Blake and wmfellows, both of you need to tone it down.
True. There are also tall men and short men, and tall women and short women. Is there a difference in average height between the group “men” and the group “women”?
The author of the article is an ev psych guy, not a geneticist. Ev psych as a field takes a very shrewd approach to academic survival. Actually studying the human brain and teasing out its functions and effects on human behavior is incredibly difficult and tedious. Not sexy at all. On the other hand, if you make a series of philosophical generalizations based on statistical survey data, controversial generalizations in particular, you get publishing contracts and coverage in “serious” magazines. Sell the sizzle, not the steak. Something big is just around the corner. Watch this space!
Bruce Lahn, the University of Chicago geneticist you mentioned above, wrote a similar article recently in Nature, suggesting that people needed to learn to embrace genetic diversity. He basically addressed the various ideological responses there.
In recent decades, ‘biological egalitarianism’ − the view that human groups have no, or very few, meaningful genetically based biological differences − has emerged as the dominant moral position say Lahn and Ebenstein. The authors argue that this position is dangerous. Instead, they urge the science community to embrace genetic diversity, including at the group level, as one of humanity’s chief assets.
http://network.nature.com/groups/naturenewsandopinion/forum/topics/5623
Heck, if I was genetically assembling my child, I’d go shopping for good genes wherever I could find them - screw this “race” crap.
I suspect that what will be found out regarding cognitive heritability, is that different people have different capabilities cognitively.
The linear notion of ‘smarter’ is kind of facile. Some people have better short term memories, others have better long-term memories. Some people can see better and thus more easily absorb what they read. Some people hear better, and better absorb what they are told. Some people feel more intensely. And likely there are some factors of genetic heritability that determine these traits.
I imagine the end result will be far more complex than simply. ‘X race superior, Y race inferior’, but I don’t doubt that there will be a lot more thought given the idea of genetically determined traits.
No doubt, like Global Warming, Science won’t be much of a factor as political religion will trump rationality in most cases.
You mean like finding the best Father for your children so that they will inherit his superior genetic make-up? ;p
I’m assuming my own genetic makup is just fine, though it could use a number of patches to replace certain flaws. I’m not exactly in terror of the “crisis” this kind of selective engineering might create.
In fact, it’s not clear to me exactly what kind of “crisis” the OP and the author of the quoted article is fretting about.
Try harder to be funny - it takes practice.
From where I’m sitting, I nailed it. 
*though it could use a number of patches to replace certain flaws. I’m not exactly in terror of the “crisis” this kind of selective engineering might create.
In fact, it’s not clear to me exactly what kind of “crisis” the OP and the author of the quoted article is fretting about.
*
Gene therapies to address flaws would be great.
In terms of the ‘crisis’, I think there has been a lot of effort put into promoting biological egalitarianism (see statements by the American Sociological Association and the American Anthropological Association) which has largely been political. So it would be a crisis for those who hold positions due to political reasons.
Their concerns are probably mislaid as group differences are statistical in nature and do not imply anything about particular individuals. Rather than rely on the scientifically unsupported claim that we are all equal, it would be better to emphasize that we all have inalienable human rights regardless of our abilities or genetic makeup.
Which is precisely not Dr Lahn’s job. His job is to find the genetic evidence in support of these “group differences”. He already failed once. Now he’s trying to win by persuasion the argument he couldn’t win on the basis of facts. His job is to find the facts. Not to warn “society” of the “dangers” it faces if it doesn’t accept his unsupported claim.
His is a nakedly manipulative political argument, which fails, because scientists as a rule are very poor politicians. Not that Lahn is any great shakes as a scientist either. When scientists have the facts, they bring them. When they are angling for funding, fame, social status, they talk about big discoveries that are just around the corner but haven’t arrived yet. When they arrive, call us. Til then, back to the lab to do your job.
One thing that’s interesting is that the only controversy people can imagine is whether or not people will try to show how rich people are superior to poor people or that one race is superior to another.
What about say in India if they found out that an untouchable clan was related to a Brahmin clan? Wouldn’t that throw up controversy regarding the Hindu caste system?
*His job is to find the genetic evidence in support of these “group differences”. He already failed once. Now he’s trying to win by persuasion the argument he couldn’t win on the basis of facts. His job is to find the facts. Not to warn “society” of the “dangers” it faces if it doesn’t accept his unsupported claim.
*
His job isn’t to find evidence of group differences. But the fact that his research identified population differences in two genes involved in brain development it created controversy. Because of that controversy he moved on to other projects that weren’t so heated.
Note that Spencer Wells, head of the National Geo Adventure: Genographic Project, looking at evolutionary reasons for physical differences specifically avoided studying the brain. The reason for that is political - to avoid breaking any taboos.
Another example is the Harpending, Henry & Cochran hypothesis of Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence. Steven Pinker has pointed out that is subject to a relatively simple test, but years later it hasn’t happened.
That is probably why Lahn is now suggesting a better moral framework is needed.
No.
He didn’t “move on”. He stopped pursuing a clearly unfruitful line of research. He made claims his evidence could in no way support, and now he’s playing the martyr to political correctness.
Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by simple incompetence.
He didn’t “move on”. He stopped pursuing a clearly unfruitful line of research. He made claims his evidence could in no way support, and now he’s playing the martyr to political correctness.
Well, then you would be calling him a liar.
Unfruitful? You don’t think that identifying the genes involved in cognition is something worth investigating? Why do you think Spencer Wells was prepared to investigate physical differences in 100,000 indigenous people but not even look at the brain? If that isn’t a case of political correctness & fear of getting his funding cut (the project is $40 million) I don’t know what is.
Even at this early stage there are signs of local cognitive changes. March 2007 article from Plos Biology, A Map of Recent Positive Selection in the Human Genome:
*Recent articles have proposed that genes involved in brain development and function may have been important targets of selection in recent human evolution [8,9]. While we do not find evidence for selection in the two genes reported in those studies (MCPH1 and ASPM), we do find signals in two other microcephaly genes, namely, CDK5RAP2 in Yoruba, and CENPJ in Europeans and East Asians [46]. Though there is not an overall enrichment for neurological genes in our gene ontology analysis, several other important brain genes also have signals of selection, including the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter GABRA4, an Alzheimer’s susceptibility gene PSEN1, and SYT1 in Yoruba; the serotonin transporter SLC6A4 in Europeans and East Asians; and the dystrophin binding gene SNTG1 in all populations.
*
June 2007 article from Plos Genetics, Localizing Recent Adaptive Evolution in the Human Genome:
*Several genes with functional roles in the development and function of the nervous system show very strong evidence (CLR p < 10−5) for a recent selective sweep. For example, SV2B, a gene encoding a synaptic vesicle protein with highest expression during brain development [36], exhibits strong evidence for a selective sweep in the African-American sample. Likewise, the protein encoded by DAB1 plays a developmental role in the layering of neurons in the cerebral cortex and cerebellum [37], and exhibits strong evidence for a selective sweep in the Asian sample. Other nervous system genes with strong evidence for a selective sweep include two candidate genes for Alzheimer disease (APPBP2 and APBA2) that bind the amyloid-beta precursor protein, two genes (SKP1A and PCDH15) with a role in sensory development, and several others with various roles in nervous system development and function (PHACTR1, ALG10, PREP, GPM6A, and DGKI).
*
As the price to sequence a genome is dropping at an exponential rate there will be more information & it will certainly be a fruitful area of research.
It’s already obvious that genes control who we are, that “race” is not a very defined grouping, and that the whole topic is rather sensitive.
I did not find the OP linked article to be much more concrete than “Watch out for what’s coming.” OK…thanks for the heads up.
What will come is this: more solid elaboration of the specific genes which control specific phenotypic maximum potentials. When those associations are clarified, controversy will erupt around whether or not to look for how frequently those genes appear within any particular group–however one defines a particular population.
If the candidate gene codes for abnormal hemoglobin protective for malaria, and is found more frequently in the group characterized as “self-described black” there will be only a collective yawn. If the candidate gene codes for intelligence or athletic ability or similar trait needed for success, and is distributed differently among (self-described) blacks, asians, whites or whatever, the debate will simply shift around as it always does…“Those aren’t good groupings; We can’t quantify intelligence; There are many genes for athletic ability and you are only looking at one…” etc etc"
What will shift, inevitably, is the notion that we are somehow all born equal, and that only unequal opportunity separates the successful from the unsuccessful. And it will be easy–if unpopular–to quantitate differences in gene frequencies among many populations, whether race-based, nation-based, sex-based or any other cohort one chooses to compare.
We are, primarily, our genes.
Yes.
No one is discouraging Lahn from doing research into the roles that genes play in determining the composition of brain cells and their functions. It was the attempt to link this to “racial groups”, an attempt that baldly failed for Lahn, that’s controversial.
The problem with doing research into genes and the roles they play in the composition of brain cells and their function, is that this research is, well, hard.
*It was the attempt to link this to “racial groups”, an attempt that baldly failed for Lahn, that’s controversial.
*
The idea that gene alleles show up in different frequencies across groups isn’t that controversial is it? He was simply reporting what he found. The fact that the particular genes weren’t linked to cognitive differences doesn’t mean that others won’t be. What seems to be true (from preliminary studies) is that the gene variants that were under strong selection (reached fixation) over the last 10k years are different in different clusters.
Of course, if fully developed genetic engineering, like in the film Gattaca, is ever perfected (which, of course, might never happen), eugenics in the selective-breeding sense will be obsolete. Don’t want to pass on your hereditary diseases to your kids? Fine, no need to get a vasectomy and look for a sperm donor, we’ll just tailor their DNA; they’ll still be your kids genetically, more or less, just with a few modifications. And, of course, if there is such thing as hereditary racial psychometric differentials, that won’t matter either; we can give you kids that combine a high IQ with any color/physiognomy you like.
Belowjob summarizes the field so well that there’s no need to even bother with my previous thread on the subject. The entire field is a joke and the OP’s article from The Economist is even more of a joke. Take this priceless line, for instance:
Really? Every human trait? Preference for grape-flavored cream soda? Attachment to Star Trek: The Next Generation? Ability to perform integration by trigonometric substitution? Everyone one of these comes from my DNA? Odd, especially since neither of my parents has any of these traits, nor do any of my ancestors as far as I know.
What makes this article even stranger is that Miller actually admits what most people in the field won’t talk about: the experimental evidence that proves it all wrong.
Damn straight. Of course there are escape clauses that allow desperate people (like Miller) to go on believing that our genes control everything, no matter what the actual genetic tests say. Most people, however, will eventually confront reality. All the nonsense that these people have been talking for the past 35 years about the mate selection module and the religion module and the food gathering module and the social behavior module and the ethics module and the cheater punishment module and all the rest is just nonsense. Our genes have no effect whatsoever on our actions, tastes, preferences, or beliefs.
Exactly so, and well-said; I didn’t see the film but am agreeing with the general principle you state.
There is already wide acceptance that personality traits, physical appearance and mental/physical abilities are all essentially inherited. Right now the only way to get those electively is to choose the right parent, and of course sperm and ovum banks keep careful profiles of donors so that those traits can be chosen for.
When we can elaborate the specific genes, there will indeed be followup efforts to get just those genes while leaving the the rest of the gene pool alone. But that’s fairly far off, I think, and in the interim what will happen is that we will all just come to accept that genes are the primary determinant of who we are and what we can become. It’s not fair, but then nature is not fair.