What they were looking for, if you go back in the record, was always that elusive direct genetic evidence. For decades researchers in behavioral genetics had performed kinship studies, research involving adoptees and identical twins, to determine the degree to which genes might influence behavioral traits such as intelligence, perseverance, extraversion, and more. Identical twins share more or less 100% of their DNA, with some complications, while ordinary siblings share an estimated 50% of their genetic code, with even more complications, and half-siblings share ~25%…. These estimates of genetic similarity allowed researchers to crudely match that estimated similarity with quantitative behavioral variables like IQ. Identical twins who were raised in different environments permitted a glimpse at how their nearly-identical DNA resulted in similarity under remarkably different circumstances, while the differences between adopted children and their siblings who were the biological progeny of the parents permitted similar questions through a different lens.
I'll be reading Harden's book for sure. Sounds like required reading alongside yours, and Human Diversity by Charles Murray. (I know you invoke his name in the article but it bears repeating: Human Diversity is - for now - the last word in group diversity written for a popular, non-scientific audience.)
You are right - we can either grapple with the facts and try to build just social outcomes based off those, or we can snarkily stick our heads in the sand. I fear that, despite a few voices like yours, we are, as a culture, choosing the latter. Race and identity and gender are everything to us, but also nothing. The label matters more than anything; the reality not at all. It's utterly unsustainable but, as you allude to, the technology and its exploitation will be here, bagged and sold before we, as a culture, have a chance to reckon with it.
It seems like there's a group of people who just deny any notion of physical reality. They don't believe in genes, they don't believe in biological sex. There's even "fat acceptance" people who don't believe fat causes diabetes - it's all caused by far stigma.
I'm trying to understand who all these people are who do not believe that academic ability has a large genetic component. Apparently none of them use google, because if I type "are grades genetic" into google, I get this as the answer:
70 per cent good grades owe to genes
"Around two-thirds of individual differences in school achievement are explained by differences in children's DNA," said Margherita Malanchini, a psychology postdoctoral fellow at University of Texas.
“ knew in their heart back then that some kids were just smarter than others”
A lot of people think studiousness is a choice. If you’re good looking and athletic you have other things to occupy your time. The ugly clumsy nerd doesn’t have anything better to do than study.
The key flaw in that analysis is the soccer player going to Colombia with his 1580 SAT score knew enough to play up the sports and play down the 4.5 GPA.
I think smart kids with good social skills downplaying their grades and SAT scores to enhance their social status helps explain a lot of resistance to the statistical reality.
If someone can only get something by luck, then having it doesn't make them special/better, it just shows they got lucky.
People who think their own academic aptitude makes them special/better can't admit that "academic aptitude" is one of those "luck" things.
And they can't even be okay with thinking that it's their academic achievements (degrees, tenure, what-have-you), i.e. what they DID with their academic aptitude, that makes them special/better, because getting lucky in the academic aptitude thing made all those achievements easier for them than for their high-school classmate who didn't get academic aptitude and instead became a plumber or electrician or some other trade.
And they'll pay lip-service to how those trades are "noble" and no less "valuable" than being an academic... but the "rude thing" is: I don't believe they actually think that (to borrow the phrase from Freddie). Because if they did actually think that, then they'd be fine with admitting that getting lucky in their genetics made it much easier for them to pursue the path they did.
"When they say that they think all people have the same innate ability to perform well in school or on other cognitive tasks, that any difference is environmental, what I think inside is, I don’t believe that you believe that." Would you believe me if I said I *used* to believe that? I was explicitly taught in high school that we're all tabula rasa. And I knew I had advantages -- stable family, enough food, safe schools, etc. So it seemed very reasonable that kids in terrible environments would have had my good outcome if they'd had my good environment. It was only as I got older (and older) and saw more about how the world works that I began to realize that how we are hardwired makes a huge difference.
One of the problems that I have with the NYorker piece is the assertion that the pushback that Paige Harden is getting from the right is from "genetic determinists" who think that environment counts for nothing. But the piece fails to produce even a single individual who asserts that nurture is completely irrelevant compared to nature. n Instead the forces of the right are personified by Charles Murray and the argument is that genetic differences may play a significant role in IQ differences in populations (races). That is not even close to the same argument.
And at the end of the day isn't the most important aspect of Murray and _The Bell Curve_ the fact that in terms of remediations that he agrees with the left on so many issues? The fundamental issue is that the game is increasingly rigged against blue collar workers, a group that on average will have a lower IQ than so-called knowledge workers and urban professionals.
I can't help but think that the people who scream the loudest that nothing is genetic, that they secretly believe that yes, things are genetic, and that they somehow break down on racial lines, and that this information must be hidden for obvious reasons. So yeah: racists.
"And when the monetary elite uses genetic science to further strengthen the unearned dynastic advantages of their progeny, locking in the privileges that they already enjoy and pass down through inheritance, DNA, and our rotten system … what will the people attacking Paige have to say about it? What arguments will they be able to muster, against genetic engineering for those who can afford it, after decades of denying that genes matter in human behavior at all? What smarmy little jokes will the liberal gene denialists tell then?"
Dude.
No one will remember they said this, least of all, them. The genetic technology will emerge slowly enough that they will accommodate themselves to the new reality, and it will be seamless. Sure, *you* might remember this, but what will you do? Bring it up to them? Wider society will see that as gauche on your part; why are you spending all this time researching these people's past views? What is your REAL agenda?
Anyway, the left of today will not be the left of tomorrow. Political movements have many heads, and the heads they need show up when they need them, and the other heads recede when they become embarrassing.
I was looking for The Cult of Smart in the library and they didn't have it. Picked up randomly, Intelligence and how to get it by Richard Nisbett and realized the premise of it ran counter to what I take to be your position on environmental factors. Now it was from 2009 so I take it it's old. But curious if you were aware of that book, or the general position that perhaps environmental adjustments could make up some of the gap. One example given was that when children were adopted into a family of a higher socioeconomic class they could pick up 10 IQ points and similar markers in academic accomplishment. If it's covered in older articles please point me in the right direction. Thanks.
I'll be reading Harden's book for sure. Sounds like required reading alongside yours, and Human Diversity by Charles Murray. (I know you invoke his name in the article but it bears repeating: Human Diversity is - for now - the last word in group diversity written for a popular, non-scientific audience.)
You are right - we can either grapple with the facts and try to build just social outcomes based off those, or we can snarkily stick our heads in the sand. I fear that, despite a few voices like yours, we are, as a culture, choosing the latter. Race and identity and gender are everything to us, but also nothing. The label matters more than anything; the reality not at all. It's utterly unsustainable but, as you allude to, the technology and its exploitation will be here, bagged and sold before we, as a culture, have a chance to reckon with it.
This was supposed to be tomorrow's post but I fucked up and with an email newsletter there's no taking it back so... enjoy.
It seems like there's a group of people who just deny any notion of physical reality. They don't believe in genes, they don't believe in biological sex. There's even "fat acceptance" people who don't believe fat causes diabetes - it's all caused by far stigma.
I'm trying to understand who all these people are who do not believe that academic ability has a large genetic component. Apparently none of them use google, because if I type "are grades genetic" into google, I get this as the answer:
70 per cent good grades owe to genes
"Around two-thirds of individual differences in school achievement are explained by differences in children's DNA," said Margherita Malanchini, a psychology postdoctoral fellow at University of Texas.
didn't read the whole nyorker thing. i think paige's endeavor probably futile but that's life
“ knew in their heart back then that some kids were just smarter than others”
A lot of people think studiousness is a choice. If you’re good looking and athletic you have other things to occupy your time. The ugly clumsy nerd doesn’t have anything better to do than study.
The key flaw in that analysis is the soccer player going to Colombia with his 1580 SAT score knew enough to play up the sports and play down the 4.5 GPA.
I think smart kids with good social skills downplaying their grades and SAT scores to enhance their social status helps explain a lot of resistance to the statistical reality.
If someone can only get something by luck, then having it doesn't make them special/better, it just shows they got lucky.
People who think their own academic aptitude makes them special/better can't admit that "academic aptitude" is one of those "luck" things.
And they can't even be okay with thinking that it's their academic achievements (degrees, tenure, what-have-you), i.e. what they DID with their academic aptitude, that makes them special/better, because getting lucky in the academic aptitude thing made all those achievements easier for them than for their high-school classmate who didn't get academic aptitude and instead became a plumber or electrician or some other trade.
And they'll pay lip-service to how those trades are "noble" and no less "valuable" than being an academic... but the "rude thing" is: I don't believe they actually think that (to borrow the phrase from Freddie). Because if they did actually think that, then they'd be fine with admitting that getting lucky in their genetics made it much easier for them to pursue the path they did.
"When they say that they think all people have the same innate ability to perform well in school or on other cognitive tasks, that any difference is environmental, what I think inside is, I don’t believe that you believe that." Would you believe me if I said I *used* to believe that? I was explicitly taught in high school that we're all tabula rasa. And I knew I had advantages -- stable family, enough food, safe schools, etc. So it seemed very reasonable that kids in terrible environments would have had my good outcome if they'd had my good environment. It was only as I got older (and older) and saw more about how the world works that I began to realize that how we are hardwired makes a huge difference.
One of the problems that I have with the NYorker piece is the assertion that the pushback that Paige Harden is getting from the right is from "genetic determinists" who think that environment counts for nothing. But the piece fails to produce even a single individual who asserts that nurture is completely irrelevant compared to nature. n Instead the forces of the right are personified by Charles Murray and the argument is that genetic differences may play a significant role in IQ differences in populations (races). That is not even close to the same argument.
And at the end of the day isn't the most important aspect of Murray and _The Bell Curve_ the fact that in terms of remediations that he agrees with the left on so many issues? The fundamental issue is that the game is increasingly rigged against blue collar workers, a group that on average will have a lower IQ than so-called knowledge workers and urban professionals.
BTW, KPH requests that we buy her book from PUP https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691190808/the-genetic-lottery
Freddie, is there a channel you prefer to sell _tCoS_ through?
I assume these same progressives are eager to invoke the Scientific Consensus when the topic is climate change.
I can't help but think that the people who scream the loudest that nothing is genetic, that they secretly believe that yes, things are genetic, and that they somehow break down on racial lines, and that this information must be hidden for obvious reasons. So yeah: racists.
"And when the monetary elite uses genetic science to further strengthen the unearned dynastic advantages of their progeny, locking in the privileges that they already enjoy and pass down through inheritance, DNA, and our rotten system … what will the people attacking Paige have to say about it? What arguments will they be able to muster, against genetic engineering for those who can afford it, after decades of denying that genes matter in human behavior at all? What smarmy little jokes will the liberal gene denialists tell then?"
Dude.
No one will remember they said this, least of all, them. The genetic technology will emerge slowly enough that they will accommodate themselves to the new reality, and it will be seamless. Sure, *you* might remember this, but what will you do? Bring it up to them? Wider society will see that as gauche on your part; why are you spending all this time researching these people's past views? What is your REAL agenda?
Anyway, the left of today will not be the left of tomorrow. Political movements have many heads, and the heads they need show up when they need them, and the other heads recede when they become embarrassing.
I was looking for The Cult of Smart in the library and they didn't have it. Picked up randomly, Intelligence and how to get it by Richard Nisbett and realized the premise of it ran counter to what I take to be your position on environmental factors. Now it was from 2009 so I take it it's old. But curious if you were aware of that book, or the general position that perhaps environmental adjustments could make up some of the gap. One example given was that when children were adopted into a family of a higher socioeconomic class they could pick up 10 IQ points and similar markers in academic accomplishment. If it's covered in older articles please point me in the right direction. Thanks.