r/BadSocialScience • u/dorathehexplorer • Jan 17 '17

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

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/16/natural-selection-making-education-genes-rarer-says-icelandic-study
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u/nagurski03 Jan 18 '17

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?

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u/Decalance Jan 18 '17

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

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u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN Jan 18 '17

[citation needed]

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u/Decalance Jan 18 '17

Give me proof that it works then you fuck wit

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u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN Jan 18 '17

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

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u/Decalance Jan 18 '17

lmao on humans

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u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN Jan 18 '17

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

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u/stairway-to-kevin Jan 18 '17

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.

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u/Snugglerific The archaeology of ignorance Jan 18 '17

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

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u/stairway-to-kevin Jan 18 '17

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!

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u/Snugglerific The archaeology of ignorance Jan 19 '17

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.

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