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Single Gene Can Boost IQ By Six Points
ananyo (2519492) writes "People are living longer, which is good. But old age often brings a decline in mental faculties and many researchers are looking for ways to slow or halt such decline. One group doing so is led by Dena Dubal of the University of California, San Francisco, and Lennart Mucke of the Gladstone Institutes, also in San Francisco. Dr Dubal and Dr Mucke have been studying the role in aging of klotho, a protein encoded by a gene called KL. A particular version of this gene, KL-VS, promotes longevity. One way it does so is by reducing age-related heart disease. Dr Dubal and Dr Mucke wondered if it might have similar powers over age-related cognitive decline. What they found was startling. KL-VS did not curb decline, but it did boost cognitive faculties regardless of a person's age by the equivalent of about six IQ points. If this result, just published in Cell Reports, is confirmed, KL-VS will be the most important genetic agent of non-pathological variation in intelligence yet discovered."
How does something that's genetic "boost" anything? This is a gene, not a drug.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Isn't the standard deviation of IQ 7 points? Is 6 points actually statistically significant?
But those with it would guess not.
My guess would be that two groups, those that express the gene and those that do not have a 6 point difference in IQ on average, in favor of those with the gene.
-- Begin thoughtfuly, end insensitively.
It has more impact that way.
Don't worry, scrote. There are plenty of 'tards out there living really kick-ass lives. My first wife was 'tarded. She's a pilot now.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Dial back the cologne a little.
Look women in the eye.
Learn to dance with confidence, even if it is only the white guy shuffle.
Sure some women dig a smart dude, but if that 6 points is a significant improvement for you maybe the women aren't into you for your brains.
Buy a pump.
More music, fewer hits
It's not really a myth, but using single number can be misleading.
Kind of like how that on average, a human being will have 1 testicle. It's stastically true, just not very useful.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You're right. We're going to need a helluva lot more than 6 points to get people like you to understand the significance of raising the baseline.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Am I understanding properly that the "KL-VS" variant of KLOTHO is Rs9536314 with genotype "T;T"?
I love talking to people who are adamant that intelligence is not heritable, yet believe in evolution. When I ask how we evolved from presumably less intelligent ape-like ancestors without intelligence being heritable, I can almost see the gears grind to a halt.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
For everyone else who has that gene (I don't know if I do, I'm still trying to figure out what SNP KLOTHO references in my genetic results), and can't stand reading the Economist's painfully dumbed-down explanation of the research, here's the actual paper.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
Found the SNP: KL-VS refers to rs9536314 for F352V and rs9527025 for C370S... see page 29 of the paper.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
Look up the gene on open access GWAS databases and see for yourself.
I'm already alive. How about something to curry favour with Lachesis or Atropos?
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Not only that, but the average child has fewer than two legs. Ain't that just sad?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yeah, but it's six points for a single gene.
If you buy 100 of those genes you get 600 points! You'll became a geneius.
factor 966971: 966971
If all this gene achieved was less cardiovascular diseases and higher intelligence, we would (nearly) all have it by now due to selection. So the question is, what else does it do which counterweights this?
Not really. Cardiovascular disease generally kills long after the age of reproduction. The number of people who would have been born if not for parental death by cardiovascular disease is likely pretty small. Also, those with higher intelligence tend to reproduce less.
A single gene can boost IQ by six points? I've got something like 24,000 of them!
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
So if human parents raised one of our chimp-like ancestors, he'd be just as smart as us?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Your numbers are saying the person of average intillegence in 1930 would be in the bottom one or two percent today. While there have been increases in IQ, they have not been anywhere near that extreme. One or two points per decade, and the rate has been slowing for the past 30 years. Still significant, but nothing like what you are describing.
That's easy: nutrition. It's known that both intelligence and height are heritable. We also know that nutrition in childhood is also a factor for height (and most likely intelligence, as well). If you look at the average height of, say, Japanese people over the 20th century, you'll find that their height increased (on average) by several inches. Was this due to genetics? Or was this due to better nutrition (more specifically, more protein in their diet)? The fact that the Flynn effect happened (probably due to better nutrition) doesn't tell us anything about whether or not there is a genetic component to intelligence (just like the increasing height of Japanese people doesn't allow us to conclude that height isn't heritable).
Erh... yes? Your argument with my statement above would be what exactly?
To clarify: I don't believe in evolution. It is "only" the only scientifically acceptable theory concerning the development of life that we have currently. But that's independent of my faith in it. It simply is. There's little I could accomplish by believing in it.
Unless someone can come up with a competing theory that deserves the name there's not really an alternative to it. It is also a quite acceptable theory, supported by what we know about how life developed and not contradicted by anything I could think of currently.
My problem is with the term of believing. Believing something requires some kind of faith, believing someone requires some kind of trust. Neither has anything to do with science.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is the headline "Single Gene Can Boost IQ By Six Points" a self parody? It should be "Single Allele Can Boost IQ By Six Points". The thing I love about irony is that it knows no bounds - there's an endless supply of it.
Also, those with higher intelligence tend to reproduce less.
Only in the rich world of today where we confound intelligence with university educations, thereby delaying children during a span of high fertility. That is surely a recent trend. Intelligence correlates with general health, especially in a more rough and tumble world of uncertain nutrition. Above average intelligence is a wonderful positive indicator for mate selection.
Rate selection and number of offspring is not the same thing.
Perhaps it is, but it also means that the majority of children have an above-average number of legs, which bodes well for their adult locomotion.
Ezekiel 23:20