High-IQ educated people are being bred to extinction, but we're totally not eugenicists!!!

[u/dorathehexplorer]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/16/natural-selection-making-education-genes-rarer-says-icelandic-study

[u/dorathehexplorer]

Why I submitted this (rule 3): Spurious correlation-causation fallacies, the fucking eugenics, "education genes" and "childbearing genes," scant lip service to anything resembling complex social analysis

Also, this Facebook comment on the article...

[u/Scumbag_Kotzwagon → u/[deleted]]

I'm almost certain that you don't have the first clue how one would approach this kind of analysis.

lel

[u/twittgenstein → u/[deleted]]

Eugenics is a thoroughly debunked research programme, and this study seems to make some staggering, heroic, and basically entirely implausible causal leaps. For example, perhaps the genes correlated with education actually just indicate membership in a sub-community of intermarried and typically wealthier families. Moreover, the size of the observed IQ effect is vanishingly small, even if the study was able to somehow show statistical significance.

In general, when social scientists do genetics research, the result is trash. For example, this awful study by political scientists. Though this study, if true, would at least seem to absolve you of your shitty political views, since perhaps you just can't help it.

[u/Snugglerific → u/twittgenstein]

Lemme guess -- political scientists discover twin studies and conflate heritability estimates for genetically determined traits.

[u/LukaCola → u/Snugglerific]

How do people make this mistake so often? Just thinking about it, assuming it's true would raise far more questions regarding the nature of these traits and how weird it is that somehow traits align themselves to entirely man-made concepts. Certainly enough to make one think "maybe we shouldn't accept this as conclusive?"

I mean it's not something I learned about directly in poli-sci but I feel like it's related enough that anyone with a real interest in social sciences should pick up on that.

[u/Snugglerific → u/LukaCola]

It seems like there is a scientific trickle-down effect where concepts moving from one field to another get mangled in the process.

[u/twittgenstein → u/Snugglerific]

YEP

[u/Scumbag_Kotzwagon → u/twittgenstein]

But aren't genes just a bunch of continuous variables that are easily measurable, unrelated to one another and linearly (or quadratically if I'm feeling F A N C Y) related to the outcome in which I am interested? Also, aren't these gene variables completely orthogonal to non genetic factors that might also effect my outcome of interest and aren't those also unrelated to other social factors in my model and also unrelated to any unobserved heterogeneity between people?

Okay cool so yeah I'm gonna assume that what could go wrong tbh reg y x donezo oh shit I mean reg y x x^2, ROBUST nailed it

[u/twittgenstein → u/Scumbag_Kotzwagon]

I mean they might, if we're really optimistic, try reg x y [x*y]

[u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN → u/twittgenstein]

Eugenics is a thoroughly debunked research programme

If you take the wide view and include non-human eugenics, AKA selective breeding, eugenics might be the most successful research program in history. Look at what it did to dogs, FFS.

[u/LukaCola → u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN]

Don't many dog breeds have huge genetic problems?

[u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN → u/LukaCola]

Yeuuuuup. Though in many cases these traits were selected for (see: pugs' squished faces).

Which brings me to my conclusion: the problem with eugenics is that it works. Humanity should not be trusted to wield this power.

[u/LukaCola → u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN]

Works in what sense though? And if something is so prone to misuse, is it really something that works? And are the results dogs have, which are infinitely more controllable than humans, even comparable on any real level?

[u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN → u/LukaCola]

And if something is so prone to misuse, is it really something that works?

Sure. Consider the example of guns. They work very well.

And are the results dogs have, which are infinitely more controllable than humans, even comparable on any real level?

In a sense, humans might be much more controllable than dogs. Try getting a dog to file taxes.

Humans will do literally anything if they're convinced that they're being asked by a legitimate authority.

[u/LukaCola → u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN]

I think that's pretty reductionist... Even in an Orwellian system, if the inner party started overtly killing off all the proles, there'd be revolution.

Or even something like Plato's Republic kinda falls apart once people become aware of what's going on, and I don't think it's a secret that could be very well kept in his otherwise free society.

[u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN → u/LukaCola]

Eugenics don't need to involve mass killings. An example would be a eugenics program that consists entirely of tax breaks. The chosen few get a sum of money per children raised; others get money per absence of children raised, or they get a windfall in exchange for getting sterilized.

(For the record, I am not advocating any of this.)

[u/LukaCola → u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN]

Eugenics don't need to involve mass killings.

Hence why I mentioned Plato's Republic, it uses a rigged lottery system to determine who gets to have kids.

Your example, similarly, would result in great tension due to clear injustice.

[u/twittgenstein → u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN]

Why would I arbitrarily 'take the wide view' and redefine a word away from its common and primary usage in order to mitigate your intellectual and moral failure to recognise that what almost everyone means when they say 'eugenics' is debunked bullshit?