 7y ago

That's part of the problem. IQ does predict educational achievement, but education has very little effect on IQ. For example, early intervention education has a temporary effect on children that disappears as they age. In other words, IQ does not measure how educated one is.

matthewdgreen 7y ago
And yet directly practicing for an IQ test can improve test scores significantly. And simultaneously, some large-scale IQ measurement papers seem to use "proxies" -- things like standardized tests that are the sort of thing that educational curricula tend to include practice for. So I'm not sure how completely I can accept this claim.
- Chathamization 7y ago
  Also, a county closing all schools for several years lead to significant drops in IQ scores[1]. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2294274?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/2294274?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con...
- papln 7y ago
  IQ tests scores are on the same as IQ, which puts a hge asterisk on every test score. It's an unfortunate cloudiness of using maps for territories. This phenomenan is especially notable nowadays where wealthy parents canb buy a diagnosis to givetheir children extra time on IQ tests. And then of course ADHD drugs and other stimulants raise the question of what it means for a person to "have" an IQ, if that IQ (and/or test score) is influenced by doping. Stimulants and the brain question our notion of what is an "individual", much as the bacteria in our gut do. The idea of an "individual" is a very synthetic Western mathematical concept that does not have a strong basis in the science of the natural world. https://www.sciencealert.com/this-tree-stump-is-mysteriously-being-kept-alive-with-a-little-help-from-its-friends https://www.sciencealert.com/this-tree-stump-is-mysteriously... "Scientists Find Weird, Zombie-Like Tree Being Kept Alive by a Forest 'Superorganism'"
skybrian 7y ago