Genetic and environmental sources of variance in IQ were estimated from 486 adoptive and biological families
Families include 419 mothers, 201 fathers, 415 adopted and 347 biological fully-adult offspring (M age = 31.8 years; SD = 2.7)
Proportion of variance in IQ attributable to environmentally mediated effects of parental IQs was estimated at .01 [95% CI 0.00, 0.02]
Heritability was estimated to be 0.42 [95% CI 0.21, 0.64]
Of course, we should all immediately grasp this. If genes don’t matter then how in buggery does speciation occur?
The fact is that there are an awful lot of people whose ideology, sense of moral superiority and livelihood depend on denying the science on intelligence, race and sex.
So are we likely to speciate along intelligence lines? A sort of Eloi/Morlocks thing. Though I think the Morlocks were brighter, being engineers…
TG, don’t you think it has already happened? Guardian writers vs engineers. People who can imagine their own world vs those who have to deal with reality. Or to put it another way, us and them.
I’m surprised you can get new papers published on this topic. The results have been known for many decades. I suppose this one had enough differences in detail to be worthwhile – testing the offspring at age 15 and again in their early thirties, for example.
Many traits are well established as being substantially heritable – why would IQ be different?
– why would IQ be different?
Because African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans regularly score lower than evil White Americans in IQ tests. This fact is inconvenient to those who wish to blame ‘Systemic Racism’ and ‘White Supremacy’ for holding back non-White Americans.
Jordan Peterson has some great comments on IQ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Ur71ZnNVk.
The only place in Africa or the Middle East where the average IQ is over 90 is Israel: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-iq-by-country
IQ tests are a western invention that discriminates against people of colour.
“…then how in buggery does speciation occur?”
Gene migration, although I suspect that is not what you meant.
I wonder whether the more ‘diverse’ the western country the lower the potential future IQ. Nah. Diversity is clearly a great benefit to the natives. Ask the Maori, the Indians, anyone in the Balkans or South Eastern Europe, the native Americans, the Aztecs etc etc etc etc. And that’s before we get to modern diversity.
In horticulture, it’s well known that if you cross two pure, heavily inbred cultivars you get a very vigorous F1 hybrid. Looking at Emma Raducanu (Romanian-Chinese), I wonder if something similar happens in humans.
How much does IQ actually tell you? There’s a lot of people with high IQ, are only really successful in a society with a framework permits high IQ’ers to be successful. Brilliant mathematicians are successful in societies value higher mathematics.
The IQ metric itself reflects the people who decided the IQ metric. Largely useless people outside of a society values university grads.
I suspect there some other ability actually makes people generally successful. Call it “smarts” if you like. Although what it is or how you measure it …
I’ll have shot at defining something. We interact with the world with reference to the model of the world we carry round in our heads. That’s how we interpret what we perceive. So the closer that model comes to reality, the better one’s able to interact with the world. Question would be how much of that would be innate & how much learned behaviour. It seems fairly obvious that strong religious belief is not a reliable way of modelling the world. Because it will tend to obscure cause & effect. Religion is learned not innate. But how much of the propensity to strong religious beliefs is innate?
Bis- “Largely useless people outside of a society values university grads.” I know what you mean but it is still a measurement. One that has predictive value. When you take an individual measurement you can call it potential or likelihood but you can’t call it achievement, i agree, that requires doing something that others value. Someone here pointed out that Andy Warhol was an example of a low IQ genius.
@ BiS
IQ measures how good people are at IQ tests. That was known before you were born!
However there is a strong, and therefore useful correlation between IQ and solving problems in the real world, starting from “can you make fire?” to “can you flake this flint to provide a tool to cut food off this animal?” to “can you program this computer?”. The correlation with making money is weaker but still significantly positive.
John77 @10.57, spot on, that is the point of IQ tests.
BiS @5.52.
People don’t like IQ tests if they have a low IQ.
People don’t like fitness tests if they are overweight and unfit.
IQ tests are not perfect, but there is no better predictor of likely outcomes.
Low IQ may not have mattered in the good old days before technology reared it’s ugly head, but in the clip Jordan Peterson says specifically “in our cognitively complex society”.
I do incline to the theory that civilisation causes a rise in IQ. A palaeolithic hunter doesn’t really need the ability to solve puzzles, just the ability to bash an antelope on the head.
Whereas in the an elaborately organised civilisation, the ability to scrounge a cushy job in the bureaucracy means you’d have a higher salary and are more likely to reproduce.
I always note that the heathen Chinee show a greater IQ than the wicked whites. They’ve had a functioning bureaucracy for much longer than we Westerners. Of course the stifling effect of the European—–oops Chinese Union meant that they never produced an industrial revolution.
“Low IQ may not have mattered in the good old days before technology reared it’s ugly head”
It surely did. Some people made a better job than others of draining that field, fixing that hoe, noticing that bear or tracking that wounded pig.
That’s alongside all that endless dig, dig, digging, of course.
“A palaeolithic hunter doesn’t really need the ability to solve puzzles, just the ability to bash an antelope on the head.”
That’s simply not true. The further you get away from our nicely organised modern world the more you need to solve puzzles. The first one being how to bash that antelope on the head.
@john77
I’ve never seen the slightest sign that people with supposedly high IQ’s are capable of let alone excel at being able to make fire or knap flints. I’ve actually employed university students where a degree of ingenuity is required to successfully complete tasks. Never seen the slightest sign they outperform their inferiors. Why do you think I have such a low opinion of them?
That’s why I think there’s some underlying talent may actually show up as high IQ results in certain circumstances
High IQ doesn’t make much difference to life outcomes – other qualities are needed there: diligence, patience, agreeableness, etc..
Low IQ (sub 90), however, has a massive effect on everything.
@Boganboy.
“just the ability to bash an antelope on the head” – but it might require all sorts of abilities to get close enough to said antelope to kill it.
Hmmm.
Given that IQ tests are a white imperialist racist capitalist plot to suggest that some ethnicities are on average of lower intelligence than others, you would have thought that by now the heroic freedom fighters of the left would have come up with an alterative intelligence test which would score those currently disadvantaged ethnicities the same as or maybe even higher than whites.
Have they?
““just the ability to bash an antelope on the head” – but it might require all sorts of abilities to get close enough to said antelope to kill it.”
That takes being able to model what the antelope sees from its perspective. And if working as a team, each team member must be able to model the antelope’s view plus the other team members’ views of the antelope & each other’s. Hunting#s not as simple as it sounds. Or an arts degree.
@ BiS
Knapping flints requires a high level of skill and the large-brained Neanderthals developed a range of specialist techniques to do it.
When I started work, university students (a far smaller group than in the last couple of decades) were expected to carry out routine tasks significantly faster than school-leavers and to perform non-routine tasks deemed beyond the capability of the latter – and we did. So one wonders why your sample underperformed … Did they actually have higher IQs than their “inferiors” [non-graduates are not ipso facto inferior]?
Incidentally, I should declare an interest here. I’ve only ever had the one IQ test. It was part of the 11+ exam at the time. Also a time when schools performed the evil practice of actually telling us our relative exam results rankings. Mine were number 1 in a class of 39 who that year ALL passed the 11+. And despite the fact I’ve always been atrocious speller ( & still am) & likely got below average in the English section.
@Chris Miller – it doesn’t (currently) work well on humans because we have little genetic diversity. This is theorised to have been caused by one or more genetic bottlenecks when the worldwide human population became quite small, so we’re all descended from them and there has not been enough time for many useful mutations to arise.
That takes being able to model what the antelope sees from its perspective. And if working as a team, each team member must be able to model the antelope’s view plus the other team members’ views of the antelope & each other’s. Hunting#s not as simple as it sounds. Or an arts degree.
Or, y’know, just dig a big pit on a game trail and wait for something to fall in…
I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the quote from Coolidge, but it does resonate with me;
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
@bloke in Spain. Identical twin studies have shown that a propensity to religious belief is strongly inheritanced.
“Given that IQ tests are a white imperialist racist capitalist plot to suggest that some ethnicities are on average of lower intelligence than others, you would have thought that by now the heroic freedom fighters of the left would have come up with an alterative intelligence test which would score those currently disadvantaged ethnicities the same as or maybe even higher than whites.
Have they?”
Yes, its called ‘Run from here to over there and whoever gets there first is the cleverest’. Adjust distances to suit your target racial group and jobs a good ‘un.
Thanks Charles.
The anti-IQers are pedaling something called “emotional IQ” with all the seriousness of a heart attack. The power skirts in personnel (HR) are great believers. It has absolutely no attachment to reality or scientific method.