Indian girl in Britain gets highest possible IQ score in Mensa test

Indians outside India often do remarkably well in many ways.  A brown skin does not seem to hinder them.

A primary schoolgirl has achieved the highest possible score in a Mensa IQ test - beating Albert Einstein and the late Stephen Hawking.

Freya Mangotra, of Moseley, Birmingham, sat the test the when she was 10 and a half in October - the youngest allowed. Einstein is believed he have had an IQ of 160, the same as the late Hawking.

Proud dad Kuldeep Kumar said Freya's result of 162 in the Cattell III B test - which examines verbal reasoning - means his only child is officially 'a genius' according to officials at Mensa.  'They said it's the highest you can get under the age of 18,' said Dr Kumar, a psychiatrist.

'I don't want to put too much pressure on her but we knew from an early age, two or three, that she was gifted. 'She grasps things very fast. She can concentrate very quickly and remember things - she only needs to read or do something once to remember. We are blessed.'

Her proud dad says she is also a voracious reader just like he and his wife, Dr Gulshan Tajuriahe, who is currently studying for a PhD in child development.

The family is often to be found with their heads buried in books at home with the TV on in the background.

SOURCE 

Children who start school later gain advantage, new study shows (?)

The paper underlying this report does not yet appear to be online but the Centre seems very Leftist so the research is unlikely to be very rigorous.

Even the report below does however reveal a lack of rigour.  It is apparently based on the nonsensical "all men are equal" dogma.  No attempt is made to take account of student IQ. High IQ students have often been shown to thrive when enrolled early and the usual squawk about their social fitness has been shown to be a snark.  Smart kids are in general better socially as well as academically

So the study tells us nothing certain.  There were presumably a number of low IQ students in the sample who would benefit from a late start.  So the finding of an overall benefit from a late start could be entirely a product of the low IQ element in the sample.  How students of around average IQ fare is simply not addressed


Children who are held back and start school later than their peers gain an advantage that is still felt up to six decades later, a new study shows.

They are more self-confident, resilient, competitive and trusting, which tends to be associated with economic success.

The analysis of 1007 adults aged between 24 and 60 illustrates the “potential adverse effect of school entry rules," lead author Lionel Page from the University of Technology, Sydney said.

“Our findings indicate that school entry rules influence the formation of behavioural traits, creating long-lasting disparities between individuals born on different sides of the cut-off date," he said.

School starting ages vary between Australian states. In Victoria, children starting school must turn five by April 30 in the year they start school, whereas in Queensland and Western Australia the cut-off is June 30. In South Australia,, they must be five by May 1 and in Tasmania they must be five by January 1.

Dr Page said the study’s findings suggested the relative age at school had an impact on people’s success in adulthood.

“We find that participants who were relatively old in school exhibit higher self-confidence about their performance at an effort task compared to those who were relatively young," he said.

“Moreover, they declare being more tolerant to risk in a range of real-life situations and trusting of other people in social interactions.

“Taken together, this set of results offers important insights on the long-term effects of relative age at school on behavioural traits."

The new study was published by the Life Course Centre, a joint research project between the federal government and the University of Queensland, the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne and the University of Western Australia.

It involved adults from Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia.

The findings come as a UNSW study found a quarter of students are held back so they start school when turning six, not when they turn five.

SOURCE  

Social class in speech

The article below tells us that we all speak in a way that tends to indicate our background.  In particular, whether we are upper class, lower class or in between is detectible from our speech.

The study is an American one but I doubt that many Britons will be surprised by it.  In Britain, an "Oxford" or "RP" accent is the mark of the upper class person and below that there are various regional accents of varied significance -- with Cockney (a London working class accent) being the lowest of the low. Regional accents are also well known in the USA of course.

And in both the USA and the UK, your accent has a major impact on your life chances.  The best and most lucrative jobs will normally be occupied by people with prestigious accents.  And for anyone with a humble background to break into that is virtually impossible.  It would simply "grate" on upper class people to associate daily with (say) a cockney accent.  There is a loophole, however.  You can change your accent to a more prestigious one.  Many do.

So what is new about the article below? We surely knew all along that our speech gives away a lot about us. The  relative novelty was the finding that class can be detected in your writing style as well.  And that, I think, is very interesting indeed.  Because I think that it is probably complexity that is being detected.  The lower class person can be expected to use fewer words, mostly common words and simpler sentence structure.  That should be easily detected but I cannot see what else would be.

But verbal ability is strongly correlated with IQ.  The more words you know, the smarter you generally are.  I like the word "inchoate" as a test of that.  Do you know what that means?  If you do, take a bow.

So we come back to the now well-supported generalization that social class is largely an IQ gradient. See e.g. here and here. The top people are smarter.  The recruiter who assesses a job applicant by his speech is not being arbitrary.  He is seeking more intelligent employees, which will be generally advantageous.  He is doing a good job of personnel selection.

That is a very different interpretation of the results below.  Intelligence is strongly inherited and Leftists hate that.  They hate a lot of things.  And the traditional Marxist way of coping with that is to use the word "reproduced"' -- which you will see in the heading below.

To account for the fact that some arrangement is persistent from generation to generation, Marxists don't regard that as natural in any way.  They say that the arrangement has to be "reproduced". And they go about earnestly looking for HOW it is reproduced.  They look for things that people do which  cause the same thing to emerge in a second and third generation.  And it is always due to the machinations of evil men, of course.  The idea that a smart person mostly has smart kids willy nilly is rejected by the Marxist.  He thinks that the smart man gets smart kids by sending them to private schools etc.  So if you abolish the private schools, all men will be equal.

So in the article below the authors don't regard the class-detection of the recruiter as being reasonable and natural but rather see it as an unjust strategy of devious complexity that unfairly disadvantages lower class people.  Therefore the recruiter must "unlearn" his wrong procedures and abandon his biases.

So there are two very different lessons that can be learned from the findings below.  I think that nothing needs to be done, whereas the Leftist thinks the whole thing is wrong, wrong, wrong and is in urgent need of reform.


Evidence for the reproduction of social class in brief speech

Michael W. Kraus et al.

Abstract

Economic inequality is at its highest point on record and is linked to poorer health and well-being across countries. The forces that perpetuate inequality continue to be studied, and here we examine how a person’s position within the economic hierarchy, their social class, is accurately perceived and reproduced by mundane patterns embedded in brief speech. Studies 1 through 4 examined the extent that people accurately perceive social class based on brief speech patterns. We find that brief speech spoken out of context is sufficient to allow respondents to discern the social class of speakers at levels above chance accuracy, that adherence to both digital and subjective standards for English is associated with higher perceived and actual social class of speakers, and that pronunciation cues in speech communicate social class over and above speech content. In study 5, we find that people with prior hiring experience use speech patterns in preinterview conversations to judge the fit, competence, starting salary, and signing bonus of prospective job candidates in ways that bias the process in favor of applicants of higher social class. Overall, this research provides evidence for the stratification of common speech and its role in both shaping perceiver judgments and perpetuating inequality during the briefest interactions.

SOURCE 

Marriage and the So-Called Gender Pay Gap

This has become something of an old chestnut.  But it is rubbish.  Because of the larger standard deviation of IQ in males, there are far more men than women in the upper ranges of IQ -- and IQ is a strong determinant of income.  So high income, high IQ women in fact have an objective surplus of compatible men to choose from.

So why the beef?  It's just the latest excuse for an old, old problem: Women in their 30s and 40 asking "Where are all the men?"  So where are they?

Women with good juices grab a desirable man in their teens and 20s, while there are plenty of men in their age-range still single.  So fussy women who fail to do that grab in their 20s find that all the desirable men are married.  They are left with other women's rejects.  IQ is not the problem. The lack of a strong sexual motivation is.

A strongly motivated woman will make allowances for the inevitable male inadequacies while the less motivated ones are more fussy and wait for perfection. But perfection seldom comes so all too often that fussiness will lead to a lonely old age.


Highly educated professional women are finding fewer well-suited men available to marry.

In this era of “equity equals justice” radicalism where the gender pay gap is regularly trotted out by leftists as an example of social injustice, a recent study provides an interesting twist. According to a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, the number of women in higher income brackets is increasing … and these women are running into a shortage of marital partners. In other words, these unmarried women are having trouble find men to marry who match or exceed their own income level.

The study concludes that there are “large deficits in the supply of potential male spouses,” and that “one implication is that the unmarried may remain unmarried or marry less well-suited partners.” The study’s lead author, Daniel T. Lichter, notes that while women do indeed seek to marry for love, “it also is fundamentally an economic transaction.”

Fox Business observes, “It seems many men aren’t getting up to the income level that women prefer in a potential marriage partner.” Evidently, no matter what the social justice warriors may claim, there is an innate expectation in the minds women that values men as husbands who will be the primary bread winner. Who knew that gender roles were so ingrained?

SOURCE 

Early experience, not genes, shapes child abusers (?)

So it is claimed below. It may be true that most child abusers were themselves abused in childhhod but it does not follow that abuse always makes one an abuser.  Rather to the contrary from some examples I have seen: People are often determined that their kids will have a better deal than they had. So precluding a genetic influence on child abusers is dumb and does, I believe, miss the big story:  Child abusers tend to be low IQ people, low IQ males in particular. So it would seem that child abusers will always be with us.  Eugenics no longer has a constituency.

Stories of children killed or disabled by those responsible for them always grieve me greatly but the one consolation I have is that the murdered kid would probably have turned out pretty dumb too -- though that is not at all certain.

I don't know if this study below by Darius Maestipieri, a primate expert at the University of Chicago, is really worth commenting on. It purports to show that child abusers get that way not by genetic inheritance (e.g. by being born stupid, uncontrolled or aggressive) but by being abused themselves as children. The research concerned, however, was based on a small group of Macaque monkeys and I cannot see how the results can be statistically significant, let alone meaningful in any other way.

And this finding would seem to contradict their conclusion anyway: "almost half of those raised by abusive mothers did not become abusers themselves." That seems to indicate genes at work to me. And I won't ask questions about measures taken to preclude observer bias. No good beating a dead horse


Child abuse may be more of a learnt behaviour than a genetic trait, new research on monkeys suggests. If true, the understanding may provide the opportunity to break the cycle of abuse that runs in some families.

As many as 70% of parents who abuse their children were themselves abused while growing up. Maternal abuse of offspring in macaque monkeys shares some similarities with child maltreatment in humans, including its transmission across generations. This pattern of abuse has led to speculation that it may have a genetic basis.

Darius Maestipieri, a primate expert at the University of Chicago, US, tested the theory by observing a population of macaques across two generations. He took some of the newborn female infants from the group and cross-fostered them among the mothers, about half of which were abusers.

In the next generation, he found that 9 of the 16 females who were abused in infancy by their biological or foster mothers turned out to be abusive towards their own offspring.

But none of the 15 females raised by their non-abusive biological or foster mothers maltreated their offspring, including those whose biological mothers were abusers. This indicates that intergenerational transmission of abuse is not genetically caused.

Protective personality

“This study into primate patterns of abuse can be directly related to human abuse,” argues Maestipieri. “What it shows is that the effect of experiencing abuse first-hand or through experiencing siblings being abused is very significant in determining whether somebody will become an abuser.

“But it’s also interesting to note that almost half of those raised by abusive mothers did not become abusers themselves,” he told New Scientist. “We should try to discover what it is about these infants’ personalities or socially supportive environment that protected them from abusive effects.”

Chris Cloke, head of child protection awareness at the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, is wary of applying animal studies directly to humans. But he adds: “We know the damaging consequences of child abuse can last into adulthood and affect the way children are brought up. Experiences of abuse in infancy can be particularly important as the brain develops fast in the first year of life.

He also notes: “With the right sort of help people with abusive childhoods can often grow up to be loving parents.”

Maestipieri believes that while some abuse is learnt through direct or indirect experience, physiological changes incurred during abuse may predispose behaviour patterns. “There is evidence that early trauma causes people to become more susceptible to stress, and less able to cope with emotionally challenging situations, so that they could react more easily by ‘losing it’,” he says.

Macaques who abuse their offspring do so early on, during the first three months of life. Abuse, which occurs about once an hour, is brief and takes the form of being overly controlling and violent towards the infant. Actions include biting infants or treating them like an inanimate object – dragging the baby around by its leg or tail, tossing it in the air, or stepping on it.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0504122102)

SOURCE  

Wealthy white parents are turning away from selective schools because they fear their children will be an ethnic minority

This is mainly a NSW concern as only NSW has much in the way of government funded selective schools.  It is also about Chinese students -- who star in selective schools -- which can be demoralizing for all but the very smartest white kids. In some years ALL the top students are Chinese, many from selective schools.  Their combination of hard work and high IQ is unbeatable.  Their talent makes it easier for them to get into selective schools in the first place.  So they get a high quality education for free.  Why would they go elsewhere?  White parents are more aware of the important social advantages of private schools


Wealthy white parents are avoiding sending their kids to selective schools because they fear they will be an ethnic minority, according to an expert. 

Christina Ho, a social scientist from the University of Technology, says Anglo families were choosing to send their kids to private schools while migrant families are choosing selective schools. 'We do have this self-segregation going on,' Dr Ho said.

And part of the reason appears to be based on the fear of being a minority.  'A lot of Anglo families are saying, 'I would be a minority if I went to a selective school,' Dr Ho said.

The same concern impacts the schooling choices of rich migrant families, who previously preferred private schools. As with Anglo families, they were now choosing selective schools because they were worried about being a conspicuous minority in private schools.

'We do have a lot of wealthy migrants in this country who are living in the eastern suburbs and north shore, who could potentially afford to send their kids to private schools but they are not.' said Dr Ho.

In NSW, more than 80 per cent of students in fully selective schools came from language backgrounds other than English (LBOTE).

Of the 99 schools with fewer than 10 percent LBOTE students, over half were private and in affluent areas.

Dr Ho's research indicates that the process of self-segregation is leading to a wider problem across Sydney where many schools are more ethnically divided than the suburbs in which they are located.

'The increasing diversity of our communities is not reflected in our education system,' Dr Ho told msn.com.  

The process of self-segregation worries Dr Ho who argues that when schools no longer reflect their local communities, students have less opportunity to develop cultural understanding.

She adds that the reason for the ethnic divide lies in policies that encourage parents to shop for schools, over selecting their local school.

Pranay Jha, the son of Indian migrants, had the choice of attending a selective school or attending the King's School in North Parramatta on a scholarship.

His parents decided on the private school option, and Mr Jha, admits he felt isolated, and suffered from some cultural shame. 'I was surrounded by white people, and so to socially succeed in the school you needed to play down your ethnicity a lot,' he said.

Mr Jha also remembers being racially abused while playing sport and believes that if there had been more diversity at the school it would provide students from migrant backgrounds with a greater sense of solidarity.

However, the ethnic make-up of The King's School has changed since Mr Jha's graduation in 2015. At that time 31 per cent of students were LBOTE. By 2018 the number had risen to over 40 per cent

SOURCE  

Posh privilege? Upper class people's 'belief that they are better than others' helps them to find jobs, study finds

This is just another example of the old halo effect.  In this case the halo emanates from the fact that a person is in a prestigious position. That tends to suggest other desirable attitudes in the person. I suppose the interesting thing here is the demonstration that the priviliged person himself perceives the halo.

And in this case there is good reason for the effects discussed below.  High status persons tend to have higher IQs and IQ does have wide-ranging positive effects.  So the privleged person has good grounds for feeling that he will do well on various tests.

So what we have is a demonstration of what Jesus said:  "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance" (Matthew 13:12).

Self confidence is in some ways nearly as advantageous as high IQ


People from higher social classes believe themselves to be more capable than those of lower class, even if they are equally as qualified.

This leads to better outcomes in life-changing scenarios like job interviews as they are more confident than their less-privileged peers due to an inflated sense of self.

In a large scale study, scientists saw this to be true across the board, from business owners to undergraduates.

Dr Peter Belmi of the University of Virginia and lead author of the study, said: 'Advantages beget advantages. Those who are born in upper-class echelons are likely to remain in the upper class, and high-earning entrepreneurs disproportionately originate from highly educated, well-to-do families.'

Researchers from the University of Virginia conducted four separate investigations to look at the connection between social class and overconfidence.

In each study, they discovered that those from higher social classes tended to be more overconfident.

In one study, this overconfidence was shown to be misinterpreted by others as a higher level of competence.

In the biggest study, which involved business owners, researchers obtained information about the individual's income, education level and where they thought they stood in society.

The participants were also required to complete a psychological assessment that rated their self-perception.

'Posh privilege' occurs when people of a higher social class perceive themselves to be better than those of lower classes - even if such is unfounded.

Factors that lead to people developing posh privilege include higher levels of education, greater income and perception of belonging to a better  social class.

Others perceive this excess of assuredness as real and deserved confidence.

This leads to better outcomes in life-changing scenarios like job interviews as they are more confident than their less-privileged peers thanks to their inflated sense of self.

In a large-scale study, researchers found that this privilege applied universally - affecting everyone from students to business heads.

One experiment was a flashcard game where individuals were shown an image that disappeared after they press a key, before being replaced by another image.

They then have to determine whether the second image matched the first.

After completing 20 rounds, they were asked to rate how they think they performed compared to others on a scale of 1 to 100.

When the researchers compared the actual scores with the predicted scores, they found that people with more education, more income and a higher perceived social class had greater belief they performed better than others.

Two other groups each with 1,400 online participants found a similar association.

In one, the researchers gave participants a trivia test and those from a higher social class thought that they did better than others.

Again, when the researchers examined actual performance, no difference was found between the social classes based on this belief.

In the last experiment, researcher recruited 236 undergraduate students, and asked them to complete a 15-item trivia quiz and predict how they scored compared with others.

They were also asked to rate their social class and their families' income and their parents' education levels.

A week later, the students were brought back to the lab for a videotaped mock hiring interview.

More than 900 judges, recruited online, each watched one of the videos and rated their impression of the applicant's competence.

Not only were the higher social class students more confident, this overconfidence was interpreted by the judges who watched their videos as greater competence.

'Our research suggests that social class shapes the attitudes that people hold about their abilities and that, in turn, has important implications for how class hierarchies perpetuate from one generation to the next,'  they write in the study.

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

SOURCE  

NEW BOOK: Lynn, R. & Becker, D. (2019). "The Intelligence of Nations" London: Ulster Institute for Social Research. ISBN 97809930000157. œ20

It has generally been assumed by economists and sociologists that all peoples in the world have the same intelligence. Now a new study shows that this is far from the case and that there are large differences in the IQs of different peoples and that these differences explain a number of economic and social phenomena.

Richard Lynn, a Cambridge educated psychologist and former professor of psychology at the University of Ulster, and David Becker, a political scientist at Chemnitz University in Germany, have collected the IQs for virtually all nations in the world. Their results show that IQs range from the highest of 106 in Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, closely followed by Hong Kong (105), China (104) and South Korea (102) to the lowest in Nepal (43), Sierra Leone (45), Guatemala (48), Nicaragua (53), Gambia (53), Ghana (58) and South Sudan (59). Analysed by regions, IQs are highest in North East Asia at 105, followed by Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand at 100, falling in Southern Europe to 94 in Italy, 93 in Spain and Portugal, and 91 in Greece and Malta.  IQs fall further to 84 in North Africa and South Asia, and finally to 70 in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the Americas IQs are the highest at 99 in Canada, 97 in the United States and 96 in Argentina and are in the 80s in most of Latin America, e.g. 88 in Chile and Mexico, and 83 in Venezuela and Colombia, while (as noted above) to the very low IQs of 53 in Nicaragua and 48 in Guatemala.

Lynn and Becker claim that differences in national IQs are resposible for much of the disparities in wealth between different peoples. This problem has been discussed since the eighteenth century when it was analysed by Adam Smith in his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), in which he argued that the principal factors responsible for national wealth were specialisation and the division of labour, the skills of the population and free markets. From this time up to the present day, numerous theories have been proposed by economists and sociologists to explain why some nations are so rich and others are so poor.

Lynn and Becker argue that it is well established that IQs are a major determinant of earnings among individuals. As most parents know, siblings generally differ in their IQs and it has been found that the sibling with the higher IQ normally achieves a higher income. They argue that higher intelligence brings higher earnings because intelligence is the ability to learn effectively and to solve problems. People with high intelligence lean to acquire more productive skills and can solve more problems than those with low intelligence. Lynn and Becker argue that the same is true for nations.They argue that the intelligence of the populations together with strong market economies are the two major determinants of national differences in per capita incomes. They regard an additonal factors as the possession of natural resources, especially oil and minerals.

Lynn and Becker also show that national IQs contribute to the explanation of national differences in economic growth in the decades following the end of World War Two. In particular the high IQs of the North East Asians contributed to rapid economic growth of Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore and, more recently, of China after it had thown of the constaints of communism and adopted a market economy. Conversely, the low IQs in sub-Saharan Africa contributed to the explanation of its low economic growth and continuing poverty.

Lynn and Becker argue that national IQs explain a number of other economic and social phenomena. National IQs explain much of the differences in educational attainment, intellectual achievements such as innnovative patents and Nobel prizes, political institutions (e.g. democracy and a market economy), happiness, health and nutrition. They also argue that low national IQs explain greater belief in religion, higher rates of crime and higher fertility. They argue that because of the higher fertility in low nations, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, the IQ of the world is declining.

Lynn and Becker discuss the causes of national differences in intelligence. They show that these are strongly associated with the colder environments of Europe and Northeast Asia and argue that highter intelligence evolved in the European and Northeast Asian peoples to survive in these colder latitudes during the last ice age that lasted from around 28,000 years ago to around 12,000 years ago. They show that the European and Northeast Asian peoples evolved large brain size to accommodate their greater intelligence.

Lynn and Becker conclude by discussing the future of national IQs. They argue that the IQs in Europe, the United States and Canada will decline as a result of the low fertility of women graduates with high IQs because many of these are not having children. This is because many of them spend their twenties advancing their careers and then find they are not able to have children, are unable to find a partner with whom to have them or do not want to have them. They have been educated out of their biological function. IQs in Europe will also decline as a result of the immigration of peoples with low IQs from Africa and South Asia. IQs in the United States and Canada will also decline as a result of the immigration of peoples with low IQs from Latin America. They argue that Donald Trump's wall along the southern border with Mexico will not be effective in preventing continuing Latin American immigration. They argue that intelligence will continue to increase in China and that as the IQs in Europe and the United States declines, China will emerge as the world's superpower in the second half of the twenty-first century.

Via email

Clever men are more fertile and have more children than others

This is very strong data and is more evidence that IQ is an index of general biological fitness

Clever men are more fertile and have more children than others, research has found.

The findings suggest that those with higher IQs are considered more attractive by women. In addition, being intelligent leads to status in society and more wealth - extra factors as to why eggheads are considered `a catch'.

The research overturns previous findings - that larger families are the preserve of people who are not blessed with higher IQs.

University of Stockholm scientists looked at a database of IQ scores of all Swedish men born between 1951 and 1967.

The IQ tests were used for conscription to the army's national service and covered more than 779,000 men.

They then followed up how many children each man went on to have.

The scientists writing in the Royal Society Journal Proceedings B said: `We find a positive relationship between intelligence scores and fertility, and this pattern is consistent across the cohorts we study.' They added: `Men with the lowest categories of IQ scores have the fewest children.'

The researchers said they controlled for additional factors such as levels of education and parental background. They said: `After such adjustments we find a stronger positive relationship between IQ and fertility.'

To assess the impact of family background, the researchers compared how many children brothers had.

They found that a brother with the lowest category of cognitive ability would have 0.58 fewer children compared to a brother with an IQ of 100, the average IQ level, while men with the highest category had 0.14 more children than someone of the average ability.

While it may sound comical to talk about an extra child' or `14 per cent of a child', across a whole population, this would mean thousands of extra children born to more intelligent people thousands fewer to the less intelligent.

The researchers said that earlier research on the subject had been flawed as, unlike the Swedish survey, they were not based on a whole population, but instead school classes or samples.

The authors say that possible explanations are that having a low IQ score is closely linked to poor health in childhood, which may be the reason why people with lower scores have fewer children.

They added: `The positive relationship between intelligence and fertility is probably explained by men with higher cognitive ability having higher status and more resources, and the fact that high cognitive ability is an attractive trait in the partner market.'

They said the trend emerging in Sweden is likely to be seen elsewhere: `We think that a plausible future scenario is that many societies will see the re-emergence of a positive association between high intelligence as well as other dimensions and correlates of status-and fertility.'

SOURCE  

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Wealth is less to do with hard work or luck and more to do with your genes, DNA study shows

The findings below were well-known from twin studies but our knowledge of genetics has now advanced to the stage where we can look for the actual genes which underlie those findings.  And we are now begining to see them.  We can see that the genes that lead to high intelligence also lead to higher income etc.  In their usual blind way, Leftists usually dispute that IQ tests really measure anything.  But when you are seeing the associations in actual human genes, there is much less room for dispute.  The full, very detailed paper underlying the report below is here

It should be noted that the same studies which show a strong IQ influence on income also show negligible effects from family environment and other environmental variables.  Your genes really are your destiny and there's not much you can do about it. That finding will put a lot of noses out of joint on both the Right and the Left but that is what the data shows


Wealth and success may be less to do with hard work or luck and more to do with DNA, it seems. An analysis of 286,000 Britons showed that the genetic make-up of those who earned over œ100,000 differed from those on low incomes.

A scan pointed to 24 `golden genes' that affect intelligence, the immune system, and the strength of muscles and heart - and so can make the difference between economic success and poverty.

The discovery follows work at the Centre For Cognitive Ageing in Edinburgh.

Three-quarters of the genes are linked to intelligence, the scientists found. But physical attributes also affect the chances of being wealthy and some of these may be inherited.

`Genetic variants associated with higher income correlate with a genetic predisposition for greater intelligence, a longer lifespan, better physical and mental health, fewer feelings of tiredness, having fewer children and better living conditions,' the researchers say in a paper which is yet to be published.

SOURCE 

Slow vocab growth associated with hyperactivity in kids

The relevant academic journal article is Vocabulary development and trajectories of inattention-hyperactivity and emotional symptoms via academic ability and peer problems" by Elizabeth Westrupp et al.

It's a very painstaking piece of research but is greatly impoverished theoretically.  They don't seem to have realized that all they did was to rediscover IQ.  Yes, that pesky IQ again that no respectable academic may mention these days. Low IQ is of course associated with slow language development and all sorts of health and behavioral problems in later life. The prisons are full of low IQ people.  So Elizabeth and her friends have just reinvented the wheel.  Sad

Political correctness is a plague on all research concerning human beings.  So much effort has been put into research that is inconclusive due to the failure to account for IQ differences. If IQ WERE controlled for, most of the brightly-reported "findings" would lapse into statistical non-significance or negligible significance

In science, political correctness is a great evil.  It is a relentless enemy of truth


Children whose vocabulary skills develop slowly are more likely to experience emotional and behavioural issues in adolescence, according to a new Deakin University study, published today in the journal Child Development.

The research, led by Deakin School of Psychology researcher Dr Elizabeth Westrupp, was the first to model how children's language development influences changes in mental health problems over a 10 year period, from early childhood to adolescence.

"We found new evidence that lower growth in vocabulary over primary school was associated with increased child hyperactivity-inattention at eight to nine years, and more rapid increases in hyperactivity-inattention over early to middle teenage years, up to 14 to 15 years," Dr Westrupp said.

"These findings show the importance of monitoring children through middle childhood and adolescence as they develop."

As part of the study, data was gathered from almost 5000 Australian children, with children assessed six times between four and 15 years of age.

Dr Westrupp said the study also investigated possible reasons for the association between language development and behavioural issues.

"We found that children's academic experiences in middle childhood explained the link between early vocabulary development and teenage emotional and behavioural problems," she said.

"It may be that children with lower vocabulary skills struggle more in the classroom with reading and literacy, which then leads to the development of behavioural and emotional problems in teenage years."

Dr Westrupp said early literacy-based interventions may alleviate declining academic, emotional and behavioural functioning in adolescence.

"There's already some evidence to suggest that children with early language problems have higher rates of behavioural and emotional difficulties compared to other children," Dr Westrupp said.

"However prior research only looked at children at one point in time, and we know that children's language ability and mental health are not static, they change as children grow.

"Understanding these associations will allow parents and teachers to better support children in preventing childhood mental health problems."

Dr Westrupp said it was critical the focus was not just on kids who entered school with low language skills, but also kids who were dropping behind their peers in the first few years of primary school.

"We need to be aware that they are also at risk. Schools and parents must work together to identify and monitor children falling behind in language, that means having supportive and regular conversations about how a child's language is developing," she said.

"It also means oral language based interventions in the classroom may be important beyond just the first few years of primary school, and incorporating specialist oral language skills and interventions into the standard curriculum could be beneficial. So that's working with children around the meaning of words, the structure of words, and using words in new contexts.

"There is some explicit language teaching in the first years of formal schooling, but there's much less focus in older years. So a continued emphasis on these skills would help us to best support children to thrive."

Media release by email from Elise Snashall-Woodhams -- e.snashallwoodhams@mediaunit.deakin.edu.au

All babies are born equal, no matter their race or class (?)

Do-gooder BS gets really extreme here.  What they did was equalize the mothers in major ways and then discovered that their babies were equal too!  If a student had handed me a research proposal as dumb as that, I would have failed it.  IQ, health and much else is inherited and IQ is quite well related to physical health, wealth, social position etc. So the equalizations they did would have strongly equalized IQ as well

But that's not the worst of it. They examined IQ only up to age 2.  That is also hilarious.  You cannot reliably measure IQ at age 2.  Any scores you get at that age have little or no relation to scores at ages 16 or 30 (for instance)

What a shemozzle!  Totally unwarranted inferences from a brainless study

Babies born in similar circumstances will thrive regardless of race or -geography, Oxford-led research has found, quashing the idea that race or class determines intelligence.

In a scientific first, the team of -researchers tracked the physical and intellectual development of babies around the world from the earliest days after conception to age two.

"At every single stage we've shown that healthy mothers have healthy -babies and that healthy babies all grow at exactly the same rate," said Prof -Stephen Kennedy, the co-director of the Oxford Maternal and Perinatal Health Institute.

"It doesn't matter where you are living, it doesn't matter what the colour of your skin is, it doesn't matter what your race and -ethnicity is, receiving decent medical care and nutrition is the key."

The INTERGROWTH-21st Project, led jointly by Prof Kennedy and Prof Jos‚ Villar at Oxford, involved nearly 60,000 mothers and babies, tracking growth in the womb, then followed more than 1,300 of the children, measuring growth and development.

The mothers - in locations as diverse as Brazil, India and Italy - were chosen because they were in good health and lived in similar, clean, urban environments. Their babies scored similarly on both physical and intellectual development.

The study should help settle the debate over the role of genetics in determining intelligence, which has been rumbling since the publication of Charles Murray's The Bell Curve in the Nineties. The book argued that a "cognitive elite" was becoming separated from the general population.

"There's still a substantial body of opinion out there in both the scientific and lay communities who genuinely believe that intelligence is predominantly determined by genes and the environment that you're living in and that your parents and grandparents were living in and their nutritional and health status are not relevant," said Prof Kennedy. "Well, that's clearly not the case."

SOURCE  

UK: Education is NOT the great leveller

This is a fairly iconoclastic article.  That the author is of Hungarian origin may explain that. She is able to take an outside view.

But she is of course right -- though she doesn't really spell out why.  Social class continua are heavily correlated with IQ -- which is genetically inherited -- and education can do nothing to increase IQ.  Rich people are mostly smarter and have mostly smarter kids.  So their kids inherit their class position both socially and genetically. There are of course exceptions but most people end up in a social position matched to their IQ. Smart kids do at times emerge from poor backgrounds and provisiion to advance them is well warranted.  Grammar schools do that.

The push for more and more education for everyone, however,  is fundamentally misguided.  The years out of the workforce impoverish the country, if anything

Britain is unusual in having what could be seen as two status hierarchies -- a wealth hierarchy and a nobility hierarchy. Some members of the nobility (titled hereditary aristocracy) can even be poor.  But the two have a long history of melding into one another.  Poor aristocratic males -- and some not so poor -- have a historic habit of marrying rich American heiresses, for instance.  Winston Churchill was one of the results of such a union.  The American family buys prestige and the British family has its fortunes refreshed.  And as the progeny of often self-made men, the ladies concerned will be bright.

More broadly, noble titles are still much valued and respected in Britain so an aristocratic male will have a wide choice of potential partners.  He is able in fact to get a woman with it all -- brains and beauty.  And so it often happens.  So there has long been a steady influx of brains into the nobility -- so even in Britain, prestigious persons generally tend to be bright


For two decades, social mobility has been a central concern in British politics. Increasing equality of opportunity, in the context of rising inequalities between people's lives, has been a shared goal across the party political spectrum. Politicians have also agreed that educational policy is crucial to achieving this goal. This has made the thrust of speeches on social mobility given over the years by politicians including Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Theresa May interchangeable.

Yet, new research I've published with my colleague John Goldthorpe, which brings together results from extensive British birth cohort studies, points to a serious disconnect between the discussion of social mobility in political and policy circles and the findings of sociological research.

In our analysis, we treat social mobility in terms of social class, and make a clear distinction between absolute and relative mobility rates. Absolute rates simply refer to the proportions of individuals who have moved to different class positions to those of their parents, whether in an upward or downward direction. Relative rates compare the chances of individuals from different class origins ending up in a different class "destination".

Contrary to what has become widely claimed in the media, mainly as a result of - often misunderstood - research by economists, social mobility in Britain is not in decline.

Absolute rates of class mobility between generations have been stable at least over the period since World War II. Men and women today are just as likely to be found in different class positions to those of their parents as they were in the 1950s.

The important change is, however, that rates of upward mobility are falling and rates of downward mobility are rising, as our research and the graph above shows. In this sense, young people now face less favourable mobility prospects than their parents or grandparents did. This is the result of the slowdown in the steady growth of managerial and professional employment that drove increasing upward mobility in the "golden age" from the 1950s up to the 1980s.

Relative rates of social mobility are also essentially stable: the inherent "stickiness" between the class positions of parents and children has altered little over at least the last half century. And in the case of "long-range" mobility - between, say, the lower stratum of the working class and those in managerial and professional jobs - quite extreme inequalities in relative chances exist.

Our findings show that the children of parents in higher managerial and professional positions are 20 times more likely to end up in such positions, rather than in working class positions, than children of working class parents are.

Not a low mobility society

Education plays an important role in determining whether a person is class mobile or immobile. But it does not follow that more education means more mobility at a societal level. For education to promote mobility at a societal level, the association between a person's class origins and their educational attainment must weaken, while the association between their educational attainment and their class destinations must strengthen. But as our research shows, neither of these changes is in fact apparent. And that's especially the case if education is considered in relative terms: for example if account is taken of the fact that a degree is worth far more in the labour market if only 10% of a birth cohort have one than if 40% do.

Again, contrary to what is widely claimed in the reports such as those by the Social Mobility Commission, Britain is not a distinctively low mobility society. Across European countries, rates of absolute class mobility are very similar. And as regards relative rates, Britain is one of a group of West-Nordic countries that show - comparatively - high fluidity within their class structures.

One reason for this is that, in Britain, education is not class destiny to the same extent as it is in a country such as Germany. In Germany, and several other Western-Central European countries, the educational system is highly stratified, with early selection for different types of school. Because there is then a tight link between formal educational qualifications and employment opportunities, educational inequalities are rather systematically translated into labour market inequalities. Where such "credentialism" prevails, education can in fact prove a barrier to, as much as a source of, social mobility.

No great leveller

Education is not "the great leveller" that can break the link between inequality in the conditions under which people live and inequality of opportunity. Parents with superior resources - economic, as well as social and cultural ones - will use their resources as necessary to give their children a competitive edge. Those wealthy enough can resort to the private sector, but for others the "commercialisation of opportunity" occurs by buying houses in the catchment areas of high-performing state schools, engaging private tutors for their children, and providing them with extensive out-of-school activities and experiences designed to improve their academic performance.

In addition, further education, or lifelong learning, turns out to promote immobility rather than mobility. As my research shows, it mainly gives "second chances" to those from more advantaged backgrounds whose performance in mainstream education gave them insufficient assurance that they would be able to maintain their parents' position. It primarily serves to prevent downward mobility.

So far as absolute mobility is concerned, the most effective way of increasing upward mobility would be through economic and social policies that could renew the expansion of managerial and professional employment, so as to bring back the conditions of the golden age. One way of equalising relative rates of social mobility would be for employers to develop internal promotion and training policies to take full advantage of the educationally "wasted talent" that exists among their workforces and to remove requirements for formal qualifications of an irrelevant kind.

But in all societies with a capitalist market economy, a conjugal family system and liberal-democratic policies, a limit may exist on the extent that mobility chances can be equalised. As this limit is approached, policies aimed at further equalisation will become increasingly contested, and social mobility will cease to be a matter on which political consensus prevails.

SOURCE 

What you are born with matters a lot more than your education

It's true and has long been known but is a bit surprising coming from UCSD.  They avoided mentioning that what they were studying was IQ, however

Summary:

Youthful cognitive ability strongly predicts mental capacity later in life.

Early adult general cognitive ability [IQ] is a stronger predictor of cognitive function and reserve later in life than other factors, such as higher education, occupational complexity or engaging in late-life intellectual activities.
    
FULL STORY

Early adult general cognitive ability (GCA) -- the diverse set of skills involved in thinking, such as reasoning, memory and perception -- is a stronger predictor of cognitive function and reserve later in life than other factors, such as higher education, occupational complexity or engaging in late-life intellectual activities, report researchers in a new study publishing January 21 in PNAS.

Higher education and late-life intellectual activities, such as doing puzzles, reading or socializing, have all been associated with reduced risk of dementia and sustained or improved cognitive reserve. Cognitive reserve is the brain's ability to improvise and find alternate ways of getting a job done and may help people compensate for other changes associated with aging.

An international team of scientists, led by scientists at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, sought to address a "chicken or egg" conundrum posed by these associations. Does being in a more complex job help maintain cognitive abilities, for example, or do people with greater cognitive abilities tend to be in more complex occupations?

The researchers evaluated more than 1,000 men participating in the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging. Although all were veterans, nearly 80 percent of the participants reported no combat experience. All of the men, now in their mid-50s to mid-60s, took the Armed Forces Qualification Test at an average age of 20. The test is a measure GCA. As part of the study, researchers assessed participants' performance in late midlife, using the same GCA measure, plus assessments in seven cognitive domains, such as memory, abstract reasoning and verbal fluency.

They found that GCA at age 20 accounted for 40 percent of the variance in the same measure at age 62, and approximately 10 percent of the variance in each of the seven cognitive domains. After accounting for GCA at age 20, the authors concluded, other factors had little effect. For example, lifetime education, complexity of job and engagement in intellectual activities each accounted for less than 1 percent of variance at average age 62.

"The findings suggest that the impact of education, occupational complexity and engagement in cognitive activities on later life cognitive function likely reflects reverse causation," said first author William S. Kremen, PhD, professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "In other words, they are largely downstream effects of young adult intellectual capacity."

In support of that idea, researchers found that age 20 GCA, but not education, correlated with the surface area of the cerebral cortex at age 62. The cerebral cortex is the thin, outer region of the brain (gray matter) responsible for thinking, perceiving, producing and understanding language.

The authors emphasized that education is clearly of great value and can enhance a person's overall cognitive ability and life outcomes. Comparing their findings with other research, they speculated that the role of education in increasing GCA takes place primarily during childhood and adolescence when there is still substantial brain development.

However, they said that by early adulthood, education's effect on GCA appears to level off, though it continues to produce other beneficial effects, such as broadening knowledge and expertise.

Kremen said remaining cognitively active in later life is beneficial, but "our findings suggest we should look at this from a lifespan perspective. Enhancing cognitive reserve and reducing later life cognitive decline may really need to begin with more access to quality childhood and adolescent education."

The researchers said additional investigations would be needed to fully confirm their inferences, such as a single study with cognitive testing at different times throughout childhood and adolescence.

SOURCE 

Australian psychologists are down on "Traditional Masculinity" too

The most substantial piece of evidence from Australia for the criticisms is the "Man Box" study mentioned below.  It is a colourfully presented "report", not a refereed academic journal article.  And that shows.  It is not as bad as some such reports in that some care was taken with the sampling and conventional statistical significance was observed but it is basically crap.  Let me say in detail why:

For a start, no factor analysis of the questions asked is offered.  So is there in fact such a thing as a "man box"?  We do not know.  A strong first eigenvector would have reassured us but we are not told of one.  I once did a survey of allegedly female attitudes (The BSRI) which found the attitudes concerned not to be characteristic of Australian females.  They were not sex-polarized at all. So are we sure that the man box attitudes are in fact characteristic of Australian male attitudes?  We cannot assume it. Were there similar attitudes among women?

And including the man box questions within a larger survey was not done.  Doing so might have revealed that the questions had a larger identity.  For instance, many of the questions seem to me to be rather like assertiveness questions, and assertiveness is usually praised.  There certainly should have been some attempt to distinguish the "bad" man box questions from assertiveness.   Could some man box attitudes be good?

And the selection of man box attitudes was also tendentious.  Traditional male attitudes do for instance include courtesy towards women.  To this day I hold car doors open for women but that is only a trivial thing.  There is also a strong traditional male inhibition against hitting women, for instance.  Feminists are much concerned about domestic violence so should they encourage traditional male attitudes of courtesy and restraint towards women?  Nothing like that was examined in the survey, funnily enough.

And what about the traditional male attitude that self-sacrifice is noble?  What about the times when men have sacrificed themselves to save women -- in an emergency situation such as a sinking ship?  Is that noble or foolish?  Sane women would hope it is noble but there is no mention of such nobility in the man box.  The whole conception of the man box is thoroughly bigoted from the get-go.

But the most deplorable omission in the research is a complete failure to apply any demographic controls.  They apparently had demographic data but did not use it to segment their sample.  One does wonder why.  Were the results of such segmentation too embarrassing?  Were man box attitudes almost exclusively working class for instance?  From my own extensive background in survey research, I suspect it.  I always looked at demographic correlates of the attitudes I examined and social class variables were often significant.

And one social class variable that they would have avoided studying at all costs is the dreaded IQ.  Yet IQ is powerfully correlated with an amazing array of other variables.  In this case it could even explain some male/female differences. Why, for instance, do men on average die earlier than women?  The research below says it is because of their bad male attitudes but there is another explanation. Male IQ is more variable than female IQ.  There are more brilliant males but also more spectacularly dumb males.  And, for various reasons, IQ is significantly correlated with health.  So it is likely that most of the males who die young were simply dumb.  They did more silly and dangerous things, for instance.

All in all the report is just a piece of feminist propaganda designed to fool the general public.  I am guessing that they had no expectation that it might come under the scrutiny of an experienced survey researcher


Traditional masculinity has been labelled "harmful" in a major move by a health body, linked with high rates of suicide and violence.

The American Psychological Association released a report last week, citing more than 40 years of research on the issue of "masculine ideology" - a step praised by Australian experts.

"Traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males' psychological development, constrain their behaviour, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict and negatively influence mental health and physical health," it said.

Increasingly referred to as "toxic masculinity", traditional ideals surrounding manhood are usually toughness, aggression, a suppression of emotion, dominance and stoicism.

Queensland University of Technology sociologist Michael Flood said some of the ways boys are raised can have "significant costs" for the community.

Across the country today, an estimated six men will take their own lives - three times the number of women to die by suicide.

"There's growing recognition that norms of masculinity in many ways are limiting for men themselves," Dr Flood told news.com.au.

"Going along with traditional masculine beliefs increases the risk of suicide - there have been studies to indicate that. If you think being a man means not asking for help or not showing pain, being a John Wayne character and going it alone, you can't cope when things are hard."

Traditional masculinity has a place in a number of scenarios, Dr Flood said, where a number of those qualities can be very useful. "Being tough and stoic are exactly the qualities you need if you're fighting a fire or something like that, but once it's over, you need other qualities," he said.

"Some of those men (without) are poorer at some of the qualities that many people recognise are important in contemporary relationships - communication, emotional expression."

There's growing recognition in the fields of men's mental health, education and the prevention of violence against women and children that "the norms of masculinity" can be harmful.

"Unless we tackle this, we'll continue to see large numbers of men turning up in hospitals, being assaulted, committing suicide, and suffering in silence and so on," Dr Flood said.

Criticisms from some segments of the community that the discussion about toxic masculinity is an attack on men are unfounded, he said.

"We need to distinguish between men and masculinity. The attack on the narrow messaging is not an attack on men. This is driven by a concern for men."

Dr Flood was involved in the groundbreaking Man Box study last year, which found that young Australian men who oversubscribe to traditional notion of masculinity had poorer health and wellbeing outcomes.

"We also found that many of them have poorer relationships with others and were more likely to be involved in violence," he said.

Of those surveyed - a cohort of 1000 men aged 18 to 30 - 69 per cent felt society expected them to act strong and 56 per cent felt being a man meant never saying no to sex.

Another 36 per cent agreed that society pressures them to shun friendships with gay men and 38 per cent thought boys shouldn't learn how to cook and clean.

SOURCE 

Are our life chances determined by our DNA?

In less than two decades, the bid to read the human genome has shrunk from billion-dollar space-race project to cheap parlour game. In 2000, President Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, then UK prime minister, jointly announced that scientists had elucidated the three billion letters of the human genome — or discovered “the language in which God created life”, as the US president solemnly phrased it.

In 2018, prompted by opposition goading, the Democrat US senator Elizabeth Warren took a consumer DNA test to prove a strain of Cherokee ancestry. Flashing a sliver of exotic bloodline for political advantage turned out to be a calamitous misjudgment: her actions upset Native Americans, who regard identity and culture as more than a matter of DNA.

Science too is engaged in the same enterprise: to reduce the complexity of human identity to genetics. While we have long known that genes build our bodies — determining eye and hair colour, influencing height and body shape — there is a growing conviction that genes also sculpt the mind. As the cost of gene-sequencing technology has plunged to a few hundred dollars, millions of people have had their DNA sliced and diced by scientists seeking to quantify the genetic contribution to personality, intelligence, behaviour and mental illness.

This is the dark and difficult territory explored by three important books that embody a new zeitgeist of genetic determinism. If DNA builds the brain and mind — the puppetmasters pulling our behavioural strings — then selfhood becomes circumscribed largely by our genes. The idea that we are little more than machines driven by our biology raises a profound conundrum: if the genes we inherit at conception shape personality, behaviour, mental health and intellectual achievement, where is the space for society and social policy — even parents — to make a difference? What of free will?

As might be guessed from its klaxon of a title, Blueprint is unequivocal in stating the supremacy of the genome. “Genetics is the most important factor shaping who we are,” opens Robert Plomin, a behavioural geneticist at King’s College London recognised globally (and reviled by some) for his research into the genetics of intelligence. “It explains more of the psychological differences between us than everything else put together,” he writes, adding that “the most important environmental factors, such as our families and schools, account for less than 5 per cent of the differences between us in our mental health or how well we did at school.”

For decades, Professor Plomin has been using twin and adoption studies to tease out the relative effects of genes and environment. Identical twins share 100 per cent of their DNA; in non-identical twins this drops to 50 per cent (the same genetic overlap as regular siblings). Adopted children share a home environment, but no DNA, with their adoptive parents; and 50 per cent of their DNA, but no home environment, with each of their biological parents.

A careful study of these permutations can point to the “heritability” of various characteristics and psychological traits. Body weight, for example, shows a heritability of about 70 per cent: thus 70 per cent of the differences in weight between people can be attributed to differences in their DNA. Identical twins tend to be more similar than non-identical, fraternal twins; adopted children are more like their biological parents than their adoptive parents.

Breast cancer, widely thought of as a genetic disease, shows a heritability of only 10 per cent. In contrast, it is 50 per cent for schizophrenia; 50 per cent for general intelligence (reasoning); and 60 per cent for school achievement. Last year Plomin claimed that children with high “polygenic scores” for educational achievement — showing a constellation of genetic variants known to be associated with academic success — gained good GCSE grades regardless of whether they went to non-selective or selective schools. His conclusion was that genes matter pretty much above all else when it comes to exam grades.

Even the home, the very definition of “environment”, is subject to genetic influence, he says. If kids in book-filled homes exhibit high IQs, it is because high-IQ parents tend to create book-filled homes. The parents are passing on their intelligence to their children via their genes, not their libraries: “The shocking and profound revelation . . . is that parents have little systematic effect on their children’s outcomes, beyond the blueprint that their genes provide.” His conclusion is that “parents matter, but they don’t make a difference”.

That is not the only seemingly contradictory message. Plomin describes DNA as a “fortune-teller” while simultaneously emphasising that “genetics describes what is — it does not predict what could be”. This caveat is odd, given his later enthusiasm for using genetic testing predictively in almost every aspect of life: in health, education, choosing a job and even attracting a spouse. He suggests, for example, that we could use polygenic scores for schizophrenia “to identify problems on the basis of causes rather than symptoms”.

This vision sounds worryingly like pre-medicalisation. Plomin proclaims himself a cheerleader for such implications but is disappointingly light on the ethical issues. A predisposition might never manifest as a symptom — and besides, “possible schizophrenic” is not the kind of descriptor I would want to carry around from birth.

Plomin admits that cowardice stopped him writing such a book before now; it probably also stopped him from addressing alleged racial differences in intelligence. This is a grave omission, as he is one of the few academics capable of authoritatively quashing the notion. James Watson, the 90-year-old DNA pioneer, recently restated his belief that blacks are cognitively inferior to whites. Those, like Plomin, responsible for fuelling the resurgence in genetic determinism have a responsibility to speak out — and early — against those who misuse science to sow division. (Plomin is writing an afterword for future editions.)

Neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell believes that genes conspire with a hidden factor — brain development — to shape psychology and behaviour. Neural development, he contends persuasively in his book Innate, adds random variation to the unfurling of the genetic blueprint, ensuring individuality, even among identical twins. These special siblings, though clones, rarely score identically for psychological traits. Genes are the ingredients but a lot depends on the oven: “You can’t bake the same cake twice.”

Mitchell, associate professor of neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin, explains: “It is mainly genetic variation affecting brain development that underlies innate differences in psychological traits. We are different from each other in large part because of the way our brains get wired before we are born.” Genetic relatives have brains that are wired alike. Thus, we should look to the cranium, not only to chromosomes, to learn how minds are shaped.

Indeed, each of us is a miniature study in how a genetic blueprint can quiver under the influence of random variation, like a pencil tracing that does not conform exactly to the original outline. The genes directing the development of each side of your body are identical — but you are still slightly asymmetrical (put a mirror down the middle of a mugshot and see how weird you look with perfect symmetry). Fascinatingly, identical twins do not always show the same handedness, despite shared DNA and upbringing.

What goes on in that oven, or the brain, cannot be described as environmental — the catch-all term for non-genetic factors — because it is intrinsic to the individual rather than shared. Mitchell labels it the “non-shared environment”, a crucial but overlooked component of innate traits. Once this factor is folded in, “many traits are even more innate than heritability estimates alone would suggest”.

This, he insists, does not close the door to free will and autonomy. Genes plus neural development pre-programme a path of possible action, not the action itself: “We still have free will, just not in the sense that we can choose to do any old random thing at any moment . . . when we do make deliberative decisions, it is between a limited set of options that our brain suggests.” Having free will, he adds, does not mean doing things for no reason, but “doing them for your reasons.” Those include wanting to conform to social and familial norms; unlike Plomin, Mitchell recognises the reality that societies and families can and do make a difference.

While both discuss heritable conditions such as autism and schizophrenia in terms of defective genes, Randolph Nesse turns this thinking on its head. In Good Reasons for Bad Feelings, he asks: why do such disorders persist in the human population, given that natural selection tends to weed out “bad” genes?

Mental illness and psychological ill-health, he theorises, could be the collateral damage caused by the selection, over evolutionary time, of thousands of genes for survival and fitness. Autism, for example, has a well-documented genetic overlap with higher cognitive ability: some biologists now regard autism as a disorder of high intelligence. Once, only the clever survived.

Nesse, who runs the Centre for Evolution and Medicine at Arizona State University, can also explain why life offers mental torment in abundance: “Natural selection does not give a fig about our happiness. In the calculus of evolution, only reproductive success matters.”

Charles Darwin was one of the first to see the similarity in facial expressions between humans and other animals: these hint at a shared evolutionary heritage when it comes to emotions. Jealousy and fear, for example, are thought to promote genetic survival: a jealous man who controls his partner is more likely to end up raising his own genetic offspring, according to the evolutionary scientist David Buss; fear makes us cautious and keeps us alive.

These are indeed good reasons for bad feelings. But extreme jealousy can lead to murder; extreme fear can become debilitating phobia. Panic attacks — an exceedingly common experience — mirror the fight-or-flight response. Anxiety, meanwhile, works on the smoke detector principle: “a useful response that often goes overboard”.

Nesse’s book offers fresh thinking in a field that has come to feel stagnant, even if new therapeutic avenues are not immediately obvious. The prevailing orthodoxy that each mental disorder must have its own distinct cause, possibly correctable through chemicals, has not been wholly successful over the decades. Biologists have also failed to uncover tidy genetic origins for heritable conditions such as schizophrenia and autism, instead finding the risk sprinkled across thousands of genes. Recasting our psychiatric and psychological shortcomings as the unintended sprawling by-products of evolution seems a useful way of understanding why our minds malfunction in the multiple, messy ways that they do. The UK’s Royal College of Psychiatry thinks so: it recently set up a special interest group on evolutionary psychiatry.

Given that natural selection is blind to organisms being happy, sad, manic or depressed, Nesse notes that things could have turned out worse: “Instead of being appalled at life’s suffering, we should be astounded and awed by the miracle of mental health for so many.”

SOURCE  

'Father of DNA' James Watson Stripped of Honors Over More IQ  Comments

The story below shows the incredible power of America's racism hysteria. Its counter-factual beliefs must not be disputed.  Black IQ really is the third rail of political commentary in America. The reality is just too disturbing to face.

Note that NO evidence is mentioned to dispute Watson's claims -- for the excellent reason that Watson's comments are a good summary of the available evidence on the question.  Even the APA has acknowledged a large and persistent gap (one SD) between average black and white IQ and it would itself be floridly racist to say that what is genetic in whites is not genetic in blacks


The acclaimed Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson will be forever remembered as one of the 'fathers of DNA'. But also as something much worse.

In a resurfaced controversy that further dims the shine of one of the 20th century's most esteemed scientists, Watson – awarded the Nobel in 1962 for his role in the discovery of DNA's 'double helix' molecular structure – has been stripped of academic titles after repeating offensive racist views that began to shred his reputation over a decade ago.

After new racist comments by Watson surfaced in the recent PBS documentary American Masters: Decoding Watson, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) – the pioneering research lab Watson led for decades – had finally had enough.

"Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory unequivocally rejects the unsubstantiated and reckless personal opinions," CSHL said in statement.

"Dr. Watson's statements are reprehensible, unsupported by science, and in no way represent the views of CSHL… The Laboratory condemns the misuse of science to justify prejudice."

In the new documentary, Watson states: "There's a difference on the average between blacks and whites on IQ tests. I would say the difference is, it's genetic."

It's not the first time Watson has come under fire for stating these kinds of beliefs.

In 2007, Watson created a furore after he was quoted as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really".

In the same article by The Times, Watson acknowledged such views were a "hot potato", but said that while he hoped that everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".

Watson later apologised for the comments, but the damage was done.

CSHL relieved him of all remaining administrative duties at the lab, leaving him only as an honorary figurehead in respect of his previous contributions to science. Now, those last accolades are also gone.

"In response to his most recent statements, which effectively reverse the written apology and retraction Dr. Watson made in 2007, the Laboratory has taken additional steps, including revoking his honorary titles of Chancellor Emeritus, Oliver R. Grace Professor Emeritus, and Honorary Trustee," the CSHL statement reads.

It's an indisputably inglorious end for one of the most glorious career arcs in 20th century science.

While the lesser-known story of Rosalind Franklin's unrecognised contributions to Watson and Francis Crick's famous DNA research are a telling reminder of the struggles women still face to be recognised in science, nobody denies the landmark contributions Watson himself made.

But, sadly, these famous accomplishments – which helped usher in a whole new era of knowledge in molecular biology and genetics – will now forever be linked with the offensive opinions of an old man in decline.

And an old man who, some say, should not be asked such questions any more.

"It is not news when a ninety-year-old man who has lost cognitive inhibition, and has drifted that way for decades as he aged, speaks from his present mind," CSHL Michael Wigler told The New York Times.

"It is not a moment for reflection. It is merely a peek into a corner of this nation's subconscious, and a strong whiff of its not-well-shrouded past secrets."

The last time Watson's racism created such controversy, the scientist ended up selling his Nobel Prize – citing financial issues from the resulting fallout that had rendered him an "unperson".

The buyer actually returned the Prize to Watson as a gesture of respect – but as time and the world moves on, the ageing scientist may find himself running out of such good will.

As for what we can ultimately make of the scientist's legacy, given the ugly shadow that now hangs over his earlier wins, helpful advice may come from a 2014 op-ed in The Guardian written about Watson.

"Celebrate science when it is great, and scientists when they deserve it," geneticist Adam Rutherford wrote.

"And when they turn out to be awful bigots, let's be honest about that too. It turns out that just like DNA, people are messy, complex and sometimes full of hideous errors."

SOURCE  

Your parenting style could decide how successful your kid will be

The difference in parenting styles between rich and poor families account for a huge chunk of the inequality gap -- or does it?

This is a very sad article below.  It accurately reports that kids are being denied the carefree childhood that was once taken as the ideal.  Instead they are dragooned into a constant round of activities that they may or may not enjoy.  And the parents are getting frazzled by doing the dragooning.  But what if it is all for naught?  Are we sure it helps? Might it even be disadvantageous?

Before I say what the basic problem is, let me give an anecdote.  I grew up in a very permissive family and my son did too. My son was allowed to play computer games to his heart's content -- which meant most of the time. So I am obviously a BAD parent, No?

The pesky thing about it, however, is that he is now a highly paid systems engineer.  He still spends most of his day in front of a computer screen.  It is his natural habitat. But he is now paid well above average money for doing so.  So is he a hopelessly anti-social nerd?  He has recently married a bright, friendly and pretty girl and has a close group of friends -- so clearly not.

And my permissive background did not stop me from becoming a  much published academic, even though my father was a lifelong manual worker and my mother was a maid.

So what is going on?  The answer is that people are misled by the politically correct dogma that all men are equal and therefore it is only hard work that can give you an edge in getting ahead.  As a psychometrician, I knew differently.  I knew that your genetically given ability was all -- or nearly all -- in educational attainment and much else.  Both my son and I got good attainment reports back from our schools but we both just cruised. We had no need to do otherwise and no-one to push us.  So we had that carefree childhood that people talk about.

The upshot?  If you are born bright, you will do well in any system.  But can hard work make up the difference for the less bright? By far the major predictor of educational attainment is IQ.  Nothing else comes close.  There are probably a few cases at the margins where pushing a kid can lead to a small degree of advantage but is it worth the stresses and strains on all involved?  Might you not do better by SHIELDING your child from most stresses and strains? Might the kindest thing you could do for your child be to give them a happy childhood?

It is true that the children of middle class parents do better at school but that is because of genetics.  As Charles Murray pointed out decades ago, the rich tend to be smarter.  Being smart is how they got rich.  And IQ is genetically inherited so rich parents tend do have smart kids.  And smart kids do well at school with not much else helping


"We are creating a miniature version of our own lives for our kid, wanting him to be productive, keeping him busy all the time." Abigail is talking about her two-year-old son, Joshua. She has a well-paid job with an investment bank in Dallas, Texas, which she finds stressful but exciting. Now pregnant with another child, she has every intention of resuming work after the second birth. She will keep on her Mexican-American nanny, and her writer husband will help with the child care.

But combining work with a larger family will not be easy, not just because of Abigail's demanding job but because she and her husband, like many other prosperous parents in America, pursue a form of child-rearing that makes huge demands on their time and resources. It includes filling the child's day with round-the-clock activities, from music and sports to sleepovers; going to great lengths to get him or her into the right schools; and strictly supervising homework. The parents may not like it, but they feel they have no choice because all their friends are doing the same thing.

This is colloquially known as "helicopter parenting" (because the parents are always hovering), or "concerted cultivation", a term coined by Annette Lareau, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania. In her book "Unequal Childhoods", based on in-depth studies conducted in the 1990s and early 2000s, she looked at the child-rearing habits of American families from a variety of social and ethnic backgrounds and found a yawning gap. Whereas better-off, better-educated parents (black as well as white) overwhelmingly adopted this intensive method, working-class and poor families followed a different model which she calls "the accomplishment of natural growth". They saw their role as providing shelter, food, comfort and other basic support but lacked the time, the money and the nous for such intensive management, so their kids were often left to their own devices, and the extended family played a much greater part in their children's lives than among Ms Lareau's middle-class subjects.

In his book "Our Kids", Robert Putnam, a political scientist at Harvard, used a mixture of interviews and data analysis to argue that different child-raising conventions are reinforcing a growing divide in American society. The privileged top third is pulling ever further ahead of the disadvantaged bottom third, whose families are often fractured and whose lives tend to be precarious. That shows up as a growing divergence in income, education, single-parenthood, friendship networks and other indicators.

The power of words

Upper-middle-class children are far better placed even before their parents make any special effort, simply because of the sort of homes they are born into. Educated parents tend to respond readily to their children's endless questions, talk to them over the dinner table and take them to new and exciting places. In a famous study in the 1990s, Betty Hart and Todd Risley from the University of Kansas found that in the poorest families children heard about 600 words an hour, whereas in professional families they heard 2,100. By the time they were three, the children from the well-off homes had heard around 30m more words than the poorer ones.

"Parenting", in the sense that it is now understood, is a relatively new term; it first popped up in 1958, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary, and came into widespread use only in the 1970s. Experts see it as an important factor in successful childrearing, along with things such as genetic predisposition and external circumstances. To find out how much it mattered, Jane Waldfogel of Columbia University and Liz Washbrook of the University of Bristol separated out the effects of different parenting styles and home learning environments on the cognitive performance of three- to five-year-olds from different income groups in America and Britain. They found that they accounted for between a third and half of the income-related gap.

Studies show that even poorer and less well-educated parents on both sides of the Atlantic (except, oddly, in France) spent far more time with their children every day in the 2000s than they did in 1965. They also spent more money on them, both in dollars and as a proportion of their income. Sabino Kornrich of Emory University and Frank Furstenberg of the University of Pennsylvania found that between 1972-73 and 2006-07 total spending per child in constant dollars increased somewhat for all income groups (see chart), but far faster for the richest 10% of parents than for the rest. Because incomes in this group had gone up rapidly, their spending as a proportion of income did not rise much. Yet by this measure the poorest 10% of parents vastly increased their spending on their children because their incomes had barely budged.

America is not the only place to practise helicopter parenting.

The British do it too, calling it "hothousing" ; continental Europe less so, especially in the Nordic countries, where social hierarchies are flatter and parents more relaxed. But globalisation has cranked up competition for the best jobs, and academic standards in different countries have become easier to compare thanks to the OECD's PISA scores, which measure the reading, maths and science performance of 15-year-olds. Such comparisons have highlighted the effectiveness of a kind of concerted cultivation that is ubiquitous in East Asia. It is somewhat different from the Western sort, being directed more single-mindedly towards academic success, and works particularly well in maths and science. In the PISA rankings for these subjects in 2015 Singapore tops the bill, and Japan, China (currently measured only in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Guangdong) and South Korea are all well ahead of America.

Such comparisons have made some Americans wonder whether they are being too soft on their kids. For all the hovering they do, they tend to let them off lightly on things like discipline and helping around the house, preferring to build up their self-esteem and keep them happy. But parents have noticed that some of the country's recent immigrants, particularly those from East Asia, use sterner methods to great effect. In her book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother", Amy Chua, a first-generation Chinese-American married to an American academic, describes the tough love she meted out to her two daughters. She unapologetically made the girls do many hours of homework a day, pushed them into becoming musical prodigies and allowed them next to no time to have fun. Though one of them eventually rebelled, both achieved brilliant academic results and seem to have grown into accomplished adults.

Another Chinese-American mother, Lenora Chu, and her journalist husband tried a different variant of blended cultures. Having moved to Shanghai, the couple decided to send their three-year-old son to a top-notch state-run Chinese kindergarten. Ms Chu's book about their experience is called "Little Soldiers", after a song often recited in the kindergarten that started: "I am a little soldier, I practise every day." It summed up the educational philosophy prevailing there and across China: anyone can succeed at anything if they work at it hard enough, whether or not they have a talent for it. Effort is all.

The Chinese kindergarten, Ms Chu found, had little trouble securing co-operation and compliance from the children and their parents. The authoritarian structure of the education system and powerful administrators keeps parents and students in check. In turn, the kindergarten proved responsive to parental pressure to offer some formal teaching even to these very young children, despite consistent guidance from the ministry of education that this age group should be spending most of the day playing. Even at kindergarten level, the parents are already thinking about getting the child through the gaokao, the all-important university entrance exam. As one mother explains, this is not just about the child itself. The Chinese have long been obsessed with education, and academic success for the child brings honour to the entire family.

If life at school is not much fun for Chinese kids, it is even worse for South Korean ones. Though both countries put much store by rote learning, in South Korea this takes on extreme forms. Jang Hyung-shim, an educational psychologist at Seoul's Hanyang University, likens children's experience at school to military service and says it stifles their creativity.

SOURCE 

For James Watson, the Price Was Exile. At 90, the Nobel winner still thinks that black people are born intellectually inferior to whites

The NYT article below shows how powerful political correctness can be. James Watson has been severely sanctioned for saying in public little more than what most psychometricians are agreed on -- that the average black IQ is much lower than white IQ and that the difference is persistent -- nothing seems able to change it. The American Psychological Association is generally Left-leaning but it is the world's most prestigious body of academic psychologists. And even they (under the chairmanship of Ulric Neisser) have had to concede a large and persistent gap in black vs. white average IQ.

It is true that very few psychometricians will attribute the persistence of the black/white gap to genetics.  It would be career death for them if they did, as it was for Watson.  Yet they cheerfully attribute differences between white individuals to genetics.  There is powerful evidence of that. So why is a particular group difference not also genetic?  Groups are made up of individuals and group scores are the sum of individual scores. 

The only way out of that inference would be to say that blacks are a different species, or at least fundamentally different genetically -- that something produced by genes in whites is not produced by genes in blacks. Yet that denies the humanity of blacks.  It is saying that their brains are different in how they function.  That, it seems to me, is REALLY racist.  It is an attempt to deny racial differences that ends up proclaiming racial differences.  If we respect the humanity of blacks we have to say that the causes of IQ variation are the same in blacks and whites.  You have to say that the black/white gap is persistent because it is genetic.

But we can go beyond that.  The question is really the validity of IQ scores among blacks.  Do they measure what we think they measure?  Do they measure the same things that they measure among whites?  And the answer is very clear.  From their average IQ score we would expect blacks to be at the bottom of every heap where anything intellectual is remotely involved.  We would expect them to be economically unsuccessful (poor), mired in crime and barely educable.  And they are.  The tests are valid among blacks.

The education situation is particularly clear.  The large gap between black and white educational attainment has been loudly bewailed by all concerned for many years.  Leftist educators have turned themselves inside out trying to change it.  But nothing does.  It persists virtually unchanged year after year. It alone is graphic testimony to inborn lesser black intellectual competence.  No talk of IQ is really needed.

But it is exactly what we would predict from black IQ scores.  It is a large gap that mirrors a large IQ gap. It is exactly what we would expect from the black difference being a genetic given.  IQ in blacks works the same way as it does in whites.  So if it is genetically determined in whites it must be genetically determined among blacks.  Some whites are born dumb.  Many blacks are born dumb


It has been more than a decade since James D. Watson, a founder of modern genetics, landed in a kind of professional exile by suggesting that black people are intrinsically less intelligent than whites.

In 2007, Dr. Watson, who shared a 1962 Nobel Prize for describing the double-helix structure of DNA, told a British journalist that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says, not really.”

Moreover, he added, although he wished everyone were equal, “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”

Dr. Watson’s comments reverberated around the world, and he was forced to retire from his job as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, although he retains an office there.

He apologized publicly and “unreservedly” and in later interviews he sometimes suggested that he had been playing the provocateur — his trademark role — or had not understood that his comments would be made public.

Ever since, Dr. Watson, 90, has been largely absent from the public eye. His speaking invitations evaporated. In 2014, he became the first living Nobelist to sell his medal, citing a depleted income from having been designated a “nonperson.”

But his remarks have lingered. They have been invoked to support white supremacist views, and scientists routinely excoriate Dr. Watson when his name surfaces on social media.

Eric Lander, the director of the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, elicited an outcry last spring with a toast he made to Dr. Watson’s involvement in the early days of the Human Genome Project. Dr. Lander quickly apologized.

“I reject his views as despicable” Dr. Lander wrote to Broad scientists. “They have no place in science, which must welcome everyone. I was wrong to toast, and I’m sorry.”

And yet, offered the chance recently to recast a tarnished legacy, Dr. Watson has chosen to reaffirm it, this time on camera. In a new documentary, “American Masters: Decoding Watson” to be broadcast on PBS on Wednesday night, he is asked whether his views about the relationship between race and intelligence have changed.

“No” Dr. Watson said. “Not at all. I would like for them to have changed, that there be new knowledge that says that your nurture is much more important than nature. But I haven’t seen any knowledge. And there’s a difference on the average between blacks and whites on I.Q. tests. I would say the difference is, it’s genetic.”

Dr. Watson adds that he takes no pleasure in “the difference between blacks and whites” and wishes it didn’t exist. “It’s awful, just like it’s awful for schizophrenics” he says. (Doctors diagnosed schizophrenia in his son Rufus when he was in his teens.) Dr. Watson continues, “If the difference exists, we have to ask ourselves, how can we try and make it better?”

Dr. Watson’s remarks may well ignite another firestorm of criticism. At the very least, they will pose a challenge for historians when they take the measure of the man: How should such fundamentally unsound views be weighed against his extraordinary scientific contributions?

In response to questions from The Times, Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said that most experts on intelligence “consider any blackwhite differences in I.Q. testing to arise primarily from environmental, not genetic, differences.” Dr. Collins said he was unaware of any credible research on which Dr. Watson’s “profoundly unfortunate” statement would be based.

“It is disappointing that someone who made such groundbreaking contributions to science” Dr. Collins added, “is perpetuating such scientifically unsupported and hurtful beliefs.”

Dr. Watson is unable to respond, according to family members. He made his latest remarks last June, during the last of six interviews with Mark Mannucci, the film’s producer and director.

But in October Dr. Watson was hospitalized after a car accident, and he has not been able to leave medical care. Some scientists said that Dr. Watson’s recent remarks are noteworthy less because they are his than because they signify misconceptions that may be on the rise, even among scientists, as ingrained racial biases collide with powerful advances in genetics that are enabling researchers to better explore the genetic underpinnings of behavior and cognition.

“It’s not an old story of an old guy with old views” said Andrea Morris, the director of career development at Rockefeller University, who served as a scientific consultant for the film. Dr. Morris said that, as an African- American scientist, “I would like to think that he has the minority view on who can do science and what a scientist should look like. But to me, it feels very current.”

David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard, has argued that new techniques for studying DNA show that some human populations were geographically separated for long enough that they could plausibly have evolved average genetic differences in cognition and behavior.

But in his recent book, “Who We Are and How We Got Here” he explicitly repudiates Dr. Watson’s presumption that such differences would “correspond to longstanding popular stereotypes” as “essentially guaranteed to be wrong.”

Even Robert Plomin, a prominent behavioral geneticist who argues that nature decisively trumps nurture when it comes to individuals, rejects speculation about average racial differences.

“There are powerful methods for studying the genetic and environmental origins of individual differences, but not for studying the causes of average differences between groups” Dr. Plomin he writes in an afterword to be published this spring in the paperback edition of his book “Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are.”

SOURCE