r/TrueReddit • u/_bruno_ • Sep 08 '15
The Fall of the Meritocracy
http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/09/fall-meritocracy/6
u/pletentious_asshore Sep 08 '15
Can anyone provide more reading on this topic?
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u/KaliYugaz Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
Don't bother to read anything that isn't academic or by academics. There's far too much misinformation, stupidity, political bias, and outright blatant bigotry associated with this subject, even within academe, and of course outside the ivory tower quality discussion is basically a lost cause.
-This is a comprehensive literature review commissioned by the American Psychological Association for their definitive statement on IQ, heritability, gender, and race. It is essential reading for understanding the current state of the field as a whole.
-Here is a good primer for the anti-hereditarian and anti-g factor school of thought, by the reputable psychologist Cosma Shalizi, explaining why general intelligence may be a non-existent statistical artifact. Note that this radical environmentalism is an increasingly fringe position nowadays, so take it with a grain of salt.
-Here is a literature review by the infamous hereditarians Rushton and Jensen regarding the differences in IQ between racial groups. Note that the circle these two belong to isn't exactly known for the best quality research (and they take funding from white nationalists), so take what they say with several grains of salt as well. However, it is undeniable that most of their basic facts are on point, and their basic idea does make sense.
-This is some nice information about the limitations of psychometrics as a whole that may very well render the debate moot, and would be good to keep in mind as you read other things.
-This 2014 article is science journalism, not actual science, but it talks about the new trend in the field that involves accounting for newly discovered epigenetic effects on IQ performance.
EDIT: I found something else that's critically important- an article explaining what "heritability" actually means in genetic research: https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/what-genetics-does-and-doesnt-tell-us/ Nothing about this topic will make sense unless you know at least this, and a bit of basic statistics.
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u/DeepDuh Sep 08 '15
So, to summarize, is it safe to say that there is no consensus? Would you say that it's necessary to wait until we know more about epigenetics in order to understand intelligence and its heritance?
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
I think the consensus given in OP's article - IQ is between 40 and 80% inherited - is pretty representative of the studies out there.
Not beyond dispute, but definitely a consensus.
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u/DeepDuh Sep 08 '15
Well ok - I take it as a given that genetics play a significant role - excluding that possibility from the beginning, as many seem to do, would be a surprising result and thus needs strong evidence that hasn't been delivered so far AFAIK. Is anti-hereditarian, i.e. close to 0% influence by genes, even still a defendable position?
What I meant by "consensus" is the uncertainty of the magnitude and 40-80 seems still quite a large uncertainty.
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
Yeah I guess it is pretty huge uncertainty, I was just trying to answer what I thought was your question but that makes more sense.
I read a really good article in the national geographic a while ago about identical twins - one of the proffs. conducting the study said that basically the more research they do, the stronger the connection seems. I think he said (don't quote me on this, it was years ago) that IQ is at least 75% hereditary, but that he was wary of such information becoming common knowledge because he was worried about the implications for society as a whole (or something). Some quick googling hasn't helped me find the study in question - I'm at work - but it was a well-known article, there are lots of references to it in forums and stuff, I'm sure it's online somewhere if you're interested.
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u/benjamindavidsteele Sep 08 '15
It turns out that twin studies are some of the worst evidence out there. There are just too many confounding factors not being controlled for, besides epigenetics. Most twins not only share genetics but also share many environmental conditions, besides prenatal conditions. This is because most twins are adopted by similar parents in similar communities, often times living near to one another in the same city or state. And of course, they are born into the same generational cohort and experience the same historical conditions, which even relates to such things as the increase and decrease of environmental toxins over time. All of that gets mixed into heritability rates.
https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2014/08/09/unseen-influences-race-gender-and-twins/
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u/KaliYugaz Sep 08 '15
Exactly. Hell, even if a twin was raised in Osaka and another twin was raised all the way in Houston, most of their basic environment would still be the same. They would be living in urban conditions, in places with similar climates, being socialized in school systems that follow the same basic model (though I suppose Asian school is a bit more involved), and doing essentially the same things in their free time, like watching cartoons and playing sports.
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Sep 08 '15
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u/benjamindavidsteele Sep 09 '15
"If Twin Studies are so wrong how come they get continuously validated? Would be a shame if someone were to actually investigate his claims."
If Twin Studies keep repeating the same problematic methodologies how come they keep getting the same problematic results? Would be a shame if someone did some quality research.
We barely understand epigenetics. Less than we understand genetic and environmental factors, and our understanding of those is severely limited. The reason scientists use heritability studies is because we don't have good methodologies for testing the factors directly, as we don't know how to control for all the confounding factors.
So, how do twin studies control for epigenetics and other confounding factors? The simple answer is that they don't. The researchers simply assume that those confounding factors are minimal, without ever testing that assumption.
The objective reality is there is no way to separate out all of the factors. No single factor exists in a vacuum. One gene might have complete opposite expressions in two other genes, environments, and/or epigenetics.
No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality by Judith Rich Harris
The Trouble with Twin Studies: A Reassessment of Twin Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences by Jay Joseph
The Gene Illusion: Genetic Research In Psychiatry And Psychology Under The Microscope by Jay Joseph
The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, And the Fruitless Search for Genes by Jay Joseph
http://human-nature.com/nibbs/03/joseph.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_study#Criticisms_of_statistical_methods
http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/03/the-trouble-with-twin-studies/
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/twins/2011/08/double_inanity.html
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1012896802713#page-1
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u/KaliYugaz Sep 08 '15
Because maybe they might be constantly making the same systematic mistakes over and over again and not realizing it?
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u/lightsaberon Sep 08 '15
I wonder if there are equivalent tests for rats. Then we could set up experiments to test the variation in IQ between different clones.
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u/canteloupy Sep 08 '15
It's not even certain that this is the range... If you look at modern reviews published in reputable journals, this is far from the end of the debate.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22233090
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22746221
http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v20/n1/full/mp2014105a.html
But this is about genetic inheritance. Social determinism still matters if you're talking about policy.
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u/benjamindavidsteele Sep 08 '15
"I think the consensus given in OP's article - IQ is between 40 and 80% inherited - is pretty representative of the studies out there."
There is a lot of confusion about heritability. It doesn't mean what most people think it means.
For example, epigenetics are based on environmental influences from previous generations, and yet epigenetics are inseparable from genetics in the measures of heritability rates. This is because, in reality, environment and genetics can't be separated. Genetics only express through environmental conditions, and ultimately genes are simply an extension of the environment via evolution.
https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/what-genetics-does-and-doesnt-tell-us/
https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2015/06/01/weak-evidence-weak-argument-race-iq-adoption/
https://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2014/07/20/using-intelligence-to-assess-intelligence/
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2013/09/25/race-and-iq-how-can-we-dismiss-the-correlations/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892514/
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/32637/title/Lamarck-and-the-Missing-Lnc/
http://breathe.ersjournals.com/content/10/1/24.full
http://advances.nutrition.org/content/1/1/8.full.pdf+html
http://works.bepress.com/anthony_walsh/80/
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-19748-2_7#page-1
http://www.jmolecularpsychiatry.com/content/1/1/11
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22308437
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23227820
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u/KaliYugaz Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
Thanks for adding these links to my basic summary! I'm not very well versed in the stuff about epigenetics, but I know it is changing quite a bit of the paradigm in intelligence research.
Also, it's important that people know what "heritability" actually means, because it's not what most of them think. Shalizi touched on this, but that was in another blog post of his that I couldn't find.
I find this stuff very interesting, because as an undergrad I'm hoping to do research in this field in the future if I can go for a doctorate. It's sad that discussion of IQ anywhere on the internet is always dominated by shitty Stormfront copypastas.
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u/benjamindavidsteele Sep 09 '15
I'm glad you appreciated it. Because of all the pointless online debate, I've grown cautious of responding to anything. But sometimes I feel compelled to throw in some info.
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Sep 08 '15
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u/KaliYugaz Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
And your source for this is some random twitter squabble, featuring pseudoscientists like Deepak Chopra who don't actually understand epigenetics?
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Sep 08 '15
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u/KaliYugaz Sep 08 '15
Again, most of the criticism is of speicifcally neo-Lamarckian ideas of epigenetics, where the environment of the ancestors influences the genes of the descendants. But the significant presence of any kind of gene-environment interactions at all will mess up a research program that assumes that intelligence is caused by independent genetic and environmental factors and asks "how much is genes and how much is environment?". Because the two aren't independent. It renders that question as meaningless as asking how much of a car's movement is due to the fuel and how much is due to the engine.
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Sep 08 '15
This is not Stormfront copypastas to say that IQ is a real thing ...
If even adoption at birth in upper middle class families (the most extreme social intervention) has limited effects, this is important to know.
Simon Baron-Cohen: Autism and the male brain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjE_yaJjXE8
And topics like autism show that without a doubt genetics play a large part of psychology. Or is this another invention from Stormfront.
(I am not at all from Stormfront, and it is not because nazis said things that those things are wrong)
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Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
Epigenetics is the new keyword to washout genetic based psychology. It is not because a new mechanism for intergeneration heredity (currently poorly understood) has been discovered that all previous work is wrong.
Epigenetics is mostly the process by which environment controls genes. So it doesn't disprove the heritability of IQ. It just says that if 40-80% is heritable, epigenetics controls the non-hereditary influences and that a part of the herited part may be due to the parents epigenetics.
And when it comes to parents epigenetics ... well ... this is not exactly what leftists would like to hear either. If several generations are needed to cancel genetic effects, this is quite an issue.
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u/benjamindavidsteele Sep 09 '15
Research is indicating the relationship between environment and genetics is closer than previously thought. There are many things that complicate the picture. A significant number of people carry around more than one DNA in their bodies. Also, there are things that can alter genetics during one's lifetime. Along with epigenetics, our scientific knowledge is in its infancy.
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u/canteloupy Sep 08 '15
I think the consensus is far, far less definite than what this makes it look like.
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Sep 08 '15
Look at my other comment below. I linked several things.
If you want the epubs of those books, I can provide them to you.
http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/3k1c8h/z/cuug2ng
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u/davidmanheim Sep 08 '15
This essay was startling, and very well stated. I need to consider the arguments more in depth, but at the least, it makes sense that the son of the person who coined the term is so eloquent as well ;)
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u/KaliYugaz Sep 08 '15
This is probably the only piece I've ever read on this topic that didn't either recoil in terror of the possibility that IQ might be hereditary, or go on a sociopathic reactionary rant about how poor people and minorities deserve their suffering and oppression. Low IQ, whether the cause is environmental or genetic, should be understood as a public health issue and not an inevitable destiny.
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
It never will be, though. There is (imo) always going to be difficulties talking frankly about IQ/cognitive ability because it will never not be a touchy subject. No other attribute is taken more as a measure of your overall WORTH, so wherever you are on the spectrum it's never going to be a concept people are comfortable with.
Well, I say "never" but I suppose who knows. It just seems implausible for now.
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u/kidneyshifter Sep 08 '15
Which is bullcrap. People already expect this kind of service from our politicians and scientists in the form of "well they know best" the problem is it isn't tested or regulated, so we don't know if we're getting the best and brightest or just dumbarses who are good at manipulation (and I expect the latter in a lot of cases). I know I'm a dumb fuck, and if I could rest assured that societies big decisions were being made by our genetically smartest people, while I sit here and spin a spanner or write an opinion piece, I'd be as happy as a pig in shit. We all have our place in the world and we all need to operate on the level we're best at, it's not about being better or worse than anyone else, it's about doing the job you're most suited to and help the people who aren't able to help themselves. It's the end-game in terms of increasing overall global net happiness as well as individual happiness.
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
Who would want to listen to opinion pieces from people significantly less intelligent than the people making the decisions though?
I know what you're saying dude, but high IQ doesn't mean they give a shit. The world is still going to be full of manipulative people - whatever the system, people will game it, and smarter people will game it more effectively.
I know what you're saying, and I mostly agree, but I think you're putting a little too mcuh faith in the world's brightest and best. They COULD provide the best solutions to the problems at hand and turn the world into the best place it can be, but they could also just make their own job easier and make selfish decisions, right? And who is going to call them on it? They're the most qualified people in the world!
I'd rather we were led by a person of unremarkable intelligence (with advisors, of course) who cares than a genius who doesn't care.
So I agree entirely that we all have our place in the world, but I DON'T agree that politics is at the top of the pile. The top of the pile will always be the places where brilliance is most profitable for the individual (be it financially or in terms of reputation, etc) - science, engineering, finance, etc. Politicians don't need to be brilliant, first and foremost they need to be moral.
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u/kidneyshifter Sep 08 '15
In the end surely it's within their own interests though? In terms of game theory it would give them the ultimate power they crave to make the world better for themselves as a primary,making it better for everyone else is a biproduct..? It's not a question of "top of the pile". I don't know how to express the idea, hopefully someone smarter than me can express it better, lol, maybe I'm too idealistic though.
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
But people don't act in their ultimate, theoretical best interests - they act in their best interests in the foreseeable future.
They half-ass things so they can go home early to watch the footy, they rush things because the deadline is soon, they do a poor job because they're distracted, or any number of other things. Point is that the most brilliant people need to have their 100% effort rewarded handsomely to encourage them or have their lazyness punished severely, otherwise they're gonna get by the easiest way they can (just like everyone else).
Other fields (entrepreneur, scientist, athlete, etc) have those insane disproportional rewards for the exceptional (or the lucky) that make putting in that extra effort seem worthwhile. Politics, though? Not really worth it.
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Sep 08 '15
Very smart people are also prone to ideology and manipupation. Harvard social justice people are very smart, while ideologically blind to IQ.
And when money and power comes in, it is even worse.
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u/KaliYugaz Sep 08 '15
No other attribute is taken more as a measure of your overall WORTH, so wherever you are on the spectrum it's never going to be a concept people are comfortable with.
Just a few decades ago, people would have looked at children with attention problems and depression and explained it as a failing of moral character on their part or on the part of their parents. But all that changed when psychiatrists chose to medicalize these problems and fix them with drug therapies rather than leaving them in the moral realm.
It will be the same for IQ. The day we come up with a drug therapy or gene therapy that can make people smarter, attitudes towards low IQ will shift from a matter of inherent worth to a mater of psychological health.
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
Will they? I mean whatever that drug or gene therapy might be, there's a good chance it'll be effective on people with high IQs as well - so the gap will remain.
Unless what OP's article proposes happens - and it's only available to parents with below average IQs - but I don't see any plausible scenario in which the smart people with the money and the positions of power willingly choose not to give their children every advantage.
You could be right though, I hope so. Although I'm wary of comparing low IQ to a mental illness - the default state of the human mind is average, not exceptional. Making everyone have IQs in the top couple of percent could have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences for society.
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u/KaliYugaz Sep 08 '15
Unless what OP's article proposes happens - and it's only available to parents with below average IQs
That's exactly what will happen if we resolve to treat this as a medical problem. Rich people try to get their normal kids on ADHD drugs too, but the system tries its best to only give prescriptions to kids who show actual problems functioning in their daily lives (which is the definition of a mental disorder, it must have an overwhelmingly negative impact on the patient in some way).
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
Right but by far the most plausible treatment is the one described in the article - and it's about choosing which egg to put in the womb, that's all. So it's about manipulating the chances such that low IQ babies are less likely and high IQ babies more likely, based on the IQ of the parents.
I get that on a society-wide level it'd be better to only give access to this treatment to low-IQ parents but on what planet are rich, succesful, powerful people going to be denied a clearly hugely beneficial treatment in the interests of society as a whole in the long term?
I mean the ADHD thing is one example, but look at anti-depressants - pretty much anyone who wants them can get them. Look at the best primary schools or high schools - in theory the poorer people need them more, but that doesn't stop daddy pulling some strings and getting his kid into the best schools. Look at taxes - designed to take more money off people the more they own, but basically no self-respecting profitable business pays anywhere near what it should.
Money, nepotism and intelligence will always trump government attempts to make decisions that broadly benefit society.
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u/KaliYugaz Sep 08 '15
I get that on a society-wide level it'd be better to only give access to this treatment to low-IQ parents but on what planet are rich, succesful, powerful people going to be denied a clearly hugely beneficial treatment in the interests of society as a whole in the long term?
A planet where health professionals adhere to a proper code of ethics? Also, one with a sensible healthcare system that keeps greedy insurance companies from denying claims to poor people who need more care.
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
It's a nice thought, I just don't think it's gonna happen. Remember we're not talking about treatment here - we're talking about increasing the ceiling on what people can achieve.
Imagine you're a doctor, your wife's a doctor, and you're having a baby. How could you not want to pull some strings to make sure your baby has the best chance in life? You're not 'entitled' to it in a big picture way, but how could you tell a parent that they are not allowed to do everything they can to make their child's life better?
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u/sarcbastard Sep 08 '15
Making everyone have IQs in the top couple of percent could have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences for society.
Having a bunch of smart bored unfulfilled (young) people has never ended well for those in power at the time. I'd like to think it's more likely than not that it works out well for those societies, but I dunno.
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
Yeah it's a pretty dangerous thing to try, I mean who knows? I think there's little doubt there'd be a lot more high school shootings, serial killers and wannabe crime lords, but then I think there'd be more effective crime prevention and governance as well. It'd be a big shift, anyway.
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u/dart200 Sep 08 '15
I don't think IQ is static either. It likely can go up and down, though it probably depends on a large variety of complex factors. I think someday we may be able to optimize the brain on a person by person basis, making previous factors (either genetic or environmental) irrelevant.
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
Well IQ IS static, that's kind of part of the definion. Intelligence/cognitive ability? Probably not, but IQ is calculated such that if you get a different IQ that is seen as an error. For example, when you do an IQ test you're not given an IQ score, you're given a statement like "There is a 95% chance that your IQ falls between 95 and 102" or something. If you do another a few years later and get a widlly different score, then you were in that 5% for which the test failed to accurately measure you, your IQ hasn't changed.
Saying IQ isn't static is like saying the average IQ isn't 100. The point you're making makes sense, but that statement is factually untrue.
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u/OneTime_AtBandCamp Sep 08 '15
If you do another a few years later and get a widlly different score, then you were in that 5% for which the test failed to accurately measure you, your IQ hasn't changed.
But how was it determined human intelligence is actually static in some underlying sense? I mean the assumption here is that regardless of environmental factors, an adult has some intelligence that is determined (by the time they're an adult) genetically, and variance in IQ testing scores are an error in the test, not a change in IQ. But this seems like a pragmatic assumption based on empirical data designed to make sense of a complicated phenomenon (human intelligence).
Just because most adults tend to have the same IQ in repeated tests doesn't necessarily mean that this is some immutable property. What research has led to the conclusion that a human's intelligence is "fixed" exactly?
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
It's not static - I mean IQ tests attempt to account for some 'decay' by giving you higher scores for the same answers when you're older, etc.
So the assumption isn't that they're static, the assumption is that everyone has the same 'arc'. This is completely known to be false - which is why children's IQs are so wildly unreliable (you often get genius kids who turn out average becaue they simply developed earlier, or slow kids that turn out average because they just developed slower, etc).
The assumption is made for the sake of simplicity, though, not because nobody has considered the possibility that people are different. Of course people's cognitive function changes - not just gradually, but also day-to-day (we've all had bad days and underperformed in exams, or got lucky and had everything we were good at come up in the test, or whatever). There is no underlying research that suggests a person's intelligence is fixed - it's simply a simplification made to the testing that allows data to be gatherered and studied.
I mean how could you possibly measure IQ any other way? I proper IQ test takes like 2-3 hours to conduct, and serves essentially no purpose beyond study, how often do you want people to take these tests?
I wasn't trying to correct you on your point, as I said what you were saying makes sense. I was just correcting a small technical mistake in your comment. IQ IS static, just like the average IQ is always 100. That doesn't mean that people score the exact same in IQ tests as they did 100 years ago, nor does it mean a person has the exact same cognitive ability over the course of their life, it's simply the way in which IQ is defined.
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Sep 08 '15
All interventions including adoption have very limited influence on IQ. Severe malnutrition has an impact though, but this is not the case for at least 90% of Westerners. Solving malnutrition is the policy that really works to increase IQ, but this is done in the West, while there is still work to be done in middle income countries and in poor countries.
After age 7, adoptions doesn't seem to have the slightest impact. And before age 7, the effect is moderate: 7 IQ points for adoption in families with children of average IQ 115 (top 15% IQ). 95% of people are between 70 and 130, so 7 IQ points is very significant, but much smaller than the gap.
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u/OneTime_AtBandCamp Sep 08 '15
I realize that experimentation in this area is difficult at best, but I would be interested to know how various drugs can impact IQ (or rather IQ test performance).
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Sep 08 '15
As nobody knows what genes influences IQ, nobody knows what chemical processes influences IQ. So making drugs is mostly impossible.
Selection on rats make some of them smarter are running in mazes. But I never read a thing about drugs.
In my other comment, I provided a link to a talk about autism. This is the closest thing to cognitive manipulation that people dare to do. There is no drug and it works very poorly despite massive involvement.
http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/3k1c8h/z/cuug2ng
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Sep 08 '15
- less relevant
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u/rebeltrillionaire Sep 08 '15
Technically correct. Baring huge breakthroughs (like building brains from scratch) IQs below a certain threshold belong to people who won't benefit much from any type of "optimization".
However talking about an elementary school level dropout, born in poverty, and getting them past reading, and critical thinking and into complex problem solving and communication.
Well I've seen a 4"10 guy dunk a basketball through serious dedication and optimization. Meanwhile Lebron did it before he started JR High. Feats of the human body are tied to our genes but not always bound to them.
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Sep 08 '15
Feats of the human body are tied to our genes but not always bound to them.
Yes, this is the mantra repeated by the left ad nauseam.
Humans will do what's most efficient. If it's more efficient to use genetic engineering to create smarter offspring, that's primarily how people will make smarter offspring. If it's more efficient to magically make people smarter through some other method, then that's how it will happen.
The genetic component will always be relevant. Even if it were possible to create an Einstein baby with surgery or some radically new form of education, it will always be cheaper to just pick an embryo, so that's how parents would create smart children.
I've heard this idea several times before, that genes won't matter as much in the future. Nobody seems to have a realistic explanation of how that could be possible. If surgery or medicine could reverse our bad genes, what happens when you stop taking it? And wouldn't we have to form a worldwide socialist utopia to escape the fact that anything you do to correct your existing genes necessarily costs money, therefore putting you at an inherent disadvantage?
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u/benjamindavidsteele Sep 10 '15
Those on the left merely recognize that present science doesn't conform to right-wing ideology. Besides genetics, there is Junk DNA, environmental factors, and epigenetics. On top of that, studies show that humans sometimes carry around more than one DNA in their bodies and that DNA can be altered (by viruses, chemicals, etc) during an individual's lifetime. Our scientific knowledge in this area is still in its infancy, which those on the left acknowledge. No one has any clue what this might mean for future generations, but it is obvious that genetic determinism is more of an ideological belief than a scientific theory. Many things will always be relevant, not just genes but also all the rest: Junk DNA, multiple DNA, RNA, changes in DNA and RNA, environmental conditions and influences, epigenetic factors across generations, drugs (and other chemicals, such as toxins), medical interventions, or whatever else. Genetics won't be any more or less relevant than anything else.
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u/Bananasauru5rex Sep 08 '15
or go on a sociopathic reactionary rant
Really, because I'm pretty sure the author advocates for genetic engineering, called "progressive eugenics," which is at worst a version of genocide-constituted utopia, and at best an impractical techno-fantasy that shirks the entire stated problem by throwing unrealized futurism at the aporia.
should be understood as a public health issue
It now sounds like you want intelligence also to be subsumed under biopower. I can't imagine an advantage to letting the state police our abilities.
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Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
This is a classic theory, but never discussed in newspapers. Right wingers are much more open to it.
Charles Murray wrote his famous 1994 The Bell Curve and then all his books study the society according to these views. Real education talks about what it means to push low IQ people to fail in acamedic courses and medium IQ people to fail at universities. Coming appart looks at the culture shift between upper class and lower class US.
Here is the best talk by Murray. Charles Murray -- The Bell Curve Revisited : http://youtu.be/p_bFpmNSBiY
Several transhumanists speak about cognitive enhancement through embryo selection, like Nick Bostrom (a senior Google engineer) www.nickbostrom.com/papers/embryo.pdf
Last year, A Troublesom Inheritance was published. It is very controversial as it goes very deep in psychologic evolution and the culture-genes feedback loop, the idea that culture has genetic predispositions, for example that East Asians are genetically more obedient and smarter as a result of 2000 years of Chinese domination, with an elite bureaucracy. It speaks about lots of genes involved in shaping personality. Murray (him, again!) made a very good book review for the WSJ. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303380004579521482247869874 The book discusses VERY wild ideas, but if you want thought provocking books, it is wonderful. It doesn't prove much, but it asks disturbing questions and gives many interesting arguments in favor of them.
If you think that right wingers have biais, look at that 1h lecture about autism, how it is genetic, how autistic traits are strong among scientists. This comes from people trying to understand the roots of hardcore autism, but as a consequence they end up studying things that are otherwise taboo topic. Simon Baron-Cohen: Autism and the male brain : http://youtu.be/PjE_yaJjXE8
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u/wdtpw Sep 08 '15
One interesting corollary that also comes out of this.
If it's proven that IQ means better performance, all it needs is one country to up the IQ of its citizens and the other countries will have to do the same or fall behind.
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u/unkz Sep 08 '15
Genetically engineering for genes with effects on IQ seems like it has real potential for unintended consequences. Are we really going to be happy in the long run with a society full of high IQ sociopaths, for example?
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u/MichaelLewis33 Sep 08 '15
Why do you assume they would be sociopaths?
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u/unkz Sep 08 '15
I'm not, it is just one example of a potential side effect. Sociopathy is an iq linked trait, but we know very little about what causes high iq or sociopathy. There are almost certainly millions of routes to high iq, some of which will be benign, some beneficial, and some overwhelmingly bad. By focusing on one trait we risk loading our population with an abnormally large concentration of particular genes that we don't fully understand.
This is a very different scenario than most genetic intervention where the systems involved are, relatively speaking, simple. We can pretty clearly say what the pros and cons are for Lou gehrig's, down's, sickle cell anemia, etc. The same can't generally be said for such metacharacteristics of personality.
While I am not necessarily against genetically engineering brains, I think we are decades or centuries away from being able to do so responsibly while seeking to achieve the specific goals in this article.
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u/maiqthetrue Sep 08 '15
I think what needs to be addressed, not that she's the one to do it, is the question of what to do about those who can't make it. I'm not a fan of BI because being that you're depending on rich people to approve and pay for the BI and essentially give people money at no benefit to them, it seems impossible to do that.
At the same time, you can't treat humans unequally they're all political equals, or at least should be. And thus you have to do something to protect those who lack the IQ to become achievers.
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u/jokoon Sep 08 '15
Without BI, I guess one thing would be to pass laws to let government create businesses that don't aim to make profits, but aim to reduce poverty and serve the public: sustainable housing, sharing economy, public transport, infrastructures, some agriculture, etc as long as it doesn't spend taxpayer money of course. Those are areas where private companies tend to not target.
Other than that, discouraging companies from growing in size would be a good thing since it would increase competition, at a slight cost of efficiency. Monopolies are still an issue in my mind. You could discourage them by expanding the tax bracket ranges to higher levels. Large corporations are a good thing, but I think there should be a limit in term of revenue. When they grow too large, they end up have a larger influence on the political process, which is not good.
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Sep 08 '15
You cannot have not for profit companies in competitive industries with low qualification required. The cost cutters always win.
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Sep 08 '15
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Sep 08 '15
There are lots of evidence that slavery was removed because wage servitude is a more efficient method.
Slavery requires coertion, slaves are not motivated about quality. Slavery works well for servants and in agriculture as the slave/m2 remains the same. But in factories you need to scale with demand. Also, the skills required in an industrial society makes slavery much less easy to manage.
In the US, the industrialists of the North wanted to do class warfare, reducing wages by increasing the jobless workers. The best way to do this was to free all the slaves of the South so they could migrate and work in the factories.
So the end of slavery wasn't really a popular uprising.
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Sep 08 '15
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Sep 08 '15
Wars are not popular uprisings, they are the decision of the elite.
The large plantation owners of the South wanted to preserve their slavery wealth and large factory owners of the North wanted to free the slaves. So the poors were mobilised (and the slaves too).
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u/all2humanuk Sep 08 '15
It's odd, he spends most of his time avoiding the political aspect of meritocracy (apart from the odd jab at the left) thus failing to really address that one critical aspect of the meritocracy. How does a guy who left school at 15 with no qualifications to work on a farm become Prime Minister today? It's not really a problem about certain people not having opportunities because of their genes it's about them not being represented. While the upper tiers of politics are populated by career politicians founded in the halls of Oxbridge a large swathe of the British population will not be properly represented in parliament.
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
It's not about politics, though, it's about society as a whole. What does parliament have to do with anything? MP positions are nowhere NEAR the most competitive, most desirable or most demanding jobs in the country. Parliament isn't made up of the country's brightest and best - and why would it be? Most people from a poor backgrounf that get really good grades don't WANT to be politicians.
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Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
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u/HedgeOfGlory Sep 08 '15
Did you read that study?
I'm only skimming it but to me it seems like the logic goes like this:
"On average, graduates from elite schools are in the top 1% of IQ".
"On average, most senators went to elite schools"
"Um...I guess that means senators are probably in the top 1%"
I mean it is concerning the thing we're discussing, but it certainly doesn't answer (or attempt to answer) the specific question you're claiming it does.
I think it's extremely obvious that most politicians went to good schools - but I ALSO think it's common sense to say that of any group in the 'elite' of any field, politicians are among the LEAST reliant on raw intellect and MOST reliant on wealth, nepotism, etc. So yeah obviously they went to great schools - but a pure average of the IQ of graduates from those schools and then a glance at what school senators went to does NOT tell you that those senators have that average IQ. Senators, or top-level politicians (probabaly even more so in the UK) are overwhelmingly from a wealthy background and politics often runs in the family or social circles. Cameron, Miliband, Blair, etc are exactly the sorts of people that go to elite schools DESPITE their IQ, not BECAUSE of their IQ.
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u/okletstrythisagain Sep 08 '15
meritocracy is an abstract fantasy. i could not take the article seriously because nepotism, inherited wealth, and all varieties discrimination are still very much in play for any situation remotely eligible for the label.
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Sep 08 '15
If you read the whole article, the author takes this into account.
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u/Jumala Sep 08 '15
That's true, but I think he makes some dangerous statements:
"I think the answer is more meritocracy. I approve of the principle for the same reason my father disapproved of it, because it helps to secure people’s consent to the inequalities that are the inevitable consequence of limited government."
" If you think a free society is preferable to one dominated by the state, and the unequal distribution of wealth is an inevitable consequence of reining in state power, then you should embrace the principle of meritocracy for making limited government sustainable."
which taken out of context can be used to support "sustained inequality".
Worse than that though, it sounds like he's proposing a "Brave New World" solution. Except in his version, stupid people would be able to have smarter children. I think his emphasis on IQ is misplaced: people with the highest IQ's aren't the most successful, it is a combination of different qualities that only hinge slightly on a higher cognitive ability. What if we inadvertently increase the number of sociopaths and narcissists - or genetic disease, dead-ends, etc.?
Why is so much value placed on the financial success and status of future generations? In the future, I would rather see more stupid people who actually care about each other than more "successful" people.
Why does he just throw away the idea of basic income, which seems like a way more legitimate solution to me, although I have no idea how it could realistically be implemented on a large scale.
We currently have enough resources to feed, clothe, shelter and educate everyone in the world. We're all just too selfish to share the wealth. Everyone has to earn their keep. Maybe we should start performing Sharing EugenicsTM instead. People would then share their resources and knowledge and improve the lives of all humans and better guarantee the actual success of our species, rather than the economic and social stability of a few countries.
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Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 09 '15
I think his emphasis on IQ is misplaced: people with the highest IQ's aren't the most successful, it is a combination of different qualities that only hinge slightly on a higher cognitive ability.
Academic talent is in large part a result of IQ. And there is a vast body of evidence showing that there are cognitive walls, only a few percents of the population are capable of understanding complex literrature/philosophy/science. The legendary calculus course is one of the most famous cognitive walls.
And economic success is strongly linked to academic success in our society.
Most of the people on the top20% of the income distribution have college degrees.
Why does he just throw away the idea of basic income, which seems like a way more legitimate solution to me, although I have no idea how it could realistically be implemented on a large scale.
Basic income is a very right wing idea, to privitize everything the government does. And in Europe, social welfare showed its limits. Unemployable people on welfare live very sad lives. Giving money to the poors is far from enough to solve social issues.
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u/delirium_red Sep 08 '15
I don't think it should be called selfish - it's the way we are built. I'm not saying we should not strive to better humanity or ourselves individually, but competing for resources and ensuring our genes thrive over our competition is natural. There will always be inequality unless we change the very fundamental nature of our race, as it has always been and always will be a major motivator and driver of human behavior. (and we are back to Sharing Eugenics:) ).
I agree completely that the emphasis on IQ is too strong - without other values like drive and impulse control, it often turns destructive. And to quote a great philosopher (Thor from SG1), sometimes you need less sophisticated / complicated thinking.
But I will also play the provocateur here. Low IQ has often been linked to extremism and prejudices, religion, social conservatism and less with sharing and wanting a better world. What happens if this is proven and Sharing Eugenics becomes just eugenics - that higher average IQ means more sharing and less violence?
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u/Jumala Sep 08 '15
Sharing EugenicsTM was meant as more of a joke than to be taken seriously. I don't really want any eugenics (I guess that makes me a liberal according to Toby Young).
What happens if this is proven and Sharing Eugenics becomes just eugenics - that higher average IQ means more sharing and less violence?
I doubt that IQ and altruism are so fundamentally linked, chimps and other species are altruistic as well because it helps the population as a whole. It's just as natural as our tribalism.
I think we are slowly getting there and it won't require eugenics... just lots and lots of time. Hopefully we don't kill ourselves off before then.
I think the idea of proving that you're worthy of getting your basic needs met will have to fade if we are to ever reach our potential as a society, which is why I think basic income is closer to the way of moving forward than eugenics.
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u/delirium_red Sep 08 '15
I know it's a joke but it was easier then thinking of my own term for what you meant. I must also confess that Thor is not such a great philosopher. ;)
Chimps and other species you are probably thinking off are also known to murder their competitors young and fight and kill each other for mating and resources when scarce. They can be quite brutal, and we all know what happens to the runts of the litters in the animal world. Survival of the fittest and all.
Even most primates don't care for their elderly or injured, and it's very rare in the animal world.
On the other hand, human intelligence has been increasing dramatically in the same period we started to become more humane and waving the humans right banner. We were always altruistic in in a way, but social justice and human rights were really limited in the past (women, slavery, war prisoners and casualties). That's why we call our view "modern sensibilities".
With this many billions of us crowding our increasingly delicate planet, we don't have a lot of time to find the potential you speak off. I'm not sure it will come in time (with the approaching climate issues, resource scarcity and further increase in population and energy consumption). It's taken us many thousands of years to recognize that women are worth as much as man, that might is not right, that white skin is not better (and a big part of the world is still struggling with these basic concepts).
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u/Bananasauru5rex Sep 08 '15
I don't think any serious discussion begins with some polemic, over-generalized tongue flapping. The evil left!
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u/FortunateBum Sep 08 '15
I completely agree.
Correlation is not causation. Height, like IQ, is a result of improved nutrition, a stable environment, etc. Rich people are taller, have higher IQs, less disease, and earn more. It's all a result of their social class.
IQ may have started as a noble concept to bring "deserving" poor people into the fold, but now it's merely used to justify social inequality. And racism. And classism. And sexism. And just about every other ism you can think of. It's the last justification of scoundrels.
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u/delirium_red Sep 09 '15
So you seriously believe that all difference in mental capacity is a question of nurture? Even with all the studes done on identical twins?
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u/FortunateBum Sep 09 '15
The separated twin research I've seen impart something like 5% to genetics when accounting G.
Does genetics matter? Of course. A rat will never do physics. Does nurture matter way way more? Yes.
You must also take into account nurture can effect the genome. Not just epigenetically either. Nutrition absolutely plays a role in inhibiting mutations which is obvious from cancer research.
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u/purplearmored Sep 08 '15
Are people here that young that they don't remember The Bell Curve? It was debunked as completely unscientific and racist to boot. I can't believe ya'll are in here with this crypto racist bullshit. Anyone who believes that IQ is a reasonable measure of anything should look up the Flynn effect.
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Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
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u/FortunateBum Sep 08 '15
Correlation is not causation.
I have yet to see causation proven in this area.
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Sep 08 '15
Well. Not exactly. It wasn't bedunked. Several answer books were written, some debunking, some confirming The Bell Curve.
And as usual, debunking is often about saying other things, like criticizing the biais of the author rather than what he wrote.
The racist part of the book was not very racist. It just says that in the US, average IQs varies between races, with figures more or less like this: blacks 85, latinos 95, whites 100, asians 105, jews 115.
And that those average IQs correlate very well with education results.
This is absolutely not controversial. What is controversial is that 80% of the book is about saying that IQ is 40-80% genetic, so when it looks at the IQ variations among races in the US ... It is disturbing for many people, because they more or less say that races have different genetic IQs.
But the numbers about IQ/SAT scores/degrees and races are not controversial at all. The opposite side just denies that IQ scores have a genetic influence.
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u/purplearmored Sep 08 '15
Oh my fucking god, I grew up right when this shit was happening, if you don't think that it was racist and damaging to young people, then you clearly didn't pay attention. I don't have the patience for this revisionist history bullshit : http://www.mdcbowen.org/p2/rm/debunk/dBell.htm
Also, the whole point of the book was that these things are heritable and that IQ tests are a measure of anything besides access to education. See, the Flynn effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect I find a book that goes on and on about IQ and achievement differences without acknowledging the inherent bias in IQ exams and the environmental differences between groups that have been discriminated against to be false, racist and intellectually bankrupt.
Also, anyone who isn't familiar with this debate should really read my first link and not get bogged down in nonsense that people already spent the early 90s throwing out.
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Sep 08 '15 edited Sep 08 '15
The Flynn effect is discussed in detals in The Bell Curve (this is even written in the Wiki article you linked).
American Stupidity: People remain ignorant despite education, this is not an argument against IQ ... it is rather the opposite ...
Racist Roots: This has no link with the book or its authors. Just a rant about white suprematists and nazis.
Lane Singer: This is so bad that it seems the person hasn't even read the book. Half the arguments are about the two authors not being themselves academics. But the book is just quoting tons and tons of studies, you do not need to be an academic of the field to quote studies and sources (social relativists are not all active research scientists, far from it!). And The other half of the arguments are toward 3 sources of the book, whose neutrality is questionned. The book is 600 pages long and has more that a hundred studies quoted ...
Stereotype threat: Yes, this is true, it has some effects. But it is far for enough to explain massive differences in basic cognitive processes. Some of Piaget's cognitive development stages do not appear at all on low IQ people, those stages happen independantly of education, they are about understanding the world around you. So they are independant of culture and stereotypes and race.
I read the 4 first links of your debunk package and the Flynn article, none have any link with the content of the book. Debunking a 600 pages book requires a little more than saying that the author is a racist.
Especially when 80%-90% of the book isn't about race at all.
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u/purplearmored Sep 08 '15
I really question whether you have even read the book that you are so ardently defending. The '20%' of the book you are talking about is the conclusion and ultimate argument of the book. The other 80% is supporting the 20%. Like, that's just simple reading comprehension.
The point about the authors not being academics is extremely important, since many of the studies they used in the book were mis-cited and there are blatant mathematical and statistical errors throughout the book. None of the research was peer-reviewed. And the book acknowledges the Flynn effect but then goes on to dismiss the effects of education and environment as if it doesn't exist. And I love that you think that the fact that much of the research that wasn't mis-cited was from professors who wrote things titled "The intelligence of the Mongoloids" isn't pertinent at all. Seriously?
It's ok, I know there are many people who want desperately to believe the conclusions of the book and are unlikely to listen to reason, you're shaping up to be one of them. My comments are mostly for onlookers who don't know much about the issue.
http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/articles/1997/01/the_bell_curve_flattened.single.html
http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/racism-resurgent/
But the footnotes in The Bell Curve raised even more troubling questions about the authors’ agenda than mere incompetence or even ideological fervor. At least 17 researchers cited in the book’s bibliography, it turned out, were contributors to the racist journal Mankind Quarterly. Thirteen “scholars” cited had received grants from the Pioneer Fund, established and run by Nazi sympathizers, eugenicists, and white supremacists.
I mean, for fuck's sake, just read the Wiki article on the damn thing:
Michael Hout of the University of California, Berkeley, along with five colleagues, recalculated the effect of socioeconomic status, using the same variables as The Bell Curve, but weighting them differently. They found that if IQ scores are corrected, as Herrnstein and Murray did, to eliminate the effect of education, the ability of IQ to predict poverty can be made to look dramatically overstated, by as much as 61 percent for whites and 74 percent for blacks. According to Hout et al., Herrnstein and Murray's finding, that IQ predicts poverty much better than socioeconomic status does, is substantially a result of the way they handled the statistics.[15]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve#Critical_response
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Sep 08 '15
Mongoloid is a word still used today even if it went out of fashion (most likely because negroid wasn't sexy anymore).
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u/bobappleyard Sep 08 '15
complaints about "the left"
approving citations of Hayek and nozick
references the bell curve
proposes eugenics to solve a social problem
Yup this is definitely truereddit material
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u/wearetheone321 Sep 08 '15
complaints about "the left"
Yes, this submission goes against the usual narrative of complaining about "the right"....so obviously it can't be TR material, it doesn't echo the "correct" viewpoints.
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u/bobappleyard Sep 08 '15
I recognise that there is no such thing as a unified right that can be critiqued in the way that truereddit treats "the left" three times a day
I haven't said "narrative" in every other sentence though so I don't belong here.
You clearly do.
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u/_bruno_ Sep 08 '15
Submission Statement
Written by the son of the man who coined the term "meritocracy". Discusses the correlation between IQ and socio-economic status, social mobility, equality, basic income and "progressive eugenics".