12 ms·
Estimated IQ distribution of children given IQ of parents
- whitemary 3y agoThe better predictor would be the parents' wealth.
- robertlagrant 3y agoIt'd be interesting to see citations for this.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoParental wealth is a superior predicator of success than intelligence. https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/schooled2lose/ https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/schooled2lose/ EDIT: Genetics do play a part though! https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191218153459.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191218153459.h... > The study, led by the University of York, found that parents' socioeconomic status and children's inherited DNA differences are powerful predictors of educational achievement. > However, the research suggests that having the genes for school success is not as beneficial as having parents who are highly educated and wealthy. Only 47% of children in the study sample with a high genetic propensity for education but a poorer background made it to university, compared with 62% with a low genetic propensity but parents that are more affluent. > The researchers found that children with a high genetic propensity for education who were also from wealthy and well-educated family backgrounds had the greatest advantage with 77% going to University. Meanwhile, only 21% of children from families with low socioeconomic status and low genetic propensity carried on into higher education.
- theclansman 3y agoThat sounds pretty obvious but it has nothing to do with IQ.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- willcipriano 3y ago"Success is basically how educated you are" - A group of people who have spent decades of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars on education
- theclansman 3y agoThey have to call it success, otherwise it would be a useless study telling you that people with more money go to school for more years.
- jlawson 3y agoWe were talking about predicting IQ. Now you're talking about predicting 'success' (which you assumed equates to wealth/education - funny, that). It's not surprising that wealth/education predicts wealth/education, but that's not what we're talking about. Also it may be intelligence predicting education even better than wealth: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/11/intelligence-predicts-educational-achievement-pretty-well.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/11/in...
- prettyStandard 3y agoSo I can't speak to this specifically but I think it's well known reading to children when they're young improves their IQ. And that sounds pretty believable to me. In the formative years if you give the brain good info it's going to learn how to operate well. I know this is hand wavy, but I think wealth can be a proxy measure for a good home life in the formative years. So sorry I have no citations, but I find it pretty believable.
- rozularen 3y agowhat is considered good readings for children? genuinely curious
- GalenErso 3y agoThe Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings come to mind.
- prettyStandard 3y agoSo not too long ago I think I figured out why people read fiction. I couldn't understand it, why would you want to know stories that weren't true? I think it's all about the social intelligence. True stories are what they are whether they're good or not. Fiction stories can be whatever the author wants them to be, so they can craft them for maximum drama. Hence why they might be good for diving into social and emotional intelligence. So if you read fiction stories to a child you might have a lot to work with to teach them how to read people and how to interpret their emotions.
- fullstop 3y agoI think that you're significantly over-analyzing this. People read fiction because it's enjoyable, they like to have their imagination tickled, and it doesn't have to be tuned for maximum drama. This is like saying that you now understand why people would watch a movie which wasn't a documentary. People, in general, implicitly learn how to read people and their emotions without coaching -- it's a natural part of being human for most. Autistic people, of course, are the exception here.
- sokoloff 3y agoThat's certainly a possibility and worthy of testing as a hypothesis. Income and IQ hold a positive correlation for the vast majority of the population. (I think the same is true of wealth, given the highly positive correlation for most of the population between income and wealth.)
- theclansman 3y agoEverything plays a role but genetics is the most defining factor.
- Taters91 3y agoThis is wrong
- GalenErso 3y agoI'll cut straight to the chase: White people are _not_ more intelligent than black people. And it is both factually incorrect and racist to believe so. - "I never said white people were mo--" Sure, but that is nevertheless the belief held by 99% of the people who think that some ethnicities are inherently more intelligent than others. It's a reasonable assumption that that is what you think.
- xyzzy4747 3y agoBut Ashkenazi Jews are undoubtedly more intelligent than both. They also end up with a disproportionate amount of over-performers across the arts, sciences, finance, media, and entrepreneurship.
- GalenErso 3y agoCan't their success be more attributed to a culture that favors learning and education, as well as the relative financial prosperity of Ashkenazi Jews compared to other groups? That the children of successful artists, scientists, or financiers become successful artists, scientists and financiers themselves is least surprising.
- Workaccount2 3y agoIt's also least surprising that a group of abnormally intelligent people finds themselves perpetually ending up in positions of wealth and power.
- xyzzy4747 3y ago
- xyzzy4747 3y ago[flagged]
- timmg 3y agoWould IQ be a confounding variable with wealth? Maybe I'm using the wrong term, but: a smarter person would (in many cases) make more money.
- prettyStandard 3y agoI understand work ethic to be a better predictor of wealth than intelligence. You can imagine a lots of smart slacker not living up to their potential.
- timmg 3y agoI'm sure there is a combination of factors. Work ethic without intelligence probably limits your earning potential. Intelligence without work ethic also does. An interesting study would be: is work ethic inherited (either genetically or culturally). It would be another confounder here, I think.
- prettyStandard 3y agoTo work ethic without intelligence: yes I agree. The way I look at it is: Your intelligence puts a ceiling on what types of success you can have, your work ethic determines how far you will go with your chosen path. Probably not everything, but I believe it could be correlated with testosterone. I'm sure that has a genetic, diet, and environmental component to it. So right away I can say: yes. https://youtu.be/bJWmJo3w_0Y https://youtu.be/bJWmJo3w_0Y
- evilduck 3y agoIt's gotta be a mix of several factors. You can also imagine a bunch of idiots with grit.
- kashunstva 3y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20230511130509/https://milkyeggs.com/biology/estimated-iq-distribution-of-children-given-iq-of-parents/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230511130509/https://milkyeggs...
- zoren 3y agoAmazing how intelligent people think intelligence can be quantified in a single number.
- sokoloff 3y agoIt would be amazing to me if it couldn't be summarized in a broadly useful way by a single number. That's not to say a single number captures every nuance of intelligence, but it seems weird to think that's it's not possible to make any blurring of that detail into a single number that has utility.
- kranke155 3y agohttps://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39 https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-... Nassim Taleb thinks it’s BS.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoSo?
- dp-hackernews 3y agoJordan Peterson - Controversial Facts about IQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSo5v5t4OQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSo5v5t4OQM
- ftxbro 3y agoJust so you guys know, this take is from my fellow ftxbro Caroline Ellison. This is her old blog. She deleted it, but it was archived. Now it's unironically number one on hacker news front page lol.
- davemp 3y agoThe classic IQ nerd bait is hard to resist. I’m just flagging these type of posts now. Rarely is there meaningful discussion about the article.
- ftxbro 3y agoI beg to differ kind sir. Please peruse yourself upon the edifying discourse in the dyad of fora that you might find below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35881360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35881360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35897016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35897016
- ftxbro 3y agoIt looks like the mods took care of it extrajudicially lol.
- PheeThav1zae7fi 3y ago[dead]
- sct202 3y agoJust goes to show that high IQ and/or having smart parents doesn't mean you'll make smart decisions in life.
- ftxsis 3y ago[flagged]
- archagon 3y agoAh, of course. Techbros/girls and eugenics, a match made in heaven. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tumblr-blog-linked-ex-alameda-234427813.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tumblr-blog-linked-ex-al...
- TheCaptain4815 3y agoVery interesting read, didn't think the SD would be so high for offspring. I always find it interesting when people attack the genetic aspect of IQ as nonexistent. Given the heritability of almost literally everything else in our body, why is it such a stretch that intelligence, the most complicated of all, is also heridible? If that were the case, I'd love to know EXACTLY what Bill Gates's parents did growing up differently than mine. I read all the time, had a normal childhood, good food available, etc, yet am nowhere near his level of intelligence. Was it the cereal he ate? The weather? The arguments break down immediately when a simple (and proven) solution makes much more sense... it's his genes!
- tptacek 3y agoHeritability does not mean "genetically determined".
- tokai 3y agoThey were properly much richer than your parents.
- brianbreslin 3y agoThis ^ His parents had a ton of resources to allocate to him. They probably consciously or unconsciously taught him to think through logical problems the way they did thus allowing him to intrinsically be able to tackle problems quicker as he had the frameworks ingrained in him early on.
- samwillis 3y ago> I'd love to know EXACTLY what Bill Gates's parents did growing up Firstly comparing yourself to a top 1.43e-8% successful person is pointless. But more importantly, IQ isn't everything, nowhere near, success is somewhat random, but also influence by so very much more - location, environment, economic background, personality, confidence, family, friends, a random person you meet or interaction you have... You make success by making opportunities for these things to happen.
- 3y ago
- kranke155 3y agoI would like to share Nassim Taleb’s beautiful article: “IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle” https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-swindle-f131c101ba39 https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-...
- fallingknife 3y agoHe bases this argument around the fact that IQ scores are not very predictive of income/wealth which I don't find very convincing as an argument that it's a "pseudoscientific swindle." Anybody who has been in the real world for a while and thinks that having a high IQ is the best/easiest way to make money isn't very smart.
- kranke155 3y agoIf it can’t do that, then what is it good for exactly ? Please provide citations for your claims.
- evilduck 3y agoHelping improve the quality of life and equity for those on the far left side of the bell curve.
- kranke155 3y agoNo citations
- evilduck 3y agoThe article you've been posting even supports the idea that IQ testing is good for identifying the unintelligent. I'm referencing your own material and suggesting that there is value in identifying and helping those people. And why should we believe his/your assertion that capitalistic value is the only objective measure of intelligence? No surprise an options trader wants to equate financial success to greater intelligence.
- mustafa_pasi 3y agoSo basically, if you are a career power couple and decide to only have one kid ...
- tauwauwau 3y agoSeems relevant, Bad Blood: The Story of Eugenics (6 Episodes) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fd39/episodes/player https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fd39/episodes/player Episode 1: You've Got Good Genes https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fd36 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001fd36
- slibhb 3y agoThe idea that the genetic component of intelligence is "a number of independent, additive alleles" is surprising to me. I would have assumed that genetic intelligence is the result of many alleles interacting in complex ways (i.e. nonlinear).
- ftxbro 3y agoI remember reading this in Stephen Pinker's book when I was fourteen and this was deep.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ftxbro 3y agoSo this article was number one on the hacker news front page and exploding in comments and internet points, but suddenly it vanished from public visibility. I don't see it marked as [flagged]. Did the webmasters just get embarrassed of it and manually take it away? EDIT: now it's marked as flagged
- byyyy 3y agoI recall reading an article about two high IQ and talented parents... both professors in very hard academic fields talking about their child and how they were trying to push their child into roles with high IQ. The parents were from China too so you can imagine the intensity of this of this pressure. Then one day the father realized that his child did not inherit the high IQ of both him and his wife. It wasn't a matter of not working hard or being lazy. He realized the error of his ways... that the intense pressure he put on his daughter was wrong. I can't seem to find that article anymore. But being Asian myself it really got me thinking and curious whether their are other parents out their who experienced something similar and what's it like for the parent or the child? Like how does Micheal Jordan react to the fact that his son will never have the abilities he had no matter how much his son tries or how much pressure he puts on him?
- pk-protect-ai 3y agoI can answer this. As a parent of two girls, I used to put a lot of pressure on them to boost their development. However, it took me a while to realize that they were just normal, gifted children who were experiencing too much stress, which was not helping their IQ. I stopped putting pressure on them and now simply love them for who they are. I try to support them as much as I can and avoid the mistake of pushing them too hard. I have explained to them that I want to give them tools to survive in this world, and that I will never be disappointed in them if they can't use these tools.
- throwawaysalome 3y agothat I will never be disappointed in them They may not be gifted but they can see through this lie.
- archagon 3y agoCynical. Some love is unconditional.
- throwawaysalome 3y ago
- ftxbro 3y agooh no is this a 4chan raid
- amluto 3y agoOof. This is a toy model, and it has a serious problem with one of its assumptions: > we can calculate that approximately 10,000 alleles control IQ > Assume that the genotypes of parents 1 and 2 are completely independent, and that at each allele, the child has a 50/50 chance of inheriting each parent’s copy of that allele. I’m not an expert, but I’m fairly confident that genetics don’t work like that. (IIRC they do in middle school, but they stop almost immediately in college…) Humans (mostly) have 26 pairs of chromosomes, and those chromosomes are full of bases, genes, alleles, etc. And they are not even close to independently inherited: gametes inherit long stretches of consecutive bases from a single parental chromosome. It’s a fascinating process and you can read about it here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_recombination https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_recombination https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomal_crossover https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosomal_crossover This has a large effect on the statistics of what one inherits from whom. I imagine it explains much of why people are likely to retain complex traits from their grandparents than one might expect, especially in cases where one or both parents are first-generation mixes of genetically rather distinct parents. In any event, there are nowhere near 10k SNPs that can be independently inherited from a given pair of parents. I have no particular comment on the overall model or conclusions of the OP, but it should at least acknowledge that its toy model is really quite implausible. (But I will note that my college class on genetics backed up its discussion of intrachromosomal recombination with math that was, if anything, even worse!)
- soVeryTired 3y agoThe model is mildly interesting but surely there’s actual data available out there that shows the variability?
- yalogin 3y agoIf the IQ of the children is similar to the parents, how are people with high IQ born? Are they abnormalities? Also from what I gather on the whole the average IQ of the world is increasing, how is that explained?
- HDThoreaun 3y agoIt's random, with a mean that is correlated to the parents IQ. Just like height or any other number of other genetic traits. > Are they abnormalities? Yes. > the average IQ of the world is increasing, how is that explained? There are many different explanations. The biggest is that environmental factors that lower IQ such as malnourishment are decreasing. Another is that IQ is now more highly valued making high IQ individuals more fit to reproduce.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago>Also from what I gather on the whole the average IQ of the world is increasing, how is that explained? Lots of factors impact IQ besides genetics. Education, nutrition, and environment are huge factors. If you take two newborns and lock one in a dark cage, and raise the other with everything the world has to offer, you will see differences on IQ tests. This isn't evidence that IQ doesn't exist. IQ is just one measure of applied thought and reasoning so you would expect it to track anything that affects those attributes.
- nmitchko 3y agoInteresting that we ignore the physical environment as a contributing factor in IQ, growth, and development. For example: * Iodine supplementation during early life (a few weeks) increases IQ * Organophosphate exposure increases autism (also why people who live near airports have higher incidence of cancer) * Phalates and non-sticks reduce male reproductive organ size * Music lessons in children increases IQ. * L-arginine during childhood increases height and free growth hormone https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11154-022-09760-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11154-022-09760-7 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289617300818#bb0465 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237236129_The_Plane_Truth_Aviation_and_the_Environment https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237236129_The_Plane...
- foogazi 3y agoGreat, we all have our mom and her sperm donor to blame
- PheeThav1zae7fi 3y ago[dead]