Comment by quantumofmalice | Hacker News Reader

Comment by quantumofmalice | Hacker News Reader

quantumofmalice

This is a decent article on a true problem, but there are two things I would mention that add context to the situation:

Genetics do matter. Adult intelligence appears to be somewhere between 50 and 80% determined by genetics. Thus we should expect over time in a meritocracy for smart kids to come from the same families. This is compounded by assortative mating by IQ, which has become far more widespread in the last forty years. So things are going to look nepotistic (and they always will be to some extent, see my second point below) when, in fact, this is a natural phenomena.

So, what? Just let the people who lose the genetic lottery rot? No. Instead, we might want to focus on having a more balanced economy where, rather than everyone striving to become part of the elite, a working class person can have a perfectly reasonable life. Jordan Peterson discusses this problem in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjs2gPa5sD0

Secondly, it is not immoral for parents to make large investments in their own children's lives. This behavior is no doubt somewhat driven by genetics (nearly everything appears to be at least 40% genetic) but it is also a learned behavior. Government programs that replace parental investment have been catastrophic for minorities in the united states: for example 73% of non-hispanic blacks are born out of wedlock. So delegating parental investment in children to the state, in the name of ending nepotism, may have some very detrimental effects that are difficult to predict.

All of this is to add context and suggest a different solution: making middle class non-elite life paths more attractive, not to deny that there is a problem.

> Adult intelligence appears to be somewhere between 50 and 80% determined by genetics.

Citation desperately needed. An IQ test, if you've ever taken one, measures a whole bunch of things but not necessarily intelligence. It's a written test which a native speaker benefits tremendously from due to some of the sort of convoluted language used for some of the questions. And many of the mental tricks it tests are things which can be (and are) taught.

Also, even if you somehow proved that some aspects of intelligence were biologically inherited, that still doesn't prove genetics. Current understanding of epigenetics shows that you can pass on traits caused by your environment through mechanisms not in the DNA itself.

Whatever IQ measures, it's correlated strongly with success.

There are 'cultural bias free' IQ tests that has no words in it at all, and the correlation holds.

It should be obvious that the fact that IQ score correlates with success doesn't mean it measures genetic intelligence.

Whether IQ tests measure intelligence depends on how you define "intelligence". IQ tests measure ability to solve visual and/or verbal puzzles, and it's reasonable to call that a type of intelligence. I'm not saying that's the only form of intelligence, but it's clear that IQ scores have _something_ to do with intelligence.

But that question is ultimately a red herring. IQ scores are partially biologically heritable. IQ scores are correlated with job performance. So there exists a biologically heritable factor that's correlated with job performance. That's very relevant for discussions about social mobility, whether or not you want to call that factor "intelligence".

You asked for a citation. The strongest evidence for the claim that IQ is biologically heritable comes from studies of twins. A meta-analysis of 111 separate studies (https://sci-hub.la/10.1126/science.7195071) found that when identical twins were separated and raised in different families, their IQs were correlated at 0.72. Fraternal twins raised together had IQs correlated at only 0.60. Biologically unrelated children raised together (an adopted child and a biological child) had IQs correlated at 0.29. (Side note: Before you demand someone provide a citation, try googling it for yourself. This result isn't hard to find.)

You have a good point that the mechanism could be epigenetic rather than genetic. Here's a study that found a hint of a link between epigentic factors and intelligence: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892514/. Here's a study finding that epigenetics are correlated strongly between identical twins: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3063335/ On the other hand, the epigenetic correlation decreases as the twin pairs get older, but the IQ correlation actually increases as twin pairs get older. So it's not clear.

It's also worth noting that IQ correlates with income at only 0.23 according to http://www.emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Intellige....

In general, I agree it's difficult to draw unambiguous conclusions from the data we have. I think the data are consistent with the possibility that genetic inheritance of intelligence plays a major role in reducing social mobility, and also consistent with the opposite possibility. But you are demanding a much higher standard of evidence for the claim that intelligence is genetic than for the claim that it isn't, and I don't think that's fair.

> Side note: Before you demand someone provide a citation, try googling it for yourself. This result isn't hard to find.

Or the person making a claim can actually provide a citation for their claim. It's not on a person challenging a claim to prove it, it's on the person making it.

assortative mating by IQ, which has become far more widespread in the last forty years

That's curious. Is there any explanation why? Naively, I would assume the opposite, although I can imagine some factors that would point in that direction.

for example 73% of non-hispanic blacks are born out of wedlock.

Why is that catastrophic? Is there good evidence¹ that the kids would have been better off otherwise?

¹ (by good evidence, I'm discounting simple comparisons between children born into and out of wedlock, since it's pretty easy to see why many confounding variables might play into that.)

women have started going to college in higher numbers than men. the vast majority of women will only date a man who is equal or higher education level than they are.

That seems to be outdated information: "For the first time in 50 years, the educational balance among married couples has tipped towards women. Wives are more likely to be the better educated partner than the other way around. The trend is particularly sharp among newlyweds; in 2012 almost 40% of college educated women were married to a guy without a degree."

http://time.com/7442/wives-are-now-more-educated-than-husban...

Greater choice. Men and women have more choice and longer times (at least at the upper middle end) to find a spouse. People tend to want to marry people with similar attributes to themselves. The end result is people tend to marry people of similar IQ to themselves.

> Is there any explanation why? Naively, I would assume the opposite

You may not be the naive one, as we don't have any evidence

Even assuming that there is a genetic component to iq, you’re assuming that iq is strongly correlated with success and that the iq difference from genetic differences is meaningful.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com