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First, this apparently covers one single set of twins. Tiny sample size. Second, I can't access the actual paper, but a commenter at Marginal Revolution wrote

First, this apparently covers one single set of twins. Tiny sample size. Second, I can't access the actual paper, but a commenter at Marginal Revolution wrote the following: "Everyone in the comments here arguing about the implications of this study for the heritability of intelligence (vs. other factors like parenting) seems to be missing an important piece of information buried in the study: the twin raised in the US suffered three concussions as an adult, including one in 2018 that resulted in "light sensitivity and concentration difficulty" and led her to feel like a "different person, with increased anger and anxiety." It is hardly surprising that someone who has suffered multiple major concussions would score lower on tests of cognitive ability than someone who has not."

civilized 4y ago
Wow. Massive, massive omission. If true, the person who publicized this either tossed it off without doing much homework or had a serious ideological axe to grind.
- 015UUZn8aEvW 4y ago
  Again, I'm just re-posting that comment. Would be nice if someone who could read the actual article confirmed that the comment is accurate.
  - littlestymaar 4y ago
    Unfortunately it's not yet in the Library of Alexandra …
- xhkkffbf 4y ago
  Once I started reading that they were trying to assess the political beliefs of the twins and measuring their feelings about things like collectivism, I started to smell that this was turning into political propaganda. Especially when they claimed one grew up in a more religious household. How does one measure that? Especially when there's a good chance there were different religions in both families.
  - daenz 4y ago
    Did you purchase the study? Can you post the bit about religion, and also the bit about concussions please?
  - littlestymaar 4y ago
    > Especially when they claimed one grew up in a more religious household. How does one measure that? How is that supposed to be hard to measure? Not only this doesn't sounds especially hard to do roughly, but it is in fact a pretty well studied topic in social science so there's plenty of literature about how to do such a measurement.

civilized 4y ago

Wow. Massive, massive omission. If true, the person who publicized this either tossed it off without doing much homework or had a serious ideological axe to grind.

015UUZn8aEvW 4y ago
Again, I'm just re-posting that comment. Would be nice if someone who could read the actual article confirmed that the comment is accurate.
- littlestymaar 4y ago
  Unfortunately it's not yet in the Library of Alexandra …
xhkkffbf 4y ago
Once I started reading that they were trying to assess the political beliefs of the twins and measuring their feelings about things like collectivism, I started to smell that this was turning into political propaganda. Especially when they claimed one grew up in a more religious household. How does one measure that? Especially when there's a good chance there were different religions in both families.
- daenz 4y ago
  Did you purchase the study? Can you post the bit about religion, and also the bit about concussions please?
- littlestymaar 4y ago
  > Especially when they claimed one grew up in a more religious household. How does one measure that? How is that supposed to be hard to measure? Not only this doesn't sounds especially hard to do roughly, but it is in fact a pretty well studied topic in social science so there's plenty of literature about how to do such a measurement.