I think that their initial phase was not that ambitious. They were expected to only find a few of these alelles. They expect the total number to be in the hundreds of genes involve in various aspects of IQ. Once they have enough members sequenced along with their biometric data, they can comb the data looking at specific mental traits and find genes involved in these traits. As you said, we need to wait a few years.

I didn't know this type of work was going on. Interesting. It does look like smoking and antisocial behavior are heritable and genetic (I'm guessing both are from lack of self control) For the record, there is one other possibility. A woman's eggs are fully formed when she is born. Therefore, if grandma smoked, that could have effected the development of mom's eggs, which would, in turn, effect the child.

I agree. Nice post. Part of the problem with the term "autism spectrum" is that it is too broad. It is starting to applied to any geeky kid. Finding genetic markers of different types of autism will make identification and diagnosis far more precise and scientific.

I read somewhere (I don't remember where) that after a well-publicized suicide, the number of suicides goes up for awhile, then dips below normal, and then goes back to equilibrium. In other words, people that were going to commit suicide do so earlier, but the total number of suicides doesn't change.

I buy the compatibilist viewpoint that determinism and free will are compatible, so I see no problem with punishing a psychopath for a crime. Even if we found an absolute "murder gene" where 100% of people with the gene murdered someone, I would still punish him. Our genes don't make us act against our will; they give us our will in the first place. If you give me the choice between eating a cookie and getting my hand chopped off, I'm going to pick the cookie. That's determinism. I really did have the option of the hand, but I chose the cookie. That's free will. No contradiction. In the long run, I see this kind of research as a good thing. A common argument of people who want lenient sentencing is, "You would have done the same thing in his shoes." Now I can say, "BS". I've heard estimates that 3-4% of people are sociopaths. As far as I know, a sociopath is just a psychopath who is either too smart or too lazy to commit the sort of crime that would label him a psychopath.

Interesting post. Is it possible that, to some extent, whether or not someone has a mental illness is more genetic, but what form the mental illness will take is more environmental?

Economics has, in fact, taught us quite a bit. If two people, or nations, are comparatively different in how well they can perform certain activities, they are better off engaging in free trade, even of one person/nation has an absolte advantage in everything. If the government creates too much money, that will lead to inflation. Allowing free exchange of a good will lead to an equilibrium price. If the government mandates a different price, that will result in a deadweight loss to society. A monopoly will produce fewer goods than a competitive market. This also results in a deadweight loss. Companies should produce goods until the marginal cost of the next good equals the marginal revenue. If you say, "Well, all of this is obvious!", my reply is that is was not the least bit obvious to most people 250 years ago. Carlyle called economics "the dismal science" because it proved things people didn't want to believe. It has been under attack ever since for the same reasons.

Interesting comment on the New Scientist site in relation to this study: 
 
"Gould Is Turning In His Grave 
 
Tue Mar 17 20:35:24 GMT 2009 by Jack Crane 
 
As a scientist, I was outraged by Stephen J. Gould and other scientists particularly at Harvard that knew full well that a large portion of intelligence was inherited, but purposely misled the public by attacking IQ and other related work (e.g., Gould's the Mismeasure of Man). As long ago as the 1980s, there was a clear correlation between the physical size of a brain (as measured carefully by NMR) and IQ. Twin studies were overwhelmingly clear that genetics was at least 50% responsible for our intelligence. I always felt that Gould, Lowenstein and others were the New Creationists. They refused to accept what science was discovering. They also used their power as scientists to attack evolutionary psychology which has become one of the new revolutionary fields in science. Even today in the university community in which I work, I find a large portion of the faculty (even scientists) horrified at any discussions involving intellectual inheritance or evolutionary psychology. One Dean told me once that "We have to save the children from this knowledge". Kudos to New Scientist for reporting all the news. But don't expect anyone inside the University Community to accept it." 
 
http://www.newscientist.com/commenting/browse;jsessionid=088D307BDC3F1D1B68EA2D3B822A72F0?id=mg20126993.300&page=3

Sorry for slight off-topic, but could anyone here tackle his factor analysis arguments against Jensen? 
 
http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37081

The money for exposition certainly goes to Gettier. I don't think you are going to find a solution or at least you won't find one that isn't controversial.

Exactly why I hate history and books boasting of "truths" that collide with reality. And why  
Anthropology is not a science.  
 
The world is full of loudmouthed spinners.

The concept of the "slut" is itself highly negative and damaging, and is based on the implicit assumtion that there is something morally wrong with women having and enjoying sex. This article does women no favors for featuring it.

Why should elderly Chinese parents expect ( DEMAND) their children to take care of them. When you can no longer take care of yourself, you should consider self deliverance. Euthanasia is a simple solution to many problems of elderly people. It should be encouraged more. Especially in the case of Alzheimers! Call me heartless but practical. I aim to do this myself.

It is really sad that good performer life has gone into this much controversies. If she want to comeback and perform like before, she has to show her complete focus to her singing and nothing else.. 
Roadside Assistance

[hey, can we wait up on the explicitly political comments? that sort of thing tends to send threads off track really quickly -razib]

I dont think that it will make a comeback, us already in a global economy and all. 
 
DO you think the chinese could rule the world with it? I doubt those Texans would follow any of those chinese crap, speaking of which, Italians are complaining now about how the Chinese are turning their culture and environment to a chinese ghetto. 
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6926181.stm

How social should you be to be told that you have social skills? 
Im sure those nerds have their own nerd friends. Isnt that social skills enough? Do you really have to attend to parties or speak the retard mass' language to be considered social? Really bright people are easily annoyed by small talk about the what other people do.

I found that rather curious - the part about it being a defence mechanism against genital damage. Like, some things will arouse women and make them want to, and some other things will not interest them, but they will become physically 'prepared' anyway. 
 
I don't know, I don't think I buy that.

And I think that came out wrong - I don't mean outbreeding at a species level, I mean outbreeding at a group level could be beneficial at the species level. I think. 
 
I told you I get confused. 
 
Anyway, it's more interesting - I can't imagine anything worse than marrying someone from the same village exactly like my mother.

BTW, I see the inevitable has happened and someone has posted as 'John' on another thread. I'm going to have to switch handles to something imaginative. 
 
This could take me a while - I don't have that much imagination.

David - Good question. We could presuppose there must be some or we wouldn't suffer from it. 
 
Razib - 1) You know a whole lot better than me, but at an individual level I guess it is ensuring you have healthy well-adapted offspring who survive and prosper. At a group level, I start finding it complex and confusing. At a species level I guess it becomes simpler again, and there are arguments in favour of some outbreeding, but I gather that you don't need to go too far out to gain the benefit. I've sold my daughter on the concept of hybrid vigour, but that's more for the sake of her self esteem than anything - I don't know if it really applies in her case or not. 2) Yes, point taken - I guess I mean long enough. 3) Yes, and that is an interesting point - in some cases people will pay amazingly high costs when they have much easier options. I speak from personal experience. I think the trade-off is as you suggest - where there is reciprocation, fidelity is not an issue. Anything that hard to achieve tends (personal anecdotal observation) to last, and external pressures just make it stronger.

Yeah, I know. But you know me, I'm a one trick pony.  
 
Seriously, I wouldn't advocate arranged marriage particularly, and I think your observation about how quickly this is lost when the constraints come off either through immigration or cultural change with time is absolutely correct, but I can't help but observe that romantic love doesn't seem to be a particularly successful basis for selecting a long term partner. 
 
You could argue that for reproductive success it doesn't need to be long term, but to bring the kids up with the best chance for survival, it seems it does. The single mothers are not doing too well, apparently.

Do you think Romeo and Juliet were a good example? After all they were of the same race, culture and mother tongue. 
 
They were also very young, and a detached alien observer could be forgiven for thinking that the young who choose life partners based on intense romantic love have become seriously bad at it, based on divorce rates in countries where this is regarded as right and natural.

I want to thank you for picking an interesting topic to publish some results on. I never think we need a practical reason to study something, merely the fascination is enough. 
 
Many of your comments seem true though - simple observations of Greeks, Asians, Turks, Mexicans, and other Spanish groups, as well as Italians and some other groups seem to corroborate some of the results. I wonder - did you study the distribution of hair as a function, not of ethnic group or race, but of location on the body? Could this help? 
 
I have often wondered whether our nervous system has any connection. And what controls the density - where in the DNA I guess? Asians often have thicker hair follicle that is less numerous per unit area than Europeans who have thinner hair-strands than Asians. This is a broad generalization and has many exceptions which would of course be interesting to try to understand. 
 
I would hope that you don't assume that men don't like hairy women though, although I at the same time can understand the comment, particularly if you can back it up with surveys. Personally, I like it when women have hair on their upper lips and their legs and underarms. I have no idea why, but I believe it's simply that hair is beautiful to look at. It is also attractive in their sex organs, except perhaps when it hangs out of bathing suits, and it's your woman's bathing suit. And back hair is also attractive on a woman. I had a woman-friend who joked about it once. There are medical procedures I believe, where people have pubic hair implanted if they feel slighted. 
 
I believe that some people shave their pubic region for reasons of pride perhaps. I have heard all kinds of stories that would be followups to this study, such as biblical statements about nudity in public. 
 
Well anyway, the science is what we are after. I will have to read up more as it is a bit foreign to me. However, the article was thought-provoking. Thank you. 
 
John

I think we are concentrating too much on a last name (Yakhchee) that might have just been adopted. I once read somewhere the Armenian version of her mother's last name. It was indeed a very common Armenian last name ending in the typical "-ian". Unfortunately I don't recall what it was. In fact it was (and still is) common for many Armenians living in the west or far-east to adopt a non Armenian sounding last name, or just drop the -ian, especially if they were prominent figures or celebrities. There was a family of musicians in Russia called Ghorghanians who bacame known as Korganovs. Two daughters became famous opera stars: Mariam Ghorghanian was known as Maria Svetade and Noune was known as Sina Dariali. Go figure! The most famous examples to most are Charles Aznavour (Aznavourian), Cher (Cherilyn Sarkissian), Garry Kasparov (Garik Gasparian), Elia Kazan (Kazandjian), etc. One famous Armenian-American actor changed his last name to O'Connor. I forget his first name though. I remember he had a cop or inspector tv series in the '60s and '70s.  
This can also explain why it is so hard to track down this Yakhchee last name, and that it is so unique even in India, because it could simply be a made up name.