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"Intelligence research" is, like most of psychology, an elaborate grift designed to give a handful of people cushy tenured jobs. Actual geneticists, that is, pe

"Intelligence research" is, like most of psychology, an elaborate grift designed to give a handful of people cushy tenured jobs. Actual geneticists, that is, people who study how genes actually work, wouldn't touch the standards of rigor of "intelligence research" with a ten foot pole. Note how people supporting Hsu tend to be psychologists while people dismissing his research tend to be geneticists. It's also worth nothing that Hsu is also out-of-field himself (he used to be a physicist) and only got recently into genomics. That he got stuff wrong that's basically understoood by the whole genetics community isn't that surprising.

DuskStar 6y ago
> "Intelligence research" is, like most of psychology, an elaborate grift designed to give a handful of people cushy tenured jobs. Actual geneticists, that is, people who study how genes actually work, wouldn't touch the standards of rigor of "intelligence research" with a ten foot pole. Wow, that's... Misguided. Most intelligence research doesn't have to do with genetics at all, to start with. Second, twin studies have shown that intelligence is highly heritable, with about half of variance explained by genetics (and half "non-shared environment", also known as random chance) - we might not know what genes are responsible, but you don't need to know the genes to compare identical and fraternal twins. Finally... IQ is real is one of a very small number of psychology studies that reproduces consistently, so the normal "psychology is bunk" objections don't apply.
- throwaway4666 6y ago
  >Second, twin studies have shown that intelligence is highly heritable, with about half of variance explained by genetics (and half "non-shared environment", also known as random chance) - we might not know what genes are responsible, but you don't need to know the genes to compare identical and fraternal twins. Heritability does not imply the existence of a genetic mechanism. Twin studies have a number of flaws that further demonstrate my points about standards of methodology that geneticists wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. Even not taking into account stuff like equal environment assumption, identical twins simply do not have the same DNA. Yes, even identical twins, look it up. There are also a number of things that are heritable without involving a genetic mechanism at all, such as the various microbiomes or epigenetics. And of course there are things like transmission of de novo mutations over up to two generations (e.g. affecting germinal cells of one's fetus). Regarding the 'IQ is the best finding we have on psychologist' point. Being the best in a field that's a largely grift doesn't make one any less of a grift. IQ (and g) still has flaws that no one in the hard science would consider it. For instance, it is gaussian for no reason and despite most social outcomes performances being fat-tailed, meaning the theoretical covariance between IQ and any kind of relevant task is undefined (and its in-sample variance finite but meaningless). There's also zero neurological or genetic data confirming the existence of g, making it a purely imaginary construct that only exists in the minds of psychologists. That this is the best they can come up with just speaks even worse of the field as a whole.
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    > Heritability does not imply the existence of a genetic mechanism. Twin studies have a number of flaws that further demonstrate my points about standards of methodology that geneticists wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. Even not taking into account stuff like equal environment assumption, identical twins simply do not have the same DNA. Yes, even identical twins, look it up. There are also a number of things that are heritable without involving a genetic mechanism at all, such as the various microbiomes or epigenetics. And of course there are things like transmission of de novo mutations over up to two generations (e.g. affecting germinal cells of one's fetus). ...I think you're missing how twin studies work, here. Yes, they can't distinguish between epigenetic and genetic traits, but they DON'T require twins to have identical genetics, and DON'T require equal environments. Specifically, they work by 1. Measuring the correlation in identical twin IQs (or other traits) 2. Measuring the correlation in fraternal twin IQs (or other traits) 3. Comparing the correlations. If identical twins have a 50% correlation and fraternal twins 25%, well... Identical twins not having identical genetics makes it harder to find genetic influence, but doesn't make it impossible. (it just means that the twins share 99.9...% of varying DNA instead of 100%, which is still far above fraternal twins and enough to establish a difference) And the reason you use twins is to control for varying environments. (And for that matter both identical and fraternal twins will share germinal cells/microbiomes/etc, too) Yes, it's fuzzier than a physics experiment. But it's certainly not worse than "this gene causes a 0.1% increase in the chance of breast cancer".

DuskStar 6y ago

> "Intelligence research" is, like most of psychology, an elaborate grift designed to give a handful of people cushy tenured jobs. Actual geneticists, that is, people who study how genes actually work, wouldn't touch the standards of rigor of "intelligence research" with a ten foot pole. Wow, that's... Misguided. Most intelligence research doesn't have to do with genetics at all, to start with. Second, twin studies have shown that intelligence is highly heritable, with about half of variance explained by genetics (and half "non-shared environment", also known as random chance) - we might not know what genes are responsible, but you don't need to know the genes to compare identical and fraternal twins. Finally... IQ is real is one of a very small number of psychology studies that reproduces consistently, so the normal "psychology is bunk" objections don't apply.

throwaway4666 6y ago
>Second, twin studies have shown that intelligence is highly heritable, with about half of variance explained by genetics (and half "non-shared environment", also known as random chance) - we might not know what genes are responsible, but you don't need to know the genes to compare identical and fraternal twins. Heritability does not imply the existence of a genetic mechanism. Twin studies have a number of flaws that further demonstrate my points about standards of methodology that geneticists wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. Even not taking into account stuff like equal environment assumption, identical twins simply do not have the same DNA. Yes, even identical twins, look it up. There are also a number of things that are heritable without involving a genetic mechanism at all, such as the various microbiomes or epigenetics. And of course there are things like transmission of de novo mutations over up to two generations (e.g. affecting germinal cells of one's fetus). Regarding the 'IQ is the best finding we have on psychologist' point. Being the best in a field that's a largely grift doesn't make one any less of a grift. IQ (and g) still has flaws that no one in the hard science would consider it. For instance, it is gaussian for no reason and despite most social outcomes performances being fat-tailed, meaning the theoretical covariance between IQ and any kind of relevant task is undefined (and its in-sample variance finite but meaningless). There's also zero neurological or genetic data confirming the existence of g, making it a purely imaginary construct that only exists in the minds of psychologists. That this is the best they can come up with just speaks even worse of the field as a whole.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  > Heritability does not imply the existence of a genetic mechanism. Twin studies have a number of flaws that further demonstrate my points about standards of methodology that geneticists wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. Even not taking into account stuff like equal environment assumption, identical twins simply do not have the same DNA. Yes, even identical twins, look it up. There are also a number of things that are heritable without involving a genetic mechanism at all, such as the various microbiomes or epigenetics. And of course there are things like transmission of de novo mutations over up to two generations (e.g. affecting germinal cells of one's fetus). ...I think you're missing how twin studies work, here. Yes, they can't distinguish between epigenetic and genetic traits, but they DON'T require twins to have identical genetics, and DON'T require equal environments. Specifically, they work by 1. Measuring the correlation in identical twin IQs (or other traits) 2. Measuring the correlation in fraternal twin IQs (or other traits) 3. Comparing the correlations. If identical twins have a 50% correlation and fraternal twins 25%, well... Identical twins not having identical genetics makes it harder to find genetic influence, but doesn't make it impossible. (it just means that the twins share 99.9...% of varying DNA instead of 100%, which is still far above fraternal twins and enough to establish a difference) And the reason you use twins is to control for varying environments. (And for that matter both identical and fraternal twins will share germinal cells/microbiomes/etc, too) Yes, it's fuzzier than a physics experiment. But it's certainly not worse than "this gene causes a 0.1% increase in the chance of breast cancer".