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Not any more. We literally have a predictive function that takes DNA sequence as input and returns intelligence-correlate as output. It is public and you can ru

Not any more. We literally have a predictive function that takes DNA sequence as input and returns intelligence-correlate as output. It is public and you can run it with a couple of lines of Python. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0147-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0147-3

joshuamorton 6y ago
I too can take as input a set of genetic markers and predict educational attainment. That does not mean that those genes affect my cognitive ability. It may mean they affect my eye color and people are biased against dark eyes, so I can't get into college.
- sanxiyn 6y ago
  Yes, that's gene x environment interaction, and it isn't ruled out. By taking DNA as input, it DOES rule out environment. People DID argue it's environment, and they should retract that.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    This doesn't follow. The output is still socially influenced. If you look at my DNA, and my DNA makes me brown-eyed, and people discriminate against brown-eyed people, such that I perform worse, my DNA will predict worse performance. But this is entirely due to environmental factors. In fact, from my reading of the paper, their major conclusion was only for those of European ethnicity (and even then only accounted for a small percentage of the overall difference in attainment), so they didn't try to address questions about racial influence, for example. Specifically, for people of European descent, their method is about as predictive as a socio-economic predictor. For a multi-ethnic group, their method is 3-5x less predictive than a socio-economic predictor. Saying that people should retract claims of environmental heritability is ridiculous: those methods are still far more predictive.
    - sir_bearington 6y ago
      Yes, language and religion are heritable. Environmental biases can have an effect. No kidding, Sherlock. The researchers are aware of this that's why they look for correlations across different environments. To use your example, if a gene still has the same correlation even among non-brown eyed people or the same correlation appears even in societies that don't discriminate against people with brown eyes that's a different story. Thats what these researchers are doing. These observations aren't made in one environment. They happen across different cultures, different classes, different societies, etc. Factors like parental educational attainment can be adjusted for.

joshuamorton 6y ago

I too can take as input a set of genetic markers and predict educational attainment. That does not mean that those genes affect my cognitive ability. It may mean they affect my eye color and people are biased against dark eyes, so I can't get into college.

sanxiyn 6y ago
Yes, that's gene x environment interaction, and it isn't ruled out. By taking DNA as input, it DOES rule out environment. People DID argue it's environment, and they should retract that.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  This doesn't follow. The output is still socially influenced. If you look at my DNA, and my DNA makes me brown-eyed, and people discriminate against brown-eyed people, such that I perform worse, my DNA will predict worse performance. But this is entirely due to environmental factors. In fact, from my reading of the paper, their major conclusion was only for those of European ethnicity (and even then only accounted for a small percentage of the overall difference in attainment), so they didn't try to address questions about racial influence, for example. Specifically, for people of European descent, their method is about as predictive as a socio-economic predictor. For a multi-ethnic group, their method is 3-5x less predictive than a socio-economic predictor. Saying that people should retract claims of environmental heritability is ridiculous: those methods are still far more predictive.
  - sir_bearington 6y ago
    Yes, language and religion are heritable. Environmental biases can have an effect. No kidding, Sherlock. The researchers are aware of this that's why they look for correlations across different environments. To use your example, if a gene still has the same correlation even among non-brown eyed people or the same correlation appears even in societies that don't discriminate against people with brown eyes that's a different story. Thats what these researchers are doing. These observations aren't made in one environment. They happen across different cultures, different classes, different societies, etc. Factors like parental educational attainment can be adjusted for.