The Neuroscience of Intelligence: An Interview with Richard Haier | Hacker News Reader

The Neuroscience of Intelligence: An Interview with Richard Haier

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91 pointsjkaljundi32 comments

Can't we agree that there are people on extreme ends of the mental capabilities spectrum? That is, people who are mentally challenged couldn't reasonably hold down a programming job, and people who are geniuses discover new theorems.

We know that a whole host of mental handicaps are likely genetic (they show up very early in development).

If that is the case, then why is it not reasonable to assume that there is a whole range of IQ in between that might be genetically determined that result in differences in educational and employment outcomes for different people?

Because that idea could eventually affect the people in charge of applying it.

> If that is the case, then why is it not reasonable to assume that there is a whole range of IQ in between that might be genetically determined that result in differences in educational and employment outcomes for different people?

What is the consequence of assuming it? If you don't know how genes affect intelligence you don't actually have any useful theory to go by. You also don't know how to judge the effect size of genetics against other causes. These are highly non-linear, complex systems we're talking about: brains and their societies. It's far easier to use such an assumption as cover for garbage science used to oppress people who are already vulnerable than it is to turn it into a good social policy.

In short, you gain no deductive power about the world with such an assumption, just a lot of excuses for the powerful to be vicious.

What is the consequence of assuming the opposite?

E.g. IQ has very little effect. You can use that assumption as cover for garbage social policy that doesn't recognize individual differences in intelligence and attempts to equalize outcomes when the distribution in ability is inherently unequal and leaves everyone less happy.

What I believe is that the interplay MAY be complex, but your argument that an unqualified assumption leads to bad outcomes works both ways.

Fortunately I don't have to assume either.

"If you don't know how genes affect intelligence you don't actually have any useful theory to go by. You also don't know how to judge the effect size of genetics against other causes. These are highly non-linear, complex systems we're talking about: brains and their societies. "

What about twin studies?

That doesn't tell you how to judge effects in specific situations. You can infer lots about a population without being able to particularize it at the level required to implement policy. Twin studies are observational. They aren't experimental. Twin studies can never give you a model of how genetics influence intelligence, unless you want to do extremely unethical experiments on twins.

It is akin to the distinction between a non-constructive proof and a constructive proof of a mathematical property of a class of objects. The former lets you work under the assumption that that property holds, but if you want to work algorithmically you need a constructive, computable proof.

Likewise, statistical inference can give you interesting signals to pursue, but it doesn't give you the models required to understand how those signals come about or how to influence them. The idea that they do is at best folly and at worst malice.

>highly non-linear

There's no evidence for that, all the evidence so far points to linear additive models being sufficient to model the link between genes and intelligence. Here's one good overview: _Genetics and intelligence differences: five special findings_ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270739/

Society is the non linear structure. I'm talking about policy here.

Such a line of thinking is at odds with the ideologies of our time. If it were true, it would diminish the potency of many concepts like inherited privilege. Imagine if people were privileged in their intelligence in large part due to their genetics, and not only because of societal considerations? I don't think this would be welcomed in the current zeigeist.

Edit: I agree with danharaj's sentiment. The potential for abuse of power is increased by such lines of reasoning.

High IQ is the inherited privilege.

That's fine as far as it goes, but it's a bit of a straw man. Sure, you can't teach a horse calculus, but I'm deeply skeptical of the implicit assumption in this interview that contemporary psychology has sufficiently precise tools to even measure intelligence effectively, let alone query its genetic foundations.

I have thought about these questions for a long time.

The issue is precisely what Haier brings up : "IQ has nothing to do with dignity, friendliness, compassion, honesty and a host of other positive human attributes."

The problem is that as a society we don't believe this, we believe that having high IQ makes someone more morally worthy of consideration than someone with low IQ. There is a reason people it's considered OK to insult "stupid" people.

People will boast about overcoming poverty and becoming very successful, but how many people will brag that they succeed despite having a low IQ?

A below average IQ is seen as shameful, a sign of moral inferiority, something that can should not be acknowledged or admitted. The assumption is that all the "good" people who need to be listened to and followed are ones with high IQs and those with low IQs should at best be ignored and at worst be pitied and shunned.

If the technology to enhance IQ does become available, ideally it should be like compulsory public education now: Something that is made freely available to all citizens at birth. This would address a lot of the concerns that research into the genetic basis of intelligence will only be used to justify the existing social order, particularly if high continues to be seen as signifying moral worthiness.

I recently listened to a Sam Harris podcast about gene splicing, in which he wondered whether the technology would become divisive because 'if you could raise your child's intelligence, you would, at any cost,' (totally paraphrasing). I found this interesting since what I've found is that "intelligence" is not universally valued at all, at least in the US. As a kid, I was part of a research study on high IQ children development, and over time I've seen from my fellow study participants that IQ alone didn't predict success particularly well in the realms of what most people value, i.e. relationships, material success, power, or fame. IQ is correlated with mental health issues as well. I'm not saying intelligence is bad, it's obviously valuable, but in certain communities (ahem) there seems to be a blind spot around the relative importance of intelligence in relation to other factors of being human, particularly social components.

>I'm not saying intelligence is bad, it's obviously valuable, but in certain communities (ahem) there seems to be a blind spot around the relative importance of intelligence in relation to other factors of being human, particularly social components.

Thank you so much for pointing this out. Intelligence is valuable, but that doesn't mean it should be valued above all else.

There is an important differentiation between this and dis-valuing intelligence as well (e.g. anti-intellectualism).

There are a lot of highly intelligent people that never do much of anything with their life. There are people who are not highly intelligent but do great things. That doesn't even start to mention how complicated it is to talk about degrees of intelligence. IQ is one aspect, but there are many others. It's very difficult to even talk about what is meant by High Intelligence generally speaking.

"Based on decades of compelling data (including the latest DNA analyses), many researchers, myself included, think that the g-factor is influenced mostly by genetics." --

Can anyone here tell me the canonical way of excluding environmental factors in intelligence research? How can a neural network learn its weights without proper data? What I can imagine though is genetics heavily influencing your behavioural patterns creating an environment that in turn impacts your g-factor.

"Since the first neuroimaging studies of intelligence, researchers have been trying to predict intelligence test scores from images. […] It was based on a mathematical way to assess how brain areas were connected to each other using MRI scans. Apparently, such connection patterns are stable and unique to individuals like fingerprints; and these patterns predict intelligence test scores." --

Is he talking about white matter? Doesn't it increase in volume long into adolescence?

>Can anyone here tell me the canonical way of excluding environmental factors in intelligence research?

By looking at the correlation of traits between monozygotic and dyzygotic (identical and fraternal) twins, you can tease apart the effects of genes, shared environment, and non-shared environment. The wikipedia page on twin studies is pretty good.

Twin studies lets you fix the genetics factor, but unless you monitor the twins 24/7 or control their environment it is nearly impossible to tell if it influences your intelligence directly or through behavioural patterns.

I am sure that if you train specifically for the g-factor test you would score much higher on it. And if that is the case it is your environment influencing your intelligence.

>Based on decades of compelling data (including the latest DNA analyses), many researchers, myself included, think that the g-factor is influenced mostly by genetics.

Good luck trying to reasonably discuss this finding here, lol.

Lower intelligence is a limiting factor when it comes to education, employment, and economic success but IQ has nothing to do with dignity, friendliness, compassion, honesty and a host of other positive human attributes. Access to all the opportunities imaginable will not be effectively used by individuals with low IQ through no fault of their own. There is no rational reason to stigmatize people and every reason to provide support in everyway possible.

Well, he was nice about it, but it still sounds pretty bad. He’s also talking about supporting people, and recognizing mothers role of personal fault... as though we already do that. The truth is that his insights, in the world as it is rather than as he imagines it, this would essentially be Gattaca.

Edit sp

Ever since I saw Gattaca, I knew it was exactly where society would be heading. Minus all the fear-mongering and scary music.

It's a very fundamental human (nay, multi-celled organism) instinct to try to pass on our strongest genes.

If there was anything I could do to ensure my kids had 150 or 160 IQs (without any obvious downsides) I would do it in a heartbeat. And so would everyone else I know, if they're honest.

Everyone would... who could afford to. Now ask yourself what the majority who couldn’t afford it would do to protect and advantage their offspring. Gattaca is probably a fairly tale, and a nuclear wasteland the reality.

It's sadly ironic to me that a YCombinator commentator manages to be even more hyperbolic over gene therapy fear-mongering than an already very exaggerated message film.

Disparities in IQ between people and groups are already massive and it's not causing nuclear war. Disparities over how much time and effort are put into raising offspring between classes are already massive. Again, we're still not going to war over it. How would you even envision a nuclear war like that taking place, when the highest IQ people are spread among many nation states and demographics?

You should really try to tone back the over-the-top exterminist rhetoric and thinking, if only for your own well-being.

Please don't get involved in ideological flamewars here. This is an ideological flamewar topic because the high ideological bit determines nearly everyone's position about it.

That means the more people get into it, the more it turns into the same ideological flamewar that every other such topic leads to, and that's what we're most trying to avoid here. One can see this, for example, in how your comment begins to slide into personal disrespect and name-calling.

Your comment seems intended to imply that parents of poor people will engage in nuclear war when rich parents engineer their children to have higher IQ scores. I doubt that scenario will come to pass.

Not quite, it was more along the lines of another order of magnitude increase in inequality, which would be amplified with each passing generation. Not something you could hope to rise out of either, you’d be 100% born into it. Now, you might argue that birth already largely determine fate, but you’re talking about issues most of the world considers to be “luck”. A few billion people who can at least dream of a better life for their kids, won’t have that dream.

I can’t imagine a more potent straw for the camel’s back, than rich people being able to engineer their children for health, strength, intelligence while everyone else is still beholden to chance. You’re talking about turning an underclass made from circumstances, into a permanent underclass that will be essentially inescapable and mount with each generation.

If you only care about the raw IQ score, then time will eventually take care of this. IQ points have risen by about 3 points per decade[1], but the scores keep being readjusted downward so what used to be a high score is now a medium score.

[1] http://theweek.com/articles/481988/are-americans-smarter-tha...

The Flynn effect (the rise in IQ scores) has mostly stopped in western countries, and even reversed in some.

> It's a very fundamental human (nay, multi-celled organism) instinct to try to pass on our strongest genes.

There's nothing fundamental about it, it's just what we (and our instincts) are implicitly optimized for. I very much doubt that there's a biological basis for the drive to have kids. That involves some quite elaborate concepts which would be difficult to encode in the molecular machinery produced by DNA. A biological basis to seek pleasure, and to find pleasure in sex, though, sure.

>I very much doubt that there's a biological basis for the drive to have kids

Hahaha, ok.

You've never seen a woman smell a newborn.

> The researchers aren’t sure if new moms undergo a hormonal change that leads to this surge of dopamine or if their reaction is influenced by the experience of smelling their own baby, the researchers say.

> “It is possible that childbirth causes hormonal changes that alter the reward circuit in the caudate nucleus, but it is also possible that experience plays a role,” Frasnelli said in a statement.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-smell-of-newbo...

I don't know if intelligence can really be defined, scientifically, objectively or otherwise.

Intelligence is a part of evolution, so it is really hard to describe it. There are many behaviors which are deterministic, automatic because they are described by genes. I tend to think that brains are not really smart, but we just want to give value to what makes us better, so we call it intelligence.

Intelligence doesn't really exist, there is just transmission of knowledge.

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