It’s fascinating that Eysenck and deBoer interpreted the data so similarly but applied it so differently to support their favored positions. There’s a profound message in there about first principles and forking paths or something. And it’s also instructive that deBoer, I believe, is sincerely trying to promote good policy but may be doing so based on false premises. Thanks, Sasha, for making this all a bit more complicated and painful to digest!
Beautifully written, Sasha. Perhaps the SSGAC will release another FAQ explaining why this is important, but ultimately not within scope of their concerns.
Agreed, much of this is currently scattered through the FAQs or reviews (e.g. Benjamin et al. cites Goldberger on heritability not informing policy: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32404) but I think social science geneticists need to be out there making these points repeatedly because they have not really taken hold.
I think this is the real reason people get worked up over what should be non-controversial: more rigorous designs tend to find smaller effects, confounding is difficult to account for, cruder methods shouldn’t be prioritized, etc. All of this people can understand in a vacuum but when it comes to this issue all that goes out the window.
I am most grateful for these posts, but I'd like to offer some friendly advice to the anti-hereditarian side of this debate (not to Dr. Gusev in particular, just to the "side" in general): that their arguments will be much more credible if their "side" doesn't also attempt to sanction, censor and suppress the arguments of their opponents. Critiques of "hereditarianism" will be much more believable if they aren't accompanied by hysterical moral panic and vigorous cancellation efforts.
Again, that's why I appreciate this Substack in particular - it's mostly just about science (with some clearly visible moral intuitions lurking in the background, but not visibly warping the scientific discussion).
Oof. This is my "favorite" (note the scarequotes) genre of "there are so many complicating factors that we cannot even hope to use X as an explanation". This genre _tends to be utterly false_, and I predict the same here.
I think you missed the paragraph starting with "This is not to say that genetics can never tell us something about policy.". I always get a chuckle out of people claiming that I don't believe in genetics or think the study of mechanisms is hopeless, when I've been a geneticist studying genetic mechanisms for the past 10+ years. My job is literally trying to make sense of these associations.
I did _not_ miss it. You do not think that the study of mechanisms is hopeless, you merely think that the linkage from mechanisms to large-scale reality is too complicated for _surface correlations_ to actually mean anything. I do understand that these are different - my prediction still stands.
My prediction, simplified, is that high heritability of a feature argues for its low mutability (because if it were highly mutable, this would lower the heritability), but not necessarily vice versa.
Fascinating stuff and clear as always Sasha. Genetic essentialism has had a troubling rise under the guise of “just stating the facts” so it’s a relief to see it so eloquently revealed for what it is.
I recall reading a piece by “defending feminism” on the Laszlo Polgar experiment and it does seem, at least intuitively and in that specific case, to show that intelligence (regarding chess at least) is highly mutable. Even still, it’s not clear to me what the limitations or potential extensions of that apparent mutability of intelligence might be, and without any understanding of the mechanisms it does feel like we’re going in somewhat blind to a very important area of policy.
Is there any research on the mechanisms of the development of intelligence (however that might be defined or subcategorised) from a bio/psycho/social lens, that you find to be convincing given the limited state of our current understanding?
I think the takeaway is that there are a number of patterns that are now well replicated observationally - the Flynn effect, ability differentiation, age de-differentiation - which indicate that intelligence is multi-factorial and malleable at least across generations, but the causes are unknown. On the neuro/bio side, there is also evidence of interactions across many different brain regions as well as with the environment, but not yet a fully fleshed out biological model (other than "things will interact more over time and then settle"). To be fair, this is where we are for a lot of common traits: we know they are very complicated with extensive gene-environment interactions and that's about it.
Another great post. Thank you for writing about this.
It’s fascinating that Eysenck and deBoer interpreted the data so similarly but applied it so differently to support their favored positions. There’s a profound message in there about first principles and forking paths or something. And it’s also instructive that deBoer, I believe, is sincerely trying to promote good policy but may be doing so based on false premises. Thanks, Sasha, for making this all a bit more complicated and painful to digest!
Beautifully written, Sasha. Perhaps the SSGAC will release another FAQ explaining why this is important, but ultimately not within scope of their concerns.
Agreed, much of this is currently scattered through the FAQs or reviews (e.g. Benjamin et al. cites Goldberger on heritability not informing policy: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32404) but I think social science geneticists need to be out there making these points repeatedly because they have not really taken hold.
I think this is the real reason people get worked up over what should be non-controversial: more rigorous designs tend to find smaller effects, confounding is difficult to account for, cruder methods shouldn’t be prioritized, etc. All of this people can understand in a vacuum but when it comes to this issue all that goes out the window.
Another superb post Sasha that captures a lot of the ideas I have from reading your previous tweets, posts, and treatise.
I stopped reading Freddie a long time ago.
I am most grateful for these posts, but I'd like to offer some friendly advice to the anti-hereditarian side of this debate (not to Dr. Gusev in particular, just to the "side" in general): that their arguments will be much more credible if their "side" doesn't also attempt to sanction, censor and suppress the arguments of their opponents. Critiques of "hereditarianism" will be much more believable if they aren't accompanied by hysterical moral panic and vigorous cancellation efforts.
Again, that's why I appreciate this Substack in particular - it's mostly just about science (with some clearly visible moral intuitions lurking in the background, but not visibly warping the scientific discussion).
https://www.city-journal.org/article/dont-even-go-there
https://www.emilkirkegaard.com/p/european-polygenic-scores-predict
https://www.chronicle.com/article/racial-pseudoscience-on-the-faculty
Oof. This is my "favorite" (note the scarequotes) genre of "there are so many complicating factors that we cannot even hope to use X as an explanation". This genre _tends to be utterly false_, and I predict the same here.
I think you missed the paragraph starting with "This is not to say that genetics can never tell us something about policy.". I always get a chuckle out of people claiming that I don't believe in genetics or think the study of mechanisms is hopeless, when I've been a geneticist studying genetic mechanisms for the past 10+ years. My job is literally trying to make sense of these associations.
I did _not_ miss it. You do not think that the study of mechanisms is hopeless, you merely think that the linkage from mechanisms to large-scale reality is too complicated for _surface correlations_ to actually mean anything. I do understand that these are different - my prediction still stands.
And what is your prediction? That the low heritability of fingers implies we can just grow another one?
No. Reversed stupidity is not intelligence, and reversed overcaution is not Leeroy Jenkins.
I'm not following, what's the prediction?
My prediction, simplified, is that high heritability of a feature argues for its low mutability (because if it were highly mutable, this would lower the heritability), but not necessarily vice versa.
Fascinating stuff and clear as always Sasha. Genetic essentialism has had a troubling rise under the guise of “just stating the facts” so it’s a relief to see it so eloquently revealed for what it is.
I recall reading a piece by “defending feminism” on the Laszlo Polgar experiment and it does seem, at least intuitively and in that specific case, to show that intelligence (regarding chess at least) is highly mutable. Even still, it’s not clear to me what the limitations or potential extensions of that apparent mutability of intelligence might be, and without any understanding of the mechanisms it does feel like we’re going in somewhat blind to a very important area of policy.
Is there any research on the mechanisms of the development of intelligence (however that might be defined or subcategorised) from a bio/psycho/social lens, that you find to be convincing given the limited state of our current understanding?
Thanks! I have a very high level summary of the research on the development of intelligence here:
http://gusevlab.org/projects/hsq/#h.uirpqwnbalnc
(see 6.5, 6.5, 6.6)
I think the takeaway is that there are a number of patterns that are now well replicated observationally - the Flynn effect, ability differentiation, age de-differentiation - which indicate that intelligence is multi-factorial and malleable at least across generations, but the causes are unknown. On the neuro/bio side, there is also evidence of interactions across many different brain regions as well as with the environment, but not yet a fully fleshed out biological model (other than "things will interact more over time and then settle"). To be fair, this is where we are for a lot of common traits: we know they are very complicated with extensive gene-environment interactions and that's about it.