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Comment by newtem0 | Hacker News Reader

Ive known people who were related to certain very famous physicists and their intelligence was obviously much higher than most people. As in very conspicuous. There is no doubt thay intelligence is purely genetic. The difference between an ape, me amd my friend is genetic. Yes, environment counts but if you give everyone their own personal most ideal environment, they will all taper off at an intelligence level that is determined by their genetics. There is a popular myth that genetics arent everything when it comes to intelligence because it makes people uncomfortable. They dont want to believe that their own intelligence is deterministic. I think it has to do with the tendency of americans to never tell amyone how much money they make or anything else directly tied to their sense of self-worth. What a massive waste of time.

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I'll add my anecdote to this. Almost every male on both sides of my extended family taught themselves electronics/programming/science, graduated high school in their mid-teens, in many cases skipped university entirely, and went on to engineering careers at places like AMD, Microsoft, SpaceX, and GE. Even ones who never met each other have this same life story.

That sounds like it could be used to argue for environment or genetics!

Exactly. Families share more than genetics.

I once heard a radio spot where a woman spoke about herself and her sister's illustrious pole-vaulting career. She scoffed at the idea that she had taken up pole-vaulting because her older sister did it, and said "obviously" they both had pole-vaulting genes

I wasn't aware anyone doubted that there are genes that convey athletic abilities

What aspect of the environment was shared across 3 generations of uncles and cousins, geographically separated, many of whom didn't even know each other?

I obviously don't know the people concerned - but they presumably shared knowledge of the careers of their relatives? Peer pressure in families can be very strong even when it is indirect.

I bet there are many that we take for granted. My first thought was social class; that's environmental and it's possible they all had this in common.

Well can you make any sort of case for a causal arrow to support your dismissal? Because there is a case for a causal arrow in your dismissal target, given the article we're commenting on. The bar has been raised for "we said, they said" so you'll have to try a bit harder than assertively blaming environment.

The poster wondered what environmental factors these family members may have shared, social class is definitely one such factor.

Are you arguing that may not be the case? I think you would need more information about the poster's family to make that assertion.

No, I'm saying that there is a demonstrated causal arrow from genes to intelligence. The evidence is less clear on the causality of social class and intelligence, however, so simply asserting it as a causative factor is not an effective rebuttal.

>There is no doubt thay intelligence is purely genetic.

Largely genetic, perhaps. Purely genetic, no.

Blunt force trauma can cause brain damage. Blunt force trauma is not genetic.

Alright then, your maximum intelligence is purely genetic. Everything else, or lack of certain things, lowers it.

I agree.

People who shoot down science because it's racist/sexist/etc. are shooting down the truth. People who make overreaching claims are just as detrimental. I think intelligence is very largely genetic. Claiming its "purely genetic" only gives more fodder for the "that's racist"-types to shoot it down.

I'm confused; what would it mean for that statement to be false? It sounds equivalent to "If everything non-genetic that can raise intelligence is present and everything non-genetic that can lower intelligence is absent, then the part that's left, the non-non-genetic component, is 100% genetic."

You're correct, but you're missing his point. The point is that genes do determine maximum intelligence---certain people simply cannot be as smart as certain other people, regardless of how good their environment is to them.

I think you're missing pjscott's point. Sure, a fixed set of genes determines the maximum intelligence across varying environments, but it's equally true that a fixed environment determines the maximum intelligence across varying genes. How is one or the other "the" maximum?

You can measure and modify the environment for a growing child/youth with relative ease; but you cannot modify genetic makeup at all (for now). This makes the distinction a valuable one.

Think of a car analogy: Genetics is the engine's size and type, environment is the fuel/tyres/lubricant that were added. Quite possible to get very bad performance out of a car with no engine oil or fuelled with diesel instead of petrol - but once these "hygiene factors" are addressed, the maximum performance is determined by innate factors.

As i said, given an ideal environment, intelligence is purely genetic. This whole focus on environment is important, because we ought to have it right for our kids, but its like saying that a cars performance is about oil brands and road conditions. No, a better engine makes a better car and developing the engines is exciting and important because we know how to make good oil and roads and once the roads are paved and refineries operating, most of the progress will be understanding the engine. Yes you need roads but being able to understand and possibly select and manipulate genetics associated with intelligence will produce huge, groundbreaking changes that will make the world much, much better.

I got too caught up in the wording of your first post. I agree completely.

"Given an ideal environment" is a pretty big "given". You might as well say "given an ideal environment, X is purely genetic for any human characteristic X.

And cheaper.

First, an anecdote about knowing someone smart related to a physicist means hardly anything. I happen to personally know two prestigious scientists (NAS, HHMI fellows) who both have children you'd consider very mediocre (one in his 4th year of community college).

I am not taking the position that genetics does not contribute to intelligence. Of course it does. Like you pointed out, humans are smarter than other species, like apes. What we are trying to determine here the degree to which systematic genetic variation within our own species contributes to intelligence. One thing we know for sure is that this claim...

> There is no doubt that intelligence is purely genetic.

...is certainly wrong. Oddly enough, you've already conceded that, twice:

> Yes, environment counts but if you give everyone their own personal most ideal environment,

> given an ideal environment, intelligence is purely genetic.

That's equivalent to saying both genetics and environments affect intelligence; which is equivalent to saying intelligence is not purely genetic.

IQ heritability is well-characterized, and not controversial in my view.

Results are very consistently around h = 0.7 to 0.8. There is more environmental influence in adolescents ( h = 0.5 to 0.6), but that still converges to the higher genetic influence by the time they're adults.

IQ is highly genetic, and there really isn't a strong empirical argument against that.

What is controversial is the 'race realism' dumpster fire. Virtually none of those 'studies' have any scientific merit, and what evidence we do have suggests that variation between distinct populations is quite low, and that such variation does not reflect any common prejudices or 'racial lines'.

Yes, environment counts but if you give everyone their own personal most ideal environment, they will all taper off at an intelligence level that is determined by their genetics.

You say this like it's a fact, but I'm not aware of anything showing this.

Indeed, some studies show that motivation is a much bigger factor than the genetic effects shown here.

For example [1] discusses a study where they paid people to motivate them to do well in IQ tests:

Duckworth's team found that the average effect was 0.64 (which is equivalent to nearly 10 points on the IQ scale of 100), and remained higher than 0.5 even when three studies with unusually high g values were thrown out. Moreover, the effect of financial rewards on IQ scores increased dramatically the higher the reward: Thus rewards higher than $10 produced g values of more than 1.6 (roughly equivalent to more than 20 IQ points), whereas rewards of less than $1 were only one-tenth as effective.

[1] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/04/what-does-iq-really-m...

So what you're saying is, if I pay you enough you'll become a genius?

You grossly underestimate how far we are from "give everyone their own personal most ideal environment". If there's truth to your assertion that intelligence is purely genetic, we won't know until we get there.

The difference between me and someone way back in my family tree who was illiterate is not genetic.

> because it makes people uncomfortable. They dont want to believe that their own intelligence is deterministic.

It's not about my own intelligence.

If genetics can be conclusively shown to determine intelligence how long before someone tries again to build a 'master race'?

That's what makes me uncomfortable.

>If genetics can be conclusively shown to determine intelligence how long before someone tries to build a 'master race'?

>That's what makes me uncomfortable.

"It's undeniably true, but it makes me feel uncomfortable, so let's ban it and lock it away so it can never make me uncomfortable again"

It's more 'lets not research it too much further so no-one tries to exterminate an entire race again, only this time with scientific justification'.

Don't worry, madmen rarely require real justification.

What scientific justification?

"Well, because Chimpanzees are less intelligent than humans, they don't deserve to live, so we can exterminate them."??

That's so obviously bullshit it barely even warrants discussion. Inferiority of a species or even individual does not provide any justification for destroying that species/race/individual.

People will value more a life of a human than one of a chimp, and chimps only survive on natural reserves or zoos. That's the fate people who aren't genetically engineered to be smart will face, if they survive.

In the us and many places, you have to take tests to have a good life. Only smart or priviledged people pass them. Whats the difference between a master class and a master race

> Whats the difference between a master class and a master race

In the US and many places, with hard work and determination you can change your class. You can't however change your race.

That's the difference.

I think newtem0's point is exactly the opposite: regardless of how hard you work or how determined you are, your maximum intelligence comes down to genetics, which is something that you can't change currently.

Maximum intelligence yes. But you don't need maximum intelligence to improve your station in life.

Which intelligence test do you have to pass to have a good life? I am not aware of such a test, unless you believe that, to have a good life, you must make a lot of money, which requires passing some exams. Which would be a simple-minded and sad world view.

Or, in my opinion much more likely, uses it as an excuse for denying resources to classes of people.

Is it your opinion that it is better to spend resources in ignorance, possibly harming, helping, or doing nothing, than to allocate them meaningfully with full knowledge?

No, of course not. Your implication that this knowledge of genetics could somehow help allocate resources provides a very clear example of my concern. While you may be thoughtful and evenhanded, many people in power are thoughtless and greedy. Others still are racist and sexist.

You haven't demonstrated at all why ignorance will stop people from being racist or sexist or thoughtless, so you haven't made the case you seem to think you have.

I attended a lecture course on quantum information given by a young professor who was a direct descendant of Erwin Schrodinger. He didn't find out he was descended from him until mid-way through his PhD.

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