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Massive Study Searching For Genes Behind Intelligence Finds Little
An anonymous reader writes: It's been taken for granted that science would, one day, figure out what parts of our DNA make us smart (or not). But a huge new study done by a group of almost 60 researchers using genome data on over 100,000 people has come up empty-handed. The scientists first looked for differences in the genome that correlated with academic achievement. After narrowing it down to 69 individual sites, they gave cognitive tests to separate group of 24,000 people and looked for evidence of difference at those same locations (abstract). Most of the sites weren't significantly different from chance — the (already weak) genetic influence of genes on height has an effect 20 times greater. On top of that, the three gene locations that did seem to have a stronger correlation weren't involved in development of the nervous system.
GATTACA becomes a little less plausible!
But what of this story?
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
the researchers were coincidentally all missing a particular gene and none of them could figure out what its purpose was.
what? Little evidence of the gene, or (more plausibly IMHO) little evidence of intelligence?
My parents are both dumber than dirt but I'm way smarter than them.
the (already weak) genetic influence of genes on height has an effect 20 times greater
Wait... did I just read that genes only have a weak influence on height?????
Googling "genes for height"
Height clearly has a lot to do with genetics - shorter parents tend to have shorter children, and taller parents tend to have taller children...
Okay, phew! I must have misinterpreted the meaning of "already weak genetic influence." Also, each of those articles do go on to explain that nutrition, including fetal nutrition, have a significant impact as well.
Did they look at the CVs of those 100,000 people? How many of them were PhDs? How many were prolific inventors? How many where self-made *gasp* one-percenters?
...the brain really is just for cooling the blood after all.
Well, sorta.
There's a lot more evidence that in-utero nutrition has a big role to play on intelligence. In fact, it's a commonly cited possible causal mechanism behind the Flynn effect.
So... you might be born with dramatic differences in your eventual (general) intelligence already in play, but that doesn't necessarily implicate genetic determinism.
Also intuitive is the fact that genes do play a role in the difference between human intelligence and apes. Just not necessarily between humans. So genes do something. Just not as much as "racial realists", social Darwinists, and other genetic determiminst believers contend.
That choice of proxy needs some support, lest they end up accidentally gathering evidence that earning a 5.5 GPA in basketweaving does not correlate with unusual genes.
The summary is incorrect, please read the abstract to form your own opinion. Specifically:
"Convergent evidence from a set of bioinformatics analyses implicates four specific genes (KNCMA1, NRXN1, POU2F3, and SCRT). All of these genes are associated with a particular neurotransmitter pathway involved in synaptic plasticity, the main cellular mechanism for learning and memory. "
Intelligence is highly heritable, but there is no single 'genius' gene and often there are multiple genetic markers that have similar positive or negative effects. This study looked for common genetic variants that correlated with memory and learning and found them!
The genes are obviously smart enough to hide from researchers.
The study did not demonstrate this at all. It simply failed to find specific genes responsible for intelligence.
You might still be born with a set intelligence which isn't genetically determined, or it might be genetically determined on the basis of genetic factors that were not identified for any number of reasons. Or you could be right.
The point is, this study doesn't provide any evidence one way or another.
Also, equating academic performance with intelligence may be dubious. There could be many factors responsible for academic performance, of which intelligence is just one. We can't even define what intelligence is...
The counterpoint here is twin studies. Identical twins, born to the same parents, but adopted by different families, tend to have extraordinarily unlikely similarities in adult general intelligence scores. What this study has been undermining is the notion that because it tracks from birth, it has mostly to do with genes.
Instead, this suggests there are other conditions that identical twins share besides genes. As I said in my earlier post, a lot of expertise has been focused on in-utero development instead.
And as we know, the hardware is only half the battle. The "software", or in case of intelligence, the actual processes and the way the brain actually works and develops during the life time, is still mostly unknown to us. It's a bit like studying the processor chips from any give age, and trying to "sort" them, or find a way to "classify" them by performance, without actually knowing how or what software then can run.
As with some other things in life, the genes might give you a "framework", or a starting playfield but the rest of the environment plays a huge part in how things will turn out. I believe it makes much more sense, in terms of evolution, that intelligence is something more "organic", adaptable, than a simple, specific gene (or group of genes) that are vulnerable to mutation, etc. Look at the way we are programing AI. Instead of giving it billions and billions of rules and instructions to make it "super smart", we instead try to program it in a way that it can learn by themselves. More or less the way we also learn and develop as we grow up.
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
Not quite true.
It shows that a large number of specific candidate genes don't do it. Even if it's not a complete refutation of the hypothesis, it is a push to maybe look elsewhere for some of the mechanisms of intelligence development.
> You're not born with it, you have to learn to be intelligent.
Unfortunately that doesn't account for examples where there are strong deviations from one generation to the next without any clear indication that environment was capable of being the deciding factor.
Actually, examples like those should probably be the starting point for work like this. This study may be full of not terribly useful examples.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The irony. The smart people couldn't figure out what makes someone smart... perhaps because they were using the wrong parameters.
if you equate academic success with intelligence, you're doing it wrong. i know plenty of stupid people with masters degrees, and plenty of brilliant people who either never went to, or never finished college. what an asinine bias. if you're looking for intelligence genes, you should be using a meter of intelligence(like an IQ test or similarly dependable measurement), not a meter of dedication, and focus like graduating college with solid scores.
Identical twins only separate at birth, so all we've got evidence of is that intelligence is largely set prior to that event.
I'm going to guess that we really need to studied identical twins, separated PRIOR to implantation and carried by different mothers. Problem with this is such experiments are not exactly ethical.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
So they were wrong in their hypothesis that these 69 sites on the genome are related to intelligence. This does not mean that other sites on the genome aren't related to intelligence.
On top of that, the three gene locations that did seem to have a stronger correlation weren't involved in development of the nervous system.
So they really don't have complete knowledge of this extremely complex system. Not surprising. Time to review their assumptions, and come up with a new hypothesis to test. They still gained knowledge (what doesn't work), it's just not the knowledge they were hoping for.
Not necessarily. Natural experiments for individual genes like this one can be conjoined with careful observation of fetal development, and maybe lead us to some useful conclusions(whether they be positive or negative for the hypothesis I described).
Not quite true.
It shows that a large number of specific candidate genes don't do it. Even if it's not a complete refutation of the hypothesis, it is a push to maybe look elsewhere for some of the mechanisms of intelligence development.
Well, it only would show that those genes don't have an individually-detectable affect on whatever marker they looked at. Maybe collectively they have an effect that can't be detected statistically. Maybe the marker they chose doesn't make sense.
Imagine if I tried to identify the gene for "sickness." I took anybody who ever got sick for any reason and studied their DNA and looked for a common link. Most likely I wouldn't find anything. Would this prove that genes can't make you sick? Or is it more likely that "sickness" is such a broad description of a phenotype that it could have a billion different causes.
Academic performance could be the result of MANY factors. Physical attractiveness has been demonstrated to have an impact on academic performance, and you'd hardly expect the same genes to affect that as your ability to do some kind of mental processing. That is just picking one attribute that is obviously going to confound results. Then you get into stuff like whether intelligence is about persistence, or ability to process information, or memory, etc. All of those things are likely to affect academic performance. Then there are cultural factors - let's just assume the sterotype about Asians prodding their kids to study harder is true - I'm sure there are alleles more common in Asians (the fact that they have distinctive appearances makes this obvious for starters), and that is going to confound things.
If you really want to identify the genes responsible for a trait, you have to first come up with a very precise definition for the trait, ideally one tied to some kind of biological mechanism (good luck if it involves the brain).
Or in other words, they simply were not smart enough to find the genomes. We know that a large amount of intelligence is dictated by our genes (http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/08/11/1151242/about-half-of-kids-learning-ability-is-in-their-dna), that we are unable to find a few needles in the haystack does not makes us rethink that.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
With "smart" people ranging from type-A personalities, to high-functioning autistics, it's not surprising they wouldn't find one specific set of genes for intelligence. There is extreme variation in "smart", and even more for "academic achievement", where a complete idiot (for lack of a better term) willing to put in substantial effort, can perform just as well as a highly intelligent person without such motivation.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
My first thought, exactly. Who would have thought that academics would equate intelligence (and other admirable traits, as well?) with academic achievement? Are there other ways in which this innate component of intelligence can manifest? Might cultural and socioeconomic factors - among other things - muddy the association?
Intelligence may be a factor in achievement (if it exists), but achievement has many other factors - most of them social and contextual.
semantics are everything!
You could also just compare them with fraternal twins.
In this case the genetic starting points are different, but the in-utero contributions are the same.
No, I'm not.
I mean, of the predictive utility of what they have discovered is presumably real. But the point I'm contesting is your central thesis that "intelligence is highly heritable". Which is not what this study found. Correlations of intelligence to (these) genetics, even on multivariate examinations, is weak. Thus your "intelligence is highly heritable" comes of as reductionism.
From the original paper:
http://www.pnas.org/content/ea...
We identify several common genetic variants associated with cognitive performance using a two-stage approach: we conduct a genome-wide association study of educational attainment to generate a set of candidates, and then we estimate the association of these variants with cognitive performance. In older Americans, we find that these variants are jointly associated with cognitive health. Bioinformatics analyses implicate a set of genes that is associated with a particular neurotransmitter pathway involved in synaptic plasticity, the main cellular mechanism for learning and memory. In addition to the substantive contribution, this work also serves to show a proxy-phenotype approach to discovering common genetic variants that is likely to be useful for many phenotypes of interest to social scientists (such as personality traits).
How the hell does the article now writes that "The scientists first looked for differences in the genome that correlated with academic achievement"? No, they looked for "educational attainment". Then the abstract goes on "Three SNPs (rs1487441, rs7923609, and rs2721173) are significantly associated with cognitive performance after correction for multiple hypothesis testing." SNPs are different alleles of the same gene.
Then, "Convergent evidence from a set of bioinformatics analyses implicates four specific genes (KNCMA1, NRXN1, POU2F3, and SCRT). All of these genes are associated with a particular neurotransmitter pathway involved in synaptic plasticity, the main cellular mechanism for learning and memory." But the article states that " On top of that, the three gene locations that did seem to have a stronger correlation weren't involved in development of the nervous system."
What the hell??
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Nope. Some people are born smart, or dumb. Mostly average. Why is that? that's the question.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You are technically correct on one point, this study did not look into broad question of heritability of intelligence. They only looked into specific genes linked to specific traits associated with some aspects of intelligence. From the general body of knowledge we also know that these genes would be heritable.
Since we are nitpicking, you are also incorrect by stating that "the predictive utility of what they have discovered" - they have not performed exhaustive search for all genes that would positively and negatively impact memory and learning, as such it is still only a correlation.
1 Million monkeys at typewriters don't finish writing Shakespeare either!
*** Don't be dull.***
Unfortunately, with fraternal twins, there are two umbilical cords and two placentas... so there can be variance in nutrition and oxygen... heck, even with identical twins oxygen levels can vary. Still, it WOULD be an interesting study.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Sounds like maybe they put the cart before the horse. "Intelligence," of the kind that can be scored on academic tests, is a combination of raw potential, opportunity and effort. You can have amazing potential for intellect, but never get off the family farm - get "home schooled" and told that the earth is flat and math is a tool of the devil - you will then fail any external metric of "intelligence" that requires you to know and apply facts. Likewise, someone who has barely average potential can, given adequate opportunity and effort, develop the skills and abilities to do well on academic tests or external measures of "intelligence."
"Intelligence" as measured by academic performance would thus not correlate well with raw genetic markers (i.e. raw potential). First they'd need to define what capacity of the person they want to deem "intelligence" e.g. - are we talking logical deductive capacity, ability with mathematical computation, the ability to communicate effectively, problem solving skills - what is "intelligence?" Second, they would need to find some way to test that capacity that isn't commonly understood and used outside the study, so, for example, not asking participants to take a math test because then the opportunity and effort elements interfere with the measure of raw capacity - you'd need a test that challenged the ability to learn and comprehend without falling back on existent structures; this would be very difficult to formulate well, and any test taker could only use that test once. Third, they'd need to look for common physical markers in the developed body / brain for those that demonstrate whatever capacity they've defined as intelligence - e.g. nerve density, size of the brain cavity, etc. Only then can you look for a genetic source for that physical marker.
"Intelligence" isn't height or weight or eye color - it is too subjective a quality to seek out before defining your term very narrowly.
For the most part nature gives us the wetware to form connections. It's the white matter that matters after all. It forms the interconnecting network between the neurons.
So nurture has something to do with it too, so too education.
Gene Expression drives a lot of things and that is not captured when just the DNA is investigated.
My quick read of the headline was little intelligence was found.
You're not going to get an honest answer anyway--depending on the results. What if they found supporting evidence that Asians really were good at math, or whatever else? There's a saying for these kinds of things: "The funding determines the finding."
Now that is moving the goalposts. But that's okay, I understand the point you're trying to make, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expand to such a search. Just don't expect me to grant you the premise that it's a likely explanation.
They weren't trying to correlate intelligence with genes. They were trying to correlate educational attainment with genes. That is not the same thing. People don't always apply their full intelligence towards school. Also, doing well and going far in school doesn't prove much about one's intelligence. It proves one can remember facts long enough to regurgitate them in a test. I suppose that is a kind of intelligence but there is much more to it than that! I think that having an analytical mind and actually thinking about those facts can get in the way of the study, regurgitate, forget, repeat process and is therefore detrimental to one's grades.
I thought one of the most remarkable studies was the one that showed conjoined twins tend to live in the same city. That blew me away.
Dark Reflection
Where did the Neanderthal go? Absorbed. How did our brains evolve over apes? Dietary change from our migration no doubt. Hell maybe the sun altered some DNA passed down through the ages. Let's hope it doesn't reverse the trend. We haven't seen everything the sun is capable of. yet.
I would be afraid to tell him.
Dark Reflection
Identical twins, born to the same parents, but adopted by different families, tend to have extraordinarily unlikely similarities in adult general intelligence scores.
Which is it - academic performance, or general intelligence scores? If the twin studies test one, and this genetic study tests the other, then I would think that this would make it very difficult to draw any conclusions by comparing the results, since academic performance and IQ aren't the same thing.
Did political correctness trump real science in the study? Or were they just looking in all the wrong places? If autism and Asperger's can be transmitted by genes, then why not intelligence? I believe this study is bunk!
But you do know that 'identical twins' spring of from one single egg?
So implanting this egg into two mothers raises quite more ethical questions than a simple mind might assume.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
General intelligence a slightly more robust tool than IQ for measuring intelligence abilities. So neither.
They were looking for "academic achievement", not necessarily intelligence, per se.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Did those twin studies include twins that were separated into different socioeconomic groups? Or just different families, but similar socioeconomic status?
I have a feeling it all comes down to socioeconomic status. You end up with a better diet, better learning environment, etc. Its not necessarily the status itself that gives the better outcomes, its all the extra benefits that status provides.
Spoiler, they have, and the results are... less than fully informative.
From a purely genetic basis, whereas identical twins have a 95-100% similarity on these things, you might expect a 50% similarity from fraternal twins in a purely genetic environment. Instead, it comes out to 70%, which suggests other factors playing an important role. However, because these are non-isolated from environmental factors(i.e. raised by the same parents), we can't use it to precisely tamp down the amount of a role genetics plays.
Maybe a bigger sample size would help, but conclusions are limited, other than genetics plays some role which we already knew.
It does not all come down to status, though it does have predictive value. And you really shouldn't expect it to, since status is, at its best, an approximate proxy for a number of environmental factors, like parental involvement, education quality, medical care, nutrition.
All of those, in turn, can vary between different social and economic cohorts.
Great they did this. Don't know how well the study is designed. But if it is a good design, then maybe they should look for traits that High IQ people do not have.
If it is a bad design, do it again, better.
They just aren't very good at finding things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Start with that bit and then Google the genetic studies in Israel, read the papers and you too will see it is clearly genetic.
At least some of the smartest people in the World think so.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
so what i get from the article.
1) they start by using a measure that's not at all even correlated with what they're interested in.
2) they then completely switch the measure, so then you have two completely unrelated filters on the data - and the data (dna) is very high dimensional, so your final result set is of course going to be miniscule and effectively random. and woe and behold, that's what they got.
3) on top of that they looked at the correlation between the first filter and the second and found woe and behold their method has no chance at all of telling them what they want to know - which we already knew in step 1.
so... uh... do they see what's wrong with their methodology? could it be more obvious? this was botched really badly.
If genes did not matter we would not see a few children born with IQs so low that they can not breath without mechanical aids. I suspect that genetics are less varied when the samples come from a population that is out and about and functioning as the low end of the generic pool is absent for those not housed in institutions. There is also the point that the way each ethnic group behaves has an effect on the unborn in the womb. For example one ethnic group might display social skills or musical skills which imply some genetic selection of values. Another group might display a gift for areas such as chemistry which require a very narrow and deep focus. We simply do not have all of the tools to make good measurements and conclusions yet.
People are 90% bacteria.
When we are born -- it's not just genes we get, there is likely a whole scaffolding system from the Mother that passes on Mitochondria to protein based information. It seems the search for intelligence has been too reductionist to JUST DNA and not looking at the embryonic stage where environment and mother switch on and off different components and equip the baby with a complex immune system, GI tract. It's like saying a "computer" is smart based just on the CPU and not paying attention the what programs were installed.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
That dumb people breed like bacteria? Last time I checked that was still in effect.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The AT article seems to try to put a spin on it, but the actual abstract sounds quite different:
It's clear from twin studies that IQ has a strong genetic component, about as strong as height: both have a heritability of around 0.8 (on a scale from 0 to 1, with 1 being variability being entirely genetically determined). Here's a bit more info on heritability from Nature: http://www.nature.com/scitable...
Failing to find the genes responsible in this study means nothing since the current SNPs we test for are quite limited. Ultimately, these questions can only be resolved by full genome sequencing of large numbers of people. Until then, we may get lucky in identifying genes in these kinds of studies, but failure to find something means little. And, actually, they did find something interesting.
Academic achievement? You've got to be kidding me. Let's see, there's difference between schools, crooked grading, not so smart students trying harder, cultural upbringing, etc. At least use IQ if not something more direct like the average voltage of a person's nervous system. It's theorized that smart people's nerves operate at a higher voltage.
They're all a bunch of idiots.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
If I could I would mod this way up. It's exactly right--the problem is that "intelligence" is never defined. "Academic achievement"? What's that got to do with intelligence? Anyone who's ever been to school knows the answer is, "very little."
The hard part is going to be getting a supply of implantable identical twins.
Not as hard as you might think from a "technology" perspective. Actually fairly easy I would guess. IVF would be the first step, then you just break things into multiple parts before things really get going and implant. I'm not an expert in this area, so I'm only guessing how hard that would be.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
BUT, just in case anybody things I'm forgetting... The ethical implications of this kind of thing is going to make this line of research difficult to do.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
It may not seem like a big deal to anyone and it shouldn't be. this is stuff we already know but racists are still spitting this nonsense out. They're still sucking at the teat of Watson and Shockley as proof that some people are genetically more intelligent than others. Shockley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... Watson: http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
Just another second banana
Maybe collectively they have an effect that can't be detected statistically.
If it can't be detected statistically, how can it be detected?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Maybe collectively they have an effect that can't be detected statistically.
If it can't be detected statistically, how can it be detected?
I never claimed that it could be detected. That doesn't mean that it isn't there.
Also, this is about finding a needle in a haystack. You might not be able to find a needle in a haystack, but if you give me a haystack containing a needle, and I find the needle, you probably could easily determine if what I found was actually a needle. Testing for the affect of a single gene on a single carefully-defined trait is much easier - fewer degrees of freedom mean fewer datapoints needed to detect an effect.
Or alternatively that there is a gentic link but no one gene has a significant impact with instead lots of genes having a small impact each and the impact of each individual gene is too small to distinguish from chance.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
She was born with.
Or maybe it's maybelline.
I think this is time to invoke Carl Sagan's dragon in the garage. If there's no detectable effects, why on earth would we conclude it exists?
I was wondering about epigentics myself. If I had points I'd mod the anonymous coward up.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
In fact, pig farmers can already manipulate their livestock in utero, feeding expectant mothers more when it will encourage physical development in the litter (big pigs give more meat) and reducing food when supply would result in mental development (thinking wastes precious calories). Attempts to replicate these findings in humans would rightly be considered unethical.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
You don't even need an analogy -- if you can't detect an increase in intelligence, then there really is no increase in intelligence.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
So what you're telling me is that a bunch of scientists have scoured our gene pool to find identifiers for the quality of a person that, thus far, the scientific community has yet to decide on a concise qualitative measurement for?
You can read for days on the internet about the problems with IQ, theory of multiple intelligences, et al and still get the gist that we can determine what makes us "smarter" than goats because of obvious physiological traits, but have little to compare us to each other on intelligence.
Personally, I don't know why they expected anything more than these unimpressive results. The biases where ripe for deconstruction.
Mod me down, I shall become more off-topic than you could possibly imagine.
"So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure, how amazingly unlikely is your birth. And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space 'cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!"
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I think this is time to invoke Carl Sagan's dragon in the garage. If there's no detectable effects, why on earth would we conclude it exists?
Twin studies are highly suggestive of intelligence having a genetic component. That doesn't mean that you can figure out which gene is responsible.
If we define intelligence as the ability to adapt faster than genetic evolution can, then it should not heavily rely on genes.
That is does not seem to be genetically just adds to the mystery. But there are other failures: While intelligence can be described by its effects, there is no theory at all how it works. The only existing model (automated theorem proving) is severely limited both by the nature of what it can do (construct mathematical theory) and by its inherently exponential effort which means it will never be able to do in practice hat smart human beings can do routinely. Then there is this little problem that intelligence has only been observed coupled with self-awareness and may also be tied to "free will", another two things that are not understood at all. Granted, most people are not really adept at using what intelligence they have (which routinely is also not that much), but it is still a defining quality for being a human being. It is really surprising that this quality proves intractable time and again.
Now, there is a branch of religious fanatics called "physicalists" that insist everything is just "chemistry" or "physics". These people routinely vastly overestimate what is known scientifically and seem to be completely unable to deal with some rather fundamental things being unknown at this time. All typical characteristics of the religious fanatic. It is rather ironic that there people usually claim to be anti-religion and pro-science, when they have in fact invented their own disconnected-from-reality fantasy. These people usually neither understand the scientific process, nor what is known to science at this time. My take is they are people that sort-of understand that religion is bogus, but actually cannot be without it end hence invented this surrogate.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Bullshit circular reasoning. Without intelligence, memes cannot exist, hence a meme cannot create intelligence.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
We actually do not know that. We know there is a correlation, but what is cause and what is effect is entirely unknown. Beginners mistake: See a correlation and conclude it is a causation in the desired direction. That is not science, that is wishful thinking, a.k.a. bullshit.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
That is called "Narcissism" and it is generally not a sign of high intelligence.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You start with the framework, but beyond that intelligence is simply acquired after birth.
Does this also mean that nobody is born gay, since they haven't found any genes that determine sexuality?
Are you saying that intelligence doesn't exist?
That is a bit like saying "mental illness" doesn't exist, simply because we find it really hard to categorize.
There's good reason to believe that genes aren't sufficient cause for the full effects noted in twin studies. Certainly they play a part, and this study helps us isolate just how much can be directly attributed to genetics(and it's not the 100%, that you might have been imagining).
I'm sure there are both genetic and environmental causes even for twin studies, and there is also epigenetics (which can be partially environmental as well).
I just don't know that you can conclude much from this study. If your "intelligence" were 100% determined by genes, but there were 1000 genes involved and none of them had more than a 0.1% contribution to your "intelligence" you'd never expect a study like this to show anything. Then factor in that we can argue all day about what intelligence is in the first place...
Of course intelligence exists. Differences in intelligence are detectable, even if only in a fuzzy, uncertain way. The point is that in the context in question -- the search for genetic indicators -- there is no detectable correlation. If there's no detectable correlation, the effect, if it exists is too small to worry about.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
First, this study didn't test "intelligence." Second, it was looking for individual genes that contribute to it. It is a MAJOR stretch to say that it has concluded anything about intelligence not being determined by genetics. Rather, you can only conclude that taken individually there is a big list of genes that do not have a detectable influence on the characteristics that were measured in the study.
Identical twins don't have exactly the same DNA.
This was a (relatively) recent discovery.