Eugenics. Such a naughty word. But read this article on Jews targeting 10 diseases that afflict them proactively, and you see its shadows at the edges (thanks to Steve Sailer for the link). But, this is all voluntary and decentralized. Good stuff from what I can see.

But the line between Tay Sachs and other diseases that cripple, but don’t kill, is a fine one. Groups that are part of the disability rights movement like Not Dead Yet should keep a close eye on these trends toward purging the gene pool of predispositions towards crippling ailments that lead to the “alternative quality of life” championed as having equal value by them. Many of the more crippled memebers of Not Dead Yet obviously can’t have children, and are in no position to adopt-they in fact depend on deleterious genes to sustain their subculture. More benign ailments like deafness might be able to cling on in the Promethean Age because they can procreate and economically self-support themselves [1].

Of course, those worried that excising what to our ignorant human minds seem to be deleterious genes might rid the human race of crucial parts of our inheritance, god or nature given, need not worry. Traditionalist religious groups such as Catholics will almost certainly remain a reservoir of genetic diversity in a world of cheap & easy genetic testing and screening….

[1] Ah, could we dream of new races born afresh from the mind of man? WASP women that can cook spicey food, JAPs that break out of their Quantum-enforced self-absorption, Chinese that are picky eaters (will eat snake tongue, but not the fried skin) and blacks that are proud nerds who speak softly in the hallways? I have a dream, of boys & girls of all colors who can manipulate the content of their character like they do their parents’ emotions….

How to Optimize Productivity with a Multiracial Workforce: The Theory of Differential Cutoff . Very un-PC, but I think worth the read to make us consider the implications of utilitarianism-I can see that it might be plausible to fashion a Rawlsian justification for DCT if “productivity” can be shown to be beneficial to the least among us. Consider a profession like medicine where the numbers are small [perceived injustice on the individual scale is not widespread] and the upside of maximized “productivity” accrues to everyone.

Books GNXP readers might enjoy (read them a while back, but made a big impact): Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series & Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Radio.

Posted by razib at 06:25 PM

Randall Parker on the liberal national question.

There is a reasonably good article in Time magazine on Child prodigies (Update from Razib: another intelligence related article). My only complaint is that it lumps together intellectual/academic prodigies, chess prodigies, musical prodigies, sports prodigies and ‘creative’ children. I’d suspect the first three groups probably do have a lot in common physiologically and psychologically (take for instance Bobby Fischer’s reputed 180 IQ). It does cite some interesting research on commonalities which presumably apply most to the first three groups:

The only fMRI scanner in the Southern Hemisphere can be found in Melbourne, where American psychologist Michael O’Boyle has been scanning the brains of young people gifted in mathematics.

He’s making some startling discoveries. O’Boyle found that, compared with average kids, children with an aptitude for numbers show six to seven times more metabolic activity in the right side of their brains, an area known to mediate pattern recognition and spatial awareness—key abilities for math and music. Scans also showed heightened activity in the frontal lobes, believed to play a crucial “executive” role in coordinating thought and improving concentration. This region of the brain is virtually inactive in average children when doing the same tasks. Viewed with fMRI, “It’s like the difference between a stoplight and a Christmas tree,” says O’Boyle, the director of the University of Melbourne’s Morgan Center, which researches the development of children who have high intellectual potential. “Not only do math-gifted kids have higher right-side processing power, but this power is also fine-tuned by frontal areas that enhance concentration. These kids are really locked on.”

O’Boyle believes prodigies also can switch very efficiently between the brain’s left and right hemispheres, utilizing other mental resources and perhaps even shutting down areas that produce random distractions. In short, while their brains aren’t physically different from ordinary children’s, prodigies seem to be able to focus better—to muster the mental resources necessary to solve problems and learn.

On one of the threads we’ve been talking about Jews and their contributions to science. I decided to check out the 40 finalists for the Intel Science Competition. Among these budding geeks, I counted 6 clear Jewish names-with another possible 3 or 4. On the order of 10-20% Jewish. I also counted 6 Indians, with 3 that are South Indian, likely Tamil. 11 East Asians-mostly Chinese, though one of the surnames (Kim) is obviously Korean (4 with the surname “Li,” the nerd version of Jones or Smith?). I also noted 2 “Muslim” seeming names. One seems Iranian, and the first name being “Raphael” indicates either a very assimilated family, or a Bahai or Zoroastrian one (Raphael Farzan-Kashani). The other name looks Arab to me, though I’m not an expert I am pretty sure he isn’t a South Asian Muslim as the combination of first and last name just isn’t too common (Tahir Ahmed) [1]. A large portion of the “non-ethnic” white finalists have names that can almost certainly be traced to the last pre-World War I immigration wave.

Perhaps this is what MIT is looking for when it means diversity? Uhh…never mind.

PS-I hope no one is taking this as a cue to assume I think WASPs are “inferior” (some of my best friends are WASPs)-just pointing out there is plenty of diversity in the sciences, just not the right kind…also, check out the finalists for the National Geography Bee, much more ethnically balanced, only 4 Asians (3 East Asians, and what looks to me like a Muslim Bengali).

[1] Assume Jews are 3% of the population (though a smaller portion of the youth segment), and Asians + Muslims (overlapped, but not identical) are about 7% of the population (probably about right if age group is taken into account). With 6+11+6 (I’m discounting the possible Jewish names, only the totally certain ones), that’s nearly 60% of the finalists coming from 10% of the population. In the interests of equity and fairness, we should perhaps look into doing something about this injustice so that other boys and girls who don’t have the same opportunities, with names like Smith, Jones and Johnson, black & white, can also have a chance to reach for geek glory….

Article on intelligence & IQ over at Science, here is the text below:

Brainy Genes Boost IQ

IQ appears to be about 50% genetic, but how many genes contribute is a mystery. Now, two teams report finding associations between two genes and intelligence in healthy individuals. This kind of research could help scientists understand what goes wrong in brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, that erode thinking skills.

Researchers had associated only one gene, IGF2R, with intelligence, and that observation has yet to be repeated. Investigators are pinning their hopes on the possibility that at least some genes will have large enough effects to detect.

New findings from two research groups buoy those hopes. Tony Payton of Manchester University, United Kingdom, and his colleagues tested 767 healthy adults, age 50 and up, for their cognitive skills over a period of 15 years, looking for genes that contribute to the mental decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Those people carrying a mutation in a gene called cathepsin D (CTSD) scored 3% lower on the intelligence tests right from the start (their scores did not go down more over time than did those without the mutation). CTSD might increase intelligence in early brain development, the researchers suggest, by helping kill off unnecessary neurons. The gene also seems promising, Payton says, because CTSD relies on IGF2R for its function.

The second group, led by David Comings of City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, California, tested 828 adults for a change in a gene called CHRM2, which is associated with Alzheimer’s disease. People with one copy of the mutation had lower IQs than did those who had none, and individuals with two copies had the lowest scores of all. Although the spread was only about three to four IQ points, it’s a significant effect for just one gene. Both teams report their work in the February issue of Molecular Psychiatry.

“It gives us hope that we’re going to find [more] genes” with a measurable effect on intelligence, says behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin of Kings College, London. “That’s why we find these studies exciting.” Because many people were tested in the two studies, the results should be reliable, says Plomin. Still, he cautions, “until these findings have been replicated, we don’t want to get too excited.”

–CAROLINE SEYDEL

Sometime in the past 100,000 years man became man-the modern panoply of traits that we associate with “culture” seem to have developed. This article posits a possible genetic reason for man’s cultural explosion (nothing new if you’ve followed the travails of the fox2p gene):

“I think there was a biological change, a genetic mutation that promoted the fully modern ability to create and innovate,” Professor Klein said. “Suddenly, modern-looking people began to behave in a modern way, producing art and jewellery and doing a variety of other things they hadn’t done before.”

Please note that some anthropologists dispute the simplistic Out-of-Africa thesis (one expansion from one population that scattered across non-Africa), and Dr. Henry Harpending brings a up very interesting point: the technology associated with “modern humans” in their expansion out of Africa into Eurasia (“mode 4”) is not found amongst the first settlers of Australia, and we know Australians have languages that no doubt fit the Chomskyian paradigm (a linguist can correct me here).

Also, on a slightly different tack on the “Out of Africa” question, check out Steve Sailer’s column up over at VDARE that starts off with Randall Kennedy’s new book Interracial Intimacies. OK, more than slightly different….

Off the wires:

Race-conscious university admissions policies are needed to increase diversity in science and engineering professions, Stanford University officials said Friday. Stanford said it will join the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in supporting the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policy in a closely watched court battle.

A legal brief the universities plan to file Tuesday will “add a slightly different voice and argument” to the debate, Stanford general counsel Debra Zumwalt said Friday. Many briefs have focused on how diversity benefits the humanities and education overall, but few have discussed the scientific benefits, she said.

The brief is also signed by DuPont, IBM, the National Academy of Science, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering. MIT will file the brief to the U.S. Supreme Court.

I notice that Cal Tech is not on the list. I’m so disgusted that I’m not going to even comment-enough people fail math & science that discrimination isn’t the biggest problem-rather than recruit more people, they should figure out a better didactic methodology for the people that major in the sciences without outreach & prompting….

From “B,” one of MIT’s token whites (though last I heard he had some bamboo-jungle fever):

Razib – didn’t have link, but the MIT press release, actually a quite interesting read, is
here….

In the above press release, Chuck Vest, our fearless leader, makes the following statements…

Vest said he hoped the brief would “help persuade the Justices of the Supreme Court that for the good of America, our colleges and universities must retain the freedom to consider race as one of many factors when admitting students.”

And I thought the ability to discrminate on the basis of race was one of the few “freedom” our public insititution explicitly did not have. But maybe I’m one of those scientists who can’t
read so good 🙂

And I am sure Vest’s comments on diversity at MIT, and we do have a lot, will suprise GNXP readers…

“But that is just the point. It is not a miracle. It is not a natural occurrence. It is the result of determined, conscientious effort, over more than three decades, often against seemingly insurmountable odds. It is the result of institutional leadership and occasional courage. It is a result of the determination of innumerable families and communities. The goal was as simple as it was profound: to give every young person the opportunity to succeed.

And hopefully it still is the goal. I also feel bad for all the people who have not attended law school, grad school, or a prestigious undergraduate school, and thus have not had the opportunity to succeed, hence by assumption have not succeeded, and hence are faliures. QED

MIT is actually very diverse place, the best
snippet I could find stated:

In 2002–2003, MIT students come from al 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four territories. The Institute’s international student population comprises 344 undergraduates (8 percent) and 2,283 graduate students (37 percent) from 108 foreign countries.

AND FYI, if you do the math, MIT is about 25% foreign, ~30% asian (~12/18 – foreign,native) but of course the foreign asians don’t count as minorities…

Just a thought prompted by the black beauty controversy-being someone to the political and social Right of most of my friends, I often get attacked for making generalizations about race & sex. The word “ignorant” often comes up (generally these outbursts decline as t -> long time). But, many of these same individuals will make generalizations about conservatives or religious people that those groups would consider “ignorant” too. The best corrective for this sort of behavior is to make sure that you encounter a wide variety of political opinions in your everyday life. Of course, this might explain why universities abound in the terms “ignorant” or “that’s a generalization,” since there isn’t a center-Right corrective to the PC center-Left consensus (perhaps the same can be said of some churches in the reverse fashion, but the influence of conservative churches is different from that of universities).

Also, fellow thought-police transgressor Richard Poe has an amusing observation about the predilictions of a GNXP reader. Give Poe some props, not only does he say things about race that induce a barrage of opprobrium from the “respectable” Right and the Left, but he regularly gets into it with the enemies of us mud people and the seed-line-of-Satan (Jews). Some of those “white Aryan” chicks are pretty cute, but I guess they’re not into the chocolate love….