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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (171702)	10/2/2005 8:09:52 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<According to the researchers, many individuals carrying the gene for one of these diseases also receive an “IQ boost.” Rabbi Moses Tendler, who holds a doctorate in biology and teaches biology at Yeshiva University, says there is “no doubt that genetic makeup determines intelligence and, indeed, predisposes as well as offers resistance to genetic diseases.” > Tendler got that wrong. Genetic makeup giving high intelligence in Ashkenazi does NOT predispose or offer resistance to genetic diseases. That's not what I read Tendler saying. To paraphrase Tendler: Genetic makeup can determine intelligence; predispose to genetic disease; and/or offer resistance to genetic disease. I think you incorrectly gave Tendler an implication he did not make. The diseases are correlated, not caused, by the smart genes, or there would not be the super-smart without the diseases. I would suppose that there are multiple/many genetic factors that influence intelligence. Theoretically, any of the genes that affect neural states could also affect intelligence. Having a correlation doesn't prove there's a causal relationship, but having super-smart people without a particular corresponding genetic disease doesn't establish that there is no influence. I've found that the general discussions of genes are generally oversimplified to make it understandable to the point of being inaccurate. For example, most people tend to think that eye-color is determined by two genes. The combinations of blue and brown genes [with dominance] to determine eye color. And that is generally the way it is taught. That doesn't explain the variations of blues and browns that we observe and if one were to delve into it, it's believed that there are at least three or four genes that determine eye color. I'll make a wild guess that genetically influenced intelligence is far more complex than eye color. I was surprised to see: "According to the study, slated to appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Biosocial Science, Ashkenazim do better than average on IQ tests, scoring some 12-15 points above the test’s mean value." 12-15 points above mean value is certainly statistically signficant, but it's not a super-smart race by any means [I'm suggesting anyone made that claim.] Further... "the study notes that although Ashkenazi Jews made up just 3 percent of the U.S. population during the last century, they won 27 percent of the country’s Nobel Prizes in science and account for more than half of the world’s chess champions. However, Harpending adds, this is “the kind of thing that you’re not supposed to say these days.”... I suppose some number crunching would be needed, but intuitively, I wouldn't expect 12-15 points to result in that high a multiplier of those metrics of intellectual success. Perhaps when your looking at the bell curve and the top ~1% it works out that way but I doubt it. And whether the 12-15 point shift in the mean does translate to an exponential increase in intellectual success at the high end, why wouldn't we see a 27% increase in world's champion chess vs. more than half? Is the set of world's chess champions even a statisically large enough sample to be meaningfull? I think chess is grossly overrated as a measure of "genius". You can get a computer program that will stomp the dickens out of the vast majority of masters and grandmasters. Yet no one considers the computer program to be a "genius". On the other hand, how many computer programs have won a "nobel prize"? To exaggerate, you can become a chess master and be dumber than a stump...but have an excellent ability at visualization and memory for prior played chess games. Do you know all the opening moves? What defines highly intelligent, brilliant, or genius? That's a rhetorical question. The more we learn, the less we know. jttmab