4 ms·
iq is "polygenetic" with the consensus estimates at 50-80% based on genes success has components of luck as in "right place, right time" for someone with the r
by DaveZale 10mo ago
iq is "polygenetic" with the consensus estimates at 50-80% based on genes
success has components of luck as in "right place, right time" for someone with the right qualities and connections, and many of the very successful are quick to admit this
I am a 3rd generation machinist along the paternal line, and although the machines I operate are in expensive labs, those my father and grandfather operated were probably just as challenging. Engineering also seems to often run in the family. How much is nature and nuture? "It varies" is a safe response
- tptacek 10mo agoWhoah, no, there is definitely not a consensus for 50-80%, and most of what's being published now refutes the 80% end of that range --- the 80% estimates come from underpowered studies like MISTRA that improperly assumed independent environments for twins reared apart.
- DaveZale 10mo agookay, I saw the paper saying 500 genes are involved. So does a single number for iq mean anything? Does the number depend upon what is tested?
- tptacek 10mo agoWe have essentially no mechanistic understanding of gene/intelligence interactions. Rather, we have cohorts of people tagged with traits (educational achievement, tested IQ, height, etc), all sequenced, and then we can run correlation surveys across all their genomes to identify correlations between alleles and traits. When you do that, you get 10-30% heritability numbers; the gap between that and the range for MZ/DZ twin studies (the 50-80% you often see) is "the missing heritability problem".
- DaveZale 10mo agodoes epigenetics play a significant role? Within one lifetime or several generations?
- tptacek 10mo agoWay above my pay grade. Probably! Or probably not?
- red75prime 10mo agoRegarding missing heritability: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-good-news-is-that-one-side-has https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-good-news-is-that-one-s... "That is, once you include the rare variants, the amount of genetic variation that “should” exist but doesn’t shrinks to only 12%. Plausibly an even bigger study, investigating even rarer variants, could shrink the gap further, all the way to zero." Of course, even then heritability will not be 100%.
- tptacek 10mo agoI don't think the rare-variant hypothesis is taken seriously anymore by practitioners, but feel free to cite.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- red75prime 10mo agoI think you might be mistaken, but feel free to cite metastudies that support you POV.
- tptacek 10mo agoFollow cites from here, and then look at the Twitter conversation between Gusev and Alexander Strudwick Young. https://theinfinitesimal.substack.com/p/the-missing-heritability-question https://theinfinitesimal.substack.com/p/the-missing-heritabi...
- red75prime 10mo agoThanks. I'll wait for proper meta-analysis.
- tptacek 10mo agoSo when you said "cite anything", you meant... Oh. Never mind. You rewrote your comment after I provided the cite. Well played.