5 ms·

IQ is largely genetic, even if some people claim otherwise. The evidence for this is now overwhelming: even when different ethnic groups grow up in very similar

by hemabe 1y ago

IQ is largely genetic, even if some people claim otherwise. The evidence for this is now overwhelming: even when different ethnic groups grow up in very similar conditions in the same country, the PISA (which correlates r=0.9 with IQ) scores measured vary greatly. For example, among second-generation children in Germany, there are significant differences in PISA scores. Polish children achieve similar or even better scores than German children. Turkish children, on the other hand, remain at the same poor level that their parents (the first generation of immigrants) achieved in the tests. Twin studies and studies of adopted children also leave no doubt that there is a very strong genetic component that determines IQ. Even Wikipedia assumes that heritability can be as high as 80%. Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article174706968/OECD-Studie-So-schwer-haben-es-Migranten-an-deutschen-Schulen.html https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article174706968/OECD-Studie-...

aredox 1y ago
And it doesn't occur to you the parents may help their kids during their studies? You never went to your father of mother to ask them to explain a concept you struggled with in class? Now imagine your parents didn't get an education and couldn't help you. Where would you be now?
flir 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
froh 1y ago
especially Germany is a very poor example for this claim as school performance (PISA) in this country correlates with the parents academic background more than anything. if your parents aren't educated you can be intelligent AF and still will fail the German school system while you can be dumb as a brick but still make Abitur if your parents drill you through. in Germany. and Welt is a media source with a right conservative agenda pushing the genetics narrative.
- robwwilliams 1y ago
  Yes. The smartest kid in my elementary school in Blankenese, Hamburg, Germany (a filthy-rich neighborhood) was an asthmatic son of the stable master of Alex Springer. By far the smartest kid. But he did NOT go to gymnasium. He was my best friend and I was furious at this social injustice. I was 10 and this was my first exposure to rigid class injustice. It still makes me mad. All of the other dumb rich kids from Blankenese went to gymnasium, me included.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    This is pretty common. In the 80s (when I went to high school in Europe) the best way to predict whether or not someone would go to Gymnasium or Athenaeum was to look at how wealthy their parents were. It is still exactly the same today.
    - hadlock 1y ago
      I had to research what gymnasium meant, in the US that just means P.E. which is a class where you do generic sports for an hour each day. Are you saying, in Germany, you can't choose to go academic route in primary/secondary school? The teachers and school decide if you will go into vocational school for mechanics, electrician, etc? That seems to imply class mobility is nearly zero in German education.
      - jacquesm 1y ago
        > I had to research what gymnasium meant, in the US that just means P.E. which is a class where you do generic sports for an hour each day. Except... that's not it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(school) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(school) > Are you saying, in Germany, you can't choose to go academic route in primary/secondary school? The teachers and school decide if you will go into vocational school for mechanics, electrician, etc? There is an end-of-the-year test for kids in what would be the 8th grade here (and this is not Germany, but the Netherlands), if your last year's teacher sucked or simply doesn't like you then you're off to the vocational school or at best HAVO because there are a limited number of slots for VWO (Athenaeum / Gymnasium). > That seems to imply class mobility is nearly zero in German education. It's not zero, but it isn't nearly where it should be, and again, my experience is mostly with NL. Merit matters but it certainly isn't everything and there are certain schools where the gatekeeping is very visible. One way in which this happens is by keeping the number of slots for the highest level artificially low in spite of demand. You then have the choice of moving out of a region to a location where there is room or to accept a lower grade of education for your children. This is very frustrating, especially because kids with the right last names of course always mysteriously get in. The better schools have a system where they share the first year of high school between all of the pupils and only then do they give the option to choose which track a particular pupil wants to follow. But these are not in the majority.
judofyr 1y ago
Your first link (Wikipedia) directly contradicts your examples: > Although IQ differences between individuals have been shown to have a large hereditary component, it does not follow that disparities in IQ between groups have a genetic basis[18][19][20][21]. The scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain average differences in IQ test performance between racial groups.[22][23][24][25][26][27].
- bearl 1y ago
  Specifically, as well stated by [23] there is no such thing as “race.” The premise of racial group differences is not possible; we can’t have racial differences if race is not real. Sadly, a lot of people very much believe in race, especially the ones that shouldn’t!
  - delichon 1y ago
    I've been told that there's no such thing as a circle because there's no such thing as a perfect circle. The claim that race does not exist seems to be in that category.
    - throwaway284927 1y ago
      You seem to be arguing that talking about races within humans may be useful even if the reality only approximates the definition of race (similarly to the idea of a "circle", which even though it does not apply in all it's precision to any real object it may still be a useful concept as an approximation nonetheless). However, I don't think that comparison is particularly insightful, and it may even be a bit misleading in my opinion because of the important differences in how those two things are defined (circle and race). After all, the reason why no real object is an actual circle is because the definition of circle is so to say an "ideal" definition that no real object can fit in all it's precision. It's natural to assume that no real object will have all of it's "points" perfectly distributed according to a circle's equation (without even getting philosophical as to how these mathematical definitions relate to the real world, or if they do at all). If one rejects any "approximate", non exact application of the concept, then it will be mostly useless when it comes to describing or understanding the real world (because you won't be able to use it for anything). On the other hand, the concept of "race" is quite the opposite to ideal: it's not "ideal" as the circle is, in fact it's more of a pragmatic/working definition. It's more like the definition of "chair": many things may or may not be considered a chair, but usually people don't feel that there's "no such thing as a chair" in the real world. On the contrary, it's more common to feel that anything "could" be a chair because it has a malleable definition based on the context, instead of nothing being "precisely" a chair because there are some rigid constraints to the definition that no real object can actually fit. When the idea of races within the human species is pushed against, it's not because "race" is an ideal concept that no real thing may implement in all it's precision (as would be the case with the circle). I won't present these actual reasons (which could get quite political) here, but I will say that I definitely wouldn't consider those two claims to be in the same category: - Saying that X real object is not a circle, or that no real object can be (exactly) a circle has to do with the fact that the concept of circle is ideal and by definition nothing "real" will fit it perfectly. - Saying that (in the human species) there are no races is, however, not based on a quality of the definition of the concept of "race" (specifically, it's not ideal), but on some quantitative judgements about what kind of thing qualifies as a race an what doesn't (pretty much like the concept of "chair", "food", etc. which are not ideal and there's some room for discussion based on context when it comes to whether some specific object fits the category or not).
robwwilliams 1y ago
You do understand that these estimates of heritability depend of a relatively stable estimate of the environmental variance. If environment variance goes up heritability goes down. Sure, genetic variants modulate (not “Determine”) an IQ score and reaction times etc. But this does NOT mean IQ scores are unmalleable by environmental factors.
jacquesm 1y ago
Remarkable how you jumped from 'IQ is largely genetic' to 'Turkish children remain at the same poor level that their parents achieved in the tests'. Don't you see your the mistake in your reasoning there? Probably that too can be explained by genetics or maybe by a failing education system but the point is: there are very dumb Germans and very smart Turkish people who would still score different on an IQ test in German. Especially after going through the German school system (which of course would never discriminate against children with a different ethnic background /s) and so on. The confounding factors at play here make the whole comparison without accounting for those factors utterly meaningless.
- hemabe 1y ago
  Germans have an average IQ of around 100 (it used to be 105 before immigration). Turks have an IQ of 85-90. If you are not biased, you can clearly see these differences in everyday life. With a few exceptions, the intellectual achievements of fellow citizens of Turkish origin tend to be rather low. The situation is different when you look at migrants from high-IQ countries, such as China (who have an IQ of 104). These children often achieve amazing results, for example in the International Science Olympiads. The US is actually only able to achieve top places in the Math Olympiad thanks to Chinese migrants. Almost the entire US team consists of people with a Chinese background. Look at this picture of the US-Team for 2023 if you want to know, what I mean: https://maa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screen-Shot-2024-05-21-at-4.56.12-PM.png https://maa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screen-Shot-2024-...
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    Could you maybe fuck off with the overt racism? It would make HN instantly a lot better. You are well into 'not even wrong' territory. Thanks.

by hemabe 1y ago

aredox 1y ago

And it doesn't occur to you the parents may help their kids during their studies? You never went to your father of mother to ask them to explain a concept you struggled with in class? Now imagine your parents didn't get an education and couldn't help you. Where would you be now?

flir 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

froh 1y ago

especially Germany is a very poor example for this claim as school performance (PISA) in this country correlates with the parents academic background more than anything. if your parents aren't educated you can be intelligent AF and still will fail the German school system while you can be dumb as a brick but still make Abitur if your parents drill you through. in Germany. and Welt is a media source with a right conservative agenda pushing the genetics narrative.

robwwilliams 1y ago
Yes. The smartest kid in my elementary school in Blankenese, Hamburg, Germany (a filthy-rich neighborhood) was an asthmatic son of the stable master of Alex Springer. By far the smartest kid. But he did NOT go to gymnasium. He was my best friend and I was furious at this social injustice. I was 10 and this was my first exposure to rigid class injustice. It still makes me mad. All of the other dumb rich kids from Blankenese went to gymnasium, me included.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  This is pretty common. In the 80s (when I went to high school in Europe) the best way to predict whether or not someone would go to Gymnasium or Athenaeum was to look at how wealthy their parents were. It is still exactly the same today.
  - hadlock 1y ago
    I had to research what gymnasium meant, in the US that just means P.E. which is a class where you do generic sports for an hour each day. Are you saying, in Germany, you can't choose to go academic route in primary/secondary school? The teachers and school decide if you will go into vocational school for mechanics, electrician, etc? That seems to imply class mobility is nearly zero in German education.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      > I had to research what gymnasium meant, in the US that just means P.E. which is a class where you do generic sports for an hour each day. Except... that's not it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(school) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(school) > Are you saying, in Germany, you can't choose to go academic route in primary/secondary school? The teachers and school decide if you will go into vocational school for mechanics, electrician, etc? There is an end-of-the-year test for kids in what would be the 8th grade here (and this is not Germany, but the Netherlands), if your last year's teacher sucked or simply doesn't like you then you're off to the vocational school or at best HAVO because there are a limited number of slots for VWO (Athenaeum / Gymnasium). > That seems to imply class mobility is nearly zero in German education. It's not zero, but it isn't nearly where it should be, and again, my experience is mostly with NL. Merit matters but it certainly isn't everything and there are certain schools where the gatekeeping is very visible. One way in which this happens is by keeping the number of slots for the highest level artificially low in spite of demand. You then have the choice of moving out of a region to a location where there is room or to accept a lower grade of education for your children. This is very frustrating, especially because kids with the right last names of course always mysteriously get in. The better schools have a system where they share the first year of high school between all of the pupils and only then do they give the option to choose which track a particular pupil wants to follow. But these are not in the majority.

judofyr 1y ago

Your first link (Wikipedia) directly contradicts your examples: > Although IQ differences between individuals have been shown to have a large hereditary component, it does not follow that disparities in IQ between groups have a genetic basis[18][19][20][21]. The scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain average differences in IQ test performance between racial groups.[22][23][24][25][26][27].

bearl 1y ago
Specifically, as well stated by [23] there is no such thing as “race.” The premise of racial group differences is not possible; we can’t have racial differences if race is not real. Sadly, a lot of people very much believe in race, especially the ones that shouldn’t!
- delichon 1y ago
  I've been told that there's no such thing as a circle because there's no such thing as a perfect circle. The claim that race does not exist seems to be in that category.
  - throwaway284927 1y ago
    You seem to be arguing that talking about races within humans may be useful even if the reality only approximates the definition of race (similarly to the idea of a "circle", which even though it does not apply in all it's precision to any real object it may still be a useful concept as an approximation nonetheless). However, I don't think that comparison is particularly insightful, and it may even be a bit misleading in my opinion because of the important differences in how those two things are defined (circle and race). After all, the reason why no real object is an actual circle is because the definition of circle is so to say an "ideal" definition that no real object can fit in all it's precision. It's natural to assume that no real object will have all of it's "points" perfectly distributed according to a circle's equation (without even getting philosophical as to how these mathematical definitions relate to the real world, or if they do at all). If one rejects any "approximate", non exact application of the concept, then it will be mostly useless when it comes to describing or understanding the real world (because you won't be able to use it for anything). On the other hand, the concept of "race" is quite the opposite to ideal: it's not "ideal" as the circle is, in fact it's more of a pragmatic/working definition. It's more like the definition of "chair": many things may or may not be considered a chair, but usually people don't feel that there's "no such thing as a chair" in the real world. On the contrary, it's more common to feel that anything "could" be a chair because it has a malleable definition based on the context, instead of nothing being "precisely" a chair because there are some rigid constraints to the definition that no real object can actually fit. When the idea of races within the human species is pushed against, it's not because "race" is an ideal concept that no real thing may implement in all it's precision (as would be the case with the circle). I won't present these actual reasons (which could get quite political) here, but I will say that I definitely wouldn't consider those two claims to be in the same category: - Saying that X real object is not a circle, or that no real object can be (exactly) a circle has to do with the fact that the concept of circle is ideal and by definition nothing "real" will fit it perfectly. - Saying that (in the human species) there are no races is, however, not based on a quality of the definition of the concept of "race" (specifically, it's not ideal), but on some quantitative judgements about what kind of thing qualifies as a race an what doesn't (pretty much like the concept of "chair", "food", etc. which are not ideal and there's some room for discussion based on context when it comes to whether some specific object fits the category or not).

robwwilliams 1y ago

You do understand that these estimates of heritability depend of a relatively stable estimate of the environmental variance. If environment variance goes up heritability goes down. Sure, genetic variants modulate (not “Determine”) an IQ score and reaction times etc. But this does NOT mean IQ scores are unmalleable by environmental factors.

jacquesm 1y ago

Remarkable how you jumped from 'IQ is largely genetic' to 'Turkish children remain at the same poor level that their parents achieved in the tests'. Don't you see your the mistake in your reasoning there? Probably that too can be explained by genetics or maybe by a failing education system but the point is: there are very dumb Germans and very smart Turkish people who would still score different on an IQ test in German. Especially after going through the German school system (which of course would never discriminate against children with a different ethnic background /s) and so on. The confounding factors at play here make the whole comparison without accounting for those factors utterly meaningless.

hemabe 1y ago
Germans have an average IQ of around 100 (it used to be 105 before immigration). Turks have an IQ of 85-90. If you are not biased, you can clearly see these differences in everyday life. With a few exceptions, the intellectual achievements of fellow citizens of Turkish origin tend to be rather low. The situation is different when you look at migrants from high-IQ countries, such as China (who have an IQ of 104). These children often achieve amazing results, for example in the International Science Olympiads. The US is actually only able to achieve top places in the Math Olympiad thanks to Chinese migrants. Almost the entire US team consists of people with a Chinese background. Look at this picture of the US-Team for 2023 if you want to know, what I mean: https://maa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screen-Shot-2024-05-21-at-4.56.12-PM.png https://maa.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screen-Shot-2024-...
- jacquesm 1y ago
  Could you maybe fuck off with the overt racism? It would make HN instantly a lot better. You are well into 'not even wrong' territory. Thanks.