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>They conclude that high IQ (>170) is mostly not caused by genetic variants. The abstract does not mention that; they claim: "This study shows the utility of

>They conclude that high IQ (>170) is mostly not caused by genetic variants. The abstract does not mention that; they claim: "This study shows the utility of extreme trait selection for genetic study of intelligence and suggests that extremely high intelligence is continuous genetically with normal-range intelligence in the population." I don't think anyone would seriously claim that high IQ is mostly not caused by genetic variants, given the prior knowledge of the heritability of IQ.

pcrh 7y ago
The full text is available here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5987166/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5987166/ In the conclusions section they state: >Focusing on the core 4-test g measure, we think that accounting for 1.6% of the variance of intelligence is exciting for several reasons. First, this effect size is greater than the effect sizes from previous GWA studies of the normal range of intelligence.45 The effect size of 1.6% represents >2.5% of the heritable variance of intelligence, which is comparable to the most robust effect sizes in behavioural research.46 That they are "excited" to account for at best 2.5% of high IQ through genetics suggests that genetics is not a large contributor to high intelligence. Previous studies demonstrating high heritability of IQ did not discriminate between genetic inheritance and social/cultural/environmental inheritance. Clearly, the latter are more significant contributors than is genetics.
- ZhuanXia 7y ago
  >That they are "excited" to account for at best 2.5% of high IQ through genetics suggests that genetics is not a large contributor to high intelligence. Bit of a stretch there mate; that doesn't follow at all.
  - pcrh 7y ago
    Well... Accounting for 2.5% of the intelligence variation through genetics does lead to the conclusion that 97.5% of high IQ is not accounted for by (known) genetic variation.
    - ericd 7y ago
      Doesn’t that just mean we don’t definitively know the vast majority of the causal factors? Which is not at all the same as saying we know it’s not genetically determined?
      - pcrh 7y ago
        Depends on the weight you assign to "just". At the current level of knowledge it would mean that genetics is not an important contributor to the differences in "intelligence" between individuals in the general population. What the important factors are is obviously an interesting question.
- alach11 7y ago
  > Previous studies demonstrating high heritability of IQ did not discriminate between genetic inheritance and social/cultural/environmental inheritance. This simply isn't true. Studies of twins not raised together provide evidence that IQ is more than 50% heritable. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/neu.10160 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/neu.10160
  - pcrh 7y ago
    Heritability is not only genetic, it includes a wide variety of social factors. Strict genetic heritability studies do not support a stong association of genetics with intelligence.
    - sbierwagen 7y ago
      I'm curious to hear what exactly you think "twins not raised together" means.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - lyssa17 7y ago
        The pre-natal environment is shared, and depending on the adoption process there could be a great deal of correlation in a range of environmental factors. It's not like these kids are grown in a vat and distributed randomly in the population is it?
- gwern 7y ago
  They're obviously wrong and engaged in puffery when they claim to be SOTA. Look at http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v20/n2/full/mp2014188a.html http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v20/n2/full/mp2014188a.html , for example - that was 3 years before and had a similar PGS of 1.2%. Or, if that's too obscure, look at the SSGAC EA2 / Okbay/Selzam et al 2016 (no excuse for not knowing that one), 2 years before, and more than double, at 3.5%.
  - pcrh 7y ago
    3.5% genetic association with intelligence means that 96.5% is not genetic. So your your citation does not support a strong link between genetics and intelligence?
    - gwern 7y ago
      > 3.5% genetic association with intelligence means that 96.5% is not genetic. No. It does not mean that. As I literally just explained to you: a specific PGS variance != SNP heritability != heritability. (How could you possibly think that when I also just explained to you in my other comment that the current IQ SOTA is 11% and you replied acknowledging as much?) The best estimate of intelligence heritability in adulthood at the peak, using measurement-error-corrected estimates, is 70-80%. Very far from 3.5%. Or 11%, or 30%, or 50% for that matter.
      - pcrh 7y ago
        "Heritability" includes non-genetic factors, and combined with genetic factors accounts for ~50% of variation in intelligence. For genetic factors alone, the consensus so far is that there is very weak correlation of genetic variation with intelligence, unless a not quite-yet-established polygenic score is constructed. To wit: >From the 1990s until 2017 no replicable associations were found. GPS from these early GWAS, which we refer to as ‘IQ1’, predicted only 1% of the variance of intelligence in independent samples. It became clear that the problem was power: the largest effect sizes of associations between individual single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and intelligence were extremely small, accounting for less than 0.05% of the variance of intelligence. However, things got "better": >in 2016, a second meta-analytic GWAS analysis with a sample size of 294,000 identified 74 significant loci30. This analysis produced a GPS, EA2, that predicted 3% of the variance in years of education on average in independent samples30. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5985927/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5985927/ It stretches the imagination how one would go from these numbers to claiming that "The best estimate of intelligence heritability in adulthood at the peak, using measurement-error-corrected estimates, is 70-80%.

pcrh 7y ago

The full text is available here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5987166/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5987166/ In the conclusions section they state: >Focusing on the core 4-test g measure, we think that accounting for 1.6% of the variance of intelligence is exciting for several reasons. First, this effect size is greater than the effect sizes from previous GWA studies of the normal range of intelligence.45 The effect size of 1.6% represents >2.5% of the heritable variance of intelligence, which is comparable to the most robust effect sizes in behavioural research.46 That they are "excited" to account for at best 2.5% of high IQ through genetics suggests that genetics is not a large contributor to high intelligence. Previous studies demonstrating high heritability of IQ did not discriminate between genetic inheritance and social/cultural/environmental inheritance. Clearly, the latter are more significant contributors than is genetics.

ZhuanXia 7y ago
>That they are "excited" to account for at best 2.5% of high IQ through genetics suggests that genetics is not a large contributor to high intelligence. Bit of a stretch there mate; that doesn't follow at all.
- pcrh 7y ago
  Well... Accounting for 2.5% of the intelligence variation through genetics does lead to the conclusion that 97.5% of high IQ is not accounted for by (known) genetic variation.
  - ericd 7y ago
    Doesn’t that just mean we don’t definitively know the vast majority of the causal factors? Which is not at all the same as saying we know it’s not genetically determined?
    - pcrh 7y ago
      Depends on the weight you assign to "just". At the current level of knowledge it would mean that genetics is not an important contributor to the differences in "intelligence" between individuals in the general population. What the important factors are is obviously an interesting question.
alach11 7y ago
> Previous studies demonstrating high heritability of IQ did not discriminate between genetic inheritance and social/cultural/environmental inheritance. This simply isn't true. Studies of twins not raised together provide evidence that IQ is more than 50% heritable. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/neu.10160 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/neu.10160
- pcrh 7y ago
  Heritability is not only genetic, it includes a wide variety of social factors. Strict genetic heritability studies do not support a stong association of genetics with intelligence.
  - sbierwagen 7y ago
    I'm curious to hear what exactly you think "twins not raised together" means.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - lyssa17 7y ago
      The pre-natal environment is shared, and depending on the adoption process there could be a great deal of correlation in a range of environmental factors. It's not like these kids are grown in a vat and distributed randomly in the population is it?
gwern 7y ago
They're obviously wrong and engaged in puffery when they claim to be SOTA. Look at http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v20/n2/full/mp2014188a.html http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v20/n2/full/mp2014188a.html , for example - that was 3 years before and had a similar PGS of 1.2%. Or, if that's too obscure, look at the SSGAC EA2 / Okbay/Selzam et al 2016 (no excuse for not knowing that one), 2 years before, and more than double, at 3.5%.
- pcrh 7y ago
  3.5% genetic association with intelligence means that 96.5% is not genetic. So your your citation does not support a strong link between genetics and intelligence?
  - gwern 7y ago
    > 3.5% genetic association with intelligence means that 96.5% is not genetic. No. It does not mean that. As I literally just explained to you: a specific PGS variance != SNP heritability != heritability. (How could you possibly think that when I also just explained to you in my other comment that the current IQ SOTA is 11% and you replied acknowledging as much?) The best estimate of intelligence heritability in adulthood at the peak, using measurement-error-corrected estimates, is 70-80%. Very far from 3.5%. Or 11%, or 30%, or 50% for that matter.
    - pcrh 7y ago
      "Heritability" includes non-genetic factors, and combined with genetic factors accounts for ~50% of variation in intelligence. For genetic factors alone, the consensus so far is that there is very weak correlation of genetic variation with intelligence, unless a not quite-yet-established polygenic score is constructed. To wit: >From the 1990s until 2017 no replicable associations were found. GPS from these early GWAS, which we refer to as ‘IQ1’, predicted only 1% of the variance of intelligence in independent samples. It became clear that the problem was power: the largest effect sizes of associations between individual single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and intelligence were extremely small, accounting for less than 0.05% of the variance of intelligence. However, things got "better": >in 2016, a second meta-analytic GWAS analysis with a sample size of 294,000 identified 74 significant loci30. This analysis produced a GPS, EA2, that predicted 3% of the variance in years of education on average in independent samples30. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5985927/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5985927/ It stretches the imagination how one would go from these numbers to claiming that "The best estimate of intelligence heritability in adulthood at the peak, using measurement-error-corrected estimates, is 70-80%.