Comment This isn't about IQ. (Score 1) 689
Most of the comments attacking the paper attack IQ tests.
Now, go back and reread the original topic. Where does the term IQ appear? That's right, it doesn't. It's encapsulated in the phrase "number of intelligence metrics"... and the other metrics used completely defeat all the IQ-related attacks on the researchers' methodology. How many of you honestly believe that the higher IQ test results of Ashkenazi Jews, and the amazing number of Nobel Prizes they've earned, don't have a common cause? And Nobel Prizes aren't a specially chosen statistical fluke; there are TONS of other metrics of high achievement where Ashkenazi Jews are massively overrepresented.
Now, of course, that common cause doesn't have to be genetics; culture matters too. That's where the details of the research paper, and in particular, the prediction it makes, come into play. Consider several thousand Jewish families where one sibling is a heterozygous carrier of one of the sphingolipid diseases, and one isn't. Culture is statistically equalized. Random genetic variation is statistically equalized. If the carrier siblings prove to have significantly higher IQs than the non-carrier siblings, the only plausible explanation is the effect of the gene.
If IQ tests are just dependent on culture and randomness, the probability of the paper's prediction coming true is astronomically low. Thus, if the prediction does come true, you have to conclude that IQ is measuring something else as well, and that this other thing is affected by genetics. Good luck trying to argue that this other thing isn't highly correlated with intelligence, especially given that these diseases all affect neural growth.
The era of plausible deniability of genetically based group differences in intelligence is about to end. Fasten your seat belts.
Now, go back and reread the original topic. Where does the term IQ appear? That's right, it doesn't. It's encapsulated in the phrase "number of intelligence metrics"... and the other metrics used completely defeat all the IQ-related attacks on the researchers' methodology. How many of you honestly believe that the higher IQ test results of Ashkenazi Jews, and the amazing number of Nobel Prizes they've earned, don't have a common cause? And Nobel Prizes aren't a specially chosen statistical fluke; there are TONS of other metrics of high achievement where Ashkenazi Jews are massively overrepresented.
Now, of course, that common cause doesn't have to be genetics; culture matters too. That's where the details of the research paper, and in particular, the prediction it makes, come into play. Consider several thousand Jewish families where one sibling is a heterozygous carrier of one of the sphingolipid diseases, and one isn't. Culture is statistically equalized. Random genetic variation is statistically equalized. If the carrier siblings prove to have significantly higher IQs than the non-carrier siblings, the only plausible explanation is the effect of the gene.
If IQ tests are just dependent on culture and randomness, the probability of the paper's prediction coming true is astronomically low. Thus, if the prediction does come true, you have to conclude that IQ is measuring something else as well, and that this other thing is affected by genetics. Good luck trying to argue that this other thing isn't highly correlated with intelligence, especially given that these diseases all affect neural growth.
The era of plausible deniability of genetically based group differences in intelligence is about to end. Fasten your seat belts.
