One of the most fascinating facts about humans is that our brain is the most complex object we know of in our universe. Literally, between of all the stars, galaxies, geological systems, life forms, machines or complex electronic networks our brain is at the very top of complexity and still relatively unknown. It contains billions of cells connected in trillions of ways yet it is built from a very short set of genetic instructions, our entire genome can be compressed to a few megabytes and somehow this creates this incredibly complex organ weighing approximately 1.3 Kgs. (+/- .1)

It is no wonder the brain is a hot area of science, research and debate that drives scientists to ask and seek answers to questions like;

• How does this relatively small genetic code build this complex organ?
• What exactly is it about this organ that separates us from others in our species?
• Why are some people so far ahead of the average?
• What makes a genius types that only come around every 100 years or so, and is this coming around in shorter intervals?
• What makes a Nobel Prize laureate?
• What makes your brain different than mine?

The difference that most people are interested in is “intelligence”. It seems to be what separates us from the rest of life, it is why we go to school and try to get smarter so we can make better decisions and do more things and it seems that scientists are revealing that intelligence is, at least in part is genetic. It seems we are not a blank slate and that your born with it no matter where you live or who you live with, that parenting and schooling won’t make much of a difference and that your IQ and standardized tests are excellent predictors of many life outcomes. Being heritable it also becomes evident that evolution is likely at work selecting for this trait making us more fit for our Information Age.

It should be obvious that with the rapid advancement in science and technology and even more relevant that there is a lot of investment, interest, research and really smart scientists paid good money to answer these questions that it is inevitable that we will figure out intelligence and start selecting and adjusting for more of it.

Since the sequencing of the first humans genomes in 2001 we now know that our DNA is the total code that makes all life on earth and that it has revealed the difference between you and I is only a few million letters. It doesn’t sound like much and I am quite surprised it isn’t already completely figured out but I guess that is a testament to the complexity of life. The Human Connectome Project scientists are now busy working on a complete map of the human brain to better understand how it functions and geneticists are busy identifying the genes responsible for how it develops. With knowledge of the genes responsible the opportunities for eugenics become a reality once again.

Eugenics was practiced in the United States long before Nazi Germany in the late 19th century spurred from ideas from men like Francis Galton. In the Stefan Molyneux interview with Nicolas Wade [Nicholas Wade Genetics, Race and Human History _ Nicholas Wade and Stefan Molyneux] Wade distinguishes between “positive and negative eugenics” as the father of eugenics Galton 1883 tried convincing the leaders of the day to practice positive eugenics but for the rich and powerful to start breeding within was agreed it wouldn’t work because the genes of interest are for more complex than breeding desired traits in dogs or domestic animals. The leftist academics in Britain and United States changed the idea from positive to apply negative eugenics which is much easier to sterilize people with defects, diseases or bad genes than to do selective breeding. This spread to Harvard, Stanford and Michigan and eventually led to the American Eugenics Program.

We already select (positive eugenics) by prenatal screening of the pregnant women for many of the genetic disorders like Down Syndrome which is well understood to be related to chromosome 21. The average Down Syndrome adult has an IQ of 50 and a much shorter life span. One of the purposes of the screening is to provide the women the option to abort or to prepare to raise a child with serious mental disabilities. Prenatal screening is regularly performed in detecting problems with the health of the zygote, embryo, or fetus as early in gestation as practicable to change the outcome of the individual.

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a another form of selection we perform on a huge scale. IVF is the process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm outside the body, in vitro (“in glass”). The fertilised egg (zygote) undergoes embryo culture for 2–6 days, and is then transferred to the same or another woman’s uterus, with the intention of establishing a successful pregnancy. Some countries banned or otherwise regulate the availability of IVF treatment, giving rise to fertility tourism. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_fertilisation>

• The first successful birth of a child after IVF treatment, Louise Brown, occurred in 1978.
• In 2012 it was estimated that five million children had been born worldwide using IVF and other assisted reproduction techniques.
• In 2006 Canadian clinics claimed a live birth rate of 27%.
• Birth rates increase in younger women up to 35%.
• It is common to remove between ten and thirty eggs. The retrieval procedure usually takes between 20 and 40 minutes.
• An oocyte selection may be performed prior to fertilisation to select eggs with optimal chances of successful pregnancy.
• Laboratories have developed grading methods to judge ovocyte and embryo quality. In order to optimise pregnancy rates, there is significant evidence that a morphological scoring system is the best strategy for the selection of embryos.
• Israel has the highest rate of IVF in the world, with 1657 procedures performed per million people per year.

Steven Hsu claims there are currently hundreds of thousands approaching a million IVF cycles leading to a birth taking place every year around the globe and this Scientist is on the hunt for Intelligent People to study their brains and determine the genetic makeup that created them. More and more scientists are being funded to find the secrets to intelligence as we prepare to take our species to the next level.

This race-intelligence discussion has a long history but I will pick up the story with Charles Murray and the controversial book The Bell Curve (1994) written with Richard Herrnstein. In it they argue that intelligence or “g” is a better predictor of many individual outcomes including income, job performance, pregnancy out of wedlock, and crime than parental or education level, and that social welfare programs and education efforts to improve social outcomes for the disadvantaged are largely wasted.

In the April 2007 issue of Commentary magazine, Murray wrote on the disproportionate representation of Jews in the ranks of outstanding achievers and says that one of the reasons is that they “have been found to have an unusually high mean intelligence as measured by IQ tests since the first Jewish samples were tested.”
From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_(political_scientist)>

 

The Bell Curve

Intelligence Quotient (IQ): The median raw score of the norming sample is defined as IQ 100 and scores each standard deviation (SD) up or down are defined as 15 IQ points greater or less, although this was not always so historically. By this definition, approximately two-thirds of the population scores are between IQ 85 and IQ 115. About 2.5 percent of the population scores above 130, and 2.5 percent below 70 (considered retarded). The physical brain has several neurophysiological factors have been correlated with intelligence in humans, including the ratio of brain weight to body weight and the size, shape, and activity level of different parts of the brain. Specific features that may affect IQ include the size and shape of the frontal lobes, the amount of blood and chemical activity in the frontal lobes, the total amount of gray matter in the brain, the overall thickness of the cortex, and the glucose metabolic rate. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient>

 

IQ & Brain Size
A number of studies have reported a moderate statistical correlation between differences in IQ and brain size between individuals in the same group. And some scholars have reported differences in average brain sizes between Africans, Europeans, and Asians. J. P. Rushton has argued that Africans on average have smaller brain cases and brains than Europeans, that Europeans have smaller brains than East Asians, and that this is evidence that the gap is biological in nature. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence>

 

IQ & Wealth
Psychologist Richard Lynn and political scientist Tatu Vanhanen wrote the 2002 book IQ and the Wealth of Nations. The authors argue that differences in national income (in the form of per capita gross domestic product) are correlated with differences in the average national intelligence quotient (IQ). From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations>

 

IQ & Race
The majority of anthropologists today consider race to be a sociopolitical phenomenon rather than a biological one, Sternberg, Grigorenko & Kidd (2005) state, “Race is a socially constructed concept, not a biological one. Rushton & Jensen (2005) wrote that, in the United States, self-identified blacks and whites have been the subjects of the greatest number of studies. They stated that the black-white IQ difference is about 15 to 18 points or 1 to 1.1 standard deviations (SDs). East Asians have tended to score relatively higher on visuospatial subtests with lower scores in verbal subtests while Ashkenazi Jews score higher in verbal subtests with lower scores in visuospatial subtests. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence>

 

IQ & Region
In the late 1970s, Lynn wrote that he found that Northeast Asians have a higher average intelligence quotient (IQ) than Europeans and Europeans have a higher average IQ than Sub-Saharan Africans. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lynn>

Hsu describes people with IQ of 130 are in the top few percent of the human population (+2 SD above), people with IQ of 145 are 1 in 1000 (+3 SD above), and the people they are looking for are people with IQ of 160 which are 1 in 30,000 (+4 SD above). He talks about a couple main hypothesis to explain this difference, one being that IQ’s 130 and above are about the same, all are smart and could invent a new physics paradigm, or create a new FaceBook or Google kind of smart. The hypothesis claims you can do pretty much anything with right guidance and resources. The another hypothesis is IQ matters, bigger brains makes a difference and cites a 50’s study (Roe) that tested the brains of 64 eminent scientists and found they were all +3-4 Standard Deviations above the average PhD’s.

Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics [https://isgp-studies.com/]

It may be that this is our map of intelligence? Like religion, income, energy use, happiness, and many other social or economic measures we can divide up our world and show the our differences and how it relates to populations. It is very interesting that, if the above map is true that it tracks the evolutionary path of humans out of Africa in interesting ways. One way is Richard Lynn’s Cold Winter Theory that we evolved our intelligence to adapt to colder climates.

A good friend of mine from Finland, and me from Canada have discussed how dealing with winters makes you think much more, it makes you prepare and plan more than our warm climate peoples otherwise you will die. We didn’t survive these cold regions by being a dummies, we had to think more, and do more preparing and planning, as well as superior building skills to protect against the elements and survive winters so to the Fin and I this makes perfect sense.

Another interesting aspect of the IQ World Map is the higher on average IQ for East Asians as other research has shown, and this map showing China as the higher IQ region. This can be highly debated for those of us that live in China as we see the opposite in reality. It has been said that the IQ test only tests for the outcome of how well you will do in school and does not test the multiple intelligences that humans possess. This makes sense as the Chinese sacrifice their children’s life to some degree by “education cramming” to try to get an edge up in this highly competitive country. It’s all about the “gaokao” the National Higher Education Examination that focuses students to memorize for 16 hours a day for 18 years to try get a good score on this major test as it seems to be the main measure in this society. It could be that their education system prepares them to do well on tests but lack on many other intelligence abilities described below.

[The National Higher Education Entrance Examination commonly known as Gaokao (高考, “Higher Education Exam”, Pinyin gāo kǎo, lit. “High exam”), is an academic examination held annually in the People’s Republic of China. This examination is a prerequisite for entrance into almost all higher education institutions at the undergraduate level. It is usually taken by students in their last year of senior high school, although there has been no age restriction since 2001. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Higher_Education_Entrance_Examination>]

Organizations and institutions have always sought out and highly compensated really smart people to help advance their cause. Nobody is looking for a bunch of average people to build an organization so it’s no wonder that we are trying to identify and recruit the best of the best. One example is Steven Hsu speaking at Google in 2011 discussing intelligence and pitching the group that they are looking for 2000 (+4SD) people to participate in a cognitive ability study in partnership with China’s BGI. In this talk he describes a bit about the project and claims they expect to know within a decade the genetic makeup of intelligence.

While the scientists argue about the facts on the nature / nurture debate regarding intelligence and life outcomes not to mention all the ethical issues related to gene editing, positive eugenics the world is moving forward at a rapid pace. Sequencing factories like BGI China are sure to make sequencing cheaper and plan to sequence everything they can according to their Chairman.

BGI in China may be the world’s largest genetics laboratory but that is only because of the volume of machines, that doesn’t say anything about the quality of the facility, skill of the people, integrity of the processing and responsibility with the knowledge. In the documentary [DNA Dreams _ Bio-Science In China _ Full Documentary] BGI Dr. Yang make statements like the above and “We are going to sequence every living thing on earth” from a man trained on mapping and cloning human genes should concern us all.

In that same documentary Demark Geneticist Lars Bolund touring BGI looks at a cloned pig and comments that in Denmark they usually do about 12 embryo transfers in one year then asks the Chinese embryologist how many they do and she replies “we do 3 every day” and laughs while he holds his head down.

In the panel discussion about whether we can engineer intelligence [Steven Pinker, Stephen Hsu and Dalton Conley Can Genius Be Genetically Engineered] Pinker comments people won’t want for a few logical reasons and then Hsu remarks about his work in China there is no resistance at all, basically rushing to do it.

There is no doubt in my mind that scientists will figure out the genetic makeup of intelligence, and no doubt that some people or whole populations will edit and or select for those traits but a lot remains to be said if “g” is the best measure? It certainly isn’t the only measure of intelligence as American developmental psychologist Howard Gardner outline in his theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner proposed 8 intelligences in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences and since then expanded over the years to the following 11;
a. Musical
b. Spatial
c. Linguistic
d. Mathematical
e. Kinesthetic
f. Interpersonal
g. Intrapersonal
h. Naturalistic
i. Existential
j. Moral
k. Pedagogical

Defining intelligence is another matter and the center of much of the debate. The Wikipedia Page [<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence>] on intelligence reports “Intelligence has been defined in many different ways to include the capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, and problem solving. It can be more generally described as the ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.”

And from “Mainstream Science on Intelligence” (1994), an op-ed statement in the Wall Street Journal signed by fifty-two researchers (out of 131 total invited to sign): A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—”catching on,” “making sense” of things, or “figuring out” what to do.

And from “Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns” (1995), a report published by the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association: Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person’s intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of “intelligence” are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions, and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen, somewhat different, definitions.

In a Stefan Molyneux’s interview Linda Gottfredson try’s to set the context for defining intelligence saying the ability, or proficiency for learning, reasoning, abstract thinking, cognitive problem solving is too general. Claims the ability to process complex information, and the mental manipulation of complex information is really what the intelligence tests get at in measuring IQ. That being said it sounds like a very specific measurement that is then subject to who, what, why, where and when questions to quantify the data to infer some meaning.

Using any of the above highlighted definitions China becomes a puzzling case if they are ranked the highest in IQ like a lot of these scientists claim? Those of us that have lived here for more than a decade all agree that can’t be, or at least that measure is very narrow and limited to simply test taking which we agree they do well on not from intelligence but from thousands of hours of memorization and education cramming as mentioned above.

I have been in China 15 years, speak the language and have friends in manufacturing, education and engineering positions who all here a decade or more experience and observe a much different reality. We all agree they are very weak on critical thinking and problem solving and have standard jokes like “two Wang’s don’t make it right.”

Common sense is not very common and there can’t be much doubt about their lack of innovation being the copy kings of the world. They are very weak with interpersonal and intrapersonal skills and great complicating almost everything reducing efficiency and effectiveness. Driving is another example and anyone who has traveled here knows is very dangerous and chaotic not resembling a high IQ society. China is truly one of the most inefficient societies I and many others claim they have experienced similar to what you find in third world and developing nations.

On top of this why they have not been able to create many new technologies or brand products, why is their environment seriously polluted and why they are still considered a developing country after 40 years past the Cultural Revolution and the opening up with Deng Xiaoping.

Japan was able go from a completely devastated war torn country with few men and no resources to a world super power surpassing the USA in only 20 years producing some of the best electronics, motorcycles, cars and many other quality goods and China has had twice the time, 10 times the resources and you tell me how many Chinese products you can name let alone how many you have in your house?

• How can they both be High IQ countries with completely different outcomes?
• Why did the Japanese and South Korean’s learn, change and adapt and the Chinese not?

Based many of our observations and experiences living in China there is some serious flaws in the gathering or interpreting of these data leading many of us to be ever more convinced that Gardner has it right, that IQ is one measure but humans have multiple intelligences and that each one of us should seek out our areas of intelligence and direct it in a positive manner.

However you define intelligence, it is behind the scenes in discovering revolutionary theories, solving deep mathematical problems, building quantum computers or directing premier institutions to leading a country there is a wide variety of skills and people to make things happen. We are the “Intelligence Ape” living in the “Intelligence Age” shaping a society that is getting ever more complex and requiring the collaboration of all of us to solve our global issues in our ever shrinking planet. We may need to increase our cognitive abilities, build sophisticated AI technology to help us process more information and simultaneously we will need to further develop our interpersonal and intrapersonal, existential and moral skills to get along and create a better world for our children.

 

YouTube Video Resources:

MSNBC has partnered with the 92Y to celebrate the 7 Days of Genius for a series of inspiring conversations with thought-leaders focused on the transformative power of genius to change the world for the better. The series hosted an excellent panel discussion on this subject of eugenics, gene editing for improving/enhancing people. [Steven Pinker, Stephen Hsu and Dalton Conley Can Genius Be Genetically Engineered]

 

Charles Murray:
[Charles Murray Fascinating Discussion about The Bell Curve, Race and Intelligence]
[Charles Murray Coming Apart The Class Divide in America Today]
[Sam Harris _ Charles Murray on Human Intelligence (The Bell Curve)]

 

Steven Hsu:
[Genetics and Intelligence-GoogleTalk with Steven Hsu]
[Steve Hsu talk on the architecture of intelligence]
[Genius Babies – Steve Hsu on NPR’s On Point]

 

Stefan Molyneux:
Excellent conversation with Stefan on the Rubin Report [Stefan Molyneux on Race and IQ (Pt. 2)]
Stefan has dove deep into this subject and interviewed many leading scientists to better understand the facts and develop a deeper understanding on how this applies to society, inequality, policies, etc. Below are some of the more controversial authors on this subject.

 

[Stefan Molyneux Race, Genetics and Intelligence _ Helmuth Nyborg]
[Stefan Molyneux Race, Evolution and Intelligence _ Linda Gottfredson]
[Stefan Molyneux Race, Genetics and Intelligence _ Richard Lynn]
[Stefan Molyneux Race, Genetics and Human History _ Nicholas Wade]

 

John Philippe Rushton (December 3, 1943 – October 2, 2012) was a Canadian psychologist and author. He taught at the University of Western Ontario and became known to the general public during the 1980s and 1990s for research on race and intelligence, race and crime, and other apparent racial variations. His book Race, Evolution, and Behavior (1995) is about the application of r/K selection theory to humans. Rushton’s controversial work was heavily criticized by the scientific community for the questionable quality of its research, with many alleging that it was conducted under a racist agenda. From 2002 until his death, he served as the head of the Pioneer Fund, a research foundation that has been accused of being racist. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton>

[Dr. John Philippe Rushton – Race and IQ]
John Philippe Rushton makes 10 claims to demonstrate Black White IQ differences and then further claims the difference is about 80% heritable.

1. World Wide pattern of IQ scores: Data that creates the world map of IQ’s similar to that in the article.
2. The race differences are most pronounced on the more “g” loaded components of the tests:
3. The race differences are most pronounced on the heritable components of the tests: Cites twin studies and he & Jensen studies.
4. Brain size differences parallel IQ differences: Australian aboriginals have lowest IQ and lowest brain size, East Asian’s largest brains, highest IQ’s.
5. Studies of racial admixture: Cites studies of multicultural families showing children come out half way between parents.
6. Trans racial adoptions studies: Cites poor or colored children adopted by whites and raised in white home/environment but maintain race IQ.
7. Regression to the mean effects:
8. 60 other life history traits: (Such as crime rates, fertility rates, maturation rates, ……………. all which correlate very well with IQ differences.)
9. Human origins research: Cites human migration routes and the Lynn Cold Weather hypothesis.
10. Inadequacy of environmental explanations:

 

Judith Harris:
Judith Rich Harris (born February 10, 1938) is a psychology researcher and the author of The Nurture Assumption, a book criticizing the belief that parents are the most important factor in child development, and presenting evidence which contradicts that belief. From
[Is It Your Parents Or Peers That Define Your Personality _ Do Parents Matter]

 

Howard Gardner:
[Intelligence It’s Not Just IQ]
[Howard Gardner Discusses Multiple Intelligences – Blackboard BbWorld 2016 HD]
[Howard Gardner Frames of Mind – Theory of Multiple Intelligences]
[Howard Gardner Beyond Wit and Grit Rethinking the Keys to Success TEDxBeaconStreet]
Gardner’s TedTalk where he introduces his change of mind about human intelligences, once holding to a view all you need is wit and then lots of hard work (grit) to a view that we must direction for our grit to a positive outcome.

 

Robert J. Plomin, FBA (born 1948) is an American psychologist and geneticist best known for his work in twin studies and behavior genetics. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Plomin as the 71st most cited psychologist of the 20th century. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Plomin>
[Robert Plomin Behavioral Genetics]
[Robert Plomin Genetics and Intelligence]

 

Richard Lynn (born 20 February 1930) is an English psychologist and author. He is a former professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Ulster, having had the title withdrawn by the university in 2018, and assistant editor of the journal Mankind Quarterly, which has been described as a “white supremacist journal”. Lynn studies intelligence and is known for his belief in racial differences in intelligence. Lynn was educated at King’s College, Cambridge in England. He has worked as lecturer in psychology at the University of Exeter and as professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, and at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. He has written or co-written 11 books and more than 200 journal articles spanning five decades. Two of his recent books are on dysgenics and eugenics. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lynn>
[Richard Lynn – IQ and The Global Bell Curve]
[Richard Lynn “Eugenics and Dysgenics A Promise Denied”]

 

James Flynn:
The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores measured in many parts of the world over the 20th century. When intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are initially standardized using a sample of test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 and their standard deviation is set to 15 or 16 IQ points. When IQ tests are revised, they are again standardized using a new sample of test-takers, usually born more recently than the first. Again, the average result is set to 100. However, when the new test subjects take the older tests, in almost every case their average scores are significantly above 100. Test score increases have been continuous and approximately linear from the earliest years of testing to the present. For the Raven’s Progressive Matrices test, a study published in the year 2009 found that British children’s average scores rose by 14 IQ points from 1942 to 2008. Similar gains have been observed in many other countries in which IQ testing has long been widely used, including other Western European countries, Japan, and South Korea. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect>
[Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents’ _ James Flynn] TedTalk
[Intelligence and genes by James Flynn in Cambridge University]
[Human Intelligence The Flynn Effect _ James Flynn and Stefan Molyneux]

 

Dalton Clark Conley
(born 1969) is an American sociologist. He is the Henry Putnam University Professor of Sociology at Princeton University where he is also an affiliate of the Office of Population Research and the Center for Health and Wellbeing. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Conley>

[Stalkers, twins, and the case of the missing heritability _ Dalton Conley _ TEDxUNC]

Conley seems to take the nurture side in this debate and debunks 3 of the main tenants of Murray claims from his 1994 book The Bell Curve in this talk:

[Prof. Dalton Conley The Genome Factor, Environment and Educational Inequality]

 

DNA Dreams Documentary:

[DNA Dreams _ Bio-Science In China _ Full Documentary] In her film DNA Dreams, documentary maker Bregtje van der Haak gave us a view into the world of young scientists eager to unravel the mysteries of our genome. It all happens in China and on a very fast pace.

 

Russell Sage Foundation Lecture Series
Summer Institute in Social Science Genomics – June 2016
Lecture 1 – Daniel Benjamin – Using Genetic Data in Economics
Lecture 2 – Dalton Conley – Using Genetic Data in Sociology
Lecture 3 – Chris Dawes – Using Genetic Data in Political Science
Lecture 4 – James Lee – Using Genetic Data in Psychology
Lecture 6 and 7 – David Cesarini – Heritability I and II
Lecture 8 – Colter Mitchell – Genetic Data and Datasets
Lecture 9 – David Cesarini – Heritability III
Lecture 10 – Tonu Esko – Basics of Molecular Genetics I
Lecture 11 – Tonu Esko – Basics of Molecular Genetics II
Lecture 12 – Tonu Esko – Interpreting Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS)
Lecture 13 – Daniel Benjamin – Gene Discovery Power, Candidate Genes, and GWAS
Lecture 14 – Patrick Turley – Winners Curse
Lecture 15 – Patrick Turley – Stratification and LD Score Regression
Lecture 17 – Patrick Turley – Genetic Correlation and Partitioning
Lecture 18 – Jonathan Beauchamp – Mendelian Randomization
Lecture 19 – Jonathan Beauchamp – Gene Environment Interactions
Lecture 20 Kevin Thom – Structural Modeling
Lecture 21 Kevin Thom – Structural Modeling and Genomics
Lecture 22 – Mark Fontana – Code and Data for Social-Science Genomics
Lecture 23 – Daniel Benjamin and David Cesarini – The Future of Social Science Genomics

 

[Choices and Challenges 1986 Intelligence Testing, part 1 – Arthur Jensen]
[Choices and Challenges 1986 Intelligence Testing, part 2 – Arthur Jensen]
[Choices and Challenges 1986 Intelligence Testing, part 3 – Arthur Jensen]
Arthur Robert Jensen (August 24, 1923 – October 22, 2012) was an American psychologist and author. He was a professor of educational psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen was known for his work in psychometrics and differential psychology, the study of how and why individuals differ behaviorally from one another. He was a major proponent of the hereditarian position in the nature and nurture debate, the position that genetics play a significant role in behavioral traits, such as intelligence and personality. He was the author of over 400 scientific papers published in refereed journals and sat on the editorial boards of the scientific journals Intelligence and Personality and Individual Differences. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Jensen>

 

Eugenics was practiced in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany. During the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th century, eugenics was considered a method of preserving and improving the dominant groups in the population; it is now generally associated with racist and nativist elements, as the movement was to some extent a reaction to a change in emigration from Europe, rather than scientific genetics. The American eugenics movement was rooted in the biological determinist ideas of Sir Francis Galton, which originated in the 1880s. Galton studied the upper classes of Britain, and arrived at the conclusion that their social positions were due to a superior genetic makeup. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States>]

 

The g factor (also known as general intelligence, general mental ability or general intelligence factor) is a construct developed in psychometric investigations of cognitive abilities and human intelligence. It is a variable that summarizes positive correlations among different cognitive tasks, reflecting the fact that an individual’s performance on one type of cognitive task tends to be comparable to that person’s performance on other kinds of cognitive tasks. The g factor typically accounts for 40 to 50 percent of the between-individual performance differences on a given cognitive test, and composite scores (“IQ scores”) based on many tests are frequently regarded as estimates of individuals’ standing on the g factor. The terms IQ, general intelligence, general cognitive ability, general mental ability, or simply intelligence are often used interchangeably to refer to this common core shared by cognitive tests.[2] The g factor targets a particular measure of general intelligence. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)>

 

Raven’s Progressive Matrices (often referred to simply as Raven’s Matrices) or RPM is a nonverbal group test typically used in educational settings. It is usually a 60-item test used in measuring abstract reasoning and regarded as a non-verbal estimate of fluid intelligence. It is the most common and popular test administered to groups ranging from 5-year-olds to the elderly. It is made of 60 multiple choice questions, listed in order of difficulty. This format is designed to measure the test taker’s reasoning ability, the eductive (“meaning-making”) component of Spearman’s g (g is often referred to as general intelligence). The tests were originally developed by John C. Raven in 1936. In each test item, the subject is asked to identify the missing element that completes a pattern. Many patterns are presented in the form of a 6×6, 4×4, 3×3, or 2×2 matrix, giving the test its name. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices>

 

BGI (Chinese: 华大基因; pinyin: Huádà Jīyīn), known as the Beijing Genomics Institute prior to 2008, is one of the world’s genome sequencing centers, headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. Wang Jian, Yu Jun, Yang Huanming and Liu Siqi created BGI in November 1999 in Beijing, China as a non-governmental independent research institute in order to participate in the Human Genome Project as China’s representative. After the project was completed, funding dried up. So BGI moved to Hangzhou in exchange for funding from the Hangzhou Municipal Government. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Genomics_Institute>

In 2010 it was reported that BGI would receive US$1.5 billion in “collaborative funds” over the next 10 years from the China Development Bank. In 2013 BGI reported it had relationships with 17 out of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies. That year it bought Complete Genomics of Mountain View, California, a major supplier of DNA sequencing technology, for US$118 million. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Genomics_Institute>

 

Key achievements:
In 2002, BGI sequenced the rice genome which was a cover story in the journal Science.
In 2003 BGI decoded the SARS virus genome and created a kit for detection of the virus.
BGI did the genome sequencing for the deadly 2011 Germany E. coli O104:H4 outbreak in three days under open license. See full list of achievements From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Genomics_Institute>

 

Huan Ming Yang
Dr. Yang Huanming, also known as Dr. Henry Yang, is one of China’s leading genetics researchers. Yang is Chairman and co-founder of the Beijing Genomics Institute, formerly of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China. Yang’s work include the mapping and cloning of human genes, the sequencing and analysis of the human genome, human genome diversity and evolution, and the ethical, legal, and social issues related to genome research. The study of Yang and his collaborators at the Beijing Genomics Institute on the rice genome made the cover of the April 5, 2002 issue of Science magazine. Yang led a 2000 UNESCO sponsored symposium held in Hangzhou on research ethics that focused on some questionable research projects by foreign researchers in Anhui Province and on strengthening the protection of human research subjects in China. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Huanming>

 

Triple Nine Society (TNS):
TNS is an international high IQ society for adults whose score on a standardised test demonstrates an IQ at or above the 99.9th percentile of the human population. The Society recognizes scores from over 20 different tests of adult intelligence. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Nine_Society>

 

Joy Paul Guilford (March 7, 1897 – November 26, 1987) was an American psychologist best remembered for his psychometric study of human intelligence, including the distinction between convergent and divergent production. He proposed that three dimensions were necessary for accurate description: operations, content, and products. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Guilford as the 27th most cited psychologist of the 20th century. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._Guilford>

Erik Homberger Erikson (born Erik Salomonsen; 15 June 1902 – 12 May 1994) was a German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychological development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis. The Erikson life-stage virtue, in order of the eight stages in which they may be acquired, are:

 

From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Erikson>

 

Stages of Cell Development:

1. A gamete is a haploid cell that fuses with another haploid cell during fertilization (conception) in organisms that sexually reproduce.
2. A zygote is a eukaryotic cell formed by a fertilization event between two gametes. The zygote’s genome is a combination of the DNA in each gamete, and contains all of the genetic information necessary to form a new individual.
3. An embryo is an early stage of development of a multicellular diploid eukaryotic organism. In general, in organisms that reproduce sexually, an embryo develops from a zygote, the single cell resulting from the fertilization of the female egg cell by the male sperm cell. The zygote possesses half the DNA of each of its two parents.
4. A fetus is a stage in the prenatal development of viviparous organisms. In human development, a fetus is a prenatal human between the embryonic state and birth.
5. In humans prenatal development is the development of the embryo following fertilization, and continued as fetal development. By the end of the tenth week of gestational age the embryo has acquired its basic form and is referred to as a fetus.
6. Birth

One of the characteristics of successful people is their ability to make quick decisions. It has been said that “successful people make decisions easy, quick and very seldom change, and unsuccessful people take a long time to make a decision then change easily.”

Webster’s dictionary defines “decision” as the quality of being positive and firm, a decisive result! Decision comes from the Latin root “ci-dere” which literally means to cut from. It means when we decide to do something then we need to cut away all other possibilities. Remember the story of Hernan Cortes who sailed from Cuba to Mexico in 1519 with plans to conquer the Aztec empire. He succeeded in conquering the Aztecs but found many other great challenges and difficulties. Many of his crew wanted to sail back to Cuba when Cortes made the decision to burn the ships. This left them no other opportunity but to succeed in this new land which they did forming the little town called Veracruz. Maybe you have some decisions where you need to burn the ships.

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

We all know of times when we made decisions quick and with confidence and times when we were completely indecisive. If you can recall I am sure the quick and easy decisions was when you were knowledgeable and confident in the area of decision. Of course confidence is key, and confidence tends to come from competence and clarity. If you are clear about your goals, clear about who you are and have competence in a particular field then I am sure that decisions come easy, you can make them quick with confidence and no need to change.

Let’s have a look at the latest science on Decision Making:

 

The Science on Decision Making

2014 Allen Edwards Psychology Lectures at the University of Washington

[The Neuroscience of Good Decision Making, Part 2 – 2014]
Professor Randal O’Reilly shares his labs research and insights into Goal Representations and Decision Making processes of the human brain. Quote “According to “Behaviorism” we are the sum of our reward history.” and their research demonstrates the significance of two main phases of Cognitive Function.

1. The choosing of a goal (largely a decision making process)
2. And Goal Engagement, and when fixed in our brain the pursuit of the goal promotes dopamine bursts when making progress and achieving steps and dopamine dips when moving further away from the goal.

He demonstrates how these systems function with common issues I am sure we can all relate to:

1. Why is it hard to start projects? Your brain cares a lot about the costs when you’re in Goal Selection Phase, it is comparing to other things you could be doing and it is very tuned in to how much effort it was to doing that kind of project before and your brain can downplay the costs.
2. Why do I feel in or out of control? When a Goal is Engaged our brain is engaged and feel in control but when in Goal Selection and if difficult selecting the goal then everything seem impossible. [Daniel: I am going through this big time now when working on new business model . When the goal is clear and progress is being made it is all good and I am confident but when I am trying to select the next goal everything does seem impossible and low motivation and confidence.]
3. Why does science persist with confirmation bias? We just can’t help it. Our brain craves incremental progress. We have an idea, we have engaged that as a goal, we think it is true, we want it to be true, and want progress toward the thing so our brain persists.

[The Neuroscience of Good Decision Making, Part 1 – 2014]
Chantel S. Prat share her research on individual differences and the Go-NoGo pathways in our brain when it involves decision making. Other studies found that the influence of dopamine on the Go & NoGo decision making pathways was significant. That the more the Go pathway is functioning the more the person will make their decision on seeking correct answers and the more the NoGo pathway is functioning the more the person will make decisions by avoiding things that are incorrect.

An excellent lecture series to raise your awareness of how we make decisions.

 

Kahneman on Intuition in relation to Decision Making

Daniel Kahneman is an Israeli-American psychologist notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision making, as well as behavioral economics, for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (shared with Vernon L. Smith). From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman>

Kahneman studies “Systematic errors in judgment and decision making” and shows evidence that our judgments and intuition is not really as good as we like to think it is. There is some debate about how much we can trust in expert judgement and describes a couple of stories, one of a firefighter makes a call to get off a building when soon after the building explodes and the firefighter did not know why he made the call. Another example of a nurse that returns home and see her father and says we need to go to the hospital now and like the previous story she did not know exactly what it was but later learned that she saved her father from having a heart attack.

It is also mentioned that professional athletes have an incredible ability to predict where the ball or people might be two or three critical seconds from now and adjust their actions to meet the situation. Those stories and many others like it make us marvel at the human intuition.

But the data tells a different story. Kahneman claims out of some 150-180 studies on comparing people to a very simple combination of variables (a formula) that the formula wins every time with very little exceptions. That the so called experts at making judgments of picking a stock, what will happen in an election or CIA analysists can’t do any better than you and I and much worse than a simple algorithm.

To understand the difference between the professional athlete and the CIA analyst we have to understand the psychology of intuition which Kahneman explains describing the two main ways of thinking he calls System 1 and System 2:

We are all familiar with our conscious and unconscious brains but might not know how they affect our decisions. Kahneman claims there is a lot of literature that is not well-known in the business world that shows how unreliable professional judgment is because of the way these two systems function.

In an interview by author Daniel Pink, Kahneman reveals insights into our decision making with a lot of talk about how algorithms outperform expert judgment. Quote; “In about half the studies, half of the time the algorithms beat the experts and in the other half it’s a draw, there is little to no evidence that expert judgment does better than intelligently constructed formulas.”

It is a little complex to summarize his explanations of these two systems so best to hear it from the author himself so encourage you to read his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” or watch the lectures listed in the resource section below.

 

Gigerenzer on Decisions under Uncertainty

Gerd Gigerenzer is a German psychologist who has studied the use of bounded rationality and heuristics in decision making. Gigerenzer is director emeritus of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy, both in Berlin, Germany. From <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerd_Gigerenzer>

From Gigerenzer’s lecture [Gerd Gigerenzer Risk Savvy How to Make Good Decisions] Gerd shows us some science that demonstrates heuristics is often most effective with complex problems and high uncertainty.

A heuristic technique, “find” or “discover”, often called simply a heuristic, is any approach to problem solving, learning, or discovery that employs a practical method not guaranteed to be optimal or perfect, but sufficient for the immediate goals. Where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples of this method include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, guesstimate, stereotyping, profiling, or common sense. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic >

 

Dealing with Indecision:

Common Pit Falls in Decision Making:

1. An unwillingness or inability to think critically or put the problem in context.
2. An unwillingness to think ahead just not make the decision now and let things play out.
3. An unwillingness to seek and get advice from people with experience in the area of the decision.
4. An unwillingness to be real, with one self and or the situation.
5. An unwillingness to be aware of and or discount personal biases.

Pitfall #1:
Of course critical thinking is important in our fast paced, social media driven world. Your decisions should be thoughtful, considerate, encompassing other people, the environment and society as a whole. Ponder the advice given by the experts highlighted in this article, ask yourself big questions and involve other people. In that process you will gained fresh insights and have learn more about yourself and the people your decision affect.

Pitfall #2:
All too often we put the cart in front of the horse then struggle to make decisions. I has been said that decisions are easy when you have all the facts. Don’t be in a rush to make a decision, that is when most bad decisions are made like speeding in a car is when most accidents happen. Get your priorities in order and do the more important things first and Cross that bridge when you get to it.

Pitfall #3:
Seeking advice seems to be a weakness of many, like men asking for directions when they are lost. Another part of being real with yourself. If you don’t have much experience then you not going to have good intuition (Daniel Kahneman) and you won’t be able to make a good decision, take more time to better understand the big picture and or get advice from those that do.

Pitfall #4:
Some of the problem is we get ourselves in situations where we bite off more than we can chew. This often comes when we are trying to be someone that we are not or do things that we really have no business doing. This is when we need to be real with ourselves and just walk away from that situation.

Pitfall #5:
I put bias at the end because this is probably one of the biggest factors that affect people from making good decisions. Possibly unaware of their many bias and our brains quick conclusions that are not always in our best interest. To that I dedicate the following information to help get a better handle on our personal biases:

 

Bias
Another key factor in decisions is being more aware of the many biases that move you, mostly unconsciously to make decisions that are usually not moving you toward a goal. The list of biases is quite long, see the below graphic and list of [Cognitive Biases on Wikipedia.]

This YouTube video [12 Cognitive Biases Explained – How to Think Better and More Logically Removing Bias] does an excellent job at explaining the 12 more common biases. This is a great video to watch and keep bookmarked for a review once in a while to remind us of our biases. Here is their list but be sure to watch the video for a full explanation of each point.

1. Anchoring bias
2. Availability heuristic bias
3. Bandwagon effect
4. Choice supportive bias
5. Confirmation bias
6. Ostrich bias
7. Outcome bias
8. Overconfidence
9. Placebo bias
10. Survivorship bias
11. Selective perception
12. Blind spot bias

 

Jennifer Whelan
[Unconscious Bias Jennifer Whelan-All About Women 2016]

I have added Jennifer Whelan’s talk because she adds more science, two, she ties in Daniel Kahneman’s research on System 1 & System 2 into the highly relevant subject of gender in this ever growing political correct world. Jennifer asks a sexist question in the context of our sophistication, progressive world of people that like to think they are above all that racism, gender, sexist bias stuff so asks, Is it really possible to be truly egalitarian?

Understanding that our brain loves to put things in categories, and once we have a category our brain finds all the patterns that fit that category, then our confirmation bias kicks in to verify those patterns making judgments and decisions that are likely wrong and not helpful for you.

An amusing illustration in the above two screen shots with the fist slide being the actual distribution of the heights between men and women, men on average being a little taller with many in-between, but when you ask people to intuitively draw the distribution it comes out like the below slide which indicates “all women are shorter than all men”. It is funny how we stereotype and this is what our stereotype goggles (System 2) do, its unconscious and crosses all leadership stereotypes, and other gender related factors.

We don’t see people as they are, we see people as we are. We see them through our filters, the patterns in our brain. Quote; “Stereotypes drive our unconscious perceptions of warmth and competence and these dimensions are gendered.”

A truly informative and educational talk directly related to decision making. I hope you take the time to listen to how and why we unconsciously form gender biases and find out if you are a sexist.

 

A Decision Making Process:

Understanding the difference between conscious (System 2) and unconscious (System 1) modes, the many biases that influence and make quick conclusions, reflect on our boxes and categories and we should be in a better position to make better decisions.

If some critical thinking is necessary then the following questions should help get a broader perspective especially if you’re dealing with a problem or decision in an area you have no expertise so don’t trust your intuition or a high uncertainty as described above.

1. Does this decision bring you closer or further away from your goal? Yes or no
2. What is your gut feeling, listen to that inner voice?  Yes or no
3. Weight the pro’s and con’s, create a 2 column chart and list as many positives and negatives you can simply to gain a broader perspective, Gerd calls it old school but still very powerful depending on the decision.
4. Hindsight is always 20/20. Reflect back and think about how similar situations and how they worked. Positive or Negative?
5. Look at the circumstances surrounding this decision:
   a. Are doors open or closed? Yes or no
   b. Do I have the emotions (ability to manage) to deal with this? Yes or no
6. Look for guidance, talk to some experts on the subject and be real, be honest and be humble as there is nothing wrong with not be sure what to do and a lot wrong with making stupid mistakes.
7. Re-watch the resources if you haven’t already internalized the concepts and apply them on a regular bases.
8. Don’t be afraid to just not make the decision and wait some time, getting other more important tasks done first.

I have used this many times before and found it to be very helpful for making decisions but what became more helpful was the point of going through a process, having questions to engage critical thinking, pondering my biases and through the process and the more I made decision the better I got.

 

Conclusion:

Having gone through being a regular guy making mostly bad decisions not based on any solid evidence or expertise, being driven more from biases because of being totally unaware of to a highly effective decision maker able to make decisions quickly and easily it seems those who have a well formed world view and confidence in themselves as a human, comfortable in their own skin and a good sense of reality with awareness of their personal biases make the best decisions effortlessly and accurately.

What made the most difference in my life was having clear goals, a clear mission for direction and having my “why’s” sorted out. From that I was able to prioritize the important stuff so only made decision when I crossed those bridges and then it was easy, quick and no need to change.

I would like to conclude with some comments from Kahneman near the end of the interview by Daniel Pink [Daniel Kahneman Wharton People Analytics Conference 2016]

“There is so much random activity in this world that you have to be prepared for luck. One thing the luck message brings is to be more compassionate of others failures in people. The constant thing we do of trying to figure out what people have done wrong, because things have gone wrong, is something we do far too much of. Over explain and over blame.”

 

Resources:

2014 Allen Edwards Psychology Lectures at the University of Washington

[The Neuroscience of Good Decision Making, Part 1 – 2014]
[The Neuroscience of Good Decision Making, Part 2 – 2014]

 

Daniel Kahneman


[Daniel Kahneman – Thinking, Fast and Slow _ Talks at Google] 2011
[Daniel Kahneman Explorations of the Mind Intuition] 2007
[Daniel Kahneman Wharton People Analytics Conference 2016] 2016
[Daniel Kahneman – The Ingredients for Expert Intuition – Insights for Entrepreneurs – Amazon]

 

Gerd Gigerenzer


[How do smart people make smart decisions _ Gerd Gigerenzer _ TEDxNorrköping]
[Gerd Gigerenzer Risk Savvy How to Make Good Decisions]

 

Jennifer Whelan

[Unconscious Bias Jennifer Whelan-All About Women 2016]
Excellent talk and bang on for the current climate of Politically Correct non-sense embracing the world. Find out if you are a “Sexist”.

 

University of Edinburgh School of Philosophy

MOOC: Intellectual Humility: Theory
About the Course
Intellectual humility is important. Often when faced with difficult questions people are prone to dismiss and marginalize dissent. Political and moral disagreements can be incredibly polarizing, and sometimes even dangerous. And whether it’s Christian fundamentalism, Islamic extremism, or militant atheism, religious dialogue remains tinted by a terrifying and dehumanizing arrogance, dogma, and ignorance. But what is intellectual humility, anyway? And how do we develop such a virtue? And why do people seem so drawn toward intellectual arrogance? These are big, important questions! And thankfully, over the past several years, a growing number of psychologists, philosophers, theologians, and educationalists have been wrestling with these questions and are now suggesting some big, important answers. From <https://www.ed.ac.uk/ppls/philosophy/research/impact-and-outreach/free-online-courses/intellectual-humility>

 

And of course the Wikipedia Page has an excellent overview which makes a good initial study.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision-making