
The Latest On Intelligence - danielford
http://www.danielwillingham.com/1/post/2012/05/the-latest-on-intelligence.html
======
justin_vanw
"A great deal of time has been wasted in the effort of measuring the
heritability of traits in the false expectation that somehow the genetic
nature of psychological phenomena would be revealed."

There is a strong cultural bias among much of the research community to go out
of their way to deny any genetic factors in intelligence. Perhaps this is well
intentioned, but it is absurd.

I have come across very few squirrels that have mastered fire, or could be
taught calculus, or even addition. I doubt that this is cultural or due to the
squirrels upbringing, diet, social status, or how many books the squirrel has
available to it, or the quality of it's teachers, or pathogens. Clearly then,
it is possible for genetics to completely dominate other factors in
determining intelligence. In the animal kingdom at large heredity/genetics
account for basically all of the variation in intelligence.

The unanswered question is whether there is enough genetic diversity across
the human species to cause intelligence to be significantly hereditable. The
fear among scientists that try to keep the lid on this question is that the
answer might be yes, and worse that such variations will correlate with
geographic or national groupings. This would put a very nasty _perceived_
scientific stamp of approval on racism (even though this would be
unjustified), and could over time lead to discrimination and 'scientific
racism'.

Anyway, in the end science will uncover the truth here, and in the meantime it
is probably very prudent to not make any potentially inflammatory statements
and to be very cautious about any studies that could fuel hate. I just find it
absurd that whenever this kind of question comes up people start denying that
there is any hereditary component of intelligence, and that IQ is completely
meaningless, etc.

~~~
uncomfytruths
You're not alone. I've always wondered, how come different dog breeds have
different behavior and intelligence levels. Yet certain breeds are much
smarter than others and capable of greater learning capacity. Any kind of
comparison, even scientific, between human races would be seen as racist and
thrown out immediately. It conjures up all sorts of negative emotions. Hitler,
Nazis, Eugenics, Master Races, Holocausts.

I think deep down inside we are slaves to our genetics and many people know so
and have significant evidence for it but are keeping quiet. And I don't blame
them. The repercussions of telling the human race "Your success, happiness,
intelligence, health, and entire life is limited by your genetics." would be
horrific. Half the world would be on anti-depression medications if you told
them that and proved it. No one wants to be told who they are before they're
given a chance to discover themselves on their own. Also, genetics are not the
end all of success. Just because someone doesn't have the genes that make them
more likely to be successful doesn't mean they'll never be successful. There
are other ways around. Aggression, luck, money, hard work, etc....

For instance, Ashkenazi Jews have the highest intelligence and very poor
Spatial intelligence according to research. After them come north east Asians.
Jews are disproportionately successful in numerous fields. 25% of Nobel prize
winners are jewish and this is increasing. All of the major Hollywood studios
were started by jews and are currently dominated by jews. The NYT's Joel Stein
could only find 5 non-jewish executives in all of Hollywood. Most of the top
writers are also jewish. Banking and finance is dominated by them as well. So
is the fashion industry: Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren, Marc Echo, Calvin Klein,
Estée Lauder, Kenneth Cole, and others are jewish. Levi's jeans as well. 2 of
the internet's biggest companies, Google and Facebook were started by jews
Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg. People's refusal to acknowledge that
genetics has anything to do with intelligence is exactly what has sprouted
numerous conspiracy theories to try to explain why jews are so well achieved.

Also, look at men vs women. How many wars have women started compared to men?
Nearly every war, genocide, and conflict has been caused entirely by men. Why
is it that we never see the female versions of Hitler, Gangis Kahn, Napoleon,
Stalin, etc... Because evolution has created extremely violent men (not all of
us of course). Evolution wise, we're disposable. Women are not. The human race
can easily be replenished with 99 women and 1 man. But not with 99 men and 1
women. And so women live much more "slow but steady" lifestyles while men are
more likely to live "risky" lifestyles. Rewards are proportionate to risk. So
men reap the rewards when it comes to inventions, companies, religions, nation
building, etc...

~~~
Eliezer
> Evolution wise, we're disposable. Women are not. The human race can easily
> be replenished with 99 women and 1 man. But not with 99 men and 1 women

This is not how evolution works. It runs on which genes outreproduce which
other genes within a species, and cares nothing for "the good of the species"
or "the survival of the species". If men are more violent, it was because
individually more violent males outreproduced less violent males - not because
"males are disposable". (Even this is still a simplification relative to
inclusive genetic fitness, but it's definitely not because "males are
disposable!")

<http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Group_selection>

~~~
uncomfytruths
That's exactly how evolution works. Because there is an element of human
choice as to which genes go on. We are a part of evolution. We choose what
goes on. And we have chosen through war and death that violent men go on, and
peaceful men die off. We have chosen that men are disposable, we build our
armies with men, we sacrifice the men, and keep the women at home because they
are the creators of humanity and men the destroyers and conquerers. Primative
but it's reality.

All throughout history, wars are fought almost exclusively by men. Men killing
men is alright by nature, because back since tribal times, the testosterone
induced violent winner got the women and reproduced. Thus passing on his
genes. The violent genes outreproduced the peaceful ones. Look at nature all
around us. The violent dominate the peaceful, the aggressive dominate the
passive, the intelligent dominate the dumb. The animals at the top of any
foodchain are more violent, aggressive, and/or intelligent than the others
beneath it.

I have a feeling we're both talking about the same thing just from a different
viewpoint.

------
kenjackson
This is an interesting result noted from the paper: "Even when improvements in
IQ produced by the most effective early childhood interventions fail to
persist, there can be very marked effects on academic achievement and life
outcomes."

As noted by the author, this suggests that IQ only captures a portion of early
childhood intervention benefits. And goes counter to those who suggest that
early intervention programs serve no purpose if IQ doesn't remain high (IOW,
IQ is only a portion of what constitutes success in life).

------
Dn_Ab
Kevin Mitchell has a very interesting take on intelligence here:
[http://wiringthebrain.blogspot.com/2012/07/genetics-of-
stupi...](http://wiringthebrain.blogspot.com/2012/07/genetics-of-
stupidity.html)

Basically he suggests thinking about the formation of intelligence to be
something like trying to run an obstacle course while holding an armful of
things and trying to drop as little as possible. Essentially, he is arguing
that there is some optimal or standard brain and since any mutation introduced
into the brain is more likely to be harmful than beneficial, more intelligent
individuals are not those that inherited some specific genes for intelligence
but are most likely those who avoided the most damaging non-specific
mutations.

 _That’s [runaway selection of intelligence boosting genes] all nice, though
admittedly speculative, but those mutations are the ones that we would expect
to not vary in human populations – they would now be fixed. In particular,
there is little reason to expect that there would exist new mutations in such
genes, present in some but not all humans, which act to further increase
intelligence._

To test this he suggests using symmetry as a proxy for robustness in the
individual. This fits well with the fact that all attempts thus far to find a
common genetic basis for intelligence have failed, the correlation between
intelligence and immune function, ideas that intelligence was indirectly
selected when optimizing for healthy mates and findings that Nootropic like
substances tend to have the least effect on already intelligent minds. In the
last case, it is interesting to note nootropics should then be viewed not
cheating but more leveling of the playing field. Taking this further, genetics
are not the only obstacle course - there is still variation in the womb
environment and early childhood. The interplay of genes and the stability of
process in the growing brain; affected by a lack of stimulation, poor
nutrition and a stressful womb environ would likely have more impactful
effects on intelligence than pure genetics.

------
vibrunazo
Am I the only one who reads these kinds reports and has that impression that
today's psychology and biology is less than 0.1% of the way to provide a
useful model for intelligence? The best measurement of intelligence that we
have today (IQ tests) seem completely worthless for practical purpose compared
to what we actually need to know to build solutions on. IQ tests are still too
bad to measure actual "intelligence", as defined by our colloquial meaning and
practical real-world potential. (as opposed to the official technical
definition) Being able to measure people's intelligence would be extremely
useful. IQ test results, not so much.

New findings about the impact of genetic vs environmental influences on IQ
tests. Is about as useful finding new evidence about genetic vs environmental
influences on people's ability to pass a "lick your elbow" test. Why should I
care? It sure is interesting, and hey, anything "for science!". But, meh...

~~~
monkeypizza
How do you explain the fact that when the law allows, companies all over the
world give IQ tests to prospective employees? And that studies have shown that
IQ is one of the best predictors of job performance?

~~~
mangala
Your first point would only elucidate a common misconception that IQ tests
adequately measure intelligence. As to your second point, what studies are
these? (I'd actually be interested)

~~~
avatarlite
This is a good intro:
[http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatter...](http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatters.pdf)

~~~
wtvanhest
I personally believe IQ is a fairly good predictor of intelligence the way
people in (at least American) society think about it. This study attempts to
prove that high IQ is good for most jobs. What it doesn’t prove is the high
end of the spectrum where someone of 120 IQ compares with someone of 140IQ in
extremely high level jobs. My experience is that creativity trumps IQ in most
cases where people are considered generally intelligent. The people that
really are viewed as most successful typically have a high or very high IQ,
but are always very creative.

------
Symmetry
"The extent to which genes matter to intelligence varies by social class
(genetic inheritance matters more if you're wealthy, less if you're poor)."

It's always seemed obvious to me that this ought to be true - that is that
environment will matter more if you have greater differences in environment.
In the extreme case if you feed kid A and don't feed kid B, then kid A will
end up with an infinitely greater IQ than kid B.

~~~
mistercow
The point is actually more subtle than that though. What they're saying is
that _holding social class constant_ , genetic difference is more important
for the wealthy than the poor.

For example, kid A and kid B are both wealthy and have significant genetic
differences related to factors affecting intelligence. In this case kid A and
kid B are likely to have significantly different intelligence from each other.

Conversely, kids C and D are both poor and have similar genetic differences to
A and B. They will show much less difference in intelligence from each other.

That fact is certainly not obvious, but it is fascinating.

~~~
kenjackson
Right. The implication, in my mind at least, is that fighting poverty should
be one of the key goals of society. Being in poverty effectively hides gifts
as poverty will dominate "natural" ability.

~~~
Symmetry
Or at least we should be pushing micro-nutrient supplements. And encouraging
school lunch programs.

~~~
CWuestefeld
That's a pretty huge assumption, that micro-nutrients are a significant part
of any difference.

You've assumed, first, that it's poverty that _causes_ the lowered IQ, rather
than that both poverty and lower-IQ are both effects of a common cause.

Second, even if there really is a causal chain, why in the world would you
assume that the difference is related to nutrition? Why not, for example,
cultural differences in the way that poor parents interact with children
compared with the way that non-poor parents do?

~~~
Symmetry
If poverty doesn't cause lowered IQ how would explain children adopted into
non-improrished households having higher IQs? I don't have good evidence that
nutrition is the primary factor here, but there is a lot of research saying
that nutrition is important with respect to IQ.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_Post hoc ergo propter hoc_ is one of the classic logical fallacies[1]. You
persist in the assumption that poverty _causes_ lower IQ, rather than the
possibility that both poverty and lower IQ are correlated because they share a
common cause.

[1] See <http://www.skepdic.com/posthoc.html>

~~~
Symmetry
The way you do a controlled experiment in science is that you have a number of
subjects, you subject only some of them to some new condition, and then you
look for statistically significant differences between the group subject to
the condition and the one that wasn't.

That was what happened in the study I mentioned.

Now, you can say that this wasn't absolute proof and you'd be right, because
science doesn't provide any absolute proof. But if you're going to throw out
this evidence you're going to have to throw out the rest of modern medicine
too.

~~~
anthonyb
The problem is that often there will be several factors linked together.
Richer households will have better nutrition, but they'll also behave
differently, have more books, associate more with other richer families, etc.
It's really hard to unlink these factors, even when trying to control studies
statistically.

Nutrition is a really low hanging fruit, and you have to be pretty poor for it
to have any effect.

------
OmegaHN
This article is very hard to digest because of the writers switching of
"intelligence" and "IQ". Intelligence =/= IQ. IQ is a score on a test, and
intelligence is a vague set of mental skills and processes to solve problems
of varying degrees and subjects. To say that they are equal is like saying
that athleticism is equal to the number of pounds you can bench.

If the writer is talking about IQ, then these investigations aren't
interesting, as IQ is a very small subset of intelligence (the ability to
solve those types of problems on a test, which you can easily train for). If
the writer is talking about general intelligence, then the writer really
shouldn't be mentioning IQ at all, as it is notorious for being confused as
actual intelligence.

~~~
Xcelerate
Without a consistent, objective definition, "intelligence" makes no sense. If
you would like to dissociate IQ and intelligence, go ahead, but IQ is a metric
that has correlations with many other factors (test performance, income, a
whole slew of things really).

~~~
OmegaHN
Correlations mean almost nothing. Just going off your list:

-IQ:Test Performance - Of course. IQ is a grade off of a test. It correlates with itself. If you mean tests such as the SAT or tests in a school, then yes, IQ does help somewhat with that, as it was designed to (the first IQ test, created by Alfred Binet, was designed to find students who would not do well in a regular school environment). However, do high test scores mean high intelligence? Not necessarily, as most test scores can be improved drastically with a class focusing only on the test, showing different tricks that the test maker's use. Same with IQ tests.

-IQ:Income - Income (generally) means higher education level, and modern education teaches the general forms of questions asked on tests, such as the IQ tests. Education trains the mind to think along the lines of what the IQ test uses to grade performance. Also, spoken another way, if IQ (which is "intelligence") correlate with income, then one can say that income correlates with IQ ("intelligence"). If this correlation is weak, then it is meaningless. If it is strong, then that is a very strong evidence for eliminating the lower classes to raise the "intelligence" level of a nation.

Most other factors follow along these lines. The problem with correlation is
that it is not, in any way, a suggestion or a proof of causation. There can be
infinitely many other factors that can be influencing the two.

I do agree that without a consistent, objective definition, one cannot
possibly study intelligence. However, IQ is not a good definition of
intelligence. At best, it tests "academic" intelligence, and at worst, it
tests test-taking ability.

Taking from Wikipedia:

>"Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex
ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to
engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought.
Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never
entirely consistent: a given person's intellectual performance will vary on
different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria.
Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex
set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some
areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions,
and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists
were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen, somewhat
different, definitions." -APA report quoted in the article.

~~~
Xcelerate
The examples you gave exactly match my intentions. I'm not sure where we are
disagreeing, unless you are interpreting the phrases "intelligence" and
"intelligence quotient" as more exclusive than most people. If that is the
case, give me _your_ definition of "intelligence", and we'll see where we go
from there.

~~~
OmegaHN
I'm saying that interpreting IQ as intelligence is extremely narrow-minded and
misleading to the general public. There is absolutely no evidence that IQ is a
decent measure of intelligence. My point is that intelligence is a much
broader subject than simple IQ, and using IQ as a measure of intelligence will
produce both false positives (by training for the exam) and false negatives
(by not targeting other areas of intelligence than the specific area used in
some types of academia).

I am not saying that there is a specific definition of intelligence that is
good. I am saying that IQ as intelligence is _not_ good. I wouldn't have a
problem if people did use the terms "intelligence" and "IQ" so
interchangeably. If the linked article talked only about IQ, then I would have
no problem, but the article specifically talks about intelligence, and then
uses studies on IQ to try to makes points about intelligence.

By the way, if you are looking for a better theory of intelligence (which is
beside my point), then you should look at Cattell-Horn-Carroll Theory
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattell-Horn-Carroll_theory>) as an example.

~~~
anthonyb
> There is absolutely no evidence that IQ is a decent measure of intelligence.

Other than it correlates with all sorts of positive life factors, you mean?
Like health, earning power and lack of a criminal record?

Nobody is saying that IQ is intelligence, including the author of the article.
But it's a fairly large component of it.

------
character
Daniel Willingham knows a lot about this subject (I took into to cognition
with him a couple of years ago). Of course in the linked article he is just
paraphrasing other people's work, but he does a lot of similar stuff himself
especially on developmental neuroscience in learning and reasoning. It is very
interesting to be taught by someone who knows a ton about learning and how to
learn from the neurological point of view.

------
Xcelerate
I didn't read the entire paper, but to someone who did, how much of a link is
there between genetics and IQ? I know this isn't a popular subject, but if I
remember correctly I believe that Ashkenazi Jews constitute 3% of the
population yet have won 27% of the Nobel prizes in science.

I would think that much like how different types of people from different
regions have differing athletic capabilities, there would also be differences
in mental facilities as well -- some better at music, some better at math,
etc. Thoughts?

~~~
praptak
Both scientific and athletic achievements have an alternative explanation:
culture. If there was a good sample of adopted children from a group with such
achievements, one could examine these hypotheses in more detail.

~~~
Juniper
That's an incredible statistic. If the cause is cultural then it's a wonder
there isn't a plethora of books advising on how to raise children the
Ashkenazi way. Are there any such books?

~~~
calibraxis
Typical HN racism and misogyny aside, why not go to the top of the
intellectual world and listen to Chomsky and Einstein? There's no end of
opinions from them. Chomsky in particular answers emails quickly. So no need
to ape some culture's forms, but rather ask their most successful members.

The problem is, their answers don't please many who'd ask such questions.
Einstein claimed:

 _"This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our
whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive
attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive
success as a preparation for his future career."_

Or take Chomsky:

 _"A lot of the educational system is designed for that, if you think about
it, it's designed for obedience and passivity. From childhood, a lot of it is
designed to prevent people from being independent and creative. If you're
independent-minded in school, you're probably going to get into trouble very
early on. That's not the trait that's being preferred or cultivated. When
people live through all this stuff, plus corporate propaganda, plus
television, plus the press and the whole mass, the deluge of ideological
distortion that goes on, they ask questions that from another point of view
are completely reasonable...."_

So let's turn the question around (because it's not about Jews being the
Master Race or being culturally superior to say Africans): how do we triumph
over dominant institutions which are out to turn us into idiots?

~~~
spindritf
We don't want to know what Chomsky or Einstein thought about the educational
system, that's irrelevant. What we really want to know is how their parents
treated them. Actually, we want something more general -- commonalities in
Jewish upbringing, especially of those who went on to be successful.

~~~
guard-of-terra
But that's the cargo cult way. You end up replicating a lot of unrelated
random things and may still lose the essense of it.

------
tokenadult
I would upvote this twice if I could. I have read the underlying paper

Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D.
F., & Turkheimer, E. (2012, January 2). Intelligence: New Findings and
Theoretical Developments. American Psychologist, 67, 130-159.

[http://psychology.msu.edu/pers_hambric3/PSY493%20Spring%2020...](http://psychology.msu.edu/pers_hambric3/PSY493%20Spring%202012/Week%206%20-%20Nisbett%20et%20al.%20\(2012\).pdf)

Daniel Willingham reviews in the submitted post, and the paper is a joint
review article on the last decade and a half of research on human intelligence
by an all-star group of researchers.

After edit: I see other comments are asking about what the research shows
about genetic influences on IQ and environmental influences on IQ. Here is
some FAQ information on that, originally part of another comment I posed here
on HN:

The researchers in the Behavior Genetics Association are making increasingly
cautious statements about genetic influence on human behavioral traits as more
data are amassed. Here are some of the latest statements by some of the
leading researchers.

Turkheimer, E. (2012). Genome wide association studies of behavior are social
science. In K. S. Plaisance & T.A.C. Reydon (Eds.) Philosophy of Behavioral
Biology (pp. 43-64). New York, NY: Springer.

[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Turkheimer%20GWAS%...](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Turkheimer%20GWAS%20EWAS%20Final.pdf)

"If the history of empirical psychology has taught researchers anything, it is
that correlations between causally distant variables cannot be counted on to
lead to coherent etiological models."

Johnson, W., Turkheimer, E., Gottesman, I. I., & Bouchard, T. J. (2009).
Beyond heritability: Twin studies in behavioral research. Current Directions
in Psychological Science, 18, 217-220. [I am personally acquainted with three
of the four co-authors of this paper, one of whom regularly exchanges links
with me by email.]

[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20Online%20CV/Johnson%20\(2009\).pdf)

"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)."

Turkheimer, E. (2008, Spring). A better way to use twins for developmental
research. LIFE Newsletter, 2, 1-5.

[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20Online%20CV/Turkheimer%20\(2008\).pdf)

"Unfortunately, that fundamental intuition is wrong. Heritability isn’t an
index of how genetic a trait is. A great deal of time has been wasted in the
effort of measuring the heritability of traits in the false expectation that
somehow the genetic nature of psychological phenomena would be revealed. There
are many reasons for making this strong statement, but the most important of
them harkens back to the description of heritability as an effect size."

~~~
gwern
My problem with upvoting is that I _have_ read the underlying paper, and I'm
not impressed at all. This paper takes a hugely nurturist approach, and at
parts verges on dishonesty.

I consider myself - if not an expert, at least very well informed - on the
topic of dual n-back and I was flabbergasted when I read pg11 of the PDF.
There is not a _single_ mention of the _many_ failures to replicate,
methodological critiques, or skeptical meta-analyses about n-back. Some of
that can be explained by the January 2012 date, but only a very some of it
because a lot of that long predates 2012 or 2011, and it can't be explained by
the people involved being ignorant because they thank Jaeggi, Duckworth,
Jonides, and Sternberg - who certainly would know!

Someone reading this paper would come away with a very different understanding
and expectation for dual n-back training than someone reading my
<http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ> . So all I can think is, "if this is how
Nisbett et al act on the one section where I know almost as much as them, how
are they misleading me in all the _other_ sections?"

~~~
slurgfest
Labeling the paper with the epithet "hugely nurturist" tells nothing about the
paper but everything about what you are doing. You are attempting the early
dismissal of some viewpoint you disagree with on a more or less political
grounds but this has not very much to do with science.

Most cognitive tasks used inside an MRI are about as meaningless as
benchmarks. It seems gratuitous to turn this into evidence of intentionally
dishonest malfeasance and frame the whole thing as some kind of pseudo-
political debate. Just engage the data, please?

Setting aside the political tone you've taken here: the idea that nature and
nurture are dichotomous (or can even be meaningfully separated) is not
supportable.

It has been observed many times that because heritability includes a genes x
environment interaction term, it does not mean that something is 'genetic' -
and real-world examples have been provided in this thread.

You cannot build an adequate understanding of development on the caricature
that there is a dichotomy between 'nature' and 'nurture'. DNA and RNA cannot
do anything without a developmental environment. You do not have any organism
without development, which necessarily occurs in an environment. There are
strong adaptive reasons for learning in big primates and it is well known to
occur. On the other hand, you do not have development or learning without
machines to implement them; these are not built without genes but neither can
genes build them in a vacuum. It is a perpetual interchange and the components
are viciously complementary and embedded in the same feedback loops to a point
where it is nearly meaningless even to argue about nature vs. nurture.

~~~
jongraehl
Surely you're aware that a tremendous amount of ink and (social-)scientist
hours have been spent doing "science" with the presumption that there "are no
genes for IQ" etc., so it makes sense to be on guard against biased writing
(at least by publication/file-drawer bias) on the topic.

You have gwern wrong. He's an unbiased scientist on this topic.

~~~
slurgfest
At best this is "the other guy swung first." At worst it is just a straw man.
What you claim the other guys do is irrelevant. Territory defense is
irrelevant. Facts are relevant and fist-fights do not uncover them. Why can't
the critique proceed on a higher level than "those Xists are deliberately
lying again"?

If your way of judging a paper is to look at who wrote it, then conclude that
the paper is bad based on some kind of guilt by association with the "wrong
school" then you are not being honest with yourself.

The nobler objective is not to discredit and guard against "nurturists" but to
do justice to reality. Cognitive science shouldn't be so much like a kung fu
movie...

~~~
shasta
[To gwern, unprovoked] _You are attempting the early dismissal of some
viewpoint you disagree with on a more or less political grounds but this has
not very much to do with science._

[Next reply] _Why can't the critique proceed on a higher level than "those
Xists are deliberately lying again"?_

You seem to be suffering from some cognitive dissonance here.

------
brittohalloran
Great quote from page 8 of the actual report:

"In particular, there is clear evidence that school affects intelligence."

~~~
randomdata
Intelligence is traditionally measured through testing. School is the only
place people generally practice test taking. Ergo, it makes sense that school
affects the results of intelligence tests, but perhaps not in the way you
might initially think.

------
ramses
Some people, and the referenced paper, are citing Jaeggi's dual n-back as
evidence that interventions can positively affect g(F) (fluid intelligence).

I would like to mention that Jaeggi's results, and working memory training in
general, have not been replicated.

The main issue with Jaeggi's experiment, is that proper controls were not
used.

For a careful examination, and I would say thorough debunking of Jaeggi's
results on dual n-back and g(F) improvement by training working memory, please
read:

No Evidence of Intelligence Improvement After Working Memory Training: A
Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study. Redick, Thomas S.; Shipstead, Zach;
Harrison, Tyler L.; Hicks, Kenny L.; Fried, David E.; Hambrick, David Z.;
Kane, Michael J.; Engle, Randall W. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
General, Jun 18 , 2012, No Pagination Specified. doi: 10.1037/a0029082

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rikelmens
The best investment a parent can make to improve the child's IQ is DHA, omega
3 fatty acid. It is a key ingredient of a brain, and a typical diet is very
deficient in DHA.

[http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/healthy-pregnancy-
does-...](http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/healthy-pregnancy-does-
omega3-supplementation-during-pregnancy-prevent-postpartum-depression-improve-
babys-brain-development.html)

Additionally, checkout the: <http://www.omega3.org/>

~~~
gwern
Most of the fish oil/IQ links I know tend to either be poor quality studies,
show no effect, or show a fade-out... For example,

> Supplementation of a mother’s diet during late pregnancy and 3 months
> postpartum with long-chained fatty acids has also been demonstrated to
> improve cognitive performance in human children (Helland et al. 2003).
> <http://www.pediatricsdigest.mobi/content/111/1/e39.full>

But to follow up: Helland et al 2008
[http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/122/2/e472.sho...](http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/122/2/e472.short)

> CONCLUSION. This study suggests that maternal concentration of n-3 very-
> long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids during pregnancy might be of
> importance for later cognitive function, such as sequential processing,
> although we observed no significant effect of n-3 fatty acid intervention on
> global IQs. Neonatal fatty acid status had no influence on BMI at 7 years of
> age.

(One may not be surprised inasmuch as most efforts to boost IQ in kids like
the Abecedarian project show fadeout.)

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rikelmens
I agree in regard of fish oil quality. That's why I use algae derived DHA
supplements.

~~~
scott_s
He meant that the studies are _of_ poor quality, not that the studies only
used poor quality fish oil.

~~~
rikelmens
Yeah, you are right.

And the second link I've posted is wrong, I meant to post this one:
<http://www.dhaomega3.org/>

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zmoney
This article should be titled, “The latest findings on IQ” because IQ score
and “intelligence” in a general sense are very different things. Plenty has
been published on the inherent cultural and gender biases in IQ testing.

Statements like “when babies from poor families are adopted into wealthy
families, their IQ goes up” are almost devoid of information because the IQ
test itself favors the type of “intelligence” valued by the educated, wealthy
class.

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Cyndre
In my opinion the reason poorer people have less IQ then wealthier people, and
also why adopted poor babys into middle class homes have higher IQ's comes
down to what they spend their time thinking about. Poorer people spend their
time worrying about food, money and basic needs. This occupys alot of their
thought. Richer people don't need to worry about the basic needs and spend
their time worrying about larger more complicated things.

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light3
Nitpicking but this seems like a contradiction: "It is noteworthy, for
example, that at a given level of IQ, Chinese have smaller frontal cortexes
than Americans (Chee, Zheng, Goh, & Park, 2011), although Chinese brains as a
whole may be larger than those of Americans (Rushton, 2010). Even with brain
size equated between Chinese and Americans, the frontal cortex is larger in
Americans (Chee et al., 2011)."

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ekianjo
The title is misleading. This is not about intelligence, this is about IQ, and
that's hardly the same thing. IQ has never been a reliable measure for
anything, and something you can improve on by training/repeated exposure is
certainly not linked to intelligence.

------
EREFUNDO
Studies have shown that the first 5 years of a child's life is when the brain
develops the most. Proper nutrition and exposure to simple problem solving
will significantly increase the chances of the child having a higher IQ.

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Xcelerate
I thought it would be interesting to note that my karma score seems to be
going up and down a lot on this topic in short periods of time. On other
topics, it seems to increase slowly. I'm trying to think of what deeper
conclusions could be drawn from this that people have what appear to be strong
and varying opinions on something that should be rather scientific and
objective.

~~~
roguecoder
It can't be scientific and objective, because it is not measuring something
scientifically and objectively defined and most of the differences being
discussed can be erased by manipulating the testing circumstances.

That doesn't mean it is never worth measuring, but it seems particularly silly
to obsess over IQ when better data on actual outcomes exists for things like
educational interventions. The best applications of IQ are in identifying
areas of deficit in individuals (one definition of learning disability is an
area of cognitive performance that varies significantly from all others.) The
worst applications of IQ are to funnel more resources to already-advantaged
children or to make demographic generalizations. Given that, it hardly seems
unreasonable to mostly ignore the IQ-obsessed research and focus on specific,
repeatably-defined cognitive tasks instead.

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rokhayakebe
We cannot engage into this kind of discourse until every party agrees on the
definition of "intelligence," and whether intelligence is biological.

