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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 attainm
by 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 agoYeah, 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 agoAnd get up and go types are obviously taller since they have a tendency to get up.
- jlawson 3y agoHeight correlates with a lot of traits that are generally considered desirable, including IQ, rated romantic attractiveness, social success, and income.
- rideontime 3y agoThis paper is about genetic “distance,” not literal geographic distance.
- rlt 3y agoI imagine those would be highly correlated too.
- ChainOfFools 3y agoAnd 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 agoWe’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?
- astrange 3y agoThat's true if you include Africa, but it's not nearly as true if you exclude it. But "race" of course doesn't cause this, as it can't cause anything. (And people living in Japan aren't genetically homogenous of course.)
- dekhn 3y agoRace is a self-described proxy variable that correlated with genotype. I know some folks (even very well-educated and highly placed) deny that. Still it's better to use the term "genetic history" because it's a much better variable to describe distances between people.
- d0mine 3y agoPeople in nearby villages in sub-saharan Africa are likely more diverse than people on different continents outside. People outside Africa are remarkably inbred (the bottleneck is measured in a few thousands at most).
- Foobar8568 3y agoWhere does it say the study was done in Japan? Author aren't, first four quoted papers aren't? Only 1 paper is referencing Japan, cohort related table seems to be European heavy based, did I miss something?
- ChainOfFools 3y agoI definitely got ahead of myself, you are correct there is nothing to suggest that this study was done using subject data drawn in its majority or even a substantial fraction feom Japanese populations. I noted the affiliation with the Biobank Japan project and hastily assumed that this was the primary source of data for the study. Given that this would only be interesting in the context of the unusually homogeneous in a Japanese sample, and the consequent difficulty in compensating for this with data thus sourced, my original comment is no longer meaningful. Unfortunately its no longer possible to delete it.
- User23 3y agoIt feels like an homogeneous population would reduce rather than increase confounds.