Still timely and fresh, especially considering that he was critiquing Herrnstein 20 years before The Bell Curve.
Because he's smart and unafraid, either of science or the truth, Chomsky never denies the possibility of a genetic component to IQ, even IQ/race. What he denies are the ideological assumptions people make about the social consequences that must follow if those findings are true - assumptions which he brilliantly lays bare and then demolishes. He also questions the scientific significance of the research - even if it is true (a phrase he uses a lot).
Since not one of his arguments depends on Herrnstein's scientific claims being false, the issue of science denialism never comes up with Chomsky. He lets his opponents have everything they "ask" for empirically ("even if it is true") and refutes them on other grounds.
This must partly be because (ironically?) he's smarter than most people (including most other progressives) and therefore wasn't about to walk into the trap the left finds itself in 50 years later - a trap which must be tightening, if an article like the OP appears in the New Yorker of all places. But there must be more to it than this. I think the progressives who find themselves having to challenge this research as false (rather than inconsequential and insignificant, as Chomsky does), actually share many of the ideological and meritocratic assumptions that Chomsky writes about - for example the assumption that wealth and power must necessarily flow to those with higher IQ. They don't want to give up this assumption because they belong to the meritocracy themselves (or are part of the class that identifies that way). Because of this, they can't accept Chomsky's argument much more than the Herrnsteins can.
Great comment. As you say, denying the research outright is playing a similar tune to those who would abuse the research to support pre-existing notions about everyone's rightful places in society.
We should be extremely skeptical of any argument that serves solely to justify the positions those in power, which is a typical endpoint for too many discussions of genetics. Using science to validate the status quo and describe certain economic and social classes as superiors/inferiors is a cruel perversion, but outright denying the science is similarly dishonest and not very convincing either.
Genetics are powerful, but only a piece of the great puzzle underlying human traits and behaviors. Especially when considering life at the individual level, you can't easily make any declarative statements about someone's potential, or even clearly discern the total effect of genes on their most basic traits like height without also considering a host of other factors with similar weightings. Beyond the ambiguity surrounding how genes and environment conspire to produce our traits, as Chomsky argues, the traits that are rewarded with wealth and power are often arbitrary: they are certain traits that can be identified in those who already have wealth/power in a self-justification of the existing hierarchy.
So even if we take the science at face value, it is quite a stretch to say that the science supports the current stratification. The two are not casually linked.
Except that the argument Chomsky makes about the fact that this research would have no purpose in a society that treats people as individuals, ie not a racist society, is certainly valid, but the current progressivism is to do the opposite, ie to define people by their race/sex, and to count the number of people of each race or sex in organisations, and to call racism/sexism if it is not exactly the population distribution.
That’s the argument Murray makes in his latest book, i.e. that differences in distributions is a toxic topic that he has been trying to stay clear of since the Bell Curve, given all the griefs he got for it. But the claims of systematic racism or sexism when you don’t have matching representation everywhere can only be opposed if you get into this ugly discussion.
So I know a lot of people mentioned in this New Yorker piece. Not well but I consider them colleagues. I have a lot to say about it on several levels.
On the one hand, I've had to deal firsthand with the phenomenon Paige-Harden is talking about, in hiring discussions and faculty meetings. It's infuriating and bizarre to see the level of denial that arises among people who ostensibly are extremely intelligent and well-educated. It reaches a point where my only conclusion has been that these individuals are completely out of touch in an ivory-tower sense, that they have no idea what happens in clinical settings, and the problems that arise in terms of phenomena that are obviously congenital disorders or near-disorders, even if they don't have a label per se.
On the other hand, I think the behavior genetics community is in a bit of denial itself, about the strengths of its models and reliability of its conclusions. The field has found itself in a no-mans land the last decade or so, in that the revolution promised by the genome area instead stripped the field of results: the findings of the twin era, when faced with molecular genetics, largely evaporated. This is alluded to in the article with polygenic risk scores, but those I suspect will face a similar crisis of replicability; although they predict outcomes, it's relatively weak when you get to behavior, and much weaker still upon replication.
This all leads to a general sense within the BG community and without that the models and findings of behavior genetics are based on very big assumptions, assumptions that seem to fall apart when looked at through a microscope. They might have some validity in a broad brush sense — in the sense that yes, there are some sets of genes that collectively lead one to have higher functioning cognitive ability, and some that lead to impairments — but the tricky details most people wrestle with are mismodeled. Comparing one end of the bell curve to the other is doable; less doable is comparing adjoining areas of the curve. There's also the strange complexity of life, which is largely absent from these models. A common pattern is for some BG conclusion to be drawn in the literature, and then everyone has very clear, prima facie evidence — on the news, in everyday experience, and so forth — that clearly contradicts it. The BG community wrestles with it, comes up with some contorted explanation for why there's no contradiction, and then silence.
The reason why I'm posting in response to your comment is that underlying all of this I think is a fundamental, often implied concern about BG research: that it is not oriented toward intervention, change, or improvement. What it concerns itself with are characterizing with abstract descriptions — "additive genetic variance", or "polygenic risk" — people as if they are static objects. It's not oriented toward identifying something specific or manipulable, like a neurophysiological pathway that can be changed, or the products of specific genes. Even when research is oriented toward potential change, as in environmental interventions, genes are still treated as something fixed and unchanging, background that is to be covaried out because it's not something we should do anything about.
So, even though I think the left-leaning segments of academia definitely go overboard in how they approach behavior and genetics, there's some sympathetic groups who largely reject it for other reasons. They see the field as fuzzy and unreplicable in a levels-of-analysis sense, if not sample-to-sample sense, and are skeptical of the overall worldview implicitly being promoted.
I need to reread the Chomsky piece; it's dense and full of excellent points. But part of what it points to is the fundamental problem with seeing individuals in society in terms of reward or punishment for what they are, rather than in terms of the obligation of society at large toward improving other individuals.
The real crisis looming on the horizon isn't the failure of the left to appreciate behavior genetics. It's the failure of everyone to appreciate the implications of a civilization where we will soon be able to alter our genes at any stage of life, as well as the neurobehavioral structures that are downstream from them. Where does the moral obligation lie then? With the individual or society? What value is there then in abstract quantifications of variance due to the individual at birth, and variance that occurs later?
Chomsky's basic argument is that we can build a society where social success doesn't depend on IQ. Or as he puts it:
"If... society can be organized more or less in accordance with the "socialist dictum," then nothing is left of Herrnstein's argument"
So, if you think socialism works, then yeah, you'll find this very persuasive. From my POV, though, it's a deluded fantasy which 100 years of disastrous policy catastrophes have disproved.
The research definitely is significant - definitely politically, if not scientifically (which I'd argue it is, any research that helps find the truth / predict the future / create a better model of the world is scientifically significant).
We're currently in the middle of several highly emotional political debates, which would easily be resolved by having better/more scientific data, particularly into the correlation of IQ and interests with race & sex. Sure, genetics don't determine an individual's life, but they do influence population averages, so if genetics explain/predict sex & race differences in careers and education, we could hopefully resolve those debates.
Another example of this is the association between violence and (1) computer games, and (2) sex/testosterone. The first one, albeit "intuitive", was debunked using science/statistics, and the second one most people just assume as "obviously" true (and noone claims sexism!) (although AFAIK it's scientifically debatable).
Again, genetics don't determine an individual, but they do influence the population & sub-groups.
> Chomsky never denies the possibility of a genetic component to IQ, even IQ/race. What he denies are the ideological assumptions people make about the social consequences that must follow if those findings are true
The identification of differences between groups seem to be commonly conflated with the act of unfairly discriminating against a group with prejudice based on differences (perceived or real), which is kind of absurd when you think of some of the more superficial and obvious yet real differences. You clarify this very succinctly, but it is still abstract, and I find many people tend not to understand until given a more concrete example... this I find challenging to do without being prejudged as some kind of racist or sexist, so unfortunately I just don't bother any more, the world has become overly sensitive to certain subjects.
His arguments regarding the social consequences arent as good as they could be, but the ideas he is refuting are so stupid that I cant tell if they are strawmen or just commonly held ideas. Chomskys writing is often convincing, but his perspective always seems so limited. The (in)significance of the research, intentionally vague regarding specific or general as a trick, and justified by fear of missuse in politics, perhaps. But it shows an emphasis on argument over substance, and a lack of perspective on technology.
Thank you, /blast/, for sharing this article. The US public discourse has become a thoroughly annoying, exhausting puppetry of shouting, wrestling straw-men.
Democracy needs education and clear discourse. Citizens in a democracy are to be treated fairly and as equals before the law. If we cannot even ensure these principles, democracy is in a decrepit state indeed.
I wonder what exactly remains as a political commitment to the people.
I don't think that a text judging biology, written by an (arguably smart) linguist dating 50 years back can be in any sense "definitive". Even in a moral and political one. Science evolves and real-world consequences follow.
Someone playing with electricity in 1800 was doing scientifically insignificant research. 100 years later, electricity was a major industrial force.
We are just entering the era when genetic manipulations of not just embryos, but adult organisms will be possible. One day, this technology will be used on humans as well. Even if the U.S. forbade such research, other countries likely won't. 20 or 30 years from now, progressives will have to find answers to technology that can tune various parameters of human beings, maybe including some cognitive abilities.
> assumptions which he brilliantly lays bare and then demolishes. He also questions the scientific significance of the research, even if it is true - a phrase he uses a lot.
Absolutely true. Even if it's true, the society should not give ammunition to closet racists with their attempts to stealthily legitimise racism.
Equally so, in the current immigration debacle, we need to call things their own names. What these people mean, but don't say out loud for the fear of instant character assassination by being called out for racism is that they don't want brown people in their countries.
New Yorker bought into this, unfortunately. The author does not want to "help" racial minorities, she wants to label them dumb, an needing compassion, which in reality will lead to even more strong ostracism, and stigmatisation. Nobody have to be "scientifically established to be dumb, and biologically inferior." That's right out of 3rd reich's playbook.
Over the next year, a biosciences working group revised the program’s funding guidelines, stipulating in the final draft that it would not support any research into the first-order effects of genes on behavior or social outcomes.
The fact that this area is controversial suggests to me that it is worth exploration.
I’ve taught mathematics at community colleges for over 20 years and I’m absolutely convinced that not all people can learn algebra or calculus. To me it is obvious this is so since the mentally disabled can’t. There’s a level of “intelligence” that’s necessary to learn a given topic. Not everyone can learn all topics.
This belief of mine is considered heretical amongst leftist colleagues (I’m a liberal myself on almost every issue). As a college we act as if everyone can pass. Years of administration telling the math department that our passing rate is too low have led me to pretty much pass everyone who takes the final exam. Last semester 80% passed but only around 50% deserved to.
You're making a lot of leaps of logic here, which might be why your colleagues are disagreeing with you. You go from "not everyone can learn algebra or calculus" and "mental disabilities exist" to "therefore intelligence is a scale and controlled by genetics and unalterable," which doesn't really track.
Your previous education, your upbringing, your cultural values, these things all also have huge effects on your aptitudes, and you've just dismissed them out of hand, apparently in favour of pre-determined genetic intelligence. I mean, all I know of you is this comment, so I could easily be missing a lot more context about this argument you've had, but it sounds like you have an axe to grind, not a carefully-considered conclusion.
I like to feel the same way as your colleagues about "everyone can learn to code".
I can definitely say that there are many people for whom it is a struggle - even those on college courses.
But a hundred years ago we could easily have the same conversation about simply reading and writing - they (the poor, women, or "lower class" ) luke not be taught to read. But it turns out that if you start young enough, and put enough effort in, 99% of everyone can learn
So, perhaps society is not putting enough effort in, or asking enough effort from, our kids for them all to learn calculus.
As the Agile Manifesto says, the work delivered represents the effort input so far. If society wants all children to learn calculus, we need to pay that price.
Edit: I think that we do need a new conversation about education. We have My father left full time education at 14, at 18 most of my peers left school and only 25% of us went to college. Today it's 50% it the total spend has not gone up in line.
I honestly don't know what kind of world the "universal education" advocates of the 1870s were imagining - but I am damn sure it was not people doing college courses on their iPhones, but it is the world they ushered in.
We need to double down on what worked for the 20th Century (and avoid the, y'know wars and genocide and stuff).
> Years of administration telling the math department that our passing rate is too low have led me to pretty much pass everyone who takes the final exam. Last semester 80% passed but only around 50% deserved to
Doesn't this contribute to lower the reputation of the universities?
I mean, I did sociology in a small university in northern Spain and there was debate between the stats and methodology professors and pretty much everyone else about this.
In the end I'm grateful to my stats and methodology professors, because having to work very hard is the only thing that actually gave me something useful to go and fight with the world.
Many of my peers had to go to other unis because they couldn't pass there, so in the end they get a pass like me, the same in the eyes of employers, but they know it's bullshiting, and I know too.
IDK, It seems to me that there's a lot of lazyness in social sciences, and this kind of hard attitude to it is not only good for the students, but needed in the field.
IDK in the US, but this professors got a lot of heat for their stances on what a university is about, but they stood their ground, even when they've got hit by political bullshit, denied money for research, etc.
There's another thing (again, IDK if it's the same in the US), but why don't you see it in CS or Engineering faculties? I mean, I remember in my uni the students of this faculties had maybe a couple of professors that where ok to lower the bar a bit, but most of them just assumed that you gotta learn what you gotta learn. And many of them where pretty hostile to students, 180º stance from what I see in Stanford Moocs for example.
> I’ve taught mathematics at community colleges for over 20 years and I’m absolutely convinced that not all people can learn algebra or calculus. To me it is obvious this is so since the mentally disabled can’t. There’s a level of “intelligence” that’s necessary to learn a given topic. Not everyone can learn all topics.
I think most people agree that there are extremes. There probably exists a small number of people who literally cannot (just like how 1 in a million could probably teach themselves calculus at age 10, also exists). However it's a big jump to conclude that even a small percentage of the people at your college cannot in the literal sense - i.e. if their life depended on it, they had all the resources they could want, they had no other distractions.
* How do you differentiate between someone who doesn't get it because it's beyond their mental skill level versus someone who doesn't get it because they'd rather be doing literally anything else?
* When you say "mentally disabled", what exactly does that mean in the context of a spectrum of ability levels across the species?
* There are a lot of reasons people might fail your class. What are they? What's the percentage breakdown?
* What are the dangers of thinking that not all people can learn math? What are the dangers of not thinking that?
> I’m absolutely convinced that not all people can learn algebra or calculus. To me it is obvious this is so since the mentally disabled can’t.
Not all people can read, it's obvious since the mentally disabled can't. Yet with proper education, all non-disabled people can be taught reading.
But that doesn't mean everyone can read, if you're illiterate by your 20s, you're gonna have a hard time catching up. Same for mathematics: most people reaching even high school are too mathematically illiterate to catch up[1]. Is genetics a factor: definitely, but it's among many others.
The reason why it's a partisan issue is the following: if I say genetics is a decisive factor, then I can say «it's natural, there's nothing we can do so we don't need to spend all that government money trying to help those people». The left-sided point of view goes as «There's nothing we can do about genetics, but we can change everything else. Then we need to find what are all the other factors, because those are the actionable ones». The conservative focus on genetics is mainly a justification for doing nothing.
> There’s a level of “intelligence” that’s necessary to learn a given topic. Not everyone can learn all topics.
“intelligence” is conveniently pretty ill-defined, but I don't think I'm more intelligent than my doctor friends, yet they struggled a lot to grasp even the most basic concepts of algebra when I tried to help them during our studies. “Not everyone can learn all topic” but I have yet to find evidences that your ability to learn a random topic you're not interested into is correlated with the common acceptance of the word “intelligence”.
[1]: that doesn't mean it's impossible, just likely well beyond the amount of effort they can (or want to) afford.
IMO, biological differences and barriers certainly exist and are non-trivial, but the differences between private and public schools demonstrates the degree to which institutional finesse can accommodate student strengths and shortcomings, including differences in intelligence or disability. In other words, we have a long way to go.
In some schools around the Bay Area, we have half the students on the fastest track, and about half the math faculty as calculus teachers. An immodest minority of students complete Calculus BC early and go on to the local college to continue their math education for their remaining years in HS. And these aren't even the top 50 schools in the nation.
As a scientist who thinks professionally about things like culture, behavioral genetics, and psychology, I can say: the idea that there /would not be/ humans who cannot learn calculus is the one that is hard to believe.
Some years ago, California tried to make it so that you had to pass Algebra II to graduate high school. I think the state backed down from that, because it meant only 25% of students could pass. Or maybe they just bowdlerized the definition of algebra II.
It’s too bad, because I don’t think anyone should be able to leave high school without understanding compound interest-sorta vital for participating in a modern economy. Also, it’s not like we can stop loaning money to the innumerate, even if that might be the ethical thing to do.
Genetics has a huge influence on what someone is predisposed to and what they can achieve. Certain ethnic groups and families, on average, are more likely to have certain traits and less likely to have others.
But genetics doesn't matter, in that just because you have "bad" genetics doesn't mean you'll suck, whether it comes to weightlifting, intelligence, temperment, etc. Maybe you won't be in the top 0.0001%, but except for some very specific circumstances, you can defy the average. If you want to know if someone's bad at something, actually testing them is much more accurate than looking at their genetics.
If you look at the top 10 distance runners, they're all from Ethiopia and Kenya. But as you look further down the list into the top 100, you start to see Americans and others. Furthermore, the Americans' times are really close to the Ethiopians and Kenyans.
So, even if we know for a solid fact that some ethnic group is on average dumber than another, or more violent, it doesn't mean anything. Because it doesn't say anything about the individual people, who vary much more than the difference in averages.
People strongly want to believe that intelligence doesn't have a strong genetic component, I think mainly for moral reasons.
If not everyone can be expected to learn and be proficient in everything due to genetics, then suddenly merit itself is also based strongly on luck, and now the belief that people with greater merit should have better lives no longer seems fair. Intelligence is now just another gift to the fortunate who are destined to have a better life. How can you feel good about using your considerable advantages to the detriment of others if your merit is the result of a jackpot paid out at birth?
Even if you believe that with enough time and perseverance you can overcome your lack of intelligence compared to another person, you have to ignore the fact that having to spend more time on something (but actually, everything) than everyone else will put you further and further and further behind everyone else in a way that compounds quickly.
Modern society is ostensibly structured this way: the smart will win. If intelligence becomes genetic, it can instead be said that "the lucky will win." And successful people desperately want that to not be the case, because they want to believe they deserve their considerable advantages. And they want to be guilt free about the miserable lives some people lead; it's their fault for being stupid, after all.
I don't particularly have a problem accepting that intelligence could be genetic.
But then people use that to argue that the people at the top deserve everything they have.
The exact same argument was made back when we had slavery.
Now its just used to justify wage slavery and gross wealth inequality and policies which punish the poor.
(It also is grossly oversimplified and discounts reversion to the mean and that two dumb parents can absolutely have a smart kid -- along with the fact that a smart kid born in poverty is going have a much more difficult time getting their net worth up into tends of millions than someone who is just literally born with that much -- plus neglects the effects of e.g. malnutrition on childhood development)
As a somewhat progressive from the US-perspective (so: European, living in Germany) I don't recall saying genetics didn't impact things. Genetics is just not a lever I am willing to pull in order to influence things. As some of you might recall, the last time Germany tried just that it went into the direction of ultimate genocidal horror. Also there are much more low hanging fruits with a bigger impact on a societies wellbeing (tackling monopolies, corruption, reorganizing work spaces etc.).
The reason why people on the left defend against the notion that genetics are everything is because this is the thing fascists use to divide people and make them kill each other. So cool — genetics matter, just like education, nutrition, social situation, security of ones environment etc — but what do we do with this? Argue that some people do rightfully suffer because they chose to have been born into the wrong body? Try to weed out the bad genetics? Who will decide what is bad genetics? The aryan master race? People of color?
There are so many other levers we can pull I don't think we need to bring genetics into it from a political improvement perspective. When we think about healthcare that is a different topic.
I don't think this fundamentally changes how I've thought of the relationship between genetics and experience, specifically because of this line:
> [Harden] told me, “As a parent, I try to keep in mind that differences between people are examples of runaway feedback loops of gene-by-environment interaction. People have some initial genetic predisposition to something, and that leads them to choose certain friends over other friends, and these initial exposures have a certain effect, and you like that effect and you choose it again, and then these feedback loops become self-reinforcing.”
Feedback loops sound about right, where some tiny minute preference leads to positive reinforcement, leads to more positive reinforcement, until you've got a full blown preference/predilection/talent for something (or the opposite).
The idea that genetics play zero role seems silly, but it also makes sense that society shapes the experience of someone with a given genetic combination in a way we can still control.
This (very long) article reinforces my belief that society is best off when it finds a place for everyone, and not when it idolizes one set of talents/skills, and acknowledges just how little genetics really matter to be "competent" at any given thing.
I very much look forward to reading the book this article is promoting.
I tried once to ask reddit's Anthropologists about what cultural artifacts are affected by genetics e.g. how lactose intolerance can affect a local culture. The question was apparently racist and then taken down.
What's weird, is that if you believe in equality , you 'd WANT to know the genetic determinants of anything, so you can truly equalize it with genetic engineering.
Can conservatives be convinced that individual choices and education matter more? God i hate those dissent-sew-click-bait titles.
In feudalism, being poor, is your fault. You are morally suspicious, of lower blood and any theory that fits will be used to justify this world order before itself. Thus why national-socialist attracted so many nobles. Thus why "differences" written in stone are so abhorrent to the left. Cause nothing should be written in stone, in a enlightened world.
Then, there are differences. But to my mind, the differences are quite universal. Cause those differences were shaped by the environment and the environment was for the last 10.000 - 200 years pretty universal for the species. We have neuro sub-types everywhere, adapted to the ebb and flow of resources and the rise and fall of overpopulation. Somebody optimized to survive a civil-war, might not be optimal for calculus, but might be better at improvisation than someone born into the calm waters of post-(civil-war/genocide) societies. We might even one day learn to suppress the epi-genetic stress triggers that make this wheel go round.
We can learn to detect those differences, and learn to work around those differences and it might even benefit us. Or we can shun the "other" - like we already shun those optimized for conflict - and watch the world go down the drain. Cooperation yields higher reward, so research away, but the endgoal should be here to stay.
Genetics are discussed as social issue instead of as a missing practical technology, only because the tech isnt there yet. But it will be and soon, and once it is the left will embrace it like they did with prenatal vitamins. Embryo genediting and embryo selection works just fine, and the databases required to find polygene traits are beeing created, the techniques required beeing researched. Even today there are dozens of genetic traits that are screened for, and the parents given the choice to abort, or in the case of IVF, to pick another embryo for implantation. And people do abort, if given the screening and the choice. Trisomys like downs are going away in civilized countries, with more than 99% abortion rates. Religion can slow progress down, but nothing, absolutely nothing, will stop parents from wanting the best for their kid, or more specifically the kid they will have. Genetics and the impact on society is a fascinating topic, as is the identification of genetic traits and the experiment methodology. But the popular discussion is profoundly stupid. People seem to forget that we arent discussing how to order the society of the last century, this is all about preparing for the next one. Parents will fight over what skin color their kid will have, and the kid may disagree and change it, but only cultists will fight over if the kid should be in the optimal health, or have a low IQ.
Sperm banks select highly-educated males (i.e. recruiting at Stanford and Harvard) for sperm donors, so it seems obvious that most people know there is a hereditary component.
Sperm banks select highly educated donors because clients are willing to pay for it. That's all. You are describing capitalism. It's not like these clients are running double blind studies in their wombs.
Going to Stanford or Harvard doesn't mean you're genetically superior though, there are a lot of other things selecting people who go there before ""intelligence""
Yeah and Christians don't follow the word of Christ and live like there is no future after they are dead. Watch what people do, don't listen to what they say.
I guess the word progressive here isn’t helpful because there’s a huge diversity of thought that gets swept up under that label. But if you take it to mean the intersectional flavor of progressive that focuses on issues of disadvantage and discrimination, then the idea of a generic lottery seems right up their alley.
If the genetic lottery has winners and losers, surely that’s pure gold to progressive politics! It’s official, scientific confirmation of the existence of oppressors and victims, along a multitude of axes. And the policy implications are so obvious: equity is achieved by giving extra help to the genetic losers. A whole class of hitherto-wishy-washy political activity suddenly gains scientific cover: the activity of quantifying exactly how much disadvantage each group suffers, and correspondingly how much assistance to render.
Why are progressive think tanks not totally on board with this already?!
If you read the article, you'd see there are "progressives" in positions of power of what science is funded and what isn't, who take the position that genetics don't matter at all, and any research into them is done because it's motivated by rightist hatred of minorities.
IQ is misunderstood by most people and the common misconceptions are extremely harmful.
In reality IQ matters much less than people think. The top 5 rated chess player of all time (Hikaru Nakamura) has a ~105 IQ. People with an average IQ are capable of performing at the 0.1% level with the proper structured training and time.
In my experience IQ mostly impacts the rate at which you learn things. So it took you 2 years instead of 1.5 to master a certain skill -- so what? As a society we should put more emphasis on hard work and results, and less on inherant traits.
IQ matters less than people think at some things, like chess. However, it does matter for other things, like mathematical analysis. Moreover, there is a correlation between IQ or proxies of IQ (like test scores) and income. While it isn't a super-strong relationship, there are few other variables that have as strong an impact.
For anyone interested in this topic I highly recommend Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky's book "Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst". It does an excellent job showing the nuance and complexity between genetic determinism and social construction. After reading this book I understood the nature vs. nurture debate is somewhat artificial not terribly useful.
Imagine (semi-publicly) telling a colleague that their field is broadly (morally, by implication) comparable to Holocaust denialism. What an absolute ass. In a sensible world, anybody bringing that kind of attitude into the scientific community would be treated like the social equivalent of a barrel of toxic waste until they learn to act like an adult (in the intellectual sense).
The problem here is not study of genetics, but the tacit assumption that society must be constructed for the elevation of whatever the 'best' is, and the suppression and destruction of the 'worst'.
The rest is just where you place the line, and if you grant that, you are establishing the threshold for genocide.
Things would be a bit simpler if the argument wasn't 'never talk about any differences among people', but 'never place that line, because society is not constructed for the destruction of the least among it'.
It is NOT an inevitable requirement that society is constructed for the destruction of the least among it.
I think Charles Murray's position is misrepresented here. At least in his latest book (Facing reality), he doesn't talk about genetics (of which he is not a specialist), but about inheritable characteristics. His point is that you don't know where the cursor is between genes and early education/environment, but since you can't take children away from their parents at birth, the distinction doesn't really matter from a public policy point of view.
He doesn't say that genes (or early environment) is the only thing that matters either, and points at evolution in the IQ distribution over time, and takes the argument that if you were to put an "asian tigger mum" behind each children, you would most likely get an impact on scores.
For those interested, his debate with Coleman Hughes is interesting [1]. Coleman makes an good objection. He says that these studies on variations in IQ distributions may or may not be correct, but that we shouldn't publicise them because most people are incapable of thinking in term of distributions, and will treat an individual differently based on one of the metrics (mean, percentile, standard deviation) of whichever way you cut the population. I am conflicted on that. On one side I oppose the idea that you shouldn't look at the facts because the facts could be misused (the "chemistry is bad because Zyklon B" argument). On the other hand I have seen enough educated and smart enough people incapable of thinking in term of distribution to acknowledge that Coleman has a point.
My own experience suggests that whilst yes, genetics is an important factor in life outcomes, other things that are hugely important also aren't adequately researched, because genetic determinism is so widely accepted.
I've been experimenting with some self-improvement techniques for nearly 10 years. I found them after a few years of personal crisis and a quest for understanding, as I was very confused at what was causing my inconsistent life success/happiness/satisfaction/health. I'd had plenty of cases where I'd done well in life (in school work, career, friendships, relationships, sport, physical health) and plenty of other cases where I'd done terribly. "Trying harder" didn't seem to improve things, and in many cases made things worse. It didn't make sense that it was all explained by hard-coded genetics, as, well, it made no sense that my patterns were selected for by evolution, and it was hard to understand how genetics had given me a brain that was quite good at things one week but terrible at the very same things the next. And it didn't seem like these tendencies mirrored either of my parents'. It sometimes did seem like sometimes it was one parents' tendencies competing/conflicting with the other's, but other times the patterns seemed completely unlike anyone in my family. Genetic determinism just made no sense as an explanation, even after multiple doctors/psychiatrists said some version of "that's just how you're wired".
Just by chance I ended up connecting with a practitioner who practiced a form of "subconscious emotional healing", and whilst I was skeptical I was exasperated and open to trying anything at that point. After starting these practices, I felt immediate relief to a lot of the anxiety and fear I was feeling, and over time, all aspects of my life have gradually improved.
A particularly significant example of how this work has been beneficial has been in my career, and particular instances where I needed to learn a skill or deal with a challenge, and was finding myself very stuck, but by undertaking the healing work I was able to let go of the fear/anxiety/resistance I was feeling, then I found I was easily able to learn the skill or work through the obstacle, and have ended up being able to increase my capabilities and progress my career much more effectively. I've also been able to have a much better time with friendships, relationships, and my physiological health.
Some notable experts on the topic, such as Gabor Maté, assert that deeply held emotions like trauma influence our genetic expression, a mechanism known as epigenetics [1]. Others heavily dispute the role of epigenetics or the possible effectiveness of "subconscious healing" in altering life outcomes. It all seems to be derided as nonsense among conventional biomedical professionals and devotees.
The thing is, I don't see any significant research either proving or disproving anything in this area, but I do see plenty of non-mainstream practitioners and individuals undertaking this kind of work and having really good outcomes. I’ve often thought of trying to gather data on my own progress, of physiological indicators and perhaps even IQ tests, but it’s hard to get any meaningful testing done when you’re just a guy who reckons he’s onto something.
But it seems like an important thing to study, because, unlike genetic determinism, it has the potential to substantially change life outcomes for people living today. When I think about the times in my life when I was struggling, particularly as a deeply confused/terrified school student wondering why I was making my teachers and parents happy one week and disappointing them the next, and realise how much of it was influenced by the subconscious emotions that it's taken until now to identify and resolve, my heart breaks for the many people still experiencing those kinds of feelings, but believing or being told that they can't hope for anything better due to society's embrace of genetic determinism.
If anyone reading this happens to be working in fields related to epigenetics or behaviour-change, or is connected with anyone who is, and wants to talk to someone who has spent 10 years undertaking emotional healing work with great success, please feel free to get in touch.
[+] [-] neonate|4 years ago|reply
https://archive.is/Qs3EL
[+] [-] blast|4 years ago|reply
https://libcom.org/files/chomsky%20-%20iq%20building%20block...
Still timely and fresh, especially considering that he was critiquing Herrnstein 20 years before The Bell Curve.
Because he's smart and unafraid, either of science or the truth, Chomsky never denies the possibility of a genetic component to IQ, even IQ/race. What he denies are the ideological assumptions people make about the social consequences that must follow if those findings are true - assumptions which he brilliantly lays bare and then demolishes. He also questions the scientific significance of the research - even if it is true (a phrase he uses a lot).
Since not one of his arguments depends on Herrnstein's scientific claims being false, the issue of science denialism never comes up with Chomsky. He lets his opponents have everything they "ask" for empirically ("even if it is true") and refutes them on other grounds.
This must partly be because (ironically?) he's smarter than most people (including most other progressives) and therefore wasn't about to walk into the trap the left finds itself in 50 years later - a trap which must be tightening, if an article like the OP appears in the New Yorker of all places. But there must be more to it than this. I think the progressives who find themselves having to challenge this research as false (rather than inconsequential and insignificant, as Chomsky does), actually share many of the ideological and meritocratic assumptions that Chomsky writes about - for example the assumption that wealth and power must necessarily flow to those with higher IQ. They don't want to give up this assumption because they belong to the meritocracy themselves (or are part of the class that identifies that way). Because of this, they can't accept Chomsky's argument much more than the Herrnsteins can.
[+] [-] _fhnu|4 years ago|reply
We should be extremely skeptical of any argument that serves solely to justify the positions those in power, which is a typical endpoint for too many discussions of genetics. Using science to validate the status quo and describe certain economic and social classes as superiors/inferiors is a cruel perversion, but outright denying the science is similarly dishonest and not very convincing either.
Genetics are powerful, but only a piece of the great puzzle underlying human traits and behaviors. Especially when considering life at the individual level, you can't easily make any declarative statements about someone's potential, or even clearly discern the total effect of genes on their most basic traits like height without also considering a host of other factors with similar weightings. Beyond the ambiguity surrounding how genes and environment conspire to produce our traits, as Chomsky argues, the traits that are rewarded with wealth and power are often arbitrary: they are certain traits that can be identified in those who already have wealth/power in a self-justification of the existing hierarchy.
So even if we take the science at face value, it is quite a stretch to say that the science supports the current stratification. The two are not casually linked.
[+] [-] cm2187|4 years ago|reply
That’s the argument Murray makes in his latest book, i.e. that differences in distributions is a toxic topic that he has been trying to stay clear of since the Bell Curve, given all the griefs he got for it. But the claims of systematic racism or sexism when you don’t have matching representation everywhere can only be opposed if you get into this ugly discussion.
[+] [-] 20jdjs00dlll|4 years ago|reply
On the one hand, I've had to deal firsthand with the phenomenon Paige-Harden is talking about, in hiring discussions and faculty meetings. It's infuriating and bizarre to see the level of denial that arises among people who ostensibly are extremely intelligent and well-educated. It reaches a point where my only conclusion has been that these individuals are completely out of touch in an ivory-tower sense, that they have no idea what happens in clinical settings, and the problems that arise in terms of phenomena that are obviously congenital disorders or near-disorders, even if they don't have a label per se.
On the other hand, I think the behavior genetics community is in a bit of denial itself, about the strengths of its models and reliability of its conclusions. The field has found itself in a no-mans land the last decade or so, in that the revolution promised by the genome area instead stripped the field of results: the findings of the twin era, when faced with molecular genetics, largely evaporated. This is alluded to in the article with polygenic risk scores, but those I suspect will face a similar crisis of replicability; although they predict outcomes, it's relatively weak when you get to behavior, and much weaker still upon replication.
This all leads to a general sense within the BG community and without that the models and findings of behavior genetics are based on very big assumptions, assumptions that seem to fall apart when looked at through a microscope. They might have some validity in a broad brush sense — in the sense that yes, there are some sets of genes that collectively lead one to have higher functioning cognitive ability, and some that lead to impairments — but the tricky details most people wrestle with are mismodeled. Comparing one end of the bell curve to the other is doable; less doable is comparing adjoining areas of the curve. There's also the strange complexity of life, which is largely absent from these models. A common pattern is for some BG conclusion to be drawn in the literature, and then everyone has very clear, prima facie evidence — on the news, in everyday experience, and so forth — that clearly contradicts it. The BG community wrestles with it, comes up with some contorted explanation for why there's no contradiction, and then silence.
The reason why I'm posting in response to your comment is that underlying all of this I think is a fundamental, often implied concern about BG research: that it is not oriented toward intervention, change, or improvement. What it concerns itself with are characterizing with abstract descriptions — "additive genetic variance", or "polygenic risk" — people as if they are static objects. It's not oriented toward identifying something specific or manipulable, like a neurophysiological pathway that can be changed, or the products of specific genes. Even when research is oriented toward potential change, as in environmental interventions, genes are still treated as something fixed and unchanging, background that is to be covaried out because it's not something we should do anything about.
So, even though I think the left-leaning segments of academia definitely go overboard in how they approach behavior and genetics, there's some sympathetic groups who largely reject it for other reasons. They see the field as fuzzy and unreplicable in a levels-of-analysis sense, if not sample-to-sample sense, and are skeptical of the overall worldview implicitly being promoted.
I need to reread the Chomsky piece; it's dense and full of excellent points. But part of what it points to is the fundamental problem with seeing individuals in society in terms of reward or punishment for what they are, rather than in terms of the obligation of society at large toward improving other individuals.
The real crisis looming on the horizon isn't the failure of the left to appreciate behavior genetics. It's the failure of everyone to appreciate the implications of a civilization where we will soon be able to alter our genes at any stage of life, as well as the neurobehavioral structures that are downstream from them. Where does the moral obligation lie then? With the individual or society? What value is there then in abstract quantifications of variance due to the individual at birth, and variance that occurs later?
[+] [-] dash2|4 years ago|reply
"If... society can be organized more or less in accordance with the "socialist dictum," then nothing is left of Herrnstein's argument"
So, if you think socialism works, then yeah, you'll find this very persuasive. From my POV, though, it's a deluded fantasy which 100 years of disastrous policy catastrophes have disproved.
[+] [-] tomp|4 years ago|reply
We're currently in the middle of several highly emotional political debates, which would easily be resolved by having better/more scientific data, particularly into the correlation of IQ and interests with race & sex. Sure, genetics don't determine an individual's life, but they do influence population averages, so if genetics explain/predict sex & race differences in careers and education, we could hopefully resolve those debates.
Another example of this is the association between violence and (1) computer games, and (2) sex/testosterone. The first one, albeit "intuitive", was debunked using science/statistics, and the second one most people just assume as "obviously" true (and noone claims sexism!) (although AFAIK it's scientifically debatable).
Again, genetics don't determine an individual, but they do influence the population & sub-groups.
[+] [-] tomxor|4 years ago|reply
The identification of differences between groups seem to be commonly conflated with the act of unfairly discriminating against a group with prejudice based on differences (perceived or real), which is kind of absurd when you think of some of the more superficial and obvious yet real differences. You clarify this very succinctly, but it is still abstract, and I find many people tend not to understand until given a more concrete example... this I find challenging to do without being prejudged as some kind of racist or sexist, so unfortunately I just don't bother any more, the world has become overly sensitive to certain subjects.
[+] [-] stringsy|4 years ago|reply
She seems quite aligned with Chomsky on that front actually.
From the OP's article, she seems to be very aware that her research is reflective of current society and should be used to better/change it.
Chomsky mentions that such research could be useful e.g. for improving education - Harden seems to agree there.
"In 2018, she wrote an Op-Ed in the Times, arguing that progressives should embrace the potential of genetics to inform education policy."
So yeh, I don't think they are necessarily talking at cross purposes (despite the 40+ year time delay :P).
(First HN comment, be cool to hear back what you think!)
[+] [-] midjji|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heresie-dabord|4 years ago|reply
Democracy needs education and clear discourse. Citizens in a democracy are to be treated fairly and as equals before the law. If we cannot even ensure these principles, democracy is in a decrepit state indeed.
I wonder what exactly remains as a political commitment to the people.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] inglor_cz|4 years ago|reply
Someone playing with electricity in 1800 was doing scientifically insignificant research. 100 years later, electricity was a major industrial force.
We are just entering the era when genetic manipulations of not just embryos, but adult organisms will be possible. One day, this technology will be used on humans as well. Even if the U.S. forbade such research, other countries likely won't. 20 or 30 years from now, progressives will have to find answers to technology that can tune various parameters of human beings, maybe including some cognitive abilities.
[+] [-] heisenzombie|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] narrator|4 years ago|reply
How do you increase your authority if you know that races are not all of equal ability?
1. Lie and publicly express that you think all races are of equal ability at all things.
2. Widely report that some races don't do as well as others on standardized tests, etc.
3. Blame racists, or even a whole race that does better as the cause of this.
4. Demand that racists must be rooted out and further and further scrutinized for microagreassions, etc.
5. Demand more unconstrained power, money and authority to 'fix' this.
6. Go back to step 1 and continue the loop till you have absolute power.
[+] [-] baybal2|4 years ago|reply
Absolutely true. Even if it's true, the society should not give ammunition to closet racists with their attempts to stealthily legitimise racism.
Equally so, in the current immigration debacle, we need to call things their own names. What these people mean, but don't say out loud for the fear of instant character assassination by being called out for racism is that they don't want brown people in their countries.
New Yorker bought into this, unfortunately. The author does not want to "help" racial minorities, she wants to label them dumb, an needing compassion, which in reality will lead to even more strong ostracism, and stigmatisation. Nobody have to be "scientifically established to be dumb, and biologically inferior." That's right out of 3rd reich's playbook.
[+] [-] syops|4 years ago|reply
Over the next year, a biosciences working group revised the program’s funding guidelines, stipulating in the final draft that it would not support any research into the first-order effects of genes on behavior or social outcomes.
The fact that this area is controversial suggests to me that it is worth exploration.
I’ve taught mathematics at community colleges for over 20 years and I’m absolutely convinced that not all people can learn algebra or calculus. To me it is obvious this is so since the mentally disabled can’t. There’s a level of “intelligence” that’s necessary to learn a given topic. Not everyone can learn all topics.
This belief of mine is considered heretical amongst leftist colleagues (I’m a liberal myself on almost every issue). As a college we act as if everyone can pass. Years of administration telling the math department that our passing rate is too low have led me to pretty much pass everyone who takes the final exam. Last semester 80% passed but only around 50% deserved to.
[+] [-] DanHulton|4 years ago|reply
Your previous education, your upbringing, your cultural values, these things all also have huge effects on your aptitudes, and you've just dismissed them out of hand, apparently in favour of pre-determined genetic intelligence. I mean, all I know of you is this comment, so I could easily be missing a lot more context about this argument you've had, but it sounds like you have an axe to grind, not a carefully-considered conclusion.
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|4 years ago|reply
I can definitely say that there are many people for whom it is a struggle - even those on college courses.
But a hundred years ago we could easily have the same conversation about simply reading and writing - they (the poor, women, or "lower class" ) luke not be taught to read. But it turns out that if you start young enough, and put enough effort in, 99% of everyone can learn
So, perhaps society is not putting enough effort in, or asking enough effort from, our kids for them all to learn calculus.
As the Agile Manifesto says, the work delivered represents the effort input so far. If society wants all children to learn calculus, we need to pay that price.
Edit: I think that we do need a new conversation about education. We have My father left full time education at 14, at 18 most of my peers left school and only 25% of us went to college. Today it's 50% it the total spend has not gone up in line.
I honestly don't know what kind of world the "universal education" advocates of the 1870s were imagining - but I am damn sure it was not people doing college courses on their iPhones, but it is the world they ushered in.
We need to double down on what worked for the 20th Century (and avoid the, y'know wars and genocide and stuff).
Education will lay at the heart of that.
[+] [-] spaniard89277|4 years ago|reply
Doesn't this contribute to lower the reputation of the universities?
I mean, I did sociology in a small university in northern Spain and there was debate between the stats and methodology professors and pretty much everyone else about this.
In the end I'm grateful to my stats and methodology professors, because having to work very hard is the only thing that actually gave me something useful to go and fight with the world.
Many of my peers had to go to other unis because they couldn't pass there, so in the end they get a pass like me, the same in the eyes of employers, but they know it's bullshiting, and I know too.
IDK, It seems to me that there's a lot of lazyness in social sciences, and this kind of hard attitude to it is not only good for the students, but needed in the field.
IDK in the US, but this professors got a lot of heat for their stances on what a university is about, but they stood their ground, even when they've got hit by political bullshit, denied money for research, etc.
There's another thing (again, IDK if it's the same in the US), but why don't you see it in CS or Engineering faculties? I mean, I remember in my uni the students of this faculties had maybe a couple of professors that where ok to lower the bar a bit, but most of them just assumed that you gotta learn what you gotta learn. And many of them where pretty hostile to students, 180º stance from what I see in Stanford Moocs for example.
[+] [-] bawolff|4 years ago|reply
I think most people agree that there are extremes. There probably exists a small number of people who literally cannot (just like how 1 in a million could probably teach themselves calculus at age 10, also exists). However it's a big jump to conclude that even a small percentage of the people at your college cannot in the literal sense - i.e. if their life depended on it, they had all the resources they could want, they had no other distractions.
[+] [-] beej71|4 years ago|reply
* What percentage of your students hate math?
* How do you differentiate between someone who doesn't get it because it's beyond their mental skill level versus someone who doesn't get it because they'd rather be doing literally anything else?
* When you say "mentally disabled", what exactly does that mean in the context of a spectrum of ability levels across the species?
* There are a lot of reasons people might fail your class. What are they? What's the percentage breakdown?
* What are the dangers of thinking that not all people can learn math? What are the dangers of not thinking that?
[+] [-] littlestymaar|4 years ago|reply
Not all people can read, it's obvious since the mentally disabled can't. Yet with proper education, all non-disabled people can be taught reading.
But that doesn't mean everyone can read, if you're illiterate by your 20s, you're gonna have a hard time catching up. Same for mathematics: most people reaching even high school are too mathematically illiterate to catch up[1]. Is genetics a factor: definitely, but it's among many others.
The reason why it's a partisan issue is the following: if I say genetics is a decisive factor, then I can say «it's natural, there's nothing we can do so we don't need to spend all that government money trying to help those people». The left-sided point of view goes as «There's nothing we can do about genetics, but we can change everything else. Then we need to find what are all the other factors, because those are the actionable ones». The conservative focus on genetics is mainly a justification for doing nothing.
> There’s a level of “intelligence” that’s necessary to learn a given topic. Not everyone can learn all topics.
“intelligence” is conveniently pretty ill-defined, but I don't think I'm more intelligent than my doctor friends, yet they struggled a lot to grasp even the most basic concepts of algebra when I tried to help them during our studies. “Not everyone can learn all topic” but I have yet to find evidences that your ability to learn a random topic you're not interested into is correlated with the common acceptance of the word “intelligence”.
[1]: that doesn't mean it's impossible, just likely well beyond the amount of effort they can (or want to) afford.
[+] [-] threatofrain|4 years ago|reply
In some schools around the Bay Area, we have half the students on the fastest track, and about half the math faculty as calculus teachers. An immodest minority of students complete Calculus BC early and go on to the local college to continue their math education for their remaining years in HS. And these aren't even the top 50 schools in the nation.
[+] [-] NoImmatureAdHom|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linksnapzz|4 years ago|reply
It’s too bad, because I don’t think anyone should be able to leave high school without understanding compound interest-sorta vital for participating in a modern economy. Also, it’s not like we can stop loaning money to the innumerate, even if that might be the ethical thing to do.
[+] [-] armchairhacker|4 years ago|reply
But genetics doesn't matter, in that just because you have "bad" genetics doesn't mean you'll suck, whether it comes to weightlifting, intelligence, temperment, etc. Maybe you won't be in the top 0.0001%, but except for some very specific circumstances, you can defy the average. If you want to know if someone's bad at something, actually testing them is much more accurate than looking at their genetics.
If you look at the top 10 distance runners, they're all from Ethiopia and Kenya. But as you look further down the list into the top 100, you start to see Americans and others. Furthermore, the Americans' times are really close to the Ethiopians and Kenyans.
So, even if we know for a solid fact that some ethnic group is on average dumber than another, or more violent, it doesn't mean anything. Because it doesn't say anything about the individual people, who vary much more than the difference in averages.
[+] [-] DangitBobby|4 years ago|reply
If not everyone can be expected to learn and be proficient in everything due to genetics, then suddenly merit itself is also based strongly on luck, and now the belief that people with greater merit should have better lives no longer seems fair. Intelligence is now just another gift to the fortunate who are destined to have a better life. How can you feel good about using your considerable advantages to the detriment of others if your merit is the result of a jackpot paid out at birth?
Even if you believe that with enough time and perseverance you can overcome your lack of intelligence compared to another person, you have to ignore the fact that having to spend more time on something (but actually, everything) than everyone else will put you further and further and further behind everyone else in a way that compounds quickly.
Modern society is ostensibly structured this way: the smart will win. If intelligence becomes genetic, it can instead be said that "the lucky will win." And successful people desperately want that to not be the case, because they want to believe they deserve their considerable advantages. And they want to be guilt free about the miserable lives some people lead; it's their fault for being stupid, after all.
[+] [-] lamontcg|4 years ago|reply
But then people use that to argue that the people at the top deserve everything they have.
The exact same argument was made back when we had slavery.
Now its just used to justify wage slavery and gross wealth inequality and policies which punish the poor.
(It also is grossly oversimplified and discounts reversion to the mean and that two dumb parents can absolutely have a smart kid -- along with the fact that a smart kid born in poverty is going have a much more difficult time getting their net worth up into tends of millions than someone who is just literally born with that much -- plus neglects the effects of e.g. malnutrition on childhood development)
[+] [-] atoav|4 years ago|reply
The reason why people on the left defend against the notion that genetics are everything is because this is the thing fascists use to divide people and make them kill each other. So cool — genetics matter, just like education, nutrition, social situation, security of ones environment etc — but what do we do with this? Argue that some people do rightfully suffer because they chose to have been born into the wrong body? Try to weed out the bad genetics? Who will decide what is bad genetics? The aryan master race? People of color?
There are so many other levers we can pull I don't think we need to bring genetics into it from a political improvement perspective. When we think about healthcare that is a different topic.
[+] [-] TameAntelope|4 years ago|reply
> [Harden] told me, “As a parent, I try to keep in mind that differences between people are examples of runaway feedback loops of gene-by-environment interaction. People have some initial genetic predisposition to something, and that leads them to choose certain friends over other friends, and these initial exposures have a certain effect, and you like that effect and you choose it again, and then these feedback loops become self-reinforcing.”
Feedback loops sound about right, where some tiny minute preference leads to positive reinforcement, leads to more positive reinforcement, until you've got a full blown preference/predilection/talent for something (or the opposite).
The idea that genetics play zero role seems silly, but it also makes sense that society shapes the experience of someone with a given genetic combination in a way we can still control.
This (very long) article reinforces my belief that society is best off when it finds a place for everyone, and not when it idolizes one set of talents/skills, and acknowledges just how little genetics really matter to be "competent" at any given thing.
I very much look forward to reading the book this article is promoting.
[+] [-] cblconfederate|4 years ago|reply
What's weird, is that if you believe in equality , you 'd WANT to know the genetic determinants of anything, so you can truly equalize it with genetic engineering.
[+] [-] OneTimePetes|4 years ago|reply
In feudalism, being poor, is your fault. You are morally suspicious, of lower blood and any theory that fits will be used to justify this world order before itself. Thus why national-socialist attracted so many nobles. Thus why "differences" written in stone are so abhorrent to the left. Cause nothing should be written in stone, in a enlightened world.
Then, there are differences. But to my mind, the differences are quite universal. Cause those differences were shaped by the environment and the environment was for the last 10.000 - 200 years pretty universal for the species. We have neuro sub-types everywhere, adapted to the ebb and flow of resources and the rise and fall of overpopulation. Somebody optimized to survive a civil-war, might not be optimal for calculus, but might be better at improvisation than someone born into the calm waters of post-(civil-war/genocide) societies. We might even one day learn to suppress the epi-genetic stress triggers that make this wheel go round.
We can learn to detect those differences, and learn to work around those differences and it might even benefit us. Or we can shun the "other" - like we already shun those optimized for conflict - and watch the world go down the drain. Cooperation yields higher reward, so research away, but the endgoal should be here to stay.
[+] [-] midjji|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carabiner|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ggggtez|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lm28469|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] globular-toast|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] haihaibye|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jl6|4 years ago|reply
If the genetic lottery has winners and losers, surely that’s pure gold to progressive politics! It’s official, scientific confirmation of the existence of oppressors and victims, along a multitude of axes. And the policy implications are so obvious: equity is achieved by giving extra help to the genetic losers. A whole class of hitherto-wishy-washy political activity suddenly gains scientific cover: the activity of quantifying exactly how much disadvantage each group suffers, and correspondingly how much assistance to render.
Why are progressive think tanks not totally on board with this already?!
[+] [-] de_keyboard|4 years ago|reply
1. Genetics, upbringing and culture all matter
2. Diversity within an ethnic group is extremely large - often similar magnitude to diversity between ethnic groups
3. Therefore, to judge someone on their ethnic average will be inaccurate at best, offensive at worst
I think that this position has been misconstrued by pop-right / alt-right figures to create a false narrative in the culture wars.
[+] [-] automatic6131|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yadaeno|4 years ago|reply
In reality IQ matters much less than people think. The top 5 rated chess player of all time (Hikaru Nakamura) has a ~105 IQ. People with an average IQ are capable of performing at the 0.1% level with the proper structured training and time.
In my experience IQ mostly impacts the rate at which you learn things. So it took you 2 years instead of 1.5 to master a certain skill -- so what? As a society we should put more emphasis on hard work and results, and less on inherant traits.
[+] [-] 1980phipsi|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strikelaserclaw|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stolenmerch|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caconym_|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Applejinx|4 years ago|reply
The rest is just where you place the line, and if you grant that, you are establishing the threshold for genocide.
Things would be a bit simpler if the argument wasn't 'never talk about any differences among people', but 'never place that line, because society is not constructed for the destruction of the least among it'.
It is NOT an inevitable requirement that society is constructed for the destruction of the least among it.
[+] [-] cm2187|4 years ago|reply
He doesn't say that genes (or early environment) is the only thing that matters either, and points at evolution in the IQ distribution over time, and takes the argument that if you were to put an "asian tigger mum" behind each children, you would most likely get an impact on scores.
For those interested, his debate with Coleman Hughes is interesting [1]. Coleman makes an good objection. He says that these studies on variations in IQ distributions may or may not be correct, but that we shouldn't publicise them because most people are incapable of thinking in term of distributions, and will treat an individual differently based on one of the metrics (mean, percentile, standard deviation) of whichever way you cut the population. I am conflicted on that. On one side I oppose the idea that you shouldn't look at the facts because the facts could be misused (the "chemistry is bad because Zyklon B" argument). On the other hand I have seen enough educated and smart enough people incapable of thinking in term of distribution to acknowledge that Coleman has a point.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE5QcD_12fQ
[+] [-] tomhoward|4 years ago|reply
I've been experimenting with some self-improvement techniques for nearly 10 years. I found them after a few years of personal crisis and a quest for understanding, as I was very confused at what was causing my inconsistent life success/happiness/satisfaction/health. I'd had plenty of cases where I'd done well in life (in school work, career, friendships, relationships, sport, physical health) and plenty of other cases where I'd done terribly. "Trying harder" didn't seem to improve things, and in many cases made things worse. It didn't make sense that it was all explained by hard-coded genetics, as, well, it made no sense that my patterns were selected for by evolution, and it was hard to understand how genetics had given me a brain that was quite good at things one week but terrible at the very same things the next. And it didn't seem like these tendencies mirrored either of my parents'. It sometimes did seem like sometimes it was one parents' tendencies competing/conflicting with the other's, but other times the patterns seemed completely unlike anyone in my family. Genetic determinism just made no sense as an explanation, even after multiple doctors/psychiatrists said some version of "that's just how you're wired".
Just by chance I ended up connecting with a practitioner who practiced a form of "subconscious emotional healing", and whilst I was skeptical I was exasperated and open to trying anything at that point. After starting these practices, I felt immediate relief to a lot of the anxiety and fear I was feeling, and over time, all aspects of my life have gradually improved.
A particularly significant example of how this work has been beneficial has been in my career, and particular instances where I needed to learn a skill or deal with a challenge, and was finding myself very stuck, but by undertaking the healing work I was able to let go of the fear/anxiety/resistance I was feeling, then I found I was easily able to learn the skill or work through the obstacle, and have ended up being able to increase my capabilities and progress my career much more effectively. I've also been able to have a much better time with friendships, relationships, and my physiological health.
Some notable experts on the topic, such as Gabor Maté, assert that deeply held emotions like trauma influence our genetic expression, a mechanism known as epigenetics [1]. Others heavily dispute the role of epigenetics or the possible effectiveness of "subconscious healing" in altering life outcomes. It all seems to be derided as nonsense among conventional biomedical professionals and devotees.
The thing is, I don't see any significant research either proving or disproving anything in this area, but I do see plenty of non-mainstream practitioners and individuals undertaking this kind of work and having really good outcomes. I’ve often thought of trying to gather data on my own progress, of physiological indicators and perhaps even IQ tests, but it’s hard to get any meaningful testing done when you’re just a guy who reckons he’s onto something.
But it seems like an important thing to study, because, unlike genetic determinism, it has the potential to substantially change life outcomes for people living today. When I think about the times in my life when I was struggling, particularly as a deeply confused/terrified school student wondering why I was making my teachers and parents happy one week and disappointing them the next, and realise how much of it was influenced by the subconscious emotions that it's taken until now to identify and resolve, my heart breaks for the many people still experiencing those kinds of feelings, but believing or being told that they can't hope for anything better due to society's embrace of genetic determinism.
If anyone reading this happens to be working in fields related to epigenetics or behaviour-change, or is connected with anyone who is, and wants to talk to someone who has spent 10 years undertaking emotional healing work with great success, please feel free to get in touch.
[1] https://drgabormate.com/trouble-dna-rat-race/