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> In other words, we are all born basically with equal potential and what happens after birth is what really determines our so-called intelligence. That's pret

> In other words, we are all born basically with equal potential and what happens after birth is what really determines our so-called intelligence. That's pretty bold. I'm aware at least of some nutrition studies but I've never seen any sort of scientific claim that everyone is born with basically equal potential. Does anyone have links or information about this? I'm not interested in "proving" that some races are naturally inferior, so please refrain from that. I'm just curious about the "basically...equal potential" bit. It seems highly unlikely based on my personal experience - all things being equal, intelligence levels have definite family clusters which parsimoniously would be genetic. edit: removing a mistaken word. meanings have not changed

Retric 11y ago
It's extremely important to separate individuals from populations. Also, IQ tests have huge social components. PS: The Flynn effect is strong evidence that IQ of a population can be dramatically different from what its DNA would suggest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  Well, I'll respond, but you've gone orthogonal from my question - I'm not talking about tests. I'm talking about the notion that every person is born with approximately equal intelligence potential. That being said... It may be something "extremely important" but there's no way to have a discussion about every individual in the world. So unfortunately, I'm going to have to dismiss this as impossible and useless to the discussion. Sorry. I've spent quite a lot of time recently chasing down papers about these huge social components to tests, and the impression I have at the moment (although I'm not done by a long shot) is that scientific surveys of this using data and rigorous analysis techniques show that what people consider test bias is actually at best bias outside the test, and most of the time, it's just shooting the messenger because the message is unpalatable. Many papers that claim to demonstrate that tests are biased nearly always concentrate on various interpretations of test wording but don't use any sort of empiricism to draw their conclusions. But again, that's all orthogonal to my question.
  - Retric 11y ago
    The point is you can have a subset of people in a population with a specific genetic defect that limit intelligence. However, as long as the rates of people with said defects are similar the existence of such outliers has no relative impact on two populations. EX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome
    - oldmanjay 11y ago
      Let me be clear, I'm not talking about people with obvious genetic defects. I think you feel like I'm trying to make a political point here, because you keep trying to chip away at edges my question doesn't actually have. At least I'll achieve some clarity about what I'm asking this way.
      - Retric 11y ago
        I get that. But, current evidence suggests that the 'baseline' normal human IQ without genetic defects would be test at near genius levels in ideal environment. There seem to be a lot of genetic factors for intelligence but there almost exclusively negative and spread fairly evenly across populations. It's often said that 50% of the veracity in IQ is inherited, but a lot of non-genetic factors like prenatal nutrition are inherited or defects that are spread fairly evenly thought humanity. PS: Another factor shows up if your just looking at the top end. Where things increase variability without increasing the average.
        oldmanjay 11y ago
        Hey! Where's the evidence? That's what I want to read!
        Retric 11y ago
        Well as I said the Flynn effect, but also where it's slowing down. (Lots of research.) 'Most reported genetic associations with general intelligence are probably false positives.' http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23012269 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23012269 Which is more negative evidence than positive. But when you exclude clear defects we really have found few links between DNA and IQ. It's a really complex topic, but here is an intresting take on the subject: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/01/where-are-my-smart-genes-searching-for-intelligence-in-our-dna/ http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/01/where-are-my-sm...
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  Re: the Flynn effect. This also seems orthogonal to my question. It does not appear to postulate that all people are born with basically equal potential. The main implication seems to be that a variety of factors can have an impact, but it certainly does not preclude genetic differences. Edit: also, this seems very focused on tests, which is explicitly not my purpose. edit edit: word clarity
markdog12 11y ago
It is incredibly obvious that we are not born with equal potential. Genetics do play a large part. To think otherwise is absurd. However, this century, many social scientists disliked these facts, and have done everything they could to disprove them. If you're interested, I highly recommend The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker Note: I'm not speaking of genetic differences across populations, just between all people.
- pron 11y ago
  > However, this century, many social scientists disliked these facts, and have done everything they could to disprove them. No, you are misunderstanding what they say to strengthen your negative opinion about them. They are talking about populations, not individuals. Everybody acknowledges that some individuals are born smarter than others. However, even on the personal level, there are many things that influence future accumulation of power (and hence can be called potential) much more than genetics. A genius born in Uganda has much lower potential than an idiot born on the Upper East Side. And even intelligence is greatly affected by social forces. At the end of the day, you'll find that genetics has relatively little influence on "success" (accumulation of power). Always look at the effect size. There are many effects at play, and each -- while significant -- does not have the same effect size as the others.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Suppose genetics and/or intelligence did have a large influence on success. In what observable ways would the world be different?
    - pron 11y ago
      Why, power would then be concentrated in the hands of those who display pertinent genetic "superiority"! Since we find little pertinent genetic differences between populations and huge variations in concentrations of power, we learn that power is not (mostly) a consequence of genetics. That is the only scientific way to interpret the facts[1]. Some people, however, do the unscientific thing of deducing backwards: they pre-suppose "innate" superiority, and then project backwards from power to superiority. Not only does this contradict scientific findings, it is a very familiar psychological phenomenon, as people who do that invariably include themselves among those they consider innately superior. The effort to ascribe power to innate properties is another well known, well studied sociological/socio-psychological phenomenon[2], whereby seats of power do not want to yield any, and therefore claim an unchanging "nature" (against all observations). [1]: Even if the most, how shall we put this -- nature oriented -- of studies is to be believed, no finding of innate ability has ever found effect sizes within orders of magnitude close to power distribution observed in society. If you then try to claim that the function correlating power to innate ability is super-linear, every small variation would be so magnified, and taking into account that in-group variance is larger than inter-group variance, you'll see a people-to-power function that behaves almost like white noise -- also not what we see. The only way to explain the observed power distribution is with local effects whereby power breeds power in its immediate vicinity, and dampens it at greater distances. Social interaction is by far the most likely explanation of the observations. [2]: there are experiments that create artificial "racism", or ingroup/outgroup differences in children and observe this.

Retric 11y ago

It's extremely important to separate individuals from populations. Also, IQ tests have huge social components. PS: The Flynn effect is strong evidence that IQ of a population can be dramatically different from what its DNA would suggest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

oldmanjay 11y ago
Well, I'll respond, but you've gone orthogonal from my question - I'm not talking about tests. I'm talking about the notion that every person is born with approximately equal intelligence potential. That being said... It may be something "extremely important" but there's no way to have a discussion about every individual in the world. So unfortunately, I'm going to have to dismiss this as impossible and useless to the discussion. Sorry. I've spent quite a lot of time recently chasing down papers about these huge social components to tests, and the impression I have at the moment (although I'm not done by a long shot) is that scientific surveys of this using data and rigorous analysis techniques show that what people consider test bias is actually at best bias outside the test, and most of the time, it's just shooting the messenger because the message is unpalatable. Many papers that claim to demonstrate that tests are biased nearly always concentrate on various interpretations of test wording but don't use any sort of empiricism to draw their conclusions. But again, that's all orthogonal to my question.
- Retric 11y ago
  The point is you can have a subset of people in a population with a specific genetic defect that limit intelligence. However, as long as the rates of people with said defects are similar the existence of such outliers has no relative impact on two populations. EX: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    Let me be clear, I'm not talking about people with obvious genetic defects. I think you feel like I'm trying to make a political point here, because you keep trying to chip away at edges my question doesn't actually have. At least I'll achieve some clarity about what I'm asking this way.
    - Retric 11y ago
      I get that. But, current evidence suggests that the 'baseline' normal human IQ without genetic defects would be test at near genius levels in ideal environment. There seem to be a lot of genetic factors for intelligence but there almost exclusively negative and spread fairly evenly across populations. It's often said that 50% of the veracity in IQ is inherited, but a lot of non-genetic factors like prenatal nutrition are inherited or defects that are spread fairly evenly thought humanity. PS: Another factor shows up if your just looking at the top end. Where things increase variability without increasing the average.
      - oldmanjay 11y ago
        Hey! Where's the evidence? That's what I want to read!
        Retric 11y ago
        Well as I said the Flynn effect, but also where it's slowing down. (Lots of research.) 'Most reported genetic associations with general intelligence are probably false positives.' http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23012269 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23012269 Which is more negative evidence than positive. But when you exclude clear defects we really have found few links between DNA and IQ. It's a really complex topic, but here is an intresting take on the subject: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/01/where-are-my-smart-genes-searching-for-intelligence-in-our-dna/ http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/01/where-are-my-sm...
oldmanjay 11y ago
Re: the Flynn effect. This also seems orthogonal to my question. It does not appear to postulate that all people are born with basically equal potential. The main implication seems to be that a variety of factors can have an impact, but it certainly does not preclude genetic differences. Edit: also, this seems very focused on tests, which is explicitly not my purpose. edit edit: word clarity

markdog12 11y ago

It is incredibly obvious that we are not born with equal potential. Genetics do play a large part. To think otherwise is absurd. However, this century, many social scientists disliked these facts, and have done everything they could to disprove them. If you're interested, I highly recommend The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker Note: I'm not speaking of genetic differences across populations, just between all people.

pron 11y ago
> However, this century, many social scientists disliked these facts, and have done everything they could to disprove them. No, you are misunderstanding what they say to strengthen your negative opinion about them. They are talking about populations, not individuals. Everybody acknowledges that some individuals are born smarter than others. However, even on the personal level, there are many things that influence future accumulation of power (and hence can be called potential) much more than genetics. A genius born in Uganda has much lower potential than an idiot born on the Upper East Side. And even intelligence is greatly affected by social forces. At the end of the day, you'll find that genetics has relatively little influence on "success" (accumulation of power). Always look at the effect size. There are many effects at play, and each -- while significant -- does not have the same effect size as the others.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Suppose genetics and/or intelligence did have a large influence on success. In what observable ways would the world be different?
  - pron 11y ago
    Why, power would then be concentrated in the hands of those who display pertinent genetic "superiority"! Since we find little pertinent genetic differences between populations and huge variations in concentrations of power, we learn that power is not (mostly) a consequence of genetics. That is the only scientific way to interpret the facts[1]. Some people, however, do the unscientific thing of deducing backwards: they pre-suppose "innate" superiority, and then project backwards from power to superiority. Not only does this contradict scientific findings, it is a very familiar psychological phenomenon, as people who do that invariably include themselves among those they consider innately superior. The effort to ascribe power to innate properties is another well known, well studied sociological/socio-psychological phenomenon[2], whereby seats of power do not want to yield any, and therefore claim an unchanging "nature" (against all observations). [1]: Even if the most, how shall we put this -- nature oriented -- of studies is to be believed, no finding of innate ability has ever found effect sizes within orders of magnitude close to power distribution observed in society. If you then try to claim that the function correlating power to innate ability is super-linear, every small variation would be so magnified, and taking into account that in-group variance is larger than inter-group variance, you'll see a people-to-power function that behaves almost like white noise -- also not what we see. The only way to explain the observed power distribution is with local effects whereby power breeds power in its immediate vicinity, and dampens it at greater distances. Social interaction is by far the most likely explanation of the observations. [2]: there are experiments that create artificial "racism", or ingroup/outgroup differences in children and observe this.