Genetics and Intelligence
Why Hacker News recommends it
Pointed to as a well-cited hour on IQ and genetics whenever intelligence and heritability come up.
What it is
Steve Hsu's 2011 Google Tech Talk reviews psychometric measurement of intelligence and the heritability of adult IQ, then discusses genome-wide association studies seeking the genes behind cognitive ability.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2015 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Recommends peterfirefly · 2015-08 · on “The Bright Students Left Behind”
It's only bold because there is a large number of people (often state founded, often controlling at least the lower levels of education, often with major influence on media) who strongly feel otherwise -- with no numbers to back them up, of course. --- If you actually do want to get to the bottom of it, I can heartily recommend Ian Deary's "Intelligence: A Short Introduction" as a place to start. [LINK] (Who knows, if you dig around a bit you might even be able to find a PDF, perhaps at Emil Kirkegaard's website.) You can also choose to spend an hour on this talk by Stephen Hsu who does research on IQ and genetics: [this video] You can read some of Plomin's stuff -- he is very much into genetics:
Recommends vox_mollis · 2015-11 · on “What happens when a culture is driven by the need for money to make more money”
Steve Hsu giving a talk @ Google on the topic, with myriad citations: [this video] Four studies cited on this handy chart: [LINK] It's very well-established science that you could have easily googled, but downvoting unpopular research, pointing and shrieking "eugenics!" is a better argumentation technique, I suppose.
Cites ekns · 2017-05 · on “Scientists Tie 52 Genes to Human Intelligence”
I recall seeing this Google Tech Talk by Steve Hsu on how they are in the process of finding out basically all the additive genes that contribute to intelligence in China at the BGI research institute: [this video] They would take roughly a thousand people who are >=3 standard deviations smarter than average and compare their full genomes against people who are of average intelligence. This way they expect to find out all the "easy" genetic determinants of intelligence.
Cites sadris · 2018-08 · on “The world is losing the war against climate change”
> Education is what needs to be innovated. We need more kids becoming scientists. Some people cannot just "become scientists". Without the intelligence, even an infinite amount of education would be pointless: [this video]
Cites bordercases · 2021-11 · on “The Breeder's Equation”
Remapping intelligence to certain cognitive performance parameters, many of which can be measured in a very metrical and objective way, still tends to produce correlations. See Figure 3 of this article: [0] - there is a mix of simple perceptual tasks and more complex reasoning ones, which on the surface appear independent. The paper admits at the end that intelligence isn't one kind of task, but instead many kinds of systems used together. That still doesn't prevent their ability to construct a version of g-factor. And very simple metrics, taken alone, seem to inter-correlate well with IQ scores, like reaction time.[1] This correlation increases with age, suggesting a biological factor in pr
Cites tresil · 2022-08 · on “Does Education Matter? Tests from Extensions of Schooling in 1919-22, 47 and 72”
I am growing more disturbed in recent years by how true this statement is in our current society. While not all behavior is hereditary, genetics plays a massive role. I wish it were not taboo to talk about this more openly. While I have found few, at least there are some people attempting to give this subject more consideration: [LINK] [this video]