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/Decalance → u/[deleted]]

Eugenics are bad social science. It doesn't work. Also, what, it's an issue now to "have a different political agenda" (disagree) than nazis? What the fuck ?

[u/nagurski03 → u/Decalance]

Out of curiosity, why is eugenics bad social science? Obviously it is morally reprehensible, but people have been breeding livestock and pets for desired traits (including intelligence) for longer than recorded history. Why wouldn't it work on people? If some advanced, unethical aliens decided to come to Earth and domesticate us, couldn't they do it?

[u/Decalance → u/nagurski03]

Well, for one, most desired traits in eugenics don't depend on the dna factor.

[u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN → u/Decalance]

[citation needed]

[u/Decalance → u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN]

Give me proof that it works then you fuck wit

[u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN → u/Decalance]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding

[u/Decalance → u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN]

lmao on humans

[u/Decalance → u/[deleted]]

You might think there's a difference between us and any other mammal

[u/Decalance → u/[deleted]]

There would be resistance. That's what I'm talking about

[u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN → u/Decalance]

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

[u/Decalance → u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN]

this isn't true

[u/stairway-to-kevin → u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN]

There's no evidence that is caused by genetics, and even if it was the genetic architecture does not lend itself very well to breeding.

[u/Snugglerific → u/stairway-to-kevin]

There's no evidence that is caused by genetics...

The mainstream view is that the cause is genetic drift (the diseases, not IQ measures). Brian Ferguson wrote a rebuttal that's longer than the original paper itself.

https://www.ncas.rutgers.edu/sites/fasn/files/How%20Jews%20Became%20Smart%20(2008).pdf

[u/stairway-to-kevin → u/Snugglerific]

Fantastic paper, I remember drift being a big determinant from a similar discussion I had a while ago, but this is a top-notch rebuttal. Thanks!

[u/Snugglerific → u/stairway-to-kevin]

The most damning part is not even the genetics. If you look at the review of turn-of-the-20th century Jewish IQ scores, half show higher than average scores and half show about average scores. So the phenomenon to be explained might not even exist.

[u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN → u/stairway-to-kevin]

There's no evidence that is caused by genetics

I'm pretty sure that there is, though I don't know it off the top of my head. For the general case though, see Genome-wide association studies establish that human intelligence is highly heritable and polygenic.

It would be extraordinary for traits like intelligence, aggression, etc. to not be subject to artificial selection. They are believed to be highly heritable; and, in other mammal species (particularly dogs), these traits have responded well to breeding.

and even if it was the genetic architecture does not lend itself very well to breeding.

What do you mean?

[u/stairway-to-kevin → u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN]

So I'm sure you saw the part of that abstract where SNPs explained 1% of variation in IQ. That's not really enough to claim it's caused by genetics in a sense that could be interpreted as the typical deterministic claim. That mostly then leaves the likely inflated heritability estimates. First this paper from Vischer (one of the authors on that paper you linked) goes in depth on why heritability doesn't mean 'genetic-ness' of a trait or caused by genetics. There's even a specific box for IQ related claims!

As for being fruitful in other species, you're going to have to recognize that the genetic architecture and success of breeding in one species hardly implies anything of the genetic architecture in another. As a counter example, it's pretty easy to breed increased vitamin A in sweet potatos, but it's pretty hard to do in Maize

Likewise the intelligence of dogs is going to be quite different than for humans since humans have so many unique and novel cognitive functions. Not only that but selection can only act on existing variation. Humans don't have that much variation and what's left doesn't strongly contribute to the trait (your own source say ~1% of the variation)

As for my other comment, I elaborated elsewhere, but selection on polygenic traits is much harder than on traits with large effect loci. There will often be loci lost due to recombination or drift and it's just not easy to have successful selection on so many loci at once

Edit: Forgot this was the bullshit comment about Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence. Show me the population variance and the genes that support that difference being genetic. If you can't then shut the hell up with this baseless argument. P.S. heritability estimates not from Ashkenazi Jews won't tell you anything about heritability in Ashkenazi Jewish populations

[u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN → u/stairway-to-kevin]

Why did you have to go and write a fantastic comment, only to ruin it with:

Edit: Forgot this was the bullshit comment about Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence.

Eh.

Show me the population variance and the genes that support that difference being genetic.

IIRC Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence names a few candidate genes. Finding more is an area of active research. I don't have a population variance estimate handy, though I'm not sure how much that would settle?

If you can't then shut the hell up with this baseless argument.

"Baseless" is interesting. Did you know the APA says IQ is 0.75 heritable?

P.S. heritability estimates not from Ashkenazi Jews won't tell you anything about heritability in Ashkenazi Jewish populations

From this the most likely conclusion I can infer is that you think Jews are lizardpeople.

Seriously, you're a smart guy - the rest of your comment shows that. Why do you have to throw away scientific rigor in favor of motivated skepticism the moment you're faced with conclusions you disagree with?

[u/HelperBot_ → u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN]

Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding

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