Study Links Genetic Diseases to Intelligence

FleaPlus writes "The Economist, Sun-Sentinel, and FuturePundit report on a controversial study by Gregory Cochran and others which proposes a link between certain genetic conditions and above-average intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews. The 40-page study, published in the Journal of Biosocial Science, analyzes data on unusual patterns of genetic disease and relates it to a number of intelligence metrics. Although the intelligence data have traditionally been attributed to cultural factors, Cochran proposes that due to the unusual selection pressures the Ashkenazi faced between 800 and 1600AD certain genes developed which promote intelligence as single copies, but lead to particular diseases when somebody inherits two copies. According to Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, "It would be hard to overstate how politically incorrect this paper is... [though] it's certainly a thorough and well-argued paper, not one that can easily be dismissed outright.""

Comments

Non-PC Studies

[atlantafatmike]

Their are probably thousands of studies that could be done linking ethnic or social groups with intelligence, physical aptitude, obesity, disease, or just plain bad luck.

But they will not see the light of day due to the politically correct, media-charged world we live in today. Such a study would be be spun into outrage by minority or activist groups, calling the researchers racist or worse, regardless if they are correct.

politically incorrect

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Science must never be politically incorrect. It should be the truth, nothing more and nothing less. If you start to use political correct terms you water down the meaning. I'm not going "Say he's a nigger, you know he is", because that's outright wrong, but theres no need to use incorrect terms (AKA African-American if you're not from Africa) to please some minority who seems to think everyone needs a "nice" label and we can't just ignore that people's skin shade can't be controled and means nothing.

Makes sense

[m50d]

If there wasn't any benefit these genes gave, common sense would suggest they'd have died out long ago.

Politically incorrect, Humbug

[BigDogCH]

We could use about 100 more such politically incorrect studies to be published, correct or not Maybe then we can get past the "everyone is equal" and "anyone can achieve anything" crap which has been holding Americas schools back.

I never did well in art classes, even though I tried harder in that class than others. Other kids just dominated in those classes, yet my teachers claimed that it was all about how hard you worked. Bull Crap! We are each born with a range of potential abilities in each area, and our effort/training determine where in that range we land. We have limits, and we are all different. Some of us just will never be able to draw, and some of us will never be able to handle geometry. Accepting this is critical to helping kids achieve greatness.

Also, when kids fail or really stink at a content area, we need to let them know that they suck! Instead many people want us to give them empty praise, over inflating their ego. Then, later in life, they find out that they cannot achieve anything, and they are not perfect (their peers will point this out). Soon they can be found plotting harm to their peers, and suffering from depression. Hmmm, could it have something to do with their self-image, which our culture and schools built for them?

No spelling and grammar neve were my strong suite either. Sorry for becomming slightly off topic, but I hate political correctness.

Re:Politically incorrect, Humbug

[Oxygen99]

Bleh. So we destroy any kids who don't show immediate aptitude for a particular discipline while at school? Oops. Bye-bye Einstein. How about the kids who love art but, in your phraseology, suck? Did you not get any enjoyment from it? You did? But you suck, ergo, no art for you. Yes, you're right, promoting people above their ability is a bad thing, but history is replete with people who didn't show their true colours until later in life.

Jeez. Slashdot and it's intellectual elitist, reductionism. You've got to love it.

Re:Dismissed

[JaxWeb]

That wasn't the paper, that was an article about the paper. The article is here.

I think the correlation the author tried to present had two variables that may be related but don't necessarily relate one for one.

Well it doesn't really matter what you think, because this guy actually researched it. His research is more important than your uninformed opinion. Not saying you're wrong, but I'm saying you don't know, so you cannot dismiss it.

It's all about the measuring stick

[DG]

I just finished reading Stephen J Gould's "Mismeasure of Man" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393 314251/

which discusses exactly this. Plus I have some real-life experience.

The biggest problem is that, independant of what point you wish to argue (group X is abnormally intelligent, group Y is sub-par) it's so bloody hard (if not well-nigh impossible) to actually measure intelligence. Even something as simple as measuring brain size turns out to be fraught with difficulties.

But IQ tests in particular suffer from no end of problems, especially on the lower end of the scale. Did person X score low because they lack intelligence, or because they lack education (not the same thing) or because of other factors.

I went to a Canadian Military College, which had very high standards of admission. Part of the admissions process was an IQ test of sorts (I don't know if it attempted to generate a classic IQ number, but the questions on it were of the classic "IQ" type)

As you can imagine, given that 1) I didn't know how much weight this test had on my admission and 2) my whole future depended on getting admitted, taking this test was pretty stressful. I did not do well at all, came close to panic several times during the test, and didn't come close to finishing.

Happily, I was admitted after all. About a month or two after arriving, we were given the test again. (The local psych department LOVED to give us tests; we were a population tailor-made for testing all sorts of theories) This time, we were told that we were being retested as a way of checking the validity of the test.

Well after two months of military boot camp, my stress tolerence was much higher. Furthermore, I knew that the results of the test would have no impact on my career. And taking the test was a lot more relaxing than marching around the parade square.

End result? I aced it. Finished with time to spare. No problem at all. And my peers all reported the same thing.

Now one could look at the "before" and "after" scores on this test, and conclude that military boot camp raised intelligence, often spectacularly. And you'd be wrong. I and my peers didn't get more intelligent; we got better at handling the stress associated with the test.

I have serious doubts that intelligence can ever be successfully measured in a rigourous, scientific manner - and that means ANY theory of genetic intelligence, be it high or low, pro or con, can ever be proven out.

DG

Re:Einstein's brain was flawed, too...

[dougmc]

Seriously, these kind of things disturb me when I read them (what the quote said, not what the poster said). It implies that intelligence cannot be achieved through hard work, which is totally wrong.

For the record, this is not a well established fact. There have been several studies that show that IQ is mostly genetics (and this seems to be the general belief -- that it's mostly (or at least largely), but not completely, genetics), there have been studies that show that things like education and good nutrition as a child help it, that mental exercise helps build it, etc.

The brain is like any other muscle and the brain bearer can develop it, just like any other muscle. They don't need a genetic defect to outdo Einstein, they need courage and the willingness to sweat to build it up.

Of course, what exactly IQ is is something that seems to change slightly depending on who you ask. And as others have said here, it's not easy to accurately measure, especially in a large group of people. In any event, the brain is pretty much obviously NOT like `any other muscle' (it's not even a muscle) and while I do believe that it can be developed to some degree, it certainly can't be developed quite like a muscle can.

When people turn around and then say, "Well, you're smart because you're defective," then it diminishes both the person and the journey to become a more intelligent person.

Well, being rude is being rude. But just how many movies have been made about people who are handicapped in some way, end up overcoming that handicap and end up being the best at what they do? Lots. It's a story that people love to see, a story of people overcoming adversity. But it's generally just a story when somebody goes from having a low IQ (and I don't mean just poorly educated) to being a genius, like in Flowers for Algernon or Charly.

But seriously, Einstein was just one man. Yes, he was a genius, but just one of many geniuses we've had over the years. I'm not sure how much we can learn just by looking at his brain in a pickle jar. And whatever this defect was, they missed it the first time -- I wonder if they (the people who look at his brain in the pickle jar) are just finding what they wanted to find?

It is still "politically correct" to belittle both intelligent and fat people in today's society too.

So what? I don't let what is PC dictate my actions. If you want to, that's fine, but I don't. (I do try and let courtesy dictate my actions, but that's different.)

In any event, it's relatively scientifically established that fat people don't live as long. Is stating that or researching that politically incorrect?

Specious reasoning

[Tony]

Most people who are depressed are so because of biochemical imbalances and not because their teachers overpraised them as children.

Depression is correlated with biochemical changes, right enough. Depressive states are accompanied by changes in serotonin & norepinephrine levels. You can induce depression with oxotremorine, for instance.

But correlation does not imply biochemical "imbalance" naturally causes depression. It's just as likely that depression causes the biochemical imbalance.

Many cases of chronic unipolar depression (and bipolar mania / depression) may very well be tied to genetics or long-term chemical changes in the body. In non-genetic cases, what caused the imbalance in the first place? Could it not be a chemical dependency caused by long-term situational depression (that is, the body just gets used to the chemical state of being depressed)?

Most cases of depression (and the ones generally referred to by the root post) are not necessarily caused by some physical problem.

Don't believe me? How many times has a perfectly good mood been changed by an outside event? Why is there such a high rate of depression in veterans? Why did we have an increase in depression after 9/11/2001?

Praise from teachers is important. The praise should be balanced with expectations, though. I loved art class; not that I was any good, but the important thing wasn't the finished product, it was the process. I learned an appreciation for great art through my understanding (not mastery) of the process.

Unfortunately, in geometry, understanding and mastery are tied together. And there are many, many people who are incapable of understanding geometry. This doesn't make them worse than those of us who *do* get geometry; it just means they'll never design bridges or houses, or teach geometry. (Okay, they *might* teach geometry.)

Racial intelligence and Equal Rights

[Prien715]

If genetic group A on average were shown to be generally more intelligent than genetic group B, I don't think this would have huge negative side effects. The problem is that people go from populations to specific instances without a decent grasp of probability.

For example, light eyed people generally have worse reflexes than darker-eyed people. No baseball recruiter bases their picks on eye-color, they base it on the player's statistics, since it's already factored in. In the same way, if a person from the group with the average lower intelligence got a higher SAT score, higher grades, etc. than someone from the group with "better" genetic intelligence background, the person with the higher scores/grades should to be admitted to college/given the job/etc, just as in the baseball example (note that this decision only depends, like the baseball example, on the desire of the institution to be better, not because of a gov't program or equality concerns).

Just because a group on average happens to be better than another group, it says nothing determinate about any one member of either group. The group with the lower average intelligence may even have the smartest person as a member and the group with the higher average may the twenty dimmest.

The only reason a study like this would make a difference this would make is that from a population standpoint, people from one genetic group may have different jobs/salaries/etc than people from another genetic group. While this is trivially true right now, I don't think genetics is necessarily the explaination (or even part thereof). Probably heavily cultural. But how can we know if we don't study it?

If I say black people are generally taller than Chinese people, that's pretty non-controversial, but any other tests, people are likely to blame the ruler I'm using.