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The main problem with tying specific skills to genetics is that it's not yet possible. We can't even figure out how to get a car to drive itself reliably, and
by colordrops 5y ago
The main problem with tying specific skills to genetics is that it's not yet possible. We can't even figure out how to get a car to drive itself reliably, and we build the car from scratch. We are not even slightly close to figuring out how genes correlate to advanced complex behaviors that involve learned elements. There are endless factors and interplay between them that determine an already vague concept such as "intelligence". How could you possibly say "these three genes mean you are capable of calculus"? Perhaps you might find some correlations through statistical analysis but that entire in-between is still a blackbox and you can't draw conclusions at all about what is or isn't possible. It wouldn't serve any valuable purpose.
The cognitive dissonance is real - it's an echo chamber in here about how self-driving is a pipe dream, and yet a much more difficult problem of determining ability driven by genes is easily swallowed.
- concordDance 5y agoThe thing is, you don't need to know in detail how a car works to see that car A is faster than car B or that that self-driving car crashes less than that other one. Similarly, you can tell how much of intelligence is genetic for a given environment (and the "for a given environment" bit is forgotten by so many) by comparing clones (identical twins) to non-clones (non-identical twins). Additionally, sometimes even if you don't understand about how anything happens you can still influence the result. E.g. you don't need to know anything about protein expression and brain development to breed more docile foxes. (Not that I would recommend trying breeding experiments on humans)