6 ms·

Why Biology Is Not Destiny

7 points by mitchbob 5y ago

mitchbob 5y ago
Archived: https://archive.ph/kJg8S https://archive.ph/kJg8S
oh_sigh 5y ago
It is if you're a lactuca sativa trying to get into Harvard Business School Full article no paywall: https://archive.ph/kJg8S https://archive.ph/kJg8S
car_analogy 5y ago
Ah yes. Unlike the rest of the human body, the brain is the one organ independent of genetics and untouched by evolution. > The idea of a biological hierarchy of intelligence arose alongside the first theories of human evolution. It never goes away when discredited, just changes forms. In 1810, a year after the publication of the first modern evolutionary theory, two German doctors, Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Kaspar Spurzheim, inaugurated the science of phrenology I see the usual trickery is on display in this article. Knowing that saying intelligence is totally independent of genes would sound too ridiculous even in 2022 (as proven by the absence of cats with human-level intellect), they add a poison pill to it by calling it "hierarchy of intelligence", and then proceed to nitpick at this strawman they constructed, probably by arguing that, since intelligence isn't one-dimensional, and different people are better at different tasks, you can't strictly sort humans from less to more intelligent. Therefore anything goes. Then it predictably proceeds to dig up phrenology (no article on genes and intelligence is complete without triumphantly debunking that), as if there has been no progress the last two centuries. May as well use alchemy and geocentrism to debunk chemistry and astronomy. Anyway, I don't know about "hierarchy", but intelligence being linked to biology is anything but discredited: Early twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73%,[6] with some recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80%. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ Oh but that's IQ, which is an imperfect measure, therefore anything goes... if one is determined to remain ignorant, no proof is good enough, and its smallest drawback turns into proof of the opposite - no link between genes and intelligence.
- a_shovel 5y ago
  You seem to be claiming that the authors of the article secretly believe that "intelligence is totally independent of genes", which isn't supported by the article itself. You then call the ideology of a hierarchy of intelligence a strawman, and proceed to criticize what you imagine their argument against it is, which honestly is kind of hilarious. Also, the article isn't "debunking" phrenology, as that isn't necessary. It's reminding us that historically, the reason these theories of genetic intelligence are created in the first place is in order to support and justify eugenics. And you keep describing the article's argument as being "therefore anything goes". The article has an argument, and I think this quote from near the bottom summarizes it well: > These objections come not from head-in-the-sand progressives, but from logic. Genome studies can illuminate things that genes cause, but genes don’t cause everything. Whatever scientific evidence emerges regarding genetic populations, it won’t explain why some students do well on tests any more than it will explain why some social scientists construct essentialist theories of intelligence. Educational success and biological essentialism are social and cultural phenomena, not genetic phenomena. True, genes help shape people, and people make up social and cultural situations. Likewise, grammar helps shape sentences and sentences make up Harden’s book. But we can’t reduce her contention that genetic differences cause social differences to the syntactical rules of an English sentence. Meanwhile, beneath Harden’s protestations that she’s an egalitarian hides a stealthy affirmation of the old, tenacious view that races and classes are natural kinds.
  - car_analogy 5y ago
    These kinds of articles are expert at using obfuscatory pseudo-intellectual language to launder ridiculous assertions. Let me cut through the nonsense verbiage: > Educational success and biological essentialism are social and cultural phenomena, not genetic phenomena. True, genes help shape people, and people make up social and cultural situations. Likewise, grammar helps shape sentences and sentences make up Harden’s book. But we can’t reduce her contention that genetic differences cause social differences to the syntactical rules of an English sentence. Translation: "it's complicated, therefore genes are totally unrelated to social differences". Key in this word salad is using "cause" to imply "sole cause" - an implication reinforced by the article's title, instead of the reasonable "an important contributing cause". Plus of course the tired guilt by association, counting on the reader to conflate "guilt" with "falsity".
at_a_remove 5y ago
For all the reflexive "born that way" rhetoric, the same people are terrified of this kind of thing. Tendencies, correlations ... I've often found that these sorts of people are comfortable only with three integers of correlation: One, zero, and negative one.
paulpauper 5y ago
Harden is right that such assertions are controversial, but they’re nothing new. The idea of a biological hierarchy of intelligence arose alongside the first theories of human evolution. It never goes away when discredited, just changes forms. In 1810, a year after the publication of the first modern evolutionary theory, two German doctors, Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Kaspar Spurzheim, inaugurated the science of phrenology by asserting that the parts of a person’s brain reflected, by their sizes, the degrees of the person’s mental powers, and that one could evaluate these by examining the shape of the skull. Such research was not debunked/discredited. It became politically incorrect and largely stopped. There is a positive correlation, around .4, between head size, brain volume and IQ. Same for even the shape of the head corelating with IQ to some extent based on studies outside of the US.
mgarfias 5y ago
My genes say that I shouldnt be going bald. But I am. This sux.
- PeterWhittaker 5y ago
  Two comments: 1. Do they? Just like brown eyed parents can have blue eyed children (if both carry the recessive gene), there may be genetic information passed through your ancestors that codes for baldness, but that is mostly unexpressed. 2. Genes are not the be-and-end-all: there is the timing of genetic expression, which is affected by a great many things (cf epigenetics, e.g.). For example, you might have been on your way to a lifetime of hair, but something your mother encountered at a critical phase of pregnancy or that you encountered at a critical phase of development might have caused the hairiness/baldness gene to misexpress themselves. (Sorry it sucks. It can be harsh.)
  - mgarfias 5y ago
    I’ve had some f’d up hormones one of which was a nifty tumor on my adrenal gland. Stuffing me full of stress hormones.

7 points by mitchbob 5y ago

Archived: https://archive.ph/kJg8S https://archive.ph/kJg8S

It is if you're a lactuca sativa trying to get into Harvard Business School Full article no paywall: https://archive.ph/kJg8S https://archive.ph/kJg8S

car_analogy 5y ago

Ah yes. Unlike the rest of the human body, the brain is the one organ independent of genetics and untouched by evolution. > The idea of a biological hierarchy of intelligence arose alongside the first theories of human evolution. It never goes away when discredited, just changes forms. In 1810, a year after the publication of the first modern evolutionary theory, two German doctors, Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Kaspar Spurzheim, inaugurated the science of phrenology I see the usual trickery is on display in this article. Knowing that saying intelligence is totally independent of genes would sound too ridiculous even in 2022 (as proven by the absence of cats with human-level intellect), they add a poison pill to it by calling it "hierarchy of intelligence", and then proceed to nitpick at this strawman they constructed, probably by arguing that, since intelligence isn't one-dimensional, and different people are better at different tasks, you can't strictly sort humans from less to more intelligent. Therefore anything goes. Then it predictably proceeds to dig up phrenology (no article on genes and intelligence is complete without triumphantly debunking that), as if there has been no progress the last two centuries. May as well use alchemy and geocentrism to debunk chemistry and astronomy. Anyway, I don't know about "hierarchy", but intelligence being linked to biology is anything but discredited: Early twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73%,[6] with some recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80%. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ Oh but that's IQ, which is an imperfect measure, therefore anything goes... if one is determined to remain ignorant, no proof is good enough, and its smallest drawback turns into proof of the opposite - no link between genes and intelligence.

a_shovel 5y ago
You seem to be claiming that the authors of the article secretly believe that "intelligence is totally independent of genes", which isn't supported by the article itself. You then call the ideology of a hierarchy of intelligence a strawman, and proceed to criticize what you imagine their argument against it is, which honestly is kind of hilarious. Also, the article isn't "debunking" phrenology, as that isn't necessary. It's reminding us that historically, the reason these theories of genetic intelligence are created in the first place is in order to support and justify eugenics. And you keep describing the article's argument as being "therefore anything goes". The article has an argument, and I think this quote from near the bottom summarizes it well: > These objections come not from head-in-the-sand progressives, but from logic. Genome studies can illuminate things that genes cause, but genes don’t cause everything. Whatever scientific evidence emerges regarding genetic populations, it won’t explain why some students do well on tests any more than it will explain why some social scientists construct essentialist theories of intelligence. Educational success and biological essentialism are social and cultural phenomena, not genetic phenomena. True, genes help shape people, and people make up social and cultural situations. Likewise, grammar helps shape sentences and sentences make up Harden’s book. But we can’t reduce her contention that genetic differences cause social differences to the syntactical rules of an English sentence. Meanwhile, beneath Harden’s protestations that she’s an egalitarian hides a stealthy affirmation of the old, tenacious view that races and classes are natural kinds.
- car_analogy 5y ago
  These kinds of articles are expert at using obfuscatory pseudo-intellectual language to launder ridiculous assertions. Let me cut through the nonsense verbiage: > Educational success and biological essentialism are social and cultural phenomena, not genetic phenomena. True, genes help shape people, and people make up social and cultural situations. Likewise, grammar helps shape sentences and sentences make up Harden’s book. But we can’t reduce her contention that genetic differences cause social differences to the syntactical rules of an English sentence. Translation: "it's complicated, therefore genes are totally unrelated to social differences". Key in this word salad is using "cause" to imply "sole cause" - an implication reinforced by the article's title, instead of the reasonable "an important contributing cause". Plus of course the tired guilt by association, counting on the reader to conflate "guilt" with "falsity".

at_a_remove 5y ago

For all the reflexive "born that way" rhetoric, the same people are terrified of this kind of thing. Tendencies, correlations ... I've often found that these sorts of people are comfortable only with three integers of correlation: One, zero, and negative one.

paulpauper 5y ago

Harden is right that such assertions are controversial, but they’re nothing new. The idea of a biological hierarchy of intelligence arose alongside the first theories of human evolution. It never goes away when discredited, just changes forms. In 1810, a year after the publication of the first modern evolutionary theory, two German doctors, Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Kaspar Spurzheim, inaugurated the science of phrenology by asserting that the parts of a person’s brain reflected, by their sizes, the degrees of the person’s mental powers, and that one could evaluate these by examining the shape of the skull. Such research was not debunked/discredited. It became politically incorrect and largely stopped. There is a positive correlation, around .4, between head size, brain volume and IQ. Same for even the shape of the head corelating with IQ to some extent based on studies outside of the US.

mgarfias 5y ago

My genes say that I shouldnt be going bald. But I am. This sux.

PeterWhittaker 5y ago
Two comments: 1. Do they? Just like brown eyed parents can have blue eyed children (if both carry the recessive gene), there may be genetic information passed through your ancestors that codes for baldness, but that is mostly unexpressed. 2. Genes are not the be-and-end-all: there is the timing of genetic expression, which is affected by a great many things (cf epigenetics, e.g.). For example, you might have been on your way to a lifetime of hair, but something your mother encountered at a critical phase of pregnancy or that you encountered at a critical phase of development might have caused the hairiness/baldness gene to misexpress themselves. (Sorry it sucks. It can be harsh.)
- mgarfias 5y ago
  I’ve had some f’d up hormones one of which was a nifty tumor on my adrenal gland. Stuffing me full of stress hormones.