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Comment by laughingman2 | Hacker News Reader

This study measures academic performance in non-identical twins with identical twins as the control group. It finds a significant difference in outcomes between non-identical twins than identical twins suggesting the role of genes in academic outcomes.

I am not a genetic researcher, more of a layman in this line of study. Some academics in social media (twitter) handwave and dismiss this research as inaccurate and they also feel its dangerous for such a study into genes (which might have ethical implications when applied to social policy) to be done without adequate interdisciplinary collaborations.

Irrespective of their motivations, I am interested in knowing whether such criticisms hold good for this study.

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I feel like we must have done enough twin studies over the years at this point to conclusively say that genetic heritage is the most significant factor for a whole host of ourcomes. Environmental factors are alluring, because they offer the potential that something can be done, through toil and good works, to achieve improvements, rather than the more Calvinist tyranny of genetics.

They are also alluring because of the fear that policies could be put in place which excludes people based on the factors that are pre-determined; this idea is offensive to both those in favor of "meritocracy" and those who believe in the equality of opportunities. It also challenges the idea of human worth, since many people (mistakenly, in my opinion) believe human worth is (or should be) tied to mental and physical abilities.

How does

> if you believe so, then you believe that human worth is predetermined

constitute a challenge to

> human worth should be tied to mental and physical abilities

Is there some implicit negative value attached to the hypothesis that human worth could be predetermined?

(Edit -- counterarguments are more educational/enlightening than downvotes.)

>Is there some implicit negative value attached to the hypothesis that human worth could be predetermined?

I think so, yes. It runs counter to the idea of a free and equal society, and necessitates setting up standards (subjective ones imposed by an authority) as to which qualities are good and which are bad; this very easily leads to narrow-minded elitism, for instance, preferring mental abilities over physical ones, or general intelligence over emotional intelligence etc.

The notion of social equality is important, in my opinion.

Why, necessarily, must human value be remitted by a central authority and its inherent fickleness? Or, more importantly, why does belief in predetermined value, cause a belief that the State should suddenly take charge of measuring value and doling out its consequences?

Mental and physical abilities seem useful insofar as they produce things of economic value. Different people, today, already, have different and diverse abilities to produce economic value; and as a result they come to possess diverse quantities of wealth. How does believing that people's potential wealth is predetermined, change things?

>Why, necessarily, must human value be remitted by a central authority and its inherent fickleness?

If human worth (I use "worth" because I detest the economism of "value") depends on abilities, there must be some way to collapse the qualitative differences in abilities down to quantitative values, to say that one person is worth more than another means that there is something within them that we can compare, separate from their concrete abilities but abstracted away. In the same way that 20 yards of linen exchange for one coat, although they are qualitatively different, there is a mechanism which allows them to be exchanged.

The translation function must be defined somewhere, but I will admit that it need not be defined by the State, assuming we're not also discussing the notion of rights and justice in relation to abilities. Perhaps I should have said "(subjective ones imposed by an authority, either the authority of the State or the authority of the market)". In my view, the authority of capital is just as pernicious (if not moreso in some circumstances) as the authority of the state.

>why does belief in predetermined value, cause a belief that the State should suddenly take charge of measuring value and doling out its consequences?

I said it "very easily leads to", I didn't mean to say it's a necessity. However law is based on principles, and if the times replace the principle of equality with the principle of pre-determined worth then the laws will surely reflect that.

>How does believing that people's potential wealth is predetermined, change things?

We weren't talking about wealth, we were talking about the worth of a person. I do not mean that in economic terms. Mental and physical abilities are useful for much more than producing things of economic value, and for the great majority of human history they haven't been directed to producing things of economic value.

> different and diverse abilities to produce economic value; and as a result they come to possess diverse quantities of wealth

The qualitative diversity of abilities is not logically linked to the quantitative amount of wealth.

> In the same way that 20 yards of linen exchange for one coat, although they are qualitatively different, there is a mechanism which allows them to be exchanged.

Indeed. But because they are qualitatively different, the opportunity costs of producing one versus the other are probably different; and if they are, then even if Alice can produce both more efficiently than Bob, Bob has a comparative advantage in one.

Similarly, one can say - and likely be correct - that an agricultural veterinarian is worth more than a stevedore. But if We, The Central Authority conclude that therefore We Shall Have ag-vets and not stevedores, then suddenly stevedores' value will increase, due to the decrease in supply as that policy is implemented.

> >How does believing that people's potential wealth is predetermined, change things?

> We weren't talking about wealth, we were talking about the worth of a person. I do not mean that in economic terms. Mental and physical abilities are useful for much more than producing things of economic value, and for the great majority of human history they haven't been directed to producing things of economic value.

For the great majority of human history, humans have been without the invention called economics-as-we-know-it-today. And economics - even in the absence of a market - can, at least, analyze almost all of human action and reaction. (With a free market, it can also drive it, with all the resulting decentralized emergently efficient behavior.)

For one thing worth is not measurable and depends on circumstance. Brawn would get you further than your game-playing abilities in many historical and pre-historical settings. Also, yes most people object to the central idea of racism, that people of certain ancestry are not worth being kept alive.

> racism

Sorry, but I didn't actually say anything about drawing final conclusions about individuals' predeterminations based on their ancestry.

What I will gladly say, however, is that individuals who don't contribute to the good of society (and this is easily measurable economically), are not worth being kept alive at others' expense.

(... except insofar as individuals voluntarily commit acts of charity.)

genetic predetermination == ancestry

It's a very weird idea that the universe belongs to a class of people.

> genetic predetermination == ancestry

You're the best kind of correct: technically correct. Different ethnicity+gender combinations do in fact produce differing relative-frequencies of IQs (and EQs, and VO2Max'es, etc.). However. These are only averages. Statistics. Scalar summaries of large groups. Human genetic diversity being what it is, you cannot confidently tell what someone's intelligence or strength is, based on solely their ethnicity. Attempting to do so, is what racism is. Furthermore, I am reasonably confident that there is no ethnicity in the entire human species which is incapable of producing, under the correct environment, an Einstein, a Gandhi and a Ryan Kipchoge.

However, if you were to examine an individual's specific genetics, and if we knew enough about the details of how every specific gene interacts to produce the phenomemon of the human body ... then you could indeed determine the maximum, predestined mental and physical potential of that individual. Not their children, not their parents, not their brothers, not their close cousins. Meiosis and mutation are (one of the few aspects of biology that I actually think to be) beautiful.

If you keep posting trollish comments to HN we're going to ban you, so please stop.

I truly believe every word that I post here. How can that be trolling?

(Or are you using "trollish" as a shorthand for "things that disagree with the virtues that SV claims to espouse"?)

I use "trollish" to mean having trollish effects. Intent isn't a helpful category for moderation since it's impossible to observe. But alas we can and do observe the flamewars that comments like that one lead to.

Also, future genetic engineering can be used to both fix those unfair advantages, or even make the inequalities worse.

I feel, at this point, more energy is being spent in preaching things that are ultimately unscientific , rather than working towards fixing the inequalities.

Brave New World. I'm telling you,....

Everyone argues whether we're more likely to end up 1984 or Brave New World. In my opinion, we're gonna end up with the worst of both worlds, and are already well on our way.

> I feel like we must have done enough twin studies over the years at this point to conclusively say that genetic heritage is the most significant factor for a whole host of ourcomes.

I feel like there wouldn't be so much discussion still if we had. I'm no expert, but as far as I'm aware the debate is still ongoing for a lot of areas. Epigenetics are also a big factor for consideration.

> Environmental factors are alluring, because they offer the potential that something can be done, through toil and good works, to achieve improvements, rather than the more Calvinist tyranny of genetics.

I think it's also we've just learned from history. People believing they're intrinsically better than others has led to genocide, the mass destruction of cultures, regression and problems that are still felt all over the world today.

"Most significant factor?" "Conclusively?"

through toil and good works ... rather than ... tyranny of genetics.

That is, until we discover that being a hard worker is also genetically heritable. Then people are twice doomed with less intelligence and less ability to work hard.

Excellent point. The study of genetics and its influence seems to be trapped between two extremes due to racial horrors of the 20th century. 100 years ago, social darwinists claimed genetics (race/blood) was everything. It was destiny. And as a result the world endured senseless horrors. As a reaction to the horrors of ww2, another extreme has taken hold - the side that claims genetics has no influence. To proclaim otherwise would make you are nazi.

The more sensible and correct middle ground, that genetics isn't destiny but a major component of many contributing factors to your life and success, seems verboten in academia and the public in general.

It's both obvious that genetics plays a role and it's equally obvious that environment plays a role. But due to historical baggage, scientists have to tread lightly.

If michael jordan grew up in the congo, he wouldn't have been one of the greatest basketball players. If einstein grew up in iraq in the late 1800s, he wouldn't have been one of the greatest scientists.

Both nature and nurture play a part in success.

What the genes that correlate with academic success mean is easy to misunderstand.

Some may assume that those who succeed have 'smart' genes, but it can be that they are healthier. Just having better immune system can lead to better academic success. So can avoiding depression.

Why do you think that the form of the genetic advantage makes any difference? The difference is the difference.

I think making someone healthier (protecting from a known defect in this case) is more understood, and therefore more probable and actionable than making them 'smarter'. We can't stop at treating just the symptom of injustice, without begeting our own injustice. History is bearing that out clearly. I feel, the difference is signifigant, and worthy of investigation beyond a doubt.

One form can be potentially changed with policy, the other may not be.

It goes further, a Twitter verified PhD in molecular biology calls it "deeply disturbing and unacceptable":

> This study is so deeply disturbing and unacceptable. Studies that link genetics to intelligence/achievement are so deeply dangerous. Yet scientists jump into them without taking into account the social context in which they're doing their work.

https://twitter.com/webmz_/status/1053353974764634112

Amazing. E pur si muove.

Without a more in-depth analysis of where the study goes wrong, I'm afraid I can't simply take someone's word for it merely because they have a PhD next to their name.

Not that I necessarily agree with what she's saying, her comment isn't on where "the study goes wrong", but rather about the fact of the study itself.

In the same way that, for instance, an evil genius can be said to have created a "good" bomb, the "good" here refers to its efficiency, the number of people it can kill, the speed at which it can be activated etc. but these qualities speak nothing of whether the bomb is a good thing - for that question you need to consult the context in which it was made, and the question is of course different and mostly irrelevant to the technical parameters of the bomb. The ethics of killing have nothing to do with how long the blade of your knife is.

Fair point, although I feel that your interpretation may be a bit too charitable. If she had said that the paper should take into account the possible interpretations/implications of the research, then I can understand that. However, she said that the paper itself was unacceptable. I can only conclude that she would prefer no research be done if there could be negative ethical implications.

Actually she says the paper is bad science, and says why in her Twitter feed. She's actually calling for more research, supporting more complex narratives.

Meanwhile here, we're seeing that correlation does not imply causation except when it supports common prejudices and simplistic narratives. Then it absolutely does.

She states simply that it didn't look for proper controls or caveats. As I said in my original comment, I would need an in-depth analysis of why the study is bad. Merely mentioning controls is not enough to convince me, even if the person has a PhD.

And as for her "calling for more research", that is simply not true:

    This is one open access article the world does not need right now.

She is literally saying here that it should not have been published.

I don't know what she could possibly mean by 'proper controls'. They're twins. They are better controls for each other (full siblings raised simultaneously of exactly the same age) than you see in 99.9% of sociology or education studies; in some respects they are the best controls that are possible, since you can't run a person through school multiple times to see if they get into college or not. And this study also came with polygenic scores so you can check the genetics directly if you've fallen for handwavy criticisms like of the EEA.

(Heck, she's not even right when she mouths 'correlation != causation', because if you used the PGS to compare siblings, their PGS differences are randomized at conception and the correlation = causation! As far as I can tell, OP didn't do this, just scoring unrelated individuals, but they could have, many other studies have, and she doesn't seem to've checked herself.)

I think blank slate is the common prejudice and simplistic narrative. Calling out the paper as bad science without giving any valid reason is stupid. If the argument had been that a single study is not enough to conclude the author's conclusions (which are not too broad). But one can say that to any study in a new/nascent topic.

But what is in the thread is that such a study should not have been published because it violates ethics, without pointing out the scientific flaws in such a study.

As my advisor used to say when I hit low motivation phases, “stupid people get PhDs all the time. What’s taking you 5 years?”

Yeah, I was referring to that thread. Without explicitly stating what's wrong with the study (in which many factors could go wrong), Or stating how/why environmental factors could still derail the study despite twin control, the twitter thread derails into "social responsibility" etc.

I have a political bias towards the left (equality, more democratic control etc), but I would never say scientific truth should be subservient to my ideology. That kind of a view has a huge stench of the postmodernist ideology on how even science is subjective like literary criticism.

Any ethical axiom is cannot be contingent on facts due to the is-ought problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem). But the moment some the moral axioms are used to make decisions in the real world, the decisions have to be consistent with the axioms. The effect of decisions is contingent on facts aka Science. So given a belief in induction, science can help inform what you "ought" to do with respect to your axioms.

Contrary to the subset of people in the left who blindly believe the Blank Slate hypothesis, or fear that genetic studies will change their ethical assumptions, I argue that more knowledge (genetic, sociological etc ) through science would only help you to be more committed to you ethics by allowing you to exercise it properly. I think Steven Pinker's argument against (part of) left's obsession with blank slate rings true https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_chalks_it_up_to_the_...

I think Peter Singer (of Animal Liberation fame) alludes to the same point in the Darwinian Left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Darwinian_Left (haven't read it yet)

It's her maternal instinct kicking in.

I know some female scientists who wouldn't want to hear anything about attributing differences to IQ or genes and become very emotional if the topic is ever mentioned. "I don't want to think of my friends from X as N".

Why not 'her social responsibility' kicking in? Because there it is, attributing 'weak' motivations to women, because of course women are all the same.

This would be funny, a comment that exhibits precisely why the argument it 'refutes' is true. If it wasn't sexist and demeaning as well.

This is not social responsibility. It's an emotional reaction to a scientific study. There is nothing irresponsible about the study.

Science doesn't have to care for the emotions of specific groups. Then we're doomed.

And yes, neurotypical women are close to identical at the meta level I'm talking about. Same for men.

>Science doesn't have to care for the emotions of specific groups. Then we're doomed.

What's your opinion on the idea of scientific ethics?

> What's your opinion on the idea of scientific ethics?

Neither harm to the subjects of the research nor the ones conducting it is occurring, so it's unclear how scientific ethics comes into play.

Are you genuinely attempting to suggests that there some truths about the universe which are so inimical to the human spirit that we dare not reveal them? If so, the quote which springs immediately to mind is PKD's "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

Most people regard ethics as rooted in emotion; we don't want to live in a society in which harm is done to people, because that contradicts our emotions about what is just. As such, the statement that science shouldn't care about emotions seems to imply that science shouldn't care about ethics, either - and this is especially important for those who believe that ethics are statements of emotion rather than appeals to objective morality. I wasn't speaking of this case in particular, but of scientific ethics in general.

I think by calling someone's error out as "maternal instinct" instead of arguing against it rationally, you have become the very caricature that makes their argument more valid.

Speaking of motivations:

> These findings suggest young adults select and modify their educational experiences in part based on their genetic propensities and highlight the potential for DNA-based predictions of real-world outcomes, which will continue to increase in predictive power.

This does not say anything about motivations, which, in any case, are irrelevant in assessing the value of the scholarship.

Exactly. It's either valid research or it isn't.

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