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> Although IQ differences between individuals have been shown to have a hereditary component, it does not follow that disparities in IQ between groups have a ge

> Although IQ differences between individuals have been shown to have a hereditary component, it does not follow that disparities in IQ between groups have a genetic basis. This is just about race & IQ and already cedes the genetic argument that you were refusing to believe - because the evidence is so overwhelming. > Contrary to popular belief, two parents of higher IQ will not necessarily produce offspring of equal or higher intelligence. Not necessarily is load-bearing here in an extremely misleading way. Two parents of higher IQ are much more likely to produce an offspring of higher IQ than median. You’re basically just cherrypicking arguments that support your incorrect supposition when compared to a mountain of evidence on the other side. Nobody here brought up race but you/wikipedia.

zevon 1y ago
Why do you insist on saying that I "don't believe" in genetic components when I've literally said the opposite? The people who wrote the stuff on the Wikipedia site I was provided with and their (researcher-)sources seem to try to tell you and me both "hey, this is an interesting field of study but it's very complicated, many genes are involved, we are far from understanding them or being able to model them, be very careful with interpreting correlations and for (m)any practical purposes (such as thinking about how to structure educational environments), you really should consider quite a lot of things not directly related to genetics." What's so controversial about that and what overwhelming evidence does that go against? edit: Sorry, to clarify, you are saying that "Two parents of higher IQ are much more likely to produce an offspring of higher IQ than median" because of genetics as the main determining factor?
- whimsicalism 1y ago
  you’re not arguing in good faith and now you’re motte-baileying. you said: > Correlations between socioeconomic status and success of one's offspring in educational systems don't mean that intelligence is inherited in the genetic sense. If you're seriously arguing this, you're very close to flirting with eugenics and the like. the obvious reading is that you do not believe in a genetic component to intelligence - and in fact say that a belief in “this” is arguing for eugenics. > Sorry, to clarify, you are saying that "Two parents of higher IQ are much more likely to produce an offspring of higher IQ than median" because of genetics as the main determining factor? Even if you remove all environmental factors, two smart parents are more likely to have a smart kid than the counterfactual.
  - zevon 1y ago
    My original answer was a condensed and far from comprehensive one-sentence reply to another condensed one-sentence-reply (that included the phrase "highly heritable" which is how the whole genetics argument started). Why is what you apparently perceive this original one-liner to mean so important to you? I've expanded on the points I was trying to make quite a bit. And again: The researchers who look at those things seem to be the ones telling us that the relationship between intelligence and genetics is complicated and many, many non-genetic factors are in play, no? Did I miss some big new movement on deterministic genetics in education or some such since I've sat my basic biology, psychology and sociology courses? Do you know stuff that's not on Wikipedia? Help me out here, please - and I'd politely ask you to refrain from insulting my good faith. I'd also be - again, genuinely - interested in how you come up with that clear of a statement about smart parents and their non-externally-influenced child, how one would approach that as a research question/design and how - practically - useful this piece of data in and of itself would be when most of us are not Kaspar Hauser or any other conceptual model of a human being that exists without external interdependences.
    - whimsicalism 1y ago
      > Why is what you apparently perceive this original one-liner to mean so important to you? Well because you basically accused most people of being eugenicists simply for believing something that is most likely true and clearly implied a strong position that you are now retreating from. It's clearly an incendiary one-liner where previously the conversation was not so. > The researchers who look at those things seem to be the ones telling us that the relationship between intelligence and genetics is complicated and many, many non-genetic factors are in play, no There are massive biases in academia that encourage researchers to hedge results like this. When you ask anonymously, the answers & beliefs are clear. > Snyderman & Rothman (1987/1988) — mailed survey to ~1,020 academics; 661 replies. Experts overwhelmingly agreed that IQ has substantial within-group heritability, and among those willing to give a number, the average estimate was ~60% for U.S. populations. Also https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4804158/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4804158/ which is going to be a lower bound because it focuses on international differences. Adoption studies pretty clearly upper bound the amount that these complicated non-genetic/non-prenatal factors can be causing differences in tested adult intelligence among Americans. > I'd politely ask you to refrain from insulting my good faith. Again, you started your entry into this conversation by leveling accusations of eugenics. The responses you get are going to be tinged by that. > how you come up with that clear of a statement about smart parents and their non-externally-influenced child, how one would approach that as a research question/design Adoption studies can provide an upper bound (excluding pre-natal environment). Also GWASs paired with mendelian randomization can provide a lower bound.
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  > "hey, this is an interesting field of study but it's very complicated, many genes are involved, we are far from understanding them or being able to model them, be very careful with interpreting correlations and for (m)any practical purposes (such as thinking about how to structure educational environments), you really should consider quite a lot of things not directly related to genetics." I'll say the same thing as you: context matters. Someone trying to say that smarter parents lead to a smarter student body doesn't need to model any genes and they don't need to care about the difference between things that are transferred genetically and things that are transferred socially. > because of genetics as the main determining factor? Does that matter? While the word "heritability" was used, and that term "very much has to do with genetics" as you say, that person didn't directly mention genes and didn't attribute any particular percent to genes. The original argument is the same whether genes are 80% or 20%.
  - whimsicalism 1y ago
    Absolutely agreed. I got bogged down in the genetics portion, but it is not actually a necessary component of the argument I'm trying to make - merely that kids are like parents.
  - zevon 1y ago
    Again, the person I was originally replying to called intelligence "highly heritable". That does mean a genetic argument and I replied to that and not a generic assertion that there are mechanisms in play that have influence on the expression over generations.

zevon 1y ago

Why do you insist on saying that I "don't believe" in genetic components when I've literally said the opposite? The people who wrote the stuff on the Wikipedia site I was provided with and their (researcher-)sources seem to try to tell you and me both "hey, this is an interesting field of study but it's very complicated, many genes are involved, we are far from understanding them or being able to model them, be very careful with interpreting correlations and for (m)any practical purposes (such as thinking about how to structure educational environments), you really should consider quite a lot of things not directly related to genetics." What's so controversial about that and what overwhelming evidence does that go against? edit: Sorry, to clarify, you are saying that "Two parents of higher IQ are much more likely to produce an offspring of higher IQ than median" because of genetics as the main determining factor?

whimsicalism 1y ago
you’re not arguing in good faith and now you’re motte-baileying. you said: > Correlations between socioeconomic status and success of one's offspring in educational systems don't mean that intelligence is inherited in the genetic sense. If you're seriously arguing this, you're very close to flirting with eugenics and the like. the obvious reading is that you do not believe in a genetic component to intelligence - and in fact say that a belief in “this” is arguing for eugenics. > Sorry, to clarify, you are saying that "Two parents of higher IQ are much more likely to produce an offspring of higher IQ than median" because of genetics as the main determining factor? Even if you remove all environmental factors, two smart parents are more likely to have a smart kid than the counterfactual.
- zevon 1y ago
  My original answer was a condensed and far from comprehensive one-sentence reply to another condensed one-sentence-reply (that included the phrase "highly heritable" which is how the whole genetics argument started). Why is what you apparently perceive this original one-liner to mean so important to you? I've expanded on the points I was trying to make quite a bit. And again: The researchers who look at those things seem to be the ones telling us that the relationship between intelligence and genetics is complicated and many, many non-genetic factors are in play, no? Did I miss some big new movement on deterministic genetics in education or some such since I've sat my basic biology, psychology and sociology courses? Do you know stuff that's not on Wikipedia? Help me out here, please - and I'd politely ask you to refrain from insulting my good faith. I'd also be - again, genuinely - interested in how you come up with that clear of a statement about smart parents and their non-externally-influenced child, how one would approach that as a research question/design and how - practically - useful this piece of data in and of itself would be when most of us are not Kaspar Hauser or any other conceptual model of a human being that exists without external interdependences.
  - whimsicalism 1y ago
    > Why is what you apparently perceive this original one-liner to mean so important to you? Well because you basically accused most people of being eugenicists simply for believing something that is most likely true and clearly implied a strong position that you are now retreating from. It's clearly an incendiary one-liner where previously the conversation was not so. > The researchers who look at those things seem to be the ones telling us that the relationship between intelligence and genetics is complicated and many, many non-genetic factors are in play, no There are massive biases in academia that encourage researchers to hedge results like this. When you ask anonymously, the answers & beliefs are clear. > Snyderman & Rothman (1987/1988) — mailed survey to ~1,020 academics; 661 replies. Experts overwhelmingly agreed that IQ has substantial within-group heritability, and among those willing to give a number, the average estimate was ~60% for U.S. populations. Also https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4804158/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4804158/ which is going to be a lower bound because it focuses on international differences. Adoption studies pretty clearly upper bound the amount that these complicated non-genetic/non-prenatal factors can be causing differences in tested adult intelligence among Americans. > I'd politely ask you to refrain from insulting my good faith. Again, you started your entry into this conversation by leveling accusations of eugenics. The responses you get are going to be tinged by that. > how you come up with that clear of a statement about smart parents and their non-externally-influenced child, how one would approach that as a research question/design Adoption studies can provide an upper bound (excluding pre-natal environment). Also GWASs paired with mendelian randomization can provide a lower bound.
Dylan16807 1y ago
> "hey, this is an interesting field of study but it's very complicated, many genes are involved, we are far from understanding them or being able to model them, be very careful with interpreting correlations and for (m)any practical purposes (such as thinking about how to structure educational environments), you really should consider quite a lot of things not directly related to genetics." I'll say the same thing as you: context matters. Someone trying to say that smarter parents lead to a smarter student body doesn't need to model any genes and they don't need to care about the difference between things that are transferred genetically and things that are transferred socially. > because of genetics as the main determining factor? Does that matter? While the word "heritability" was used, and that term "very much has to do with genetics" as you say, that person didn't directly mention genes and didn't attribute any particular percent to genes. The original argument is the same whether genes are 80% or 20%.
- whimsicalism 1y ago
  Absolutely agreed. I got bogged down in the genetics portion, but it is not actually a necessary component of the argument I'm trying to make - merely that kids are like parents.
- zevon 1y ago
  Again, the person I was originally replying to called intelligence "highly heritable". That does mean a genetic argument and I replied to that and not a generic assertion that there are mechanisms in play that have influence on the expression over generations.