The ‘Geno-Economists’ Say DNA Can Predict Our Chances of Success
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
That said ever since we have been able to run genetic tests people have tried to use them to demonstrate that group A is “worse” than everyone else, or the group B is superior. Before that they tried to use phrenology. In every case they successfully came up with a measurement that demonstrated that some group was inferior.
Weirdly the measurements confirmed stereotypes of the time, it’s almost like there was some kind of external bias effecting their results...
While obviously these systems were used to justify treating non-white races as being fundamentally inferior, it was also used against other groups (“proving” that the Irish and scots were predisposed to drunkenness, etc).
The idea of racism being purely a skin color concept is relatively recent. Look at the historic treatment of the Irish, welsh, and Scottish in Britain over the last few millennia - or Italians up until the the mid to early 1900s. The treatment of people from Eastern Europe, the polish, today.
All of these races can be distinguished genetically - or even through external features.
Similar discrimination occurs other countries among people with the same skin colour- I’m sure countries like China and Japan could point to “objective” measures like genetics that can be not related to negative aspects of groups they discriminate against.
- How much of our behavior, habits, intelligence and success comes from the environment ?
- How much of stuff like education levels, income levels come from birth, social and environmental factors?
- How epigenetics shapes our life in a dynamic fashion? This field is pretty new, and we have just begin to understand it.
- What is intelligence or success in the first place ? How do you measure it that is all encompassing and diverse ? I have never seen a solid definition of that. Should we care about their definition of success? Can there ever be one definition of success for all groups? My own personal definition has changed over the years.
- Is Gene state correlated state or unchangeable predictors (which I extremely doubt in light of above points)
- Has there been a complete study of exceptions?
all of this is extremely reductionist at best and trying to push a malicious self serving agenda at the worst which can cause havoc in hands of any stupid policy makers.
From what I understand, we are very far off from getting a full picture of these questions. At least decades away if not more.
First thing that came to mind for me was eugenics. This kind of pseudoscience is very dangerous.
More info for the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)
Perhaps you meant that at any given time, the heritability of a trait depends on the "state" of the population, and that heritability values can change over time. This is true, but I don't understand why you'd bring it up.
Consider just few hypothetical ways genes can increase g-factor:
* Metabolic trait increases nutrition intake in high calorie low nutrition junk food environment. This leads to faster brain development.
* Improved immune system against certain parasites that makes individual healthier and leads to statistically higher g-factor.
Genes that improve intelligence can change from generation to generation and be different in different geographic areas.
Anyway, I don't understand how this is supposed to explain what heritability is...
Also the heritability seems to be put at 0.5, not a sure thing? So it obviously can be heritable, but that doesn't rule out that it is only heritable and no other avenues for it exist?
>"before the Human Genome Project had fully sequenced human DNA"
The human genome is still not complete by any normal definition, they just redefined "complete" to mean "we did our best". It is like if someone turns in homework with only half the questions answered and argues they should get 100% since they "completed" it.
Well considering that the human genome is a moving target, it can never be "complete". However, it can be 99.9% complete, which is all but complete for all scientific intents and purposes. The rest is just semantics.
And the gaps are actively being studied with stuff like nanopore sequencing. There’s a lot of hype surrounding next-gen sequencing in general.
A short-sighted focus on "keeping people where their genes fit" ignores our tendency to improve our communities by conscious effort, up to and (by collaboration) beyond our innate capabilities.
I really dislike the focus on the individual and the "sorting problem", as distinct from the focus on community.
This is a recipe for societal tension, although it is handy in politics.
Minorities and non-minorities alike, after having been assured that everybody is exactly the same, often feel that they have been cheated in some way. This is sadly often used by politicians to marshal them against their fellow citizens in the next election or referendum.
>it suggests that the GWAS effect-size estimates may be biased upward by correlation between educational attainment and a rearing envi-ronment conducive to educational attainment.
A full 60% of the already modest 'effect' of correlated genes can be immediately attributed to environment according to their sibling study.
I mean height is one of the largest factors of success for men. If being of smaller stature that is when a Napoleon complex forms.
Just extrapolate dating economics for shorter guys and that pretty much sums up society.
I would say heightism is one of the largest biases currently still allowable.
- U.S. Declaration of Independence
The above statement is false. That's more clear than ever and geno-economics contributes to that clarity. If you live your life by this assumption you will get many important things wrong.
Yet this clearly wrong statement, as applied to the operation of the rule of law, is also one of the most brilliant, important and useful concepts invented by civilization. As a proposition for how to engineer law to support a flourishing society, it is true and right.
I think that's the right way to deal with this controversy. Acknowledge that people have significant and important differences that are beyond their control, while also acknowledging that such difference can be overwhelmed by the effects of their nurturing and other controllable differences, such that it's better to judge them holistically and personally when that data is available.
"Equality" in the sense of equal rights, yes. Not in the sense of equal capabilities. Classical liberalism, as exemplified in documents like the Declaration of Independence, was based on the idea that, even though people have differences in ability, those differences do not give any person a right to rule over any other person. That's where the justification for "self rule" comes from.
Since this reasoning already recognizes that people have differences in ability, "science" showing that people have differences in ability (did we really need "science" to tell us this? isn't it obvious?) does not invalidate the reasoning at all.
"It's bad to kill people" -- this statement is also false. There's no logical necessity that says its bad to kill people, it's only a utility calculation (whether you get caught, what the profit will be vs repercussions etc).
Still if you don't live your life by this assumption (that killing people is bad) you will get many important things wrong.
The basic moral imperatives should not be based on them being objectively true, but on what kind of world we want to live in.
"All men are created equal" doesn't mean "everybody is as tall" or "as strong" or "as smart". Obviously those who wrote it knew that already. It also doesn't mean a person without qualifications should get to work as a doctor just as well as someone with a M.D. diploma. They knew that too.
It just means that all people are equally worth, not to some utility function, but absolutely as human beings.
In order to believe that worth can be determined independent of a utility function, you need a standard of absolute worth. Even religious statements of worth are based on utility to the deity. Biological statements of worth regard utility toward the population or ecosystem. I can't think of a non-utilitarian standard of worth that isn't arbitrary, can you?
Or you can just dispense with the notion of worth of a person as person altogether -- then you don't need to "determine" anything. That's what the "equal" part means in that sentence: don't try to determine".
You can determine the skills of a surgeon, the education of a scholar, the speed of an athlete, the voice of an actor, the coding skills of a developer, etc.
But you should not try to determine the worth of a person as person. That is, when you don't care to measure something something specific, you should not consider someone inferior.
>Even religious statements of worth are based on utility to the deity.
Not really, at least not in the religions I've known. At least in (non-protestant) christianity people have absolute utility.
Christianity allocates some souls to hell and others to heaven. Isn't that an expression of differential utility to God's purpose?
> But you should not try to determine the worth of a person as person
I agree that should usually be the case before the law, and in that context we should generally pretend that all people are created equal. But for most other purposes it is valuable to determine individual fitness for that purpose. And there are few purposes for which that fitness is uniform.
That's not all of Christianity. In the orthodox church for example, there's no hell even -- it's how a person perceives eternity without God, said distance from God based on their own predisposition (or tendency), out of their own free will. "Hell" in that sense is not some place, nor does it have actual fires and other BS folk iconography, it's a kind of regret:
> . . . those who find themselves in hell will be chastised by the scourge of love. How cruel and bitter this torment of love will be! For those who understand that they have sinned against love, undergo no greater suffering than those produced by the most fearful tortures. The sorrow which takes hold of the heart, which has sinned against love, is more piercing than any other pain. It is not right to say that the sinners in hell are deprived of the love of God . . . But love acts in two ways, as suffering of the reproved, and as joy in the blessed! (Saint Isaac of Syria, Mystic Treatises).
> According to the saints, the “fire” that will consume sinners at the coming of the Kingdom of God is the same “fire” that will shine with splendor in the saints. It is the “fire” of God’s love; the “fire” of God Himself who is Love. “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12.29) who “dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Tim 6.16). For those who love God and who love all creation in Him, the “consuming fire” of God will be radiant bliss and unspeakable delight. For those who do not love God, and who do not love at all, this same “consuming fire” will be the cause of their “weeping” and their “gnashing of teeth.”
> Thus it is the Church’s spiritual teaching that God does not punish man by some material fire or physical torment. God simply reveals Himself in the risen Lord Jesus in such a glorious way that no man can fail to behold His glory. It is the presence of God’s splendid glory and love that is the scourge of those who reject its radiant power and light.
https://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/spirituality/th...
Only to the extent that your parents have the same DNA. The point is that economic success is strongly correlated to genetics independently of social position and nurturing.
Of course this will be controversial; it's the same kind of conclusion that spurred the Soviet Union to promote Lysenkoism and suppress Darwinism.
Suddely, the lords were French and the serfs were German.
1000 years later, you can predict someones socio-economic level by surname. French surnames do better than German ones. Surnames linked by blood to royalty do better than both.
1000 years. Lack of social mobility overrides genetics?
[I'm sure you can do better than this link but its what I found: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/842...]
A great example of this is the House of Habsburg. [1] They were one of the most powerful families in history completely dominating Europe politics with lineages of kings and emperors throughout the entire continent for some 5 centuries, including holding the throne of the Holy Roman Empire for more than 300 years. But the reason they're an interesting example is because they're also the namesake of the Habsburg Jaw - a genetic deformity that was greatly exaggerated in the family through the years due to excessive inbreeding. If you've seen a cartoon depiction of royalty they often are drawn with the extreme protruding chin, which is a reference to this deformity and family in particular.
That family was almost certainly extremely genetically fit at one point. But through excessive inbreeding they destroyed their own genetic lineage. In Spain this was especially pronounced with Charles II. [2] He was described as "short, lame, epileptic, senile, and bald before 35." He learned to talk at age 4, walk at 8. His Habsburg Jaw was so extreme he could not chew his own food. He, unsurprisingly, died childless at the age of 35 - ending 200 years of Habsburg rule in Spain. And to emphasize -- this is just one example. This family did not just rule Spain. They had lasting dynasties in Germany, Hungary, Croatia, England, Boehmia, Ireland, Portugal, and many other nations.
Today, the entire house of Habsburg is extinct.
Now, height is only about 70% genetic, 30% is diet and other environmental factors, but if you were looking at DNA and financial outcomes without any nod to culture, you might conclude tall people are naturally good at business.
Invader Zim satirised the culture of this pretty well with the aliens being led by 'The Tallest'.