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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.
How dare they suggest that their might be differences in people that correlates with their educational ability? Next thing you know they will find that is different geographically separated groups these mutations occur in different numbers. I don't care if it is true or not, we must preserve the accepted belief that all races are equally capable, no matter what science or history has shown us.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
This is yet another manifestation of how the strong, healthy, smart, and the goodlooking have unfair advantage in life. So, just because their daddy and mommy had better genes, they are better humans now? No!!
It is long overdue for awareness to be raised of this grotesque and self-perpetuating injustice. To achieve the level playing field the overly smart need to be lobotomised, the strong — crippled, and the beautiful — disfigured.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
That's nice, but is the effect as great as nutrition, both pre and post-natal?
Now that iodine and various vitamin deficiencies were largely resolved for everyone, yes. That is, nutrition impact on intelligence extends only insofar as meeting or not baseline needs.
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.
Lets cut through all this BS and finally admit that intelligence is genetic and heritable.
Actually, this doesn't prove that at all. This study correlates education to genetics, not intelligence. Having worked with plenty of idiot PhDs and a few brilliant people out of trade schools, I can tell you the two aren't necessarily the same thing.
Obtaining certain levels of education require specific skills (e.g. manipulating p-values, and writing reports). Those skills are only one kind of intelligence.
Furthermore, obtaining education requires means and desire.
You may be right, and intelligence is genetic. However, this data doesn't prove that.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Educational level != intelligence
The ignorance of this statement boggles all description. Holy shit...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Wait, isn't this exactly what Herrnstein and Murray concluded back in 1994
No. To use a car analogy, which /. loves so much:
Bell Curve: Your car crashed because your left front tire was 2psi low. The car suffered $30,000 in damage.
This Study: Your car crashed because you were drunk, your steering wheel fell off, you were rear-ended by a semi, and your tire was 2psi low. Had your tire not been low, the damage to your car would have been $29,850.
When I was in school, there were "fast learners" and "slow learners", yet we all graduated on the same day.
...and Massachusetts did this as recently as . 2014.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/co...
That's nice, but is the effect as great as nutrition, both pre and post-natal?
The answer entirely depends on what cohort / population you are looking at. The question is "what part of the observed variation is associated with a particular factor?"
In a poor undeveloped country with a homogenous population and widespread malnutrition, early nutrition may be the primary factor in intelligence.
In developed countries, the effect of variation in nutrition is much smaller. And in a multi-racial society, the variation due to genetics is much greater. Similarly in India with the caste system, you get greater genetic variation.