Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability
wired.com
wired.com
The article makes it seem as though there are absolute measurements being made of certain elements in the brain, but it's almost more than certain to be pattern matching or machine learning that is being done. You find some people that are good at doing X and have them take a test. Then you take new people, have them perform the same test, and if their scans are similar to the scans of the initial people, then you say these new people are pre-disposed to do X well.
Yes, I immediately thought of the motor skills experiments[1] that raised brain density in the relevant regions.
I think the first half of the article was too sensational and brave new world oriented given that the explanation for the differences in regional brain densities and contentedness would mostly be from the home environment of a young child.
It was a bit like predicting the availability of hearing tests will lead us to build classrooms of super hearers instead of intervene to address hearing issues before children fall behind.
It deals with pretty much exactly this topic -- in the story, peoples' professions are determined by brain scans (as in the study), and the requisite professional knowledge is then loaded via a similar device (which seems much further off). The story explores some of the ethical/societal implications of being "exceptional" in terms of brain structure. It's an incredible piece of fiction, and it has stuck with me over years and years even when the appeal of stories like "The Last Question" have somewhat worn off for me.
1.V nz obgurerq sbe guvf vf irel htyl-qhpxyvat-vfu
2.Jul QB gurl pnyy gurz Bylzcvpf?
So, do we choose not to conduct research on certain subjects so that this process can be safely used for more benign purposes? Or, do we have really strict rules about what types of analyses can be done with a given scan? With attending rules about deleting scan data after it has been analysed for the intended purpose? Or something else entirely?
There is no reason whatsoever to do this. Aside from the issue that 'multiple intelligences' has not held up and has been abandoned, if you want to measure their intelligence, it's unlikely that brain scans will anytime in the foreseeable future outperform simply giving a child a 10-minute pencil-and-paper IQ test (and highly unlikely that scans will ever be cheaper or easier than a regular IQ test).
A better example than the kid example I pulled straight from the article: If someone gets their connectome mapped to help select treatment for some kind of mental disorder, it may also be possible to measure if that person is prone to violence etc. All kinds of conclusions can be drawn from the same data set, limited only by the research that has been done to that point.
> outperform simply giving a child a 10-minute pencil-and-paper IQ test (and highly unlikely that scans will ever be cheaper or easier than a regular IQ test).
For children the test takes, "48–65 minutes to administer" and requires more than pencil-and-paper [1].
> There is no reason whatsoever to do this.
More importantly, I think doing a regular comparison of the standard IQ test results with this new scanning method could be a good way to account for test bias [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Intelligence_Scale_fo...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Test_bia...
For the full-scale WAIS, perhaps. But you can still extract a good estimate from the subscales, and needless to say, the WAIS is far from the only IQ test out there.
> I think doing a regular comparison of the standard IQ test results with this new scanning method could be a good way to account for test bias [2].
Huh? The brain scans are being validated using the existing IQ tests in the first place, and if one doesn't accept all the existing literature on the unbiasedness of current IQ tests (where the concepts are not too difficult - for example, I think many laymen could get through and understand most of _Bias in Mental Testing_, Jensen 1980 http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Bias-in-Menta... explaining what biases there would be, how one would test for them, and why IQ tests are unbiased), one is not going to accept the results of the infinitely more complicated & subtler brain imaging pipeline where there's so many details & variability that they had a pretty serious replicability problem for a while, especially when they just yield the same results that the original IQ tests would have.
“It’s not wrong to say there are weird ethical implications to this,” Finn says, “but we’re still a long way from doing this with enough accuracy to apply in the real world.” Neuroscience will be waiting for its sorting hat for a while yet.
Their connectomes, it turned out, had a lot to do with how well they scored. ...A strong connection between the frontal and parietal lobes, especially, meant a high fluid intelligence score.'
This is an interesting result as well, that connection between different areas of the brain predict abstract reasoning ability.
Alan Kay has said that "point of view is worth 80 IQ points".
I don't see how observing internal brain structure is going to reflect the benefit from points of view held, even in the slightest. There could very well be an inverse correlation, in which people having above-average natural ability tend to brute-force their way through problems that could have been avoided entirely with better choices. Just as Gordon Bell said: "The cheapest, fastest, and most reliable components are those that aren't there".
You just don't hear about people getting through life, but failing to understand the notion of, say, "not stepping out onto the crosswalk when the street is still busy". Your environment is extrinsic to your internal brain structure, and you encode information about your environment against your own internal system of thought, regardless of its architecture. It's not like people who happen to be "naturally better spatial thinkers" can somehow do a better job at recalling their own beliefs.
Being a good writer - what does that mean? Someone who has had some real, interesting experiences may be a better writer than someone who is wired to tell good stories.
Physical features also matter - a lot. Your brain may be perfect for a nuclear physicist, but you're no good if you're gonna have a stroke or heart attack suddenly on the job.
And, of course, nurture over nature - people's background, how they grew up, how they were educated from their first year to now, matters way more than genetics.
If you don't/can't account for all of that (and more) when deciding a person's future, then keep this science to yourself.
In other words, all being taken into consideration, it turns out IQ has an incredible predicting power regarding the lives of individuals. It's actually better at predicting life outcome than any other factor.
> And, of course, nurture over nature [...] matters way more than genetics.
That is the opposite of what current research into IQ has shown so far. If you go on YouTube, you can find interviews with Charles Murray, and that will help you understand this better.
> A good musician can become a good sharpshooter, a good programmer can excel at architectural engineering.
Yes, but it's not likely to happen (or you'd have oodles of examples). Predicting is all about what's more likely, and in this capacity, IQ has proven over and over again to be the single best predictor.
I'd understood that the best predictor of success at a job is Conscientiousness. More than test scores, economic class, fancy schools.
Average, above average and higher scoring persons' outcome in life will depend more heavily on upbringing and surroundings than anything else.
In fact, those scoring the highest may actually end up worse - addiction, depression, anxiety, loneliness, etc. - all because they live well below their potential because of their circumstances...
No, it's not. The Eugenic movement started the quest for the "better" brain nearly a century and a half ago, and we all know how that turned out...
If you study Jewish history you will find out they have been doing this all along. For instance, as a very literate culture, they would encourage the less capable of learning to leave the faith, much like a Rumspringa without end. This had the effect of culling the less intelligent, which was an effect they understood and seeked purposefully. On the other side of the coin, as opposed to Christianity which discourages its representatives (priests) from reproducing, Rabbis were encouraged to have prolific offspring on account of their being the most educated people, and the community engineering so that there will be more intelligent Jews (sons of cultured Rabbis) than unintelligent ones (those who are encouraged to give up on faith studies).
But yes, evil Germans and their eugenics, carry on.