

First intelligence gene discovered  - iknowl
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/5515/intelligence-gene-found

======
tokenadult
The most important quotation from the article for establishing context on what
the latest finding means: "It is generally accepted that genes, a good
education and environmental factors combine to determine our intelligence. 'If
people wanted to change their genetic destiny they could either increase their
exercise or improve their diet and education,' said Thompson. 'Most other ways
we know of improving brain function more than outweigh this gene.'"

And it's important to remember that the study here is based on data-mining

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

and has the usual defects of unreplicated studies of this kind.

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Estragon
My professional field is statistical genetics. I don't actually want to bet,
but if I did I'd give odds of three to one against this replicating, and ten
to one against it having anything at all to do with the genetic architecture
of human intelligence. My money is on the result reflecting population
stratification.

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twelvechairs
Id just like to point out the gross disparity between the title "First
intelligence gene discovered" and the psychologist quoted in the article who
was "a little wary of thinking in terms of a gene for intelligence."....

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rollypolly
I'm sure it's just a matter of time before people look for correlations
between this gene and race.

Boy is this going to open a can of worms.

~~~
trustfundbaby
This is something that cannot and should not be avoided though ... I remember
reading this article in GQ magazine, many many moons ago, about fast twitch
fibers being found more readily in people of West African Descent which is
what makes them better sprinters (this is why your 100m, 200m races are
dominated by people from America, West Africa and the Carribbeans) ...
naturally I started to discuss this with a African American Studies Professor
I was friends with at the time, and the response wasn't that the research was
incorrect, but that it shouldn't be talked about because white supremacists,
or other racists would seize upon it to make an argument that since
athleticism could be so advantaged by race then intelligence could too.

It makes me sad that America's racial history makes things like this way more
fraught with all sorts of dangers than it needs to be, but eventually we do
have to do these kinds of research and find out how these things are related
to our ancestors ... I for one, think we'll find that skin color has
vanishingly little to do with these sorts of things ... I mean, in the matter
of fast twitch muscles fiber, it turns out that not all black people have that
advantage, only a small group of people from West africa

People will always try to describe things according to race in this country,
but I think that as long as we're reasonably careful/responsible with the way
we carry out the inquiry, it will benefit us in the long run.

~~~
ekm2
Sprinting does not have the same global impact as intelligence,which is why
people get so testy about it.

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antiterra
This may be the first intelligence gene discovered; however, it also may be
yet another study [1] that is contradicted by attempts to replicate it [2]. I
don't know much about Cosmos Magazine, but it's a bit disappointing that a
'science' magazine would cite a single study as conclusive without waiting for
peer review.

1\. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17160701?dopt=Abstract>

2\. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17160701?dopt=Abstract>

~~~
jessriedel
I think you may be confused about the term "peer review", as the study
referred to in the OP article certainly underwent peer review in the process
of being published in _Nature Genetics_.

~~~
antiterra
Granted. I meant "replicating experiments" to further validate the findings.

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carbocation
Original articles:

[http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.2250....](http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.2250.html)

[http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.2245....](http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.2245.html)

[http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.2237....](http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.2237.html)

------
huxley
"People who received two Cs from their parents, about a quarter of the
population, scored on average 1.3 points higher than the next group - half of
the population with only one C in this section of the gene. The last quarter
of people, with no Cs, scored another 1.3 points lower."

I'm sure it's a significant step in cognitive research finding a gene that
correlates to differences in intelligence but is a 2.6 point spread that big a
deal?

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jauer
Too bad the article didn't mention the specific SNP.

~~~
leot
rs10784502

"In addition, the C allele of rs10784502 is associated, on average, with
9,006.7 mm3 larger intracranial volume, or 0.58% of intracranial volume per
risk allele and is weakly associated with increased general intelligence by
approximately 1.29 IQ points per allele."

[http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.2250....](http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ng.2250.html)

[Edited to provide a more useful quote]

~~~
antirez
Just tried and at 23andme it is possible to check this gene, at least with the
latest version of their chip (v3). Just got to "Browse raw data" and put
"rs10784502" on the right of "a SNP:" and press "Go".

p.s. CT here, the most diffuse variant (the "best" one according to the
article is CC).

~~~
prawn
Where is the "Browse raw data" link?

Edit: Ignore that, found it. Under the Account menu in the top nav.

"No SNPs matching 'rs10784502' found in the data from your chip."

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wcoenen
Perhaps also interesting in this context is the fact that the human brain has
been shrinking over the last 20,000 years:
[http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-
smart-...](http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-
brain-shrinking)

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6ren
So this is a switch. I wonder if this is a pure improvement, or there are
deficiencies common to carriers; perhaps in co-occurance with another switch
(like malaria resistance/sickle cell anemia). Perhaps increased incidence of
autism/asperger.

~~~
wcoenen
I guess you are implying that we don't all have the "smart" version of the
gene for that reason.

But the brain accounts for about 25% of glucose consumption in your body. So
for genes which enlarge the brain, evolution would have sought the optimal
trade-off between increased intelligence vs increased metabolic cost. There
may well be no "deficiency" other than that increased cost.

------
dingle_thunk
Anton's Key?

