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0 pointstokenadult16y ago0 comments

The general intelligence factor is found in several studies to be immutable.

Studies get published if they survive peer review, and publications have citations. Citations, please?

I do not know why his views are continuously brought up when there are 100s of guys in the field that is better educated than him.

Because Flynn does his homework and makes unassailable research findings that are published in the best journals. Arthur Jensen has written, "Now and then I am asked . . . who, in my opinion, are the most respectable critics of my position on the race-IQ issue? The name James R. Flynn is by far the first that comes to mind." Arthur Jensen, "Differential Psychology: Towards Consensus" in Arthur Jensen: Consensus and Controversy, Sohan Modgil & Celia Modgil ed., p. 379 (1987). N. J. Mackintosh writes about the data Flynn found: "the data are surprising, demolish some long-cherished beliefs, and raise a number of other interesting issues along the way." Mackintosh, N. J. (1998). IQ and Human Intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Flynn grapples with the data, analyzes the data carefully, and engages in discussion with scholars from a wide variety of points of view about what the data mean. That's why Flynn's most recent book gains the praise

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=865429

already mentioned in another reply to this thread.

After edit:

Because I have Pinker's book at hand, I checked his chapter on the issue, and Pinker says, "The Third Law: A substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioral traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or families." The environment in the world at large does matter, and it matters for a lot. Pinker is forced to acknowledge this because that is what the research shows. It is regrettable that Pinker fails to cite the articles that establish the difference between heritability and mutability ("malleability") directly in the text of his book, but I will cite those here. There is a crucial issue here to be curious about, and that is exactly what a calculation of broad heritability definitely predicts. It predicts a lot less than what many readers unfamiliar with genetics might guess. It happens that some of the leading authors on human behavioral genetics just wrote an article about what heritability does and does not mean

Johnson, Wendy; Turkheimer, Eric; Gottesman, Irving I.; Bouchard Jr., Thomas (2009). Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral Research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 4, 217-220.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/cdir/2009/00000018...

(one online abstract)

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122587149/abstrac...

(the main link to the article)

Alas, a peek behind the pay wall that was available a little while ago when I posted this article here on HN

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=838534

is now dead. But I have the full text of the article at hand, as I am currently attending a weekly journal club with some of the authors, and one key paragraph from the article must be read by anyone who draws conclusions from heritablity figures:

"Moreover, even highly heritable traits can be strongly manipulated by the environment, so heritability has little if anything to do with controllability. For example, height is on the order of 90% heritable, yet North and South Koreans, who come from the same genetic background, presently differ in average height by a full 6 inches (Pak, 2004; Schwekendiek, 2008)."

This simply reemphasizes a point that is familiar to anyone who has studied genetics carefully, namely that the pre-Mendelian concept of heritability says nothing about malleability, the degree to which a trait can be influenced by environmental variables.

Angoff, W. H. (1988). The nature-nurture debate, aptitudes, and group differences. American Psychologist, 43, 713-720.

Mange, A. & Mange, E. J. (1990). Genetics: Human Aspects.

Kaufman, Alan S. (1990). Assessing Adolescent and Adult Intelligence.

So any statement in this thread that heritability somehow constrains the expression of g or of IQ is actually conceptually incorrect.

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3 comments · 2 top-level

catzaa16y ago· 1 in thread

> Studies get published if they survive peer review, and publications have citations. Citations, please?

Not to offend you, but we have had this exact same discussion a few times. If you remember correctly the last time I gave you a bunch of citations which you apparently did not take to heart. We had the discussion 170 and 200 days ago. The same discussion follows the exact same trend with you quoting a bunch of stuff out of Flynn’s books.

Here is the link to the discussion on the same topic that we had 173 days ago with a bunch of citations: Discussion 170 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=566205

Discussion 208 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=513957

> Because Flynn does his homework and makes unassailable research findings that are published in the best journals. Arthur Jensen has written, "Now and then I am asked . . . who, in my opinion, are the most respectable critics of my position on the race-IQ issue? The name James R. Flynn is by far the first that comes to mind."

Yes. And Arthur Jensen also said sarcastically that they have to go all the way to New Zealand to find someone that published papers opposing his with any credibility. Flynn may have noticed some interesting trends in IQ tests – but that doesn’t make him a specialist in psychometrics.

> Because I have Pinker's book at hand, I checked his chapter on the issue, and Pinker says, "The Third Law: A substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioral traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or families." The environment in the world at large does matter, and it matters for a lot. Pinker is forced to acknowledge this because that is what the research shows. It is regrettable that Pinker fails to cite the articles that establish the difference between heritability and mutability ("malleability") directly in the text of his book, but I will cite those here.

I did not refer to Pinker’s book about the whole intelligence debate, but to the debate that certain social scientists wants to warp science because they are scared of the truth (the is instead of the ought to). As for Pinker’s personal views on intelligence – he is not a specialist in the field.

> "Moreover, even highly heritable traits can be strongly manipulated by the environment, so heritability has little if anything to do with controllability. For example, height is on the order of 90% heritable, yet North and South Koreans, who come from the same genetic background, presently differ in average height by a full 6 inches (Pak, 2004; Schwekendiek, 2008)."

In all fairness, I don’t think that to measure the difference in height between a first world country and a country with yearly hunger and severe malnutrition is fair. This will be at a huge peak in differences between heights because there was a severe famine in 1995. So, what you are saying is that it is surprising that people who suffered malnutrition and disease as children do not have the same height? Is this really news?

I would really love to have this debate again with you (since you are clearly interested in the field). Unfortunately I have a big deadline coming up and I can’t waste 6 hours reading papers.

Maybe post the article again in two months and we can have a proper debate? ;)

tokenadultOP16y ago

If you remember correctly the last time I gave you a bunch of citations which you apparently did not take to heart.

I remembered the earlier screen name better than the more recent screen name that you are using here, but thanks for pointing out that you are the same person in both threads.

I'm still learning about this subject,

http://www.psych.umn.edu/courses/fall09/mcguem/psy8935/defau...

and I enjoy having what diplomats call a "frank exchange of views" with anyone else who enjoys reading about this subject. What I'm not seeing thus far is any experimentally verified proof that IQ/g/academic achievement/whatever is of interest is surely not malleable in the individual case. Rather, what I see repeatedly in the literature are surprising examples of environmental variables having much more power than they were expected to have, both across whole societies over time and in particular individual cases even with haphazard rather than planned environmental variation. But too often there is a leap from the statement that a trait is heritable to the incorrect and invalid conclusion that the trait is not malleable. I have seen that happen often in online discussion since 1992. What discordant identical twins, comparisons between neighboring countries, and other lines of evidence show is what the twin researchers say those lines of evidence show in their new 2009 paper: "even highly heritable traits can be strongly manipulated by the environment, so heritability has little if anything to do with controllability."

Johnson, Wendy; Turkheimer, Eric; Gottesman, Irving I.; Bouchard Jr., Thomas (2009). Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral Research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 4, 218.

xiaoma16y ago

>"So any statement in this thread that heritability somehow constrains the expression of g or of IQ is actually conceptually incorrect."

Then perhaps you can provide an example in which a rat's g is raised to that of the average Berkley student. About 5% of their DNA is different from ours, but since heritable constraints are "conceptually incorrect", surely the right environment would do it, wouldn't it?

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