The heritability of attitudes: a study found

[John Cuthber]

2 hours ago, Sammy Boy said:

A marriage prohibition isn't "elimination from the gene pool".

It depends. If you use the word in a narrow sense then obviously marriage doesn't affect heritabillity.

If you deduce from that observation that I can't have been using it in that strict sense then you recognise that I'm just being a bit coy.

Perhaps I should spell it out for you. Marrying your sister isn't a problem. Even screwing your sister isn't the problem. Getting her pregnant is the point where eugenics might be involved.

 

If you recognised that, from society's point of view, procreation and marriage are closely related, then you would understand that a ban on marriage is, practically, elimination from the gene pool. But you are arguing against yourself. Eugenics- by almost any definition- is the attempt (however doomed) to remove bad genes (however defined) from the gene pool.

If a ban on marrying your sister doesn't do that, then it's not eugenics, so you shouldn't have brought it up.

If you were saying only the royal family are allowed to engage in incest, because they are somehow special and we don't want to dilute their "royalness", then that might be eugenics. It might just be daft- it's hard to tell

2 hours ago, Sammy Boy said:

Also, please stop putting line breaks between each sentence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paragraph

2 hours ago, Sammy Boy said:

State eugenics.

Please learn to write sentences, a properly constructed one has a verb in it.

 

2 hours ago, Sammy Boy said:

I was just clarifying terms.

It seems, from a quick web search, that you just invented the term.

 

2 hours ago, Sammy Boy said:

What?

Which bits didn't you understand?

 

2 hours ago, Sammy Boy said:

It helps to do that when debating people

 You are debating eugenics; you are debating it with people.

 

2 hours ago, Sammy Boy said:

Now answer my question. Should retards be allowed to have ten children?

I was ignoring it and hoping you would phrase it less offensively. The answer is obvious; it depends.

 

[Sammy Boy]

9 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

I was ignoring it and hoping you would phrase it less offensively. The answer is obvious; it depends.

Most of your post is nonsense and irrelevance but this is somewhat on topic. I'm sorry I abbreviated "mentally retarded person" to "retard" because it's shorter. Does that trigger your feelings? Am I violating your safe space by using abbreviations you randomly decided were offensive for no reason I can fathom? My sincere apologies. Now onto the point. You say it depends. What does it depend on? Should the state ever intervene when retards are reproducing excessively? We may need to define the state. Perhaps you can.

[John Cuthber]

12 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

Most of your post is nonsense and irrelevance but this is somewhat on topic. I'm sorry I abbreviated "mentally retarded person" to "retard" because it's shorter. Does that trigger your feelings? Am I violating your safe space by using abbreviations you randomly decided were offensive for no reason I can fathom? My sincere apologies. Now onto the point. You say it depends. What does it depend on? Should the state ever intervene when retards are reproducing excessively? We may need to define the state. Perhaps you can.

It's true that the stuff about incest was irrelevant; that was my point. Perhaps you now recognise that you shouldn't have introduced the issue. Especially, given that the biggest supporters of incest were the eugenicists.

It's not me who noticed that referring to someone by their problems is insulting. If you can't fathom it, at least check the dictionary.

"...the term retard (which originated as a neutral substitute for the terms had previously designated those with disabilities, namely idiot, imbecile, and moron) has come to be considered offensive"

from https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/retard

 

You seem to be lining yourself up for a "Half our workforce are below average" joke.

[Sammy Boy]

29 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

It's true that the stuff about incest was irrelevant; that was my point. Perhaps you now recognise that you shouldn't have introduced the issue. Especially, given that the biggest supporters of incest were the eugenicists.

Your writing on that I classified as nonsense and ignored it. So much nonsense, you don't understand what heritability is for a start. The point isn't irrelevant.

Quote

It's not me who noticed that referring to someone by their problems is insulting. If you can't fathom it, at least check the dictionary.

"...the term retard (which originated as a neutral substitute for the terms had previously designated those with disabilities, namely idiot, imbecile, and moron) has come to be considered offensive"

from https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/retard

 

You seem to be lining yourself up for a "Half our workforce are below average" joke.

I'm aware that modern PC snowflakes are hyper offended by everything. Shrieking hysterically about random words is much easier than using logic. Everything is offensive. I get it. In special snowflake land nobody has any negative qualities and any words which suggest they do are offensive. Soon the word short will be offensive and we'll have to stop using dimensions in case anyone feels triggered. Unfortunately in reality some people are retarded. If you are unable to discuss the human condition without being offended feel free to go away. You have not supported your position. If you want to address the point go ahead. You do not get to tell me what I can or cannot say.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Sammy Boy

[iNow]

I suspect if I called you a cunt you'd find that unrepresentative of who you are as a human, and that my telling you to just be less of a snowflake wouldn't bring us any closer to the respect you'd prefer we show you. The term retard is equally unnecessary and unhelpful, and digging your heels in instead of simply acknowledging this remedial point suggests you're just trolling. 

[John Cuthber]

Would you like to add anything useful to that rant?

I ask because all it seemed to do was call me rude names

44 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

modern PC snowflakes

 

(you seem to be good at that) and say things that are plainly wrong like  

 

44 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

you don't understand what heritability is for a start.

 

 

44 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

You do not get to tell me what I can or cannot say.

 

No, but the mods do. You should probably either go and read the rules or just go.

Edited September 17, 2017 by John Cuthber

[Sammy Boy]

1 minute ago, iNow said:

I suspect if I called you a cunt you'd find that unrepresentative of who you are as a human, and that my telling you to just be less of a snowflake wouldn't bring us any closer to the respect you'd prefer we show you. The term retard is equally unnecessary and unhelpful, and digging your heels in instead of simply acknowledging this remedial point suggests you're just trolling. 

Well no because I'm using the word retard as shorthand for people on the far low end of the intelligence distribution, in the context of a debate on what I consider to be a socially important issue. It's used as a term of art and not directed towards an individual, and not intended to cause offence. It's a word with historical claim to its meaning. Calling me names is very far from equal to that.

But look, the discussion has been derailed because the snowflakes are "offended". Mission accomplished. So much for science.

[John Cuthber]

1 minute ago, Sammy Boy said:

term of art

What art?

2 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

Calling me names is very far from equal to that.

... the snowflakes are "offended".

Pot: kettle.

[Sammy Boy]

7 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Pot: kettle.

The difference being I'm not basing my "argument" on being "offended" by terms. You personalised this by claiming to be "offended". So necessarily I must describe your behavior. No more responses. Address the issue or go play in your safe space fantasy world with the other snowflakes.

FYI this is the issue
 

Quote

Should retards be allowed to have ten children?...

You say it depends. What does it depend on? Should the state ever intervene when retards are reproducing excessively? We may need to define the state. Perhaps you can.

 

Edited September 17, 2017 by Sammy Boy

[John Cuthber]

1 minute ago, Sammy Boy said:

So necessarily I must describe your behavior.

non sequitur.

1 minute ago, Sammy Boy said:

The difference being I'm not basing my "argument" on being "offended" by terms.

Nor did I.

I just pointed out that I'd hoped you might behave better. You didn't (and continue not to) but I did still answer your question

3 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

Address the issue or go play in your safe space fantasy world with the other snowflakes.

You must really love that word; what do you think it means?

[Ten oz]

7 hours ago, Sammy Boy said:

If the environment is so overwhelming as you claim why do we see such strong correlations with natural parents rather than adoptive parents? "Impact development"? 98%? 0.02%? Nobody is "attempting to measure matters of the mind soley on genetics alone". Do you even understand what the word heritability means? It's the partition of genetics and environment which accounts for phenotypic variance in a population. Heritability by definition attempts to account for the environment. How do you explain this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Twin_Family_Study#Twins_reared_apart

Nobody would disagree. How is this virtue signalling relevant?

The OP asked " So this  study and claim are  saying the person IQ , education achievement and academic achievement is base on genetics? " . IQ stands for Intelligence Quotient. It is an attempt to assess intelligence. That is a matter of the mind. What a person knows and how they can access and utilize knowledge exists in the mind.

Mind: noun

1. (in a human or other conscious being) the element, part, substance, or process that reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges, etc.:

the processes of the human mind.

2. Psychology. the totality of conscious and unconscious mental processes and activities.

3. intellect or understanding, as distinguished from the faculties of feeling and willing; intelligence.

 

I provided links from the same source as the OP showing the enviromental facts matters. Since we understand this how can we accurately test for heritability alone? Everyone is exposed to enviromental factors; without exception. Even ones appearance, which is highly heritable, impacts their enviroment as people treat each other differently based on height, race, eye & hair color, and etc. It is very difficult to parse out individual factors that influence how mind forms. Additionally I think it is self evident that humans have the capacity to obtain greater levels if intelligence than our parents. If not how did our intelligence ever evolve in the first place? That isn't to say genetics don't play a role; they clearly do. There is a long list of heritable mental disorders than clearly limit function of the mind. Additionally other genetic factors which weaken the body can't negatively impact the mind. There are many factors.

[Sammy Boy]

21 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

I provided links from the same source as the OP showing the enviromental facts matters. Since we understand this how can we accurately test for heritability alone? 

You don't understand heritability. You could test for heritability and come up with zero, meaning all variation is due to environmental factors. It could be fifty-fifty or any other combination. Saying "there are environmental factors, how can there be heritability" doesn't make any sense. Try reading Making Sense of Heritability. It's very good.

https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/making-sense-of-heritability-neven-sesardic.pdf

 

[John Cuthber]

11 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

Saying "there are environmental factors, how can there be heritability" doesn't make any sense.

How fortunate, then, that he didn't say it.

He asked 

40 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

how can we accurately test for heritability alone?

And the answer to that's simple- albeit a pain in the neck experimentally.

You look at, for example, the correlations of the  IQs of twins.

If the IQ's of same-sex fraternal twins are less correlated than the IQs of identical twins then the difference must be due to heritability.

 

[Sammy Boy]

18 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

How fortunate, then, that he didn't say it.

He asked 

He did say that.

Quote

I provided links from the same source as the OP showing the enviromental facts matters. Since we understand this how can we accurately test for heritability alone? 

He asked how we test for heritability alone ignoring environmental factors. Heritability estimates account for environmental factors.

Quote

If the IQ's of same-sex fraternal twins are less correlated than the IQs of identical twins then the difference must be due to heritability.

Lol wtf. Your posts are really funny. Are you joking or do you really think you understand this stuff? I hope you're joking for your sake. Either way your posts will be ignored from now on, and I will link back to this post. It's really sad that such transparent fools get to post on this board. So much for science. Of course despite the fact that the lies, nonsense, idiocy and thread derailment is only coming from you, I will be banned for violating the precious fantasy space of snowflake world. Science my ass.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Sammy Boy

[John Cuthber]

11 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

He did say that.

Are you pretending that the quote function doesn't work?
He said what I quoted him as saying. 
What you seem not to grasp is that saying

34 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

"there are environmental factors, how can there be heritability"

is not the same as asking 

1 hour ago, Ten oz said:

how can we accurately test for heritability alone

Do you understand the difference?

Also, I said "If the IQ's of same-sex fraternal twins are less correlated than the IQs of identical twins then the difference must be due to heritability."
and you tried to ridicule it.

Well, if the difference isn't heritability, what is it?

(the point of these sorts of tests is you choose twins who live in the same home, go to the same school etc).

What's the difference between fraternal and identical twins, if it's not heritability?

[Ten oz]

15 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

You look at, for example, the correlations of the  IQs of twins.

If the IQ's of same-sex fraternal twins are less correlated than the IQs of identical twins then the difference must be due to heritability.

 

That doesn't remove enviromental differences. Just because one is a twin doesn't mean every aspect of their lives is identical to their twin. One twin can be molested or otherwise abused. Even something small as an illness during a critical development stage of childhood can have an impact. Then their is the issue of whether or not society at large treat fraternal twins and identical twins the same. In my experience identical twins are treated as an oddity will fraternal twins can often be judge by which of the 2 are better looking, taller, and etc. That all inevitably impacts things to a degree such an expirement doesn't account for.

39 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

You don't understand heritability. You could test for heritability and come up with zero, meaning all variation is due to environmental factors. It could be fifty-fifty or any other combination. Saying "there are environmental factors, how can there be heritability" doesn't make any sense. Try reading Making Sense of Heritability. It's very good.

https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/making-sense-of-heritability-neven-sesardic.pdf

 

Enviromental factors and genetics are not the same thing and I am not implying they are. I am saying both have an impact on the mind. Are you claiming otherwise?

[Sammy Boy]

12 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Are you pretending that the quote function doesn't work?...

Ignored.

11 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Enviromental factors and genetics are not the same thing and I am not implying they are. I am saying both have an impact on the mind. Are you claiming otherwise?

Yes, both environmental and genetic factors affect behavioral traits. Did I not say that many times? When I said heritability estimates are the partition of genetic and environmental cause of variance?

A heritability estimate of 0.75 is 0.75 genetic cause of variance and 0.25 environmental cause of variance. Try reading the Wikipedia page maybe.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Sammy Boy

[John Cuthber]

12 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Even something small as an illness during a critical development stage of childhood can have an impact

Yes, and that's   likely to affect fraternal twins as much as it affects identical ones.

It's not perfect. It's the simplified version for Sammy's benefit.

if you look at things that are non genetically determined (like car accident rates and lottery wins) you can get an estimate of the excess correlation which is due to factors you mention. 

It's complicated, and imperfect, but you can show that there's a genetic component, even for things where there's a large environmental component.

 

Sammy,

Do you have problems with reading comprehension?
I ask because you posted this

6 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

Environmental factors aren't the same thing as what?

in response to this 

12 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Enviromental factors and genetics are not the same thing

Edited September 17, 2017 by John Cuthber

[Sammy Boy]

And you people get to vote. Sad.

[John Cuthber]

5 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

And you people get to vote. Sad.

Wold you like to expand on that.

For example would you like to cite something I have said which is actually wrong?

[Ten oz]

1 minute ago, John Cuthber said:

Yes, and that's   likely to affect fraternal twins as much as it affects identical ones.

It's not perfect. It's the simplified version for Sammy's benefit.

if you look at things that are non genetically determined (like car accident rates and lottery wins) you can get an estimate of the excess correlation which is due to factors you mention. 

It's complicated, and imperfect, but you can show that there's a genetic component, even for things where there's a large environmental component.

Yes, because lottery wins have the same potential of happening for both sets of twins they can ba accounted for to a degree but what about the way society treats them and the impact of that on the likelihood they'd play the lottery in the place? Both sets of twins are not treated the same by society at large. As a result of their treatment a variety of other factors, which would otherwise seem hold the same rates, can change. For example do attractive high school students and unattractive high school students have the same odds of being in a car accident? It might be possible that attractive high school people have more active social lives and as a result travel places via cars more often which increases their odds of being in an accident. Same sort of things applies to twins. Are one type of twins, fraternal or identical, commonly more popular in school and if so what are the enviromental impacts of that? I don't think we know the answer to questions like that.

[Sammy Boy]

13 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Yes, because lottery wins have the same potential of happening for both sets of twins they can ba accounted for to a degree but what about the way society treats them and the impact of that on the likelihood they'd play the lottery in the place? Both sets of twins are not treated the same by society at large. As a result of their treatment a variety of other factors, which would otherwise seem hold the same rates, can change. For example do attractive high school students and unattractive high school students have the same odds of being in a car accident? It might be possible that attractive high school people have more active social lives and as a result travel places via cars more often which increases their odds of being in an accident. Same sort of things applies to twins. Are one type of twins, fraternal or identical, commonly more popular in school and if so what are the enviromental impacts of that? I don't think we know the answer to questions like that.

That's called gene-environment interaction and it's pretty much the final question of accurate heritability estimates. Notice I always used the word estimate. The appearance vs. social treatment is indeed a major potential confound. They're doing IQ GWAS and using methods to see whether genes are expressed in the brain to work it out. Also with the race IQ question discrimination could potentially depress IQ. The fact that we see a similar race IQ global pattern in many different societies pretty much controls for that. Or one can estimate genomic ancestry versus socially estimated ancestry and see which correlates better to IQ, especially with mixed people (brain and appearance genes don't always recombine together). There are some arguments showing GxE probably isn't significant if you want to dig them up.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Sammy Boy

[John Cuthber]

As I said, it's imperfect, but it's the best we can do- of course, in principle you can seek to measure "attractiveness" and allow for it using multivariate stats.

What  you are talking about is the extent to which society treats pairs of  identical and pairs of non identical twins differently from each other. Now there's clearly some degree of "novelty value" in being an identical twin, but it's hard to see it making a huge difference to overall behaviour.

[Ten oz]

27 minutes ago, Sammy Boy said:

Ignored.

Yes, both environmental and genetic factors affect behavioral traits. Did I not say that many times? When I said heritability estimates are the partition of genetic and environmental cause of variance?

A heritability estimate of 0.75 is 0.75 genetic cause of variance and 0.25 environmental cause of variance. Try reading the Wikipedia page maybe.

Our disagreement is whether or not enviromental factors can be accurately accounted for.

"In 1979, Thomas J. Bouchard began to study twins who were separated at birth and reared in different families. He found that an identical twin reared away from his or her co-twin seems to have about an equal chance of being similar to the co-twin in terms of personality, interests, and attitudes as one who has been reared with his or her co-twin.[3] This leads to the conclusion that the similarities between twins are due to genes, not environment, since the differences between twins reared apart must be due totally to the environment."

 

On the surface this seems like a solid experiment but can't account for the way people are treated:

 

"According to a recent study, people who are considered attractive have higher intelligence, better education, and higher earnings than those who are considered less attractive. The study was led by Michaela Benzeval of the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the Medical Research Council in Scotland and was based on information gathered from a larger longitudinal study. "

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/are-attractive-people-more-successful-0604133

 

Are twins separated at birth similar as adults because society at large treats each a specific way based on the way they look? Do all similar looking people regardless of genetics end up with similar personalities based on the way they they are treated by society? I don't think we know the answer to that.

 

[Sammy Boy]

7 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Our disagreement is whether or not enviromental factors can be accurately accounted for.

"In 1979, Thomas J. Bouchard began to study twins who were separated at birth and reared in different families. He found that an identical twin reared away from his or her co-twin seems to have about an equal chance of being similar to the co-twin in terms of personality, interests, and attitudes as one who has been reared with his or her co-twin.[3] This leads to the conclusion that the similarities between twins are due to genes, not environment, since the differences between twins reared apart must be due totally to the environment."

 

On the surface this seems like a solid experiment but can't account for the way people are treated:

 

"According to a recent study, people who are considered attractive have higher intelligence, better education, and higher earnings than those who are considered less attractive. The study was led by Michaela Benzeval of the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the Medical Research Council in Scotland and was based on information gathered from a larger longitudinal study. "

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/are-attractive-people-more-successful-0604133

 

Are twins separated at birth similar as adults because society at large treats each a specific way based on the way they look? Do all similar looking people regardless of genetics end up with similar personalities based on the way they they are treated by society? I don't think we know the answer to that.

 

Yes, that's exactly the same issue I addressed in my last post.

Here's a link http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/109600-the-heritability-of-attitudes-a-study-found/?do=findComment&comment=1013631

I never disagreed about that issue. I just pointed out your failure to understand the utter basics of heritability.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Sammy Boy