Misconceptions Based on Race, 'Genetics', et. al.

Older studies on racial admixture and IQ say that there is no relationship between race and intelligence so why do you think that studies using modern technology including genetic testing would be any different?

 

Because you don't cite the racial admixture studies showing positive correlation between White heritage and IQ?

 

Your misunderstanding of IQ and adulthood was explained before.

Studies showing an 80% heritability of IQ in adulthood are not referring to people only in their 60's but much earlier, as well.

The Eyferth study has not been reproducible.

But I understand citing a 70 year old study.

Not much else - brain volume studies, genetic data, adoption studies, multiple counter-vailing admixture studies, regression toward the mean, etc., etc., - supports the environment only theories on IQ differences by race.

 

The racial admixture studies I am familiar with show little to no correlation between White ancestry and high Black IQ. If you have racial admixture studies that indicate a high correlation between White ancestry and high Black IQ go ahead and post them.

This is the research that supports a pure environmental model for racial IQ gaps:

1. Studies showing ability tests that correlate up to 80% or 90% with IQ indicate that Black IQ is converging on White IQ.

2. Racial Admixture studies with 5 different types of designs indicate low correlation between high Black IQ and degree of White Ancestry.

3. Several Adoption Studies support an environmental model.

4. Intervention Programs show that Black IQ can be boosted.

5. Genome-wide Association Studies do not support the claim of racial differences in intelligence

6. Anthropological and Archaeological research does not support the racialist position

7. Population Genetics Research and Evolutionary Biology does not support the racialist position.

 

In this paper it is proposed that regional differences in
intelligence are the major factor responsible for the regional
differences in Italy in per capita income and in the related
variables of stature, infant mortality, and education. This
hypothesis is derived from the extensive research showing
that intelligence is positively related to income. This relationship
holds at three levels of generality: among individuals,
across regions within nations, and across nations. At
the level of individuals, the classical study of the contribution
of intelligence to differences in income is Jencks' (1972)
Inequality. In this he estimated a correlation of 0.31 (corrected
for attenuation to 0.35) between IQ and income for a white
male non-farm American sample aged 25–65. He concluded
that this is a causal relationship such that IQ differences make
a significant contribution to differences in incomes. He also
concluded that IQ has a heritability of about 50%, and therefore
that genetic factors contribute to income differences.

There are ten points of interest in the results. First, the IQ
in the northern regions of Italy measured by the PISA data is
approximately 100 and therefore about the same as in Britain
and other countries of northern and central Europe given in
Lynn and Vanhanen (2002, 2006). This confirms the results of
the standardization of the Colored Progressive Matrices in
northern Italy reported by Prunetti (1985) and shows that IQs
measured by the PISA data and by the Colored Progressive
Matrices data are consistent. Regional IQs in Italy decline
steadily through the central regions and into the south and
reach a low of 89 in the most southerly region of Sicily. The
first hypothesis of this study that there may be a north–south
gradient of IQs in Italy is supported and quantified by the
correlation of 0.963 between regional IQs and latitude.
Two, the second hypothesis of this study is that the
north–south gradient of IQs in Italy may explain much of the
difference in economic development between the north and
south of Italy. This hypothesis is confirmed by the correlation
of 0.937 between regional IQs obtained in 2006 and per
capita incomes in 2003. This correlation indicates that IQ
differences explain 88% of the variance in per capita incomes
across Italian regions. The 14 IQ point difference between the
most northerly region of Friuli-Venezia (IQ=103) and the
most southerly region of Sicily (IQ=89) can be compared with
the 10.1 IQ point difference in the United States between the
highest and lowest states (Massachusetts IQ=104.3; Mississippi
IQ=94.2) (McDaniel, 2006), and the 8.1 IQ point
difference in the British Isles between the highest (London and
the south east IQ= 102.1) and the Republic of Ireland
(IQ=96.0) (Lynn, 1979). The large regional IQ differences in
Italy help to explain the large regional differences in per capita
income. It is proposed that these correlations between
population IQ and per capita income arise through a positive
feedback loop in which the population IQ is a determinant of
per capita income, and per capita income is a determinant of the
population IQ. Thus, the population's IQ is both a cause and a
result of its per capita income. The population's IQ is a cause of
its per capita income because individuals and populations with
high IQs are able to work more efficiently than those with low
IQs and consequently command higher incomes. The population's
IQ is a result of its per capita income because populations
with high IQs provide a better environment (better nutrition,
health care and education) for the development of the intelligence
of their children. This positive feedback loop is known
in behavior genetics as genotype–environment correlation
(Plomin, DeFries & McClearn, 1990).

A possible explanation for the northern regions having
had higher IQs than the southern regions at least from 1880
and possibly from 1400 to 1600 is that the populations of the
north and south are genetically different and these genetic
differences are related to differences in intelligence. Both
intelligence and educational attainment are strongly determined
by the same genetic factors (Bartels et al., 2002; Petrill
& Wilkerson, 2000; Kovas et al., 2005), and where there are
large population differences in intelligence and educational
attainment there is a probability that genetic factors are
involved. In the case of Italy, it is known that the populations
of the north and south differ genetically. Cavalli-Sforza,
Menozzi, and Piazza (1994) are the leading authorities on
the genetics of human populations, particularly those in Italy.
They write of the population genetics of Italy that “northern
Italy shows similarities with countries of central Europe,
whereas central and southern Italy are more similar to Greece
and other Mediterranean countries. This corresponds to the
well-known differences in physical type (especially pigmentation
and size) between the northern and north-central
Italians on the one side and southern Italians on the other”
(1994, p. 277). By “Mediterranean countries” Cavalli-Sforza,
Menozzi and Piazza mean the countries that border the
Mediterranean including those of North Africa and the Near
East. They note also that the Sardinians are genetically more
closely related to the Greeks, Lebanese and North African
Berbers than to central and northern Europeans (CavalliSforza
et al., 1994, pp. 78, 274). Subsequent studies have
confirmed the genetic impact of immigration from the Near
East and North Africa into southern Italy. For instance, the
Taql, p1 2f2-8-kb allele has a high frequency in the Near East
and North Africa (Morocco, 81.8; Lebanon, 43.7; Tunisia,
34.1). The allele is also present but at a lower frequency
(26.4) in southern Italy, including Sicily. The frequency of the
allele falls to 14.1% in central and northern Italy, but the allele
is rare at 3.8% in France and 3.5% in the Netherlands (Semino,
Passarino, Brega, Fellous, & Santachiara-Benerecetti, 1996). A
similar gradient is present for the pYα1 allele which has a
high frequency in North Africa represented by Egypt (85.0), a
lower frequency in southern Italy (includes Sicily and
Sardinia) (70.5), falling to 51.4 in north-central Italy, and
falling further to 33.0 in England (Mitchell, Earl, & Fricke,
1997).



The explanation of the genetic difference between northern
and north-central Italians and southern Italians together with
Sardinians is that over the course of many centuries there has
been considerable immigration into the southern Italian
mainland, Sicily, and Sardinia by peoples from North Africa
and the Near East. Around 750 BC the Phoenicians and later the
Carthaginians from North Africa colonized all these southern
Italian regions (Aubet, 2001; Marston, 2002). Later, “Arabs
occupied Sicily, Sardinia and Southern Italy in the seventh to
the ninth centuries” (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994, p. 261). Sicily
was ruled by Arabs from North Africa until 1060 and “during
and after the Arab conquest, large Arab immigration took place”
(M.M.C., 1960, p. 608 ). Arab rule ended in 1060 when Sicily was
conquered by the Normans, but the Arab occupation left a
genetic footprint. These results have been further confirmed by
Zalloua, Platt, El Sibai, and Khalife (2008 ) who report genetic
similarities between male Phoenicians (from present day
Lebanon) and males in the populations of Sicily, Sardinia, and
the far south of mainland Italy.

http://speciali.espresso.repubblica.it/carlucci/richard_lynn_north_south_differences_in_iq.pdf

 

Most of this has been discussed previously.

That you would trot much of this out again shows a tendency toward ideology over facts.

The intervention programs showed Black IQ dropping toward the Black mean after Black children left the enriched learning environments as they entered adulthood. Black IQ could only be temporarily raised (at least for children) and reverted to a lower IQ soon afterward.

Feel free elaborating points 5-7.

To which adoption studies are you referring, and which show Blacks, mulattoes and Northeast Asians having the same IQ as the white adopted children control group?

You make my point when you say admixture studies show low correlation between between IQ and White heritage.

The UK GCSE test results have serious issues.

http://drjamesthompson.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/immigrants-scholastic-ability-and.html

You may want to address this point:

There is no test yet conceived which has shown equal ability for Whites, Blacks and Northeast Asians - even for tests in which Blacks perform better than Whites.

 

What does IQ measure? Not metaphorically, nor anecdotally, but actually measure? I'm sorry, that is rhetorical. You actually betray your racism in IQ correlation biasies. What is an IQ, and what good is it...let's say compared to the Division of Labor...because that's what we're talking about, right? IQ and purpose?

 

I could say the same thing about you. I notice that you don't have anything to say about many of my lines of evidence.

According to Nisbett studies show long term positive effects of intervention programs on Black IQ from infancy to age 15. These studies indicate that IQ can be boosted and school achievement improved even during college years. These are the studies he cited:

1. Ramey, S. L., & Ramey, C. T. (1999). Early experience and early intervention for children “at risk” for developmental delay and mental retardation. Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 5, 1–10.

2. Campbell, F. A., & Ramey, C. T. (1994). Effects of early intervention on intellectual and academic achievement: A follow-up study of children from low-income families. Child Development, 65, 684–698.

3. Ramey, C. T., Campbell, F. A., Burchinal, M., Skinner, M. L., Gardner, D. M., & Ramey, S. L. (2000). Persistent effects of early childhood education on high-risk children and their mothers. Applied Developmental Science, 4, 2–14.

4. Bennett, W. J. (1987). Schools that work. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

5. Herrnstein, R. J., Nickerson, R. S., De Sanchez, M., & Swets, J. A. (1986). Teaching thinking skills. American Psychologist, 41, 1279–1289.

6. Steele, C. M., Spencer, S., Nisbett, R. E., Hummel, M., Harber, K., Schoem, D., & Carter, K. (2004). African American college achievement: A wise intervention. Unpublished manuscript, Stanford University.

Very well....

5. Genome-wide Association Studies do not support the claim of racial differences in intelligence

- Genome-wide Association Studies demonstrate that intelligence is highly polygenic. Genome-wide Association Studies as a method is highly problematic.
Even in the best of such studies such as those on height only about 11% of the variance can be explained by a reasonable number of loci (8-10). The remainder of the variance was explained by over 1000 loci. Studies of genome-wide association studies and intelligence associated variants in Europeans could not be replicated. Fst values for intelligence associated variants found in literature gave no indication of racial association.

Source: Race, Genomics and Intelligence: Slight Return by Joseph Graves

6. Anthropological and Archaeological research does not support the racialist position

- Anthropological research shows that human intelligence is an important trait with equal survival value. Traits of this nature do not show average differences between populations unlike traits of adaptive significance that differ depending on the environment. Human intelligence evolved with the slow emergence of linguistic behavior which is supported by biological data. The archaeological record shows that human survival strategies were the same during the Pleistocene Epoch indicating a commonality of general cognitive ability.

Sources:

1. An Anthropological Perspective on "Race" and Intelligence: The Non-Clinal Nature of Human Cognitive Capabilities Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 55, No. 2, 3 JAR Distinguished Lectures (Summer, 1999), pp. 245-264

2. Africanist Archaeology and Ancient IQ: Racial Science and Cultural Evolution in the Twenty-First Century World Archaeology, Vol. 38, No. 1, Race, Racism and Archaeology (Mar., 2006), pp. 72-92

7. Population Genetics Research and Evolutionary Biology does not support the racialist position.

- Research indicates that intelligence is a polygenic trait. As such for the hereditarian theory to be true there would have to be differences between geographic populations at thousands of loci for there to be genetic differences related to intelligence between races. Hereditarians have never been able to demonstrate mechanistically how such a phenomenon is even possible therefore their scenario is ridiculous. Population genetic theory predicts that traits controlled by many genes do not show a clinal distribution for the trait. Instead the genes controlling the trait are scattered within the population. The scientific literature also indicates that natural selection for intelligence is uniform throughout the world. Furthermore based on scientific knowledge of human evolution all human populations have a commonality in intelligence. The evidence for this is that humans descend primarily from one distinct evolutionary lineage and humans became anatomically and behaviorally modern in Africa. There is no evidence from an evolutionary standpoint for human intelligence evolving differently in different regions and the recent emergence of our species (based on evolutionary time scales) indicate that there was no time for such an event to occur.

Sources:

1. The Pseudoscience of Psychometry and The Bell Curve The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 64, No. 3, Myths and Realities: African Americans and the Measurement of Human Abilities (Summer, 1995), pp. 277-294

2. What a tangled web he weaves: Race, reproductive strategies and Rushton’s life history theory Anthropological Theory Vol 2(2): 131–154 (2002)

These are the adoption studies I'm referring to:

1. Moore, E. G. J. (1986). Family socialization and the IQ test performance of traditionally and transracially adopted Black children. Development Psychology, 22, 317-326.

2. Tizard, B., Cooperman, A., & Tizard, J. (1972). Environmental effects on language development: A study of young children in long-stay residential nurseries. Child Development, 43, 342–343.

Northeast Asians were not studied in either one. In Moore (1986) Black children raised by middle-class Black families achieved an average IQ score of 104. Black children raised by middle-class White families achieved an average IQ of 117!

Tizard, Cooperman, and Tizard (1972) studied Black and White children assigned to a highly enriched institutional environment. At the age of 4 or 5, White children had an average IQ of 103, Black children an average IQ of 108 and mixed-race children an average IQ of 106!

Nisbett addresses The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study that Rushton and Jensen were so fixated on. The study has several methodological flaws in its design which are admitted by it's own authors making it impossible to make a hereditarian or environmental interpretation of the data.

No, you act as if any positive correlation supports your argument when it doesn't. A low correlation does not support you. A negative correlation would definitely debunk you but a low correlation still supports an environmental interpretation.

Shuey (1966) reviewed a number of studies on the correlation between skin color and IQ with an average correlation of 0.10, that is 10% of the time there was a relationship between lighter skin color in Blacks and higher IQ and 90% of the time there wasn't.

Jenkins (1936) reviewed data on the IQs of Black Chicago school children with IQs above 125 and some above 140. Jenkins assessed degree of European ancestry in these children based on self-reports of parents and Grand Parents. According to the research Black students with these high IQs were slightly less likely to have substantial European ancestry than was estimated to be characteristic of the U.S. Black population at the time.

Again there are 5 different types of designs that found low or no correlation between White ancestry and high Black IQ. Whites genes do NOT make Blacks smarter.

One of the other lines of evidence was degree of European ancestry based on blood group indicators.

Scarr et al. (1977) found a correlation between European heritage and IQ of Blacks to be only 0.05. They also found a correlation between skin color and IQ to be 0.15.

Another blood group study, by Loehlin, Vandenberg, and Osborne (1973), studied the correlation between IQ and Europeaness of blood groups and found only a 0.01 correlation. In another sample they actually reported a negative correlation of -0.38 meaning that degree of Europeaness of blood groups actually predicted lower IQs!

The evidence from racial admixture studies simply does not support a hereditarian interpretation. I would be interested to see if these conclusions could be replicated with modern genetic testing but as it stands the finding has not been falsified.

This is meaningless as the environmental model would predict that where there is inequality there is always going to be a difference in test score between groups living in racially stratified societies. So it doesn't matter that no equivalence in ability is shown by any of the tests. What matters is the cause.

However it is interesting to note that attempts to control the environment between test subjects shows that the Black-White IQ gap can be eliminated.

Reviewing all of this evidence it becomes clear that when the available research is looked at in its totality the science supports a purely environmental cause to racial IQ gaps.

 

You should read this.

https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/caribbean-iq-scores/

 

Why so fearful of doing scientific studies with DNA, if those old studies (the ones that tickle your ears) were all that, then the DNA tests would likely not find dozens of genetic patterns linked with the dozens of unique racial and ethnic genes?


The Bell Curve (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994) presented general readers an
update of the evidence for the hereditarian position along with several policy
recommendations and an original analysis of 11,878 youths (including 3,022
Blacks) from the 12-year National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. It found that
most 17-year-olds with high scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test,
regardless of ethnic background, went on to occupational success by their late 20s
and early 30s, whereas those with low scores were more inclined to welfare
dependency. The study also found that the average IQ for African Americans was
lower than those for Latino, White, Asian, and Jewish Americans (85, 89, 103,
106, and 113, respectively; Herrnstein & Murray, 1994, pp. 273–27.
Currently, the 1.1 standard deviation difference in average IQ between Blacks
and Whites in the United States is not in itself a matter of empirical dispute. A
meta-analytic review by Roth, Bevier, Bobko, Switzer, and Tyler (2001) showed
it also holds for college and university application tests such as the Scholastic
Aptitude Test (SAT; N
2.4 million) and the Graduate Record Examination
(GRE; N
2.3 million), as well as for tests for job applicants in corporate settings
(N
0.5 million) and in the military (N
0.4 million). Because test scores are
the best predictor of economic success in Western society (Schmidt & Hunter,
199, these group differences have important societal outcomes (R. A. Gordon,
1997; Gottfredson, 1997).

https://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf

Your answer as to why those in the IQ testing world won't do DNA-based testing is that they know the results will disprove their PC theories.

Can you explain why after 30 years of DNA technology being available they refuse to do it?

 

MRI-Based Intelligence Quotient (IQ) Estimation with Sparse Learning

by: Liye Wang,

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel framework for IQ estimation using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data. In particular, we devise a new feature selection method based on an extended dirty model for jointly considering both element-wise sparsity and group-wise sparsity. Meanwhile, due to the absence of large dataset with consistent scanning protocols for the IQ estimation, we integrate multiple datasets scanned from different sites with different scanning parameters and protocols. In this way, there is large variability in these different datasets. To address this issue, we design a two-step procedure for 1) first identifying the possible scanning site for each testing subject and 2) then estimating the testing subject’s IQ by using a specific estimator designed for that scanning site. We perform two experiments to test the performance of our method by using the MRI data collected from 164 typically developing children between 6 and 15 years old. In the first experiment, we use a multi-kernel Support Vector Regression (SVR) for estimating IQ values, and obtain an average correlation coefficient of 0.718 and also an average root mean square error of 8.695 between the true IQs and the estimated ones. In the second experiment, we use a single-kernel SVR for IQ estimation, and achieve an average correlation coefficient of 0.684 and an average root mean square error of 9.166. All these results show the effectiveness of using imaging data for IQ prediction, which is rarely done in the field according to our knowledge.

[Editor’s Note: The full article is available here.]

Original Article

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0117295

Conclusion

In this paper, we proposed a novel framework for the estimation of a subject’s IQ score based on the neuroimaging features. Methodologically, since the number of features in neuroimaging data usually overwhelms the number of available samples, feature selection has been always an important role in the field. To this end, considering the strong relationship between GM and WM features in MR images, we devised a feature selection method based on a dirty model [24] that efficiently considered the coupling of different feature types, but still alleviated the strong parameter overlap across features. Specifically, we penalized an objective function with a squared Frobenius norm of the element-wise sparsity matrix. Using the MR Images acquired at different scanning sites with their own scanning parameters and protocols, we designed a two-step procedure, by which we first identified the scanning site of a test image and then estimated the test subject’s IQ by using the respective estimator. Also, we performed comparison between multi-kernel SVR and single-kernel SVR by two sets of experiments. From a practical point of view, although the current framework is not limited to apply for the MR images obtained from only a predefined site, it would be our forthcoming research issue to develop a more generalized method for efficiently handling the inter-site variability and thus constructing a single generalized estimator model for all subjects by skipping the scanning site identification step. Furthermore, thanks to the availability of various imaging modalities, it would be beneficiary to integrate their complementary information for more precise IQ score estimation. It should be emphasized again that our work paves a new way for a research on predicting an infant’s future IQ score by using neuroimaging data, which can be a potential indicator for parents to prepare their child’s education if needed.
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Once again we see new methods being developed to accuarately measure intelligence and such studies indicate that intelligence is the result of genetics.....the old and outdated models that sought to demonstrate that culture/environment were major players regarding intelligence were simply efforts motivated by politics...i.e. political correctness.

There is no science interfered with like the science of genetics....powerful political forces have consistently tried to prevent such genetic research because they fear the political results. One cannot understand what is going on in the field of genetics today without realizing the role that political correctness is trying to play....aka that of censorship, personal attack and the destruction of the careers of many who have conducted genetic research via being labeled racists.

 

More evidence of the genetic link to intelligence: Original Article

Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication 14 April 2015; doi: 10.1038/mp.2015.37
GWAS for executive function and processing speed suggests involvement of the CADM2 gene


To identify common variants contributing to normal variation in two specific domains of cognitive functioning, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of executive functioning and information processing speed in non-demented older adults from the CHARGE (Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology) consortium. Neuropsychological testing was available for 5429–32 070 subjects of European ancestry aged 45 years or older, free of dementia and clinical stroke at the time of cognitive testing from 20 cohorts in the discovery phase. We analyzed performance on the Trail Making Test parts A and B, the Letter Digit Substitution Test (LDST), the Digit Symbol Substitution Task (DSST), semantic and phonemic fluency tests, and the Stroop Color and Word Test. Replication was sought in 1311-21860 subjects from 20 independent cohorts. A significant association was observed in the discovery cohorts for the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs17518584 (discovery P-value=3.12 × 10− and in the joint discovery and replication meta-analysis (P-value=3.28 × 10−9 after adjustment for age, gender and education) in an intron of the gene cell adhesion molecule 2 (CADM2) for performance on the LDST/DSST. Rs17518584 is located about 170 kb upstream of the transcription start site of the major transcript for the CADM2 gene, but is within an intron of a variant transcript that includes an alternative first exon. The variant is associated with expression of CADM2 in the cingulate cortex (P-value=4 × 10−4). The protein encoded by CADM2 is involved in glutamate signaling (P-value=7.22 × 10−15), gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) transport (P-value=1.36 × 10−11) and neuron cell-cell adhesion (P-value=1.48 × 10−13). Our findings suggest that genetic variation in the CADM2 gene is associated with individual differences in information processing speed.




http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/mp201537a.html

 

Proposals To Diversify NYC's Top High Schools Would Do Little To Help, Study Finds


http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswi...op-high-schools-do-little-to-help-study-finds

 

"The greatest barrier to racial equality today is not overt racism, Shelby Steele argues in his new book "Shame", but white liberals. Under the guise of benevolence, liberals today maintain their position of power over blacks by continuing to cast them as victims in need of saving. This ideology underlies liberal social policies from affirmative action to welfare, which actually exacerbate racial inequality rather than mitigating it. Drawing on empirical data as well as his own personal experience, Steele demonstrates that these policies have not only failed, but have made it impossible to address the problems that plague the modern black community, and have ensured that black Americans will never be truly equal to their white countrymen, in their own minds or in practice.
Forthright and persuasive, Shelby Steele offers an unflinching look at the failures of liberalism and a compelling case that a return to conservative principles is the only way forward for African Americans—and for the nation."

https://www.overdrive.com/media/1987876/shame

 

A Review of Intelligence GWAS Hits: Their Relationship to Country IQ and the Issue of Spatial Autocorrelation

James Thompson, Psychological Comments, September 3, 2015

Country IQ (Lynn and Vanhanen 2012) has become a much researched variable, and now this paper out today links alleles associated with individual’s IQ to overall country IQ. This will begin to provide estimates of the extent to which country intelligence levels have a genetic cause. A key methodological aspect of this paper is extracting a common factor from among the SNPs, utilizing un-weighted least squares factor analysis, yielding a metagene–this being a term utilized in genetics to describe patterns of covariance among genes.

A review of intelligence GWAS hits: Their relationship to country IQ and the issue of spatial autocorrelation

Davide Piffer, Ulster Institute for Social Research, London, UK

{snip}

Abstract

Published Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS), reporting the presence of alleles exhibiting significant and replicable associations with IQ, are reviewed. The average between-population frequency (polygenic score) of nine alleles positively and significantly associated with intelligence is strongly correlated to country-level IQ (r = .91). Factor analysis of allele frequencies furthermore identified a metagene with a similar correlation to country IQ (r = .86). The majority of the alleles (seven out of nine) loaded positively on this metagene. Allele frequencies varied by continent in a way that corresponds with observed population differences in average phenotypic intelligence. Average allele frequencies for intelligence GWAS hits exhibited higher inter-population variability than random SNPs matched to the GWAS hits or GWAS hits for height. This indicates stronger directional polygenic selection for intelligence relative to height. Random sets of SNPs and Fst distances were employed to deal with the issue of autocorrelation due to population structure. GWAS hits were much stronger predictors of IQ than random SNPs. Regressing IQ on Fst distances did not significantly alter the results nonetheless it demonstrated that, whilst population structure due to genetic drift and migrations is indeed related to IQ differences between populations, the GWAS hit frequencies are independent predictors of aggregate IQ differences.

The author says:

The average frequency (polygenic score) of nine alleles positively associated with IQ and proxy phenotypes at the individual differences level in published GWAS is strongly and significantly correlated to population, or country IQ (r = .91). Factor analysis of allele frequencies yielded a metagene factor with a similar correlation to IQ (.86). The majority of alleles (seven out of nine) loaded positively on this factor. 40 unrelated SNPs were drawn at random and their frequencies factor analyzed for use as a control. The pattern of very high-magnitude positive or negative correlations suggests that spatial autocorrelation might be inflating the relationships between variables. That is to say, factors extracted utilizing random SNPs exhibited very high correlations to the GWAS hits factors (r = .6 to .9 and similarly high correlations with country IQ distances. Unexpectedly, the method of correlated vectors produced very high values also when run using the random SNPs, rendering the extremely high magnitude and significant correlation (.99, p < .05) found for the GWAS hits somewhat less impressive. However, the correlation of IQ with the GWAS hits metagene (.89) was somewhat higher than the IQ correlation with the random SNP factors (.74).

Comparison of allele frequency means for the five continental groups from the 1000 Genomes database revealed frequency differences that closely correspond to observed continent-level aggregate IQ, yielding the following pattern: East Asian > European > South Asian > American (Hispanic) > African. However, ANOVA did not yield p values that meet the conventional significance threshold (p < .05), furthermore Tukey&#8217;s test produced confidence intervals that bisected zero. The lack of statistical significance is clearly due to the very small sample size (N = 9). Increasing numbers of GWA studies will undoubtedly provide more hits in the future permitting the generation of an increasingly accurate picture of cognitive-related genetic variation, both within and between populations.

This is a very promising start, after a long review process. Once we get larger genetic samples of people in different continents it should be possible to move from country level aggregate intelligence scores to individual personal scores.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3c4TxciNeJZUVAzaWF2MEMtSlU/view

 

For those who missed the news of this very recent discovery regarding genes and intelligence:


Posted on December 21, 2015
Intelligence Genes Discovered by Scientists

Sarah Knapton, Telegraph, December 21, 2015

"Genes which make people intelligent have been discovered and scientists believe they could be manipulated to boost brain power.

Researchers have believed for some time that intellect is inherited with studies suggesting that up to 75 per cent of IQ is genetic, and the rest down to environmental factors such as schooling and friendship groups.

But until now, nobody has been able to pin-point exactly which genes are responsible for better memory, attention, processing speed or reasoning skills.

Now Imperial College London has found that two networks of genes determine whether people are intelligent or not-so-bright.

They liken the gene network to a football team. When all the players are in the right positions, the brain appears to function optimally, leading to clarity of thought and what we think of as quickness or cleverness.

However when the genes are mutated or in the wrong order, it can lead to dullness of thinking, or even serious cognitive impairments.

Scientists believe that there must be a &#8216;master switch&#8217; regulating the networks and if they could find it, they could &#8216;switch on&#8217; intelligence for everyone.

&#8220;We know that genetics plays a major role in intelligence but until now haven&#8217;t known which genes are relevant,&#8221; said Dr Michael Johnson, lead author of the study from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College.

&#8220;This research highlights some of genes involved in human intelligence, and how they interact with each other.

&#8220;What&#8217;s exciting about this is that the genes we have found are likely to share a common regulation, which means that potentially we can manipulate a whole set of genes whose activity is linked to human intelligence.

&#8220;Our research suggests that it might be possible to work with these genes to modify intelligence, but that is only a theoretical possibility at the moment&#8211;we have just taken a first step along that road.&#8221;

In the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, the team of researchers looked at samples of human brain from patients who had undergone neurosurgery for epilepsy.

They analysed thousands of genes expressed in the human brain, and then combined the results with genetic information from healthy people who had undergone IQ tests and from people with neurological disorders such as autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability.

They conducted various computational analyses and comparisons in order to identify the gene networks influencing healthy human cognitive abilities. Remarkably, they found that some of the same genes that influence human intelligence in healthy people were also the same genes that cause impaired cognitive ability and epilepsy when mutated, networks which they called M1 and M3.

Dr Johnson added: &#8220;Traits such intelligence are governed by large groups of genes working together&#8211;like a football team made up of players in different positions.

&#8220;We used computer analysis to identify the genes in the human brain that work together to influence our cognitive ability to make new memories or sensible decisions when faced with lots of complex information.

&#8220;We found that some of these genes overlap with those that cause severe childhood onset epilepsy or intellectual disability.

&#8220;This study shows how we can use large genomic datasets to uncover new pathways for human brain function in both health and disease. Eventually, we hope that this sort of analysis will provide new insights into better treatments for neurodevelopmental diseases such as epilepsy, and ameliorate or treat the cognitive impairments associated with these devastating diseases.&#8221;

Earlier this year a team at King&#8217;s College London discovered that up to 65 per cent of the difference in pupil&#8217;s GCSE grades was down to genetics, after analysing genetic data fro, 12,500 twins.

They found that all exam results were highly heritable, demonstrating that genes explain a larger proportion of the differences between children, between 54 and 65 per cent.

Previously it was thought that intelligence was determined by the formation of the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the human brain, also known as &#8216;grey matter.&#8217; Grey matter plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought and language.

In contrast shared environmental factors such as home and school environment contributed between 14 and 21 per cent. The rest was made up by individual external influences such as diseases or friends.

Report author Professor Robert Plomin believes that children should be genetically screened at the age of four so that an individualised curriculum could be tailored to their needs.

&#8220;Understanding the specific genetic and environmental factors influencing individual differences in educational achievement&#8211;and the complex interplay between them&#8211;could help educationalists develop effective personalised learning programmes, to help every child reach their potential by the end of compulsory education,&#8221; he said."

 

Again, NO DNA testing, and no racial groups or controls used.

As I stated earlier, MRI scans needed, but without the genetic testing, there is little point in doing the tests.

The failures of psuedo-science.

 

You didn't answer my question. Why do YOU think that modern DNA testing would come to different conclusions from the tests cited by Nisbett? Those tests used 5 types of designs to assess a correlation between White ancestry and high Black IQ and they found little to no correlation. So why do you think DNA testing would be any different? Far from being fearful of such genetic testing I would be very interested in seeing if those conclusions could be replicated using modern technology. I clearly said that. What you should be asking is why racialist researchers who clearly had an axe to grind like Rushton and Jensen didn't organize these sort of tests themselves to prove their theory. You want to rely on Egalitarian scientists to prove your theories for you? Why? The Egalitarians consider the matter resolved. Look at all of the research I provided for the Environmental model. That's the real reason why they haven't bothered with DNA testing. They don't need to. All of the credible evidence is on their side.

 

You know...blacks in the caribbeans have much higher European admixture but lower IQ scores than black americans.

 

That's even more evidence. The tests cited by Nisbett provide direct evidence for no relationship between high Black IQ and degree of White ancestry. Modern genetic testing would be great if only to see if these results can be replicated with modern technology but it's not necessary. The finding is already a part of the scientific literature. Getting modern DNA profiles and comparing IQ tests of individual test subjects against brain scans from MRI would only lend more support to the Egalitarian position. But just to show that I'm genuinely interested in the result of such testing I have emailed some scholars such as Nisbett to see what they think of the idea and I'll email more. If I get responses I'll make a new thread specifically about this subject.

 

I've also read a study saying that mixed kids were on par with white kids in IQ, except for males born to black mothers and white fathers. It seems to be all over the place.

 

So, again NO DNA sampling, no randomization protocol for subjects, or their ethnicity.

Same thing I've been saying over the years.

 

This thread will be closed soon and I would conclude that human genetics is great because it replaced pseudo-scientific anthropology which is largely responsible for promoting racial stereotypes. For example, the term Caucasian has many flaws as a racial classification, which was based on skull measurements and travel diaries by 19th-century anthropologists, not on genetics. In Russian, "Caucasian" equals "black (&#1095;&#1077;&#1088;&#1085;&#1099;&#1081", referring to people who come from or inhabit the Caucasus region due to their darker complexion.

 

Because Nisbett's theories must be backed with modern DNA and if possible MRI data done with standardized IQ tests among an actual randomized sample of humans around the world.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nisbett/racegen.pdf

Nisbett's ideas have been cobbled together from outdated tests done decades ago. Do you have any idea how skewed the data on some on his listed tests are?

Thinking the offspring of Blacks in the military and Whites who marry them is somehow randomized? Anyone going into the military must have at least a moderate IQ.

Any real, modern test would have to sample from everyone in every area they test. There can be no "estimation" (Nisbett's favorite term). That means NOT sampling from just schools and universities and select places. That means sampling from jails, mental institutions, census data, phone company records and so forth. It would also require testing from the most pure ethnic control groups found in places like Japan, Iceland, Namibia, Mongolia, the Amazon and so on.

The markers for paternity/racial markers are well known and can be done with a cheek swab. Why the guesswork? Do the DNA profile and one would know exactly what one is made of.

The science of Leftists controlling the IQ debate is really no better than those selling miracle hair regrowth formulas on the internet.

When there have been over a hundred tests that show the typical IQ's of Blacks being 1 standard deviation below Whites---it only stands to reason that the few tests cherry-picked by Nisbett & Co. would not be proven.

Only in your fantasy world is the subject "settled." Nisbett, I believe, is so prejudiced, that he refuses to use DNA profiling at all. I'm glad he's not in the medical field trying to cure cancer.

 

This idea that scientists are refusing to use DNA profiling is not credible. Again why do you think Rushton and Jensen didn't do it?