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Scientists Found 74 Genetic Variants Linked To Education Level (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on The Verge: Scientists have found 74 genetic variants that are associated with educational attainment. In short, that means some people have variants of genes in their DNA that are correlated with completing more schooling. But this finding, published today in Nature, should be taken with a grain of salt. Together, these variants explain less than half a percent of the differences in educational attainment seen in the population studied -- far less than the impact that a person's wealth and environment can have on the time they spend in school. The strongest association found for a single genetic variant explained only 0.035 of one percent of the variation in educational attainment. "Put another way, the difference between people with zero and two copies of this genetic variant predicts, on average, about nine extra weeks of schooling," says Dan Benjamin, a behavioral economist at the University of Southern California who worked on the study. These variants don't mean much when it comes to people's schooling, and factors like poverty, geography, and nutrition probably have a much bigger combined impact. The Guardian's take is worth a read as well.
Lets cut through all this BS and finally admit that intelligence is genetic and heritable.
Lets cut through all this BS and finally admit that intelligence is genetic and heritable.
I can't tell whether you're trying to be funny or not. TFA suggests the opposite conclusion to what you suggest, even in its title: "Scientists found 74 genetic variants linked to education level -- but their impact is miniscule" with the subheading "Looking for genetic effects 'seems pointless' ".
As TFS says, the total effect of all the genetic variants they found explains less than 0.5% of the total variance for educational attainment. And from the actual Nature study conclusion:
Studies of genetic analyses of behavioural phenotypes have been prone to misinterpretation, such as characterizing identified associated variants as 'genes for education'. Such characterization is not correct for many reasons: educational attainment is primarily determined by environmental factors, the explanatory power of the individual SNPs is small, the candidate genes may not be causal, and the genetic associations with educational attainment are mediated by multiple intermediate phenotypes
Bottom line -- this study is pointing out a TINY factor that is genetic, and subject to all sorts of environmental influences.
Educational level != intelligence
When I was in school, there were "fast learners" and "slow learners", yet we all graduated on the same day.