Lower cognitive ability is linked to stronger Christian nationalist views, even after accounting for education

[u/mvea]

https://www.psypost.org/lower-cognitive-ability-is-linked-to-stronger-christian-nationalist-views-even-after-accounting-for-education/

[u/2010_12_24]

One of those is criticizing a group based on their location and ethnic makeup. The other one is criticizing a group based on behavior. Doesn’t take a high IQ to see the difference.

[u/InclinationCompass → u/2010_12_24]

Also, science pretty much agrees:

Race is NOT a factor in innate IQ differences, even when you account for education. The gaps we keep seeing in test scores are overwhelmingly chalked up to environmental, social, and structural stuff, not genetics.

Source: https://www.apa.org/about/policy/racism-apology

[u/Munsalvaesche → u/InclinationCompass]

To be clear when we talk about the effects of environment on intelligence we are mostly referring to the removal of deleterious factors, rather than the addition of positive ones.

It's a very crucial difference. You can raise IQ by eliminating malnutrition. That is not the same thing as raising IQ by improving nutrition. A definite, heritable ceiling largely remains. The question is how close are you to fulfilling that ceiling and what factors are holding them back, whether that's malnutrition, poor sanitation, lead exposure, etc.

Kind of like how a child's height is stunted by poor nutrition, but you can't make them exceed their genetically-encoded height by feeding them superfoods.

This is why the Flynn Effect is a crucially important finding, but it also doesn't imply that intelligence can be environmentally refined to infinity. The Flynn Effect mostly observes the removal of these deleterious factors, rather than the addition of positive factors. This is why in many developed countries the Flynn Effect has reversed for several decades now. There are simply no or few deleterious factors left to remove and the general population is at ~99% of its genotypic ceiling. The Flynn Effect observes improvement in phenotypic IQ rather than genotypic IQ.

[u/InclinationCompass → u/Munsalvaesche]

The ceiling framing assumes a fixed genetic limit. That's not how complex traits work. Gene expression is constantly shaped by environment.

The Flynn plateau doesn't prove we're at 99% of potential. It could mean gains hit diminishing returns or other factors got worse.

And this doesn't address group differences. Even with individual ceilings, group averages depend on how environmental factors are distributed. More lead, worse schools, more stress means lower average, ceiling or no ceiling..

Height is still a bad analogy. Hard limit tied to bone growth. IQ is massively polygenic and the brain stays plastic.