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> Agenda driven science is bad science. You cannot solve social issues if you refuse to consider where the problems may actually come from. The problem is that

> Agenda driven science is bad science. You cannot solve social issues if you refuse to consider where the problems may actually come from. The problem is that genomics (and anything to do with heredity before it) has been and still is abused in the opposite way: people pretending it to be an inevitable predictor like the law of gravity is, while claiming to not have any social agenda until they have had a glass of wine or two and you start hearing absolutely disturbing things. I've worked for molecular neurobiologists working on brains - the vast majority of them are fine. They research schizophrenia and such that do have genes associated with them, but also get that a lot of the genetics are about incrasing risk factors, not determinism. But once you hit the sub-group that researches the heritability of IQ... well, let's just say that there is a very suspicious aspect to the self-selection bias in the people who decide to research that topic.

deogeo 7y ago
Yet most (western) countries immigration policy is set on the opposite assumption - that personality traits (of which IQ is only one) are not heritable. The caution and "well it's complicated" shouldn't run in only one direction.
- vanderZwan 7y ago
  > Yet most (western) countries immigration policy is set on the opposite assumption - that personality traits (of which IQ is only one) are not heritable. This is something often said by white people who never had to deal with the many issues around migrating to Western countries, even though we have the entire history of eugenics and "scientific" racism proving the opposite. > The caution and "well it's complicated" shouldn't run in only one direction. That would assume that there are two equally valid opposing views here, and yet there is nothing here to back that up. Science doesn't run on "both sides"-isms.
  - deogeo 7y ago
    > That would assume that there are two equally valid opposing views here, and yet there is nothing here to back that up. So why does the opening of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ say "Twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73% with the most recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80% and 86%."? Is the mountain of research on the heritability of psychological traits so obviously 'nothing', you don't even have to bother giving a source for your claim?
    - throwawaytkgll 7y ago
      Wikipedia isn't as authoritative a source as you think it is, especially for subjects like this that are heavily gatekeeped by people with an ax to grin (without necessarily having the actual credentials to back it up) And heritability doesn't mean what you think it does I'm choosing to believe you're arguing in good faith, so prepare to ingest a decent amount of material if you want to understand why: http://bactra.org/weblog/520.html http://bactra.org/weblog/520.html
      - fakegalitarian 7y ago
        I read your link: > Do I think there are currently any genetic variations which, holding environment fixed to within some reasonable norms for prosperous, democratic, industrial or post-industrial societies, would tend to lead to differences in IQ? There my answer is "yes, of course". > [If you put a gun to my head] Here, my honest answer would be that I presently have no evidence one way or the other. If you put a gun to my head and asked me to guess, and I couldn't tell what answer you wanted to hear, I'd say that my suspicion is that there are, mostly on the strength of analogy to other areas of biology where we know much more. Great. Did you know conscienciousness is heritable too?
shi314 7y ago
I thought anything you say under influence is not credible.

deogeo 7y ago

Yet most (western) countries immigration policy is set on the opposite assumption - that personality traits (of which IQ is only one) are not heritable. The caution and "well it's complicated" shouldn't run in only one direction.

vanderZwan 7y ago
> Yet most (western) countries immigration policy is set on the opposite assumption - that personality traits (of which IQ is only one) are not heritable. This is something often said by white people who never had to deal with the many issues around migrating to Western countries, even though we have the entire history of eugenics and "scientific" racism proving the opposite. > The caution and "well it's complicated" shouldn't run in only one direction. That would assume that there are two equally valid opposing views here, and yet there is nothing here to back that up. Science doesn't run on "both sides"-isms.
- deogeo 7y ago
  > That would assume that there are two equally valid opposing views here, and yet there is nothing here to back that up. So why does the opening of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ say "Twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73% with the most recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80% and 86%."? Is the mountain of research on the heritability of psychological traits so obviously 'nothing', you don't even have to bother giving a source for your claim?
  - throwawaytkgll 7y ago
    Wikipedia isn't as authoritative a source as you think it is, especially for subjects like this that are heavily gatekeeped by people with an ax to grin (without necessarily having the actual credentials to back it up) And heritability doesn't mean what you think it does I'm choosing to believe you're arguing in good faith, so prepare to ingest a decent amount of material if you want to understand why: http://bactra.org/weblog/520.html http://bactra.org/weblog/520.html
    - fakegalitarian 7y ago
      I read your link: > Do I think there are currently any genetic variations which, holding environment fixed to within some reasonable norms for prosperous, democratic, industrial or post-industrial societies, would tend to lead to differences in IQ? There my answer is "yes, of course". > [If you put a gun to my head] Here, my honest answer would be that I presently have no evidence one way or the other. If you put a gun to my head and asked me to guess, and I couldn't tell what answer you wanted to hear, I'd say that my suspicion is that there are, mostly on the strength of analogy to other areas of biology where we know much more. Great. Did you know conscienciousness is heritable too?

shi314 7y ago

I thought anything you say under influence is not credible.