Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (606836)	9/3/2016 2:18:31 AM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Recommended By 3bar Sr K Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793838

Descendants don't regress to the mean of the human population. They regress to the mean of their ancestors. While there are many common ancestors, we do all have different ancestors to some extent. All non-Africans have a common ancestor from 30,000 years ago for their Y chromosome and 90,000 years ago for their mitochondria. Even going back just 1000 years gives a pretty much uniform genetic background because 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x ... pretty soon means common ancestry from back then even though after half a dozen doublings there must be a bit of incest showing up. But that does NOT mean people today have the same intelligence as back then because with 10% of the population being removed from the gene pool each generation, that's a LOT of winnowing. People at the mean now are as smart as the smartest 1% from 1000 years ago [give or take a bit as I have not done the arithmetic - maybe it's 5% or even 10% but maybe it's 0.1%]. It's not just an bit of luck that all the good stuff is happening now. There are a billion people smarter than IQ 100 and millions with IQ way up in the creative intelligence zone and those millions don't have to waste their lives tilling soil or fighting neighbouring tribes to the death. They can write software, design asics, invent autonomous electric Uber taxis with Halo recharge and mobile Cyberspace big data and deep learning neural nets. Reversion to the mean is bunk if the idea is that it's reversion to the mean of 100 years ago of all people. That's not what's happening. The mean to which reversion occurs is that of the person's personal ancestors. The Flynn Effect demonstrated that reversion to the mean is definitely not happening. Mqurice

To: LindyBill who wrote (606836)	9/3/2016 5:28:23 AM
From: frankw1900	Respond to of 793838

>>Re: Regression towards the mean. Yes I'm aware of that and it's not surprising as there doesn't seem to be a single gene for intelligence. Therefore it's reasonable to think intelligence and IQ are the expression of a constellation of genetic and epigentic activity interacting with environment, particularly maternal environment and that's an excruciatingly difficult set of things to describe. Furthermore, intelligence, IQ, as measured is the product of a set of intentional behavoiurs. We might think it difficult to breed for them. Although as mentioned in your post, some folk do seem to know how to choose mates that produce very intelligent offspring: In contrast, the Darwin-Wedgwood-Galton- Keynes- Benn- Vaughan Williams extended family seems to regress toward a higher IQ than 100, as do the Huxley-Arnolds.