{"items": [{"author": "Joshua", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/646826093202?comment_id=646827869642", "anchor": "fb-646827869642", "service": "fb", "text": "One problem with this is a rather limited definition of intelligence. They are basically selecting for abstract reasoning ability (SAT) though they are also getting some selection on ability to do hard work over a sustained time and competitiveness. But they are probably not getting much selection on people skills, leadership, charisma, artistic talent, physical coordination, and a multitude of other attributes that should count as components of intelligence. Maybe it's just as well. It is a troublesome prospect for future parents to be designing their offspring with that specificity. I'll take 50% high intelligence, 15% charisma, 15% competitiveness, 10% physical coordination, and 10% artistic/musical talent. Hmm, will probably enjoy contra dancing (and might steal some calling gigs from Jeff Kaufman).", "timestamp": "1391031274"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/646826093202?comment_id=646850239812", "anchor": "fb-646850239812", "service": "fb", "text": "@Joshua: \"One problem with this is a rather limited definition of intelligence.\"

This is an issue, though there is also a relatively high correlation between various methods of measuring intelligence. From wikipedia:

\"\"\"
Mental tests may be designed to measure different aspects of cognition. Specific domains assessed by tests include mathematical skill, verbal fluency, spatial visualization, and memory, among others. However, individuals who excel at one type of test tend to excel at other kinds of tests, too, while those who do poorly on one test tend to do so on all tests, regardless of the tests' contents. The English psychologist Charles Spearman was the first to describe this phenomenon. In a famous research paper published in 1904, he observed that children's performance measures across seemingly unrelated school subjects were positively correlated. This finding has since been replicated numerous times. The consistent finding of universally positive correlation matrices of mental test results (or the \"positive manifold\"), despite large differences in tests' contents, has been described as \"arguably the most replicated result in all psychology.\"
\"\"\"", "timestamp": "1391044346"}, {"author": "George", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/646826093202?comment_id=646869885442", "anchor": "fb-646869885442", "service": "fb", "text": "My measure of intelligence is household income. It correlates well with other measures and is just as explanatory.", "timestamp": "1391053089"}, {"author": "George", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/646826093202?comment_id=646869920372", "anchor": "fb-646869920372", "service": "fb", "text": "Until we can decide what intelligence is, I think it is stupid to try and correlate it with genetic information.", "timestamp": "1391053108"}, {"author": "George", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/646826093202?comment_id=646870544122", "anchor": "fb-646870544122", "service": "fb", "text": "I don't actually believe in intelligence as a concept anyway and the sort of work you talk about in your post makes me think people are missing the point. The height of sunflowers is highly heritable in nutrient rich environments and not heritable at all in nutrient poor environments. Heritability is a function of the environment. The way to get a more intelligent (whatever that means) populace is to avoid lead poisoning and provide enough food for people to eat and provide schooling for people. Asking what percentage of intelligence is genetic is a nonsensical, useless and reductive question.", "timestamp": "1391053364"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/646826093202?comment_id=646913727582", "anchor": "fb-646913727582", "service": "fb", "text": "@George: \"My measure of intelligence is household income. It correlates well with other measures and is just as explanatory.\"

I wouldn't expect household income to correlate much between identical twins separated at birth.", "timestamp": "1391099311"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/646826093202?comment_id=646914286462", "anchor": "fb-646914286462", "service": "fb", "text": "@George: \"avoid lead poisoning and provide enough food for people to eat and provide schooling for people\"

Those are all really valuable, agreed. This is a lot like your sunflower example: if you want tall sunflowers and your sunflowers are short because they need nitrogen etc, then you probably do best to give them that, while if they're getting enough of it then you probably want to look at taller varieties.

\"what percentage of intelligence is genetic is a nonsensical, useless and reductive question.\"

Here's a better defined question: if parents who are raising kids without lead poisoning, with enough food, and with good schools were to have children via IVF and be randomly divided between selecting donors randomly from the population vs selecting donors who meet the criteria for this study (test scores etc), how do you think their children would differ as adults?", "timestamp": "1391099795"}, {"author": "Robin", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/646826093202?comment_id=646928413152", "anchor": "fb-646928413152", "service": "fb", "text": "My issue with intelligence is that it's not clear what it measures outside of an ability to take a multiple choice test well. IQ only predicts 25% of income.

It's also not clear to me how genes influence intelligence. In some cases it may be through cultural biases. IE suppose cultures have a stereotype that blondes are stupid and are successful at convincing blondes that they're stupid and thus reduces their IQ score. In this culture, having blonde hair would lower your IQ. But it's not because having blonde hair somehow affects how your brain processes information, it's because you live in a biased culture.", "timestamp": "1391109334"}, {"author": "Alex", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/100826625461836656123", "anchor": "gp-1391661257883", "service": "gp", "text": "How long was the delay between applying and getting the DNA collection kit in the mail?", "timestamp": 1391661257}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1391695560442", "service": "gp", "text": "@Alex\n\u00a0~6 months", "timestamp": 1391695560}]}