5 ms·

Directional dominance on stature and cognition in human populations (2015)

26 points by dzink 3y ago

erulabs 3y ago
> more distant parental relatedness Erm, further apart genetically, not "further apart" in distance. Perhaps a title fix?
- sottol 3y ago
  I read that as age-difference which is also false. It is genetic "difference", e.g. one paragraph from the abstract "In each case, increased homozygosity was associated with decreased trait value, equivalent to the offspring of first cousins being 1.2 cm shorter and having 10 months’ less education"
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- d1str0 3y ago
  I read this as “the greater the age gap” at first.
- codetrotter 3y ago
  > not "further apart" in distance And also not further apart in time :p
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
avgcorrection 3y ago
Useful info.
ChainOfFools 3y ago
The study was done in Japan, which in addition to the usual considerations about populations that may have a confounding bias with regard to educational attainment and cognitive performance, is magnified considering that we have a fairly homogeneous society generally averse to immigration, so finding subjects with geographically distant parentages within this population is going to yield a cohort that is unique in a lot of ways perhaps not accounted for in this model. On the other hand, scientific data that seems to assert a positive correlation between finding a mate outside your local prefecture or even country, and smarter taller and more successful kids, could be an extremely sly way of trying to influence a reversal of Japan's abysmally declining birth rate.
- jlawson 3y ago
  Yeah, it seems like parental genetic distance in Japan would obviously just be a proxy for social mobility and "get up and go"-ness.
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    And get up and go types are obviously taller since they have a tendency to get up.
    - jlawson 3y ago
      Height correlates with a lot of traits that are generally considered desirable, including IQ, rated romantic attractiveness, social success, and income.
- rideontime 3y ago
  This paper is about genetic “distance,” not literal geographic distance.
  - rlt 3y ago
    I imagine those would be highly correlated too.
  - ChainOfFools 3y ago
    And how does one not imply the other, or are you suggesting that one parent born in County Cork of its native stock, and the other born in Hokkaido are going to have just as likely a chance at the same genetic distance as both parents born in the same geographic region?
    - User23 3y ago
      We’re reliably informed that race has no biological basis and differences are greater within groups than between them, so isn’t the answer obviously yes?
AlexCoventry 3y ago
(2015)
- dang 3y ago
  Added above. Thanks!
dang 3y ago
Please don't editorialize titles - this is in the site guidelines: ""Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." -https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Of course it's a good intention to help explain the content of a paper, but you should do that by posting a comment to the thread, so your interpretation is on the same level as everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22level%20playing%20field%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... (Submitted title was "The further apart your parents were born, the higher your IQ and height".)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dzink 3y ago
  Thank you, dang for all that you do! The title resonated and was consumed when it was more accessible, but now the scientific name makes the conclusions inaccessible to most readers, and it went quickly below the fold. The question is do we communicate the insight or let the sophisticated language burry the information. You can change it to anything you like, as always, but I think it would help to make the title more accessible.
  - dang 3y ago
    I'm not sure I'd agree with the interpretation "the scientific name makes the conclusions inaccessible to most readers". It's not that abstruse, and if instead of editorializing the title you had posted a comment to the thread explaining the paper's findings and what's interesting about them, that might have worked fine, and would have stayed within the site rules. Of course no handful of simple rules can cover the nuances of all cases and I don't mean to say they work perfectly.
    - sdwr 3y ago
      Had to think about "homozygosity" for a bit. The science jargon makes my brain turn off. I thought the original title was translating, not editorializing (maybe clickbaity to leave out the [small] effect size).
_the_inflator 3y ago
A short note, that intelligence is a social construct based on statistics. So every finding around tweaking "general cognitive ability" needs to fit into a normal distribution. Essentially that's why you can call the Flynn Effect Psychology's Schrödinger's cat. There is one and there is none. ;)

26 points by dzink 3y ago

> more distant parental relatedness Erm, further apart genetically, not "further apart" in distance. Perhaps a title fix?

sottol 3y ago
I read that as age-difference which is also false. It is genetic "difference", e.g. one paragraph from the abstract "In each case, increased homozygosity was associated with decreased trait value, equivalent to the offspring of first cousins being 1.2 cm shorter and having 10 months’ less education"
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
d1str0 3y ago
I read this as “the greater the age gap” at first.
codetrotter 3y ago
> not "further apart" in distance And also not further apart in time :p

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

avgcorrection 3y ago

Useful info.

ChainOfFools 3y ago

The study was done in Japan, which in addition to the usual considerations about populations that may have a confounding bias with regard to educational attainment and cognitive performance, is magnified considering that we have a fairly homogeneous society generally averse to immigration, so finding subjects with geographically distant parentages within this population is going to yield a cohort that is unique in a lot of ways perhaps not accounted for in this model. On the other hand, scientific data that seems to assert a positive correlation between finding a mate outside your local prefecture or even country, and smarter taller and more successful kids, could be an extremely sly way of trying to influence a reversal of Japan's abysmally declining birth rate.

jlawson 3y ago
Yeah, it seems like parental genetic distance in Japan would obviously just be a proxy for social mobility and "get up and go"-ness.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  And get up and go types are obviously taller since they have a tendency to get up.
  - jlawson 3y ago
    Height correlates with a lot of traits that are generally considered desirable, including IQ, rated romantic attractiveness, social success, and income.
rideontime 3y ago
This paper is about genetic “distance,” not literal geographic distance.
- rlt 3y ago
  I imagine those would be highly correlated too.
- ChainOfFools 3y ago
  And how does one not imply the other, or are you suggesting that one parent born in County Cork of its native stock, and the other born in Hokkaido are going to have just as likely a chance at the same genetic distance as both parents born in the same geographic region?
  - User23 3y ago
    We’re reliably informed that race has no biological basis and differences are greater within groups than between them, so isn’t the answer obviously yes?

AlexCoventry 3y ago

(2015)

dang 3y ago
Added above. Thanks!

dang 3y ago

Please don't editorialize titles - this is in the site guidelines: ""Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." -https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Of course it's a good intention to help explain the content of a paper, but you should do that by posting a comment to the thread, so your interpretation is on the same level as everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22level%20playing%20field%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... (Submitted title was "The further apart your parents were born, the higher your IQ and height".)

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dzink 3y ago
Thank you, dang for all that you do! The title resonated and was consumed when it was more accessible, but now the scientific name makes the conclusions inaccessible to most readers, and it went quickly below the fold. The question is do we communicate the insight or let the sophisticated language burry the information. You can change it to anything you like, as always, but I think it would help to make the title more accessible.
- dang 3y ago
  I'm not sure I'd agree with the interpretation "the scientific name makes the conclusions inaccessible to most readers". It's not that abstruse, and if instead of editorializing the title you had posted a comment to the thread explaining the paper's findings and what's interesting about them, that might have worked fine, and would have stayed within the site rules. Of course no handful of simple rules can cover the nuances of all cases and I don't mean to say they work perfectly.
  - sdwr 3y ago
    Had to think about "homozygosity" for a bit. The science jargon makes my brain turn off. I thought the original title was translating, not editorializing (maybe clickbaity to leave out the [small] effect size).

_the_inflator 3y ago

A short note, that intelligence is a social construct based on statistics. So every finding around tweaking "general cognitive ability" needs to fit into a normal distribution. Essentially that's why you can call the Flynn Effect Psychology's Schrödinger's cat. There is one and there is none. ;)