Study links brain anatomy, academic achievement, and family income | Hacker News Reader

Study links brain anatomy, academic achievement, and family income

newsoffice.mit.edu

59 pointskercker10 comments

I didn't see any reason why these differences might not be genetic: genes cause changes in the brain which cause changes in academic achievement which cause socio-economic status.

It would be interesting to see studies that isolated the effects of genes and environment.

There are a number of natural experiments that researchers have used to examine this question:

[1]A study looking at the performance of Korean-American adopted children relative to their siblings: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10894

[2]The impact of various welfare programs on student achievement: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3208322/

> It would be interesting to see studies that isolated the effects of genes and environment.

The colorado adoption project can be good source of that type of information, in my limit understanding, example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7755514

It's not immediately clear to me why those carrying out the study seem to interpret their results as justification for policy making and intervention. Serious question, is it not possible that we observe a cause and effect here? Ie. higher mental capacity leads to doing better in life?

because in the brainwashed world of academia (and especially psychology) this is the more politically correct explanation, which is more likely to get published, get funding grants, get admiration from departmental peers, get media attention, avoid embarrassment for your self/your family/your department/your institution.

James Watson won a nobel prize for elucidating the structure of DNA and was still only 2 non-PC comments away from becoming a pariah.

>>>/pol/

Or maybe it is because there are many researchers who have actually studied the data and found that environmental factors play a large role. A summary of some of the research in this area:

http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/in...

I'm not disputing the role of environmental factors, I'm just questioning how the potential role of genetics has been diminished in this study without justification.

Also, from your link the only study with ability to isolate causation (the adopted korean study) found "23 percent of educational attainment is determined by environment, implying that up to 77 percent is determined by nature.".

Related: Your DNA may carry a ‘memory’ of your living conditions in childhood.

http://scienceblog.com/48584/your-dna-may-carry-a-‘memory’-o...

from another related article[1], "A working hypothesis is that socio-economic circumstances leave their mark on the epigenome leading to stable changes in expression of genes critical for human health, such as those involved in cardiovascular, immune, stress response and behavioural pathologies"

[1] Associations with early-life socio-economic position in adult DNA methylation. Int J Epidemiol. 2012 Feb; 41(1): 62–74.

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