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> The fallacy of eugenics is that 'smart' people have 'smart' children and the same for 'dumb' people. What makes you say that's a fallacy? Everything I've rea

> The fallacy of eugenics is that 'smart' people have 'smart' children and the same for 'dumb' people. What makes you say that's a fallacy? Everything I've read has shown intelligence to be highly hereditable. I'm not saying we should make policy changes based on that, but the science behind intelligence being (at least partially) hereditable seems pretty conclusive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

RC_ITR 4y ago
So you get studies with very confident titles like this: Genome-wide association studies establish that human intelligence is highly heritable and polygenic Then you read the paper and you see: A total of 3511 CAGES (2115 females) participants had DNA extracted...Individuals were excluded from this study based on unresolved gender discrepancy, relatedness, call rate (≤ 0.95), and evidence of non-Caucasian descent... Analyses of individual SNPs and genes did not result in any replicable genome-wide significant association. A gene-based test for association27 showed one genome-wide significant association (P = 9.2 × 10−7), with formin-binding protein 1-like (FNBP1L) on gf (Supplementary Figure 7). This single genome-wide association result for FNBP1L did not replicate in the independent NCNG sample (P = 0.211, gene-based test)... Despite the fact that no specific genetic variants have been robustly associated with human intelligence, apart perhaps for APOE at older ages34,35, our results show for the first time that a substantial proportion (approximately 40 to 50%) of variation in human intelligence is associated with common SNPs (Minor allele frequency (MAF) > 0.01) that are in LD with causal variants... Only 1% (approximately) of the variance was explained in the prediction analysis due to the individual SNP effects being very small and therefore estimated with much error, which detracts to a great extent from the accuracy (8-11%) of the prediction equation30. Our finding that 40-50% of phenotypic variation is explained by all SNPs is fully consistent with the low precision of a predictor based upon a discovery sample of ~3,500 individuals; estimation of the SNPs’ effects is different from prediction accuracy. So basically, what they did, was take a bunch of British people born in the 1920's (a time/place famous for its rigid inter-generational class history), and found that members of certain family trees (that's more or less what it means to be British and have similar SNP distributions) scored similarly on tests, despite the fact that there's no real model to express why. That and twin studies (which also have their obvious limits) are about the extent of current "evidence" for inherited intellect. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but 'conclusive' is hardly how I would characterize the state of true evidence-based research.
- Jensson 4y ago
  > our results show for the first time that a substantial proportion (approximately 40 to 50%) of variation in human intelligence is associated with common SNPs Seems to suggest that intelligence has a lot to do with genes. Why do you think that part supports your view that intelligence doesn't? Do you have any evidence that kids doesn't inherit any intelligence?
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    I'm saying that the test was of 3,000 white British people born in the 1920's (they specifically excluded non-white people) and what they found was that distant relatives scored similarly on tests (that's what it means to share common SNPs, given the context). I'd be impressed if they saw the same thing across two populations where we know people aren't related, but I'd argue they just back-solved Britain's class structure. One has to think critically in science. >Do you have any evidence that kids doesn't inherit any intelligence Well, if intelligence is inherited, then why are IQ tests going up over time (and therefore being recentered on 100 constantly)? Doesn't that imply learning is the driver? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4152423/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4152423/ https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-12794-032 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-12794-032

RC_ITR 4y ago

So you get studies with very confident titles like this: Genome-wide association studies establish that human intelligence is highly heritable and polygenic Then you read the paper and you see: A total of 3511 CAGES (2115 females) participants had DNA extracted...Individuals were excluded from this study based on unresolved gender discrepancy, relatedness, call rate (≤ 0.95), and evidence of non-Caucasian descent... Analyses of individual SNPs and genes did not result in any replicable genome-wide significant association. A gene-based test for association27 showed one genome-wide significant association (P = 9.2 × 10−7), with formin-binding protein 1-like (FNBP1L) on gf (Supplementary Figure 7). This single genome-wide association result for FNBP1L did not replicate in the independent NCNG sample (P = 0.211, gene-based test)... Despite the fact that no specific genetic variants have been robustly associated with human intelligence, apart perhaps for APOE at older ages34,35, our results show for the first time that a substantial proportion (approximately 40 to 50%) of variation in human intelligence is associated with common SNPs (Minor allele frequency (MAF) > 0.01) that are in LD with causal variants... Only 1% (approximately) of the variance was explained in the prediction analysis due to the individual SNP effects being very small and therefore estimated with much error, which detracts to a great extent from the accuracy (8-11%) of the prediction equation30. Our finding that 40-50% of phenotypic variation is explained by all SNPs is fully consistent with the low precision of a predictor based upon a discovery sample of ~3,500 individuals; estimation of the SNPs’ effects is different from prediction accuracy. So basically, what they did, was take a bunch of British people born in the 1920's (a time/place famous for its rigid inter-generational class history), and found that members of certain family trees (that's more or less what it means to be British and have similar SNP distributions) scored similarly on tests, despite the fact that there's no real model to express why. That and twin studies (which also have their obvious limits) are about the extent of current "evidence" for inherited intellect. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but 'conclusive' is hardly how I would characterize the state of true evidence-based research.

Jensson 4y ago
> our results show for the first time that a substantial proportion (approximately 40 to 50%) of variation in human intelligence is associated with common SNPs Seems to suggest that intelligence has a lot to do with genes. Why do you think that part supports your view that intelligence doesn't? Do you have any evidence that kids doesn't inherit any intelligence?
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  I'm saying that the test was of 3,000 white British people born in the 1920's (they specifically excluded non-white people) and what they found was that distant relatives scored similarly on tests (that's what it means to share common SNPs, given the context). I'd be impressed if they saw the same thing across two populations where we know people aren't related, but I'd argue they just back-solved Britain's class structure. One has to think critically in science. >Do you have any evidence that kids doesn't inherit any intelligence Well, if intelligence is inherited, then why are IQ tests going up over time (and therefore being recentered on 100 constantly)? Doesn't that imply learning is the driver? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4152423/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4152423/ https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-12794-032 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-12794-032