The owner of this site allows reposting of his literature, here are his words regarding this from http://www.neoeugenics.com/

"Any of the following articles that I have written are free for redistribution or republication. This includes editing, shortening, or elaborating on articles as desired to accomplish eugenic goals. Nothing else matters but the future."

And from http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/mission.htm

"The NeoEugenic Web Site was developed solely by Matt Nuenke, as a private project. Any material on this site can be used for the dissemination of these ideas and a eugenics' program without my permission."

The following is from http://www.neoeugenics.com/

"Playing God is indeed playing with fire. But that is what we mortals have done since Prometheus, the patron saint of dangerous discovery. We play with fire and take the consequences, because the alternative is cowardice in the face of the unknown." (Dworkin, 2000)

Humans are very much like our primate ancestors. Unfortunately, with our larger intelligent brains, we have acquired the ability to foresee our deaths as soon as we are able to understand life, at a very young age. With this horror, we have instead of facing life with knowledge that we have a brief time to live - a time to be made the most of - we have turned back to our primitive instincts and succumbed to religion, false beliefs, and submission to dominance by others.

The answer to this dilemma during most of this century, has been to try and change human culture, assuming it is infinitely malleable, leading to the agony of communism and the short comings of egalitarian democracies. And in the rest of the world, despotism reigns under numerous doctrines, with little hope for the people subjected to the state's propaganda. This web page is dedicated to putting forth the view that to change the human condition we must change the innate nature of humans, that is, we must encourage the breeding of people with a higher intellect, people better able to understand what motivates them and who can eventually revolt against the subjugation by the state or the controlling elite.

It is my contention that this can be done by focusing on innate human traits we want to promote through a better understanding of behavior genetics. But to promote eugenics as a secular religion, it becomes necessary to begin with a political agenda to bring it about. Much of what I advocate, in keeping with the understanding that evolution occurs at the genetic, individual and group levels, has to do with advancing both individual eugenics and group eugenics. That is, it appears that eugenics can only be advanced in a world where nations are free to advance their own interests without interference.

Anyone who is familiar with the United Nations, NATO, the European Economic Union, and the New World Order knows that we are on the brink of giving up national sovereignty for world totalitarianism, where a central committee will dictate to the masses how to think and behave. We see this happening now in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the United States has decided that it can attack any nation that disobey's America or possesses resources that America wants.

I advocate two primary future viable options for eugenics: a return to nationalism, where competing nations will experiment with various social and scientific agendas to raise their peoples to higher levels of intelligence, followed by other traits the population desires to promote; and/or, to increase group solidarity and practice eugenics without borders. The second one has been practiced by Jews for thousands of years, but it can be a dangerous road to follow for it invariably leads to group conflict in the nations where Jews dominate. Much of my writing has to do therefore not with the technology of eugenics but with human nature and how we react as competing groups.

Eugenics is here to stay, and the only question now is how severely will political forces try to stamp it out and what group or nation will be the victor in the end. But a more highly evolved human will be the result and this process will continue unabated into the future. Nietzsche's supermen are right around the corner waiting for their creator to begin the task. We are their creator; they are our children.

Finally, you may ask why so many of my articles are intertwined with the Jewish approach to eugenics and why I use them over and over again to make numerous points about human behavior AND about the need for eugenics. Jews are one of the few identifiable groups (actually, the Ashkenazi Jews specifically) who have practiced eugenics with tenacious success that has raised their intelligence to a remarkably high level, along with increasing group cohesiveness leading to extreme ethnocentrism or xenophobia. As a result, the Jewish people dominate areas of society which require high intelligence, such as the media, government, acadamia, finance, the industrial/business world, law, medicine, etc. I therefore believe that Jewish eugenics serves as a model for all other races to follow.

And from the East, I also see an emerging nationalism. It may be that the eugenic program I envision will take place in countries like Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, India, etc. They may be able to overcome the individualism and lack of solidarity found in the Christian West. Christianity may only be the expression of a people who are creative and intelligent, but lack Nietzsche's concept of "the will to power" necessary to turn against destructive sentimentality that prevails in the West. We have much to learn about what is genetic, and what is cultural. But if Christian morality is made up of a genetic weakness then a new species of human will have to come from the East, or from a hybridization of East and West. This issue will be taken up in detail as we learn more about what contributes to each civilization's inability to apply eugenics effectively. But competition between groups for intellectual superiority will be the driving force of eugenics - and nationalism is the formula for this friendly competition.

Eugenics at the individual level has been practiced for decades now, as intelligent people are going to college, understand genetics, and - on average - select those mates that have high intelligence and are free of genetic disease. This is assortative mating, and it will increase as equality of opportunity spreads, genetic testing becomes readily available, and knowledge of how genes make us what we are displaces the old notions of an infinitely malleable human nature. Much of what I write therefore, is an attempt to overthrow the grip that Marxist academics, religious fundamentalists, political egalitarians, and the media have over us - denying our genetic contribution to who we are. On the one hand, the press gives us numerous stories about genetics, while denying that it has any significance in who we ultimately become. This web site lays out the evidence, much of it recent, that shows that nature has a far more important role than nurture. This is meant to increase the awareness of individuals who will be having children with regards to the importance of genes, as well bringing about policy changes that are realistic goals for society. One indicator will be President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program. When the polity finally accepts that educational attainment is as much genetics as it is money spent, then we will have turned the corner back to towards a balance between nature and nurture.

Eugenics at the group level has been active intellectually, and will follow in practice when enough people take up eugenics at a personal level to want to form groups for advancing their own group interests. Of course, eugenics has been practiced by the Jews as a group for over 2000 years, and can serve as a model for other groups to follow. The recently formed Raelians are another successful group, but their goal seems to be messianic as much as it is eugenic. Nevertheless, they are well funded, and well organized, to clone the first humans - an important tool for eugenics. Other groups will follow as the number of people interested in eugenics grows, along with the scientific advancements in genetic engineering and behavioral genetics.

Eugenics at the national level - that is one promoted by the state - is occurring in many countries from Singapore and China in the east to Sweden in the West. These programs are primarily monetary incentives, and often are targeted for increasing the overall number of births to at least replacement levels - or 2.1 children per couple, on average. In homogeneous societies, these eugenic programs can be carried out without the shrill cry of "racism," and can increasingly promote eugenics. For example, those with low intelligence can be offered economic incentives to be sterilized. Assuming that a welfare mom will have four children, and it will cost about $8,000 per year, per child, to try and educate the children as well as keep them out of prison - it would be cost effective for the state to pay close to $400,000 for voluntary sterilization. Likewise, tax incentives can be given to the most economically successful people who have children. The success of such a eugenics program is dependent on how aggressively it is pursued - meaning that competition between nations will accelerate the need for state sponsored eugenics programs in order to compete. Nations with a higher average intelligence, will be more competitive economically and more successful at promoting democracy - including direct democracy and the abolition of managerial state. As will be shown in the Middle East, democracies cannot be sustained without a high level of intelligence. So by increasing intelligence, it is my firm belief based on the empirical evidence, that humans can go beyond representative democracy and the welfare state to where violence, warfare, and class divisions can be greatly reduced. It may not be utopia, but it seems fairly universal that it is a world that most people are striving for - a world without class or racial conflict.

Tiresome stupidity

The Jewish business sense is not a matter breeding... they are an organization with a lot of power. To buy into the concept that their business sense is GENETIC is a mistake that merely strengthens the SOCIAL position that permits their success.

Israel's buy-in to the biotechnology boom is also no more than an indication that they are more interested in the results (medical &c.) than they are in the USA's arm-waving criticism of biotech. The US government's criticisms of stem cell research are largely of the "We can't play God" sort, which are appeals to emotion.

Where is the biotech???

If you want to make the world perfect through neo-eugenics (by the way neo-eugenics is the use of biotechnology instead of conventional breeding to make better children) you’re going to need to genetically remove the ability to hate and get mad and make people loving goody-two-shoes that are total altruist and love everything and everyone.

The Jewish business sense is not a matter breeding... they are an organization with a lot of power. To buy into the concept that their business sense is GENETIC is a mistake that merely strengthens the SOCIAL position that permits their success.

Israel's buy-in to the biotechnology boom is also no more than an indication that they are more interested in the results (medical &c.) than they are in the USA's arm-waving criticism of biotech. The US government's criticisms of stem cell research are largely of the "We can't play God" sort, which are appeals to emotion.

Professor Kevin MacDonald http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/ is the leading scientist studying historical Jewish eugenics practices, which was actually promoted in the religion of Judaism. But today, most Jews are secular, they don't follow the Talmudic breeding laws anymore.

Rabbi Max Reichler discusses Jewish eugenics:

[The following is the first essay from Jewish Eugenics and Other Essays,
Three Papers Read Before the New York Board of Jewish Ministers, 1915,
Bloch Publishing Company, New York, 1916.]

Jewish Eugenics

By Rabbi Max Reichler

Who knows the cause of Israel's survival? Why did the Jew survive the
onslaughts of Time, when others, numerically and politically stronger,
succumbed? Obedience to the Law of Life, declares the modern student
of eugenics, was the saving quality which rendered the Jewish race
immune from disease and destruction. "The Jews, ancient and modern,"
says Dr. Stanton Coit, "have always understood the science of eugenics,
and have governed themselves in accordance with it; hence the
preservation of the Jewish race."1

I. Jewish Attitude

To be sure eugenics as a science could hardly have existed among the
ancient Jews; but many eugenic rules were certainly incorporated in the
large collection of Biblical and Rabbinical laws. Indeed there are clear
indications of a conscious effort to utilize all influences that might
improve the inborn qualities of the Jewish race, and to guard against any
practice that might vitiate the purity of the race, or "impair the racial
qualities of future generations" either physically, mentally, or morally.2
The Jew approached the matter of sex relationship neither with the horror
of the prude, nor with the passionate eagerness of the pagan, but with
the sane and sound attitude of the far-seeing prophet. His goal was the
creation of the ideal home, which to him meant the abode of purity and
happiness, the source of strength and vigor for body and mind.4

Complete text is at http://groups.google.com/groups?q=rabbi+max+eugenics&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=b7j8f9%245qi%241%40reader08.wxs.nl&rnum=1

Judith

The whole neo-eugenics movement seems to based on the assumption that a more intelligent human being is a better human being (in the sense that a more intelligent human being is better suited for the 'future).

Guess what? It is an assumption made by a not so extremely intelligent person. Let's have a look at the extremely intelligent fringe of out society and see in what way they deal better with modern society, or how they deal with improving the future of the human species.

I guess I don't have to answer that one.

The whole neo-eugenics movement seems to based on the assumption that a more intelligent human being is a better human being (in the sense that a more intelligent human being is better suited for the 'future).

Guess what? It is an assumption made by a not so extremely intelligent person. Let's have a look at the extremely intelligent fringe of out society and see in what way they deal better with modern society, or how they deal with improving the future of the human species.

I guess I don't have to answer that one.

"Better" is a personal value judgement. My opinion is that higher intelligence is "better" than lower intelligence. Others think that being stupid is better than being smart. To each his own.

"The extremely intelligent fringe of our society," to quote you, create the pillars of civilizations: they invent all the sciences, all the technologies, they set moral/ethical standards for the sheep masses to follow, they decide political ideologies for the rest, they guide the national ethos. I would choose to have every person be very intelligent, as opposed to a small handful of geniuses guiding the "mindless" average sheep masses.

"Better" is a personal value judgement. My opinion is that higher intelligence is "better" than lower intelligence. Others think that being stupid is better than being smart. To each his own.

"The extremely intelligent fringe of our society," to quote you, create the pillars of civilizations: they invent all the sciences, all the technologies, they set moral/ethical standards for the sheep masses to follow, they decide political ideologies for the rest, they guide the national ethos. I would choose to have every person be very intelligent, as opposed to a small handful of geniuses guiding the "mindless" average sheep masses.

it is just your opinion. There is no scientific basis for assuming more intelligent is better. Unintelligent organisms tend to do quite well in this world. Just examine your own stool sample.

I haven't read this yet, I just wanted to comment on this:
"Any of the following articles that I have written are free for redistribution or republication. This includes editing, shortening, or elaborating on articles as desired to accomplish eugenic goals. Nothing else matters but the future."


I love that policy and hold this person in high regard right off the bat based on that alone.

"The extremely intelligent fringe of our society," to quote you, create the pillars of civilizations: they invent all the sciences, all the technologies, they set moral/ethical standards for the sheep masses to follow, they decide political ideologies for the rest, they guide the national ethos.

And what a mess they have made so far of this world. Maybe we should give the stupid people a chance.

And what a mess they have made so far of this world. Maybe we should give the stupid people a chance.

Imagine all the smart people leaving America. That means, no physicians, no dentists, no lawyers, no scientists, no architects, no University or high school professors, no optomotrists, no economists, no CEOs, etc. The nation would become third world. To look at it another way, smart people can do all the things stupid people can, but stupid people can't do all the things smart people can. A world full of only smart people can do just fine at the least, but a world full of stupid people will remain at extreme third world level.

Judith

it is just your opinion. There is no scientific basis for assuming more intelligent is better. Unintelligent organisms tend to do quite well in this world. Just examine your own stool sample.

ALL evidence shows that high IQ highly correlates with success in a technologically advanced first world nation. IQ and success have been researched for decades by psychologists. On the other hand, "better" is a value judgement. Is it "better" to be successful than to be a failure?

Judith

…..I would be very happy if the ‘smart’ people in America left, with Bush first. . .oh, I forgot, his IQ score is crap… :p

Imagine all the smart people leaving America. That means, no physicians, no dentists, no lawyers, no scientists, no architects, no University or high school professors, no optomotrists, no economists, no CEOs, etc. The nation would become third world. To look at it another way, smart people can do all the things stupid people can, but stupid people can't do all the things smart people can. A world full of only smart people can do just fine at the least, but a world full of stupid people will remain at extreme third world level.

Judith

Being a biologist myself I know that science is really just a big parasite on the face of society. I'm not going to pretend I am doing something useful. And you don't really have to be terribly smart to be a dentist or doctor. I think that this is a myth. What is left then? Economists? What the fuck do we need them for? Ever looked outside at the homeless people? Why don't they solve that problem if they are so smart. CEOs? You need a college degree to know how to fill your own pockets and fuck over the worker?

On the opposite side of the spectrum we have the humble garbage man. Did you ever see what happens when the garbage men go on strike? Yes, it is the end of civilization.

Did you ever know what happens when a CEO goes on strike? Nothing. He is not needed.

And who is going to clean up the garbage if your precious world is filled with mensa material? Someone with an IQ of 200? Do you think he is stupid?

ALL evidence shows that high IQ highly correlates with success in a technologically advanced first world nation. IQ and success have been researched for decades by psychologists. On the other hand, "better" is a value judgement. Is it "better" to be successful than to be a failure?

Judith

Like what evidence?

I just told you the opposite based on the evidence of your stool sample. That would exclude your statement of ALL evidence.

Isaac: the "psychologists" are now telling us that a high IQ is no guarantee of success, and that "EQ" is now more important. They say that highly educated people tend to throw tantrums and fly into rages...

Usually success is inherited, and education comes along with it. It might be more accurate to say that "high IQ is associated with success", because rich people are more likely to educate their kids properly.

The public conception of intelligence being genetically determined is a deeply flawed one, since the nature of intelligence is poorly understood. Looking for an allele associated with greater intelligence is chasing rainbows.

I posted two thread on how important IQ is considered by mainstream psychologists:

Mainstream Science on Intelligence: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=32802

The General Intelligence Factor: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=32803

I am not an expert of course, but at least from what I have read, I am convinced that the cultural determinists are wrong and the biological determinists are right. Latest research are now just ignored by the cultural derterminist experts, I am assuming because they cannot debunk it. Or when offered to challenge the data, they can't.

Judith

Do you know that if you tell someone to think of supermodels they do worse on IQ tests, than if you tell them to think of academics….

The more you take IQ tests, the better you get….

The idea of IQ posed in one of the articles seems to be totally missing the point that culture and biology can’t be separated. The moment you’re born, your brain is not fully formed, and how it forms depends on your ‘culture’ (nutrients, care, environment and stimulation). To show a difference in IQ between classes you would have to have a mass inter racial adoption policy. Unfortunately following the sperm banks wont work because ether every one wants one type of sperm and its restricted to those that can pay, and I doubt that inter racial sperm donation exists. This does not mean that at 18 a type of IQ can not be measured, but it isn’t set in 1 year old.

Your argument seems bizarre because to rate someone’s expected success all you’d have to do is make a bunch of questions, find some correlation between high ranking individuals and then test collage students for the same type of answers. Of course asking them if they like bunny rabbits isn’t going to quite work, but something along the idea of ‘do you value money, power or family…’. And assuming their all white middle class and from certain US clusters…

All this is in my option of course.

Do you know that if you tell someone to think of supermodels they do worse on IQ tests, than if you tell them to think of academics….

The more you take IQ tests, the better you get….

The idea of IQ posed in one of the articles seems to be totally missing the point that culture and biology can’t be separated. The moment you’re born, your brain is not fully formed, and how it forms depends on your ‘culture’ (nutrients, care, environment and stimulation). To show a difference in IQ between classes you would have to have a mass inter racial adoption policy. Unfortunately following the sperm banks wont work because ether every one wants one type of sperm and its restricted to those that can pay, and I doubt that inter racial sperm donation exists. This does not mean that at 18 a type of IQ can not be measured, but it isn’t set in 1 year old.

Your argument seems bizarre because to rate someone’s expected success all you’d have to do is make a bunch of questions, find some correlation between high ranking individuals and then test collage students for the same type of answers. Of course asking them if they like bunny rabbits isn’t going to quite work, but something along the idea of ‘do you value money, power or family…’. And assuming their all white middle class and from certain US clusters…

All this is in my option of course.

Yes, I read that if a person takes the same types of IQ tests over and over again, they actually learn that test, thus invalidating the score. So, tests should be fresh or altered each time. Plus, there are non-written types of tests, such as reaction time tests.

Research shows that environment accounts for only 20% of IQ, which the environment of the womb (parents who don't eat healthy or intake alcohol or tobacco will affect the offspring's IQ). The rest is genetic, 80% of it.

Interracial adoption studies have been done: Black offspring that are adopted by White parents still on average have IQ's near the mean score of Blacks, not Whites. And EAst Asian adopted offspring adopted by Whites have IQs on average near the mean score for East Asians: 108, compared to the mean score for Whites: 100 (Black mean score is 70).

And in general, adopted offspring have IQs similar to their biological parents and not their foster parents. This has all been researched, see http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream for an archive of research articles.

The whole neo-eugenics movement seems to based on the assumption that a more intelligent human being is a better human being (in the sense that a more intelligent human being is better suited for the 'future).

Guess what? It is an assumption made by a not so extremely intelligent person. Let's have a look at the extremely intelligent fringe of out society and see in what way they deal better with modern society, or how they deal with improving the future of the human species.

I guess I don't have to answer that one.

Neoeugenics is not based on any concept of "better." It is based on 100 years of research that shows high intelligence has high predictive validity. This recent meta-analysis sums it up well:

"This meta-analysis addresses the question of whether 1 general cognitive ability measure developed for predicting academic performance is valid for predicting performance in both educational and work domains. The validity of the Miller Analogies Test (MAT; W. S. Miller, 1960) for predicting 18 academic and work-related criteria was examined. MAT correlations with other cognitive tests (e.g., Raven’s Matrices [J. C. Raven, 1965]; Graduate Record Examinations) also were meta-analyzed. The results indicate that the abilities measured by the MAT are shared with other cognitive ability instruments and that these abilities are generalizably valid predictors of academic and vocational criteria, as well as evaluations of career potential and creativity. These findings contradict the notion that intelligence at work is wholly different from intelligence at school, extending the voluminous literature that supports the broad importance of general cognitive ability (g)."

The above is from The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 86 No. 1) and is just one example of research showing how high intelligence is highly valued in a technological society. (I just happened to be converting the PDF file into Word.) No one can prove that humans will be happier, more fertile, kinder, etc. because humans like all organisms have no real purpose. Eugenicists merely use data to show that intelligence has been and will continue to be highly valued, and for those who care to pursue it, it can be increased through human genetic engineering and/or good breeding. By the way, liberal Rawlsians and other egalitarians recognize this fact also, and are now jumping on the band wagon to make sure that everyone benefits, not just the elite.

…..I would be very happy if the ‘smart’ people in America left, with Bush first. . .oh, I forgot, his IQ score is crap… :p

I take it then that you consider yourself stupid, and you would prefer to live in a society where the average intelligence is much lower. May I recommend Angola. Try booking a vacation trip there on the Internet, see how far you get and then ask yourself why.

On the opposite side of the spectrum we have the humble garbage man. Did you ever see what happens when the garbage men go on strike? Yes, it is the end of civilization.

Did you ever know what happens when a CEO goes on strike? Nothing. He is not needed.

And who is going to clean up the garbage if your precious world is filled with mensa material? Someone with an IQ of 200? Do you think he is stupid?

I am quite sure that if CEOs had a strong union, and the garbage men didn't, things would be quite different. One may ask why CEOs don't have a union? Because they have talent they can sell at a very high price, garbage men can't because they are easily replaceable so they hide behind unionism that protects them. Get rid of all unions, minimum wage laws, welfare, etc. and let's see how easily we can do without any PARTICULAR crew of garbage men - they would be replaced in hours. Now try replacing andy particulare group of doctors or CEOs by bringing untrained people off the street to fill in.

Isaac: the "psychologists" are now telling us that a high IQ is no guarantee of success, and that "EQ" is now more important. They say that highly educated people tend to throw tantrums and fly into rages...

A recent book entitled "The Scientific Study of General Intelligence" addresses your claim and finds it wanting:"[Gerald V. Barrett, Alissa J. Kramen & Sarah B. Lueke] In the 1920s and 1930s basic theories of intellectual ability were developed along with operational tests which proved effective in predicting job performance. In a series of studies and meta-analyses throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Schmidt and Hunter showed that cognitive ability was the best overall predictor of job performance. Partially in reaction to the meta-analytic findings, research to expand on the definitions of competencies continued. The development of competencies by McClelland was followed by a discussion of tacit knowledge, practical intelligence, and multiple intelligence. In the 1990s, emotional intelligence became the intelligence of interest.

All these new theories and proposed measurement instruments pose a challenge to traditional cognitive ability tests since it is claimed that these tests are more valid and have lower adverse impact. It is our contention that many of these tests are nothing more than pop psychology. It is distressing to see such books quoted as if they had some merit. We will review the themes present throughout all of these "creative" concepts and examine whether they have practical implications and can withhold legal scrutiny in the public and private sector.

It is our opinion that despite all these theorists' claims of validity, if challenged in court, they would fail. The Daubert Standards for scientific tests are a set of guidelines for admissibility of scientific evidence into court (see Table 19.1)."

Usually success is inherited, and education comes along with it. It might be more accurate to say that "high IQ is associated with success", because rich people are more likely to educate their kids properly.

Also wrong. Intelligence is the single most important predictor of success, while SES hardly matters at all. This is the official position of the AMA as early as 1995 in a special task force report "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns." It stated that intelligence is the single most important indicator of success AND that intelligence is about 80% genetic in adulthood. You can easily find that report on the Internet.

The public conception of intelligence being genetically determined is a deeply flawed one, since the nature of intelligence is poorly understood. Looking for an allele associated with greater intelligence is chasing rainbows.

Wrong again. New research tools such as fMRI, PET, as well as locating genetic markers (QTLs) has started to open the doors of molecular genetics in the search for the smart genes. Of course, these advances were not necessary to substantiate both the validity of mental ability as a single factor and to show that is it is highly genetic. But in a few years will have identified the smart genes using new methods only dreamed of just a few years ago (see Plomin's work on gene identification of behavioral traits).

Neoeugenics is not based on any concept of "better." It is based on 100 years of research that shows high intelligence has high predictive validity. This recent meta-analysis sums it up well:


100 years of research? Only a telemarketer, creationist or a eugenecist could make a remark like that.


I rely on 140 years of research that neo-eugenics is bull. I refer to 'on the origin of species'.

I am quite sure that if CEOs had a strong union, and the garbage men didn't, things would be quite different. One may ask why CEOs don't have a union? Because they have talent they can sell at a very high price, garbage men can't because they are easily replaceable so they hide behind unionism that protects them. Get rid of all unions, minimum wage laws, welfare, etc. and let's see how easily we can do without any PARTICULAR crew of garbage men - they would be replaced in hours. Now try replacing andy particulare group of doctors or CEOs by bringing untrained people off the street to fill in.

Don't kid yourself. You CEO won't last a week as a garbage man. And who the fuck cares about companies anyway. They are just there to suck you out. They don't give a shit about you. Just your money.

Unfortunately I don’t have the time to spend on this, but the adoption studies your mentioning are of one year olds and upwards. There are quite a few philosophers of biology who disagree with this idea, and you might want to look into that area.

There are studies showing that you don’t learn the tests, its that you learn how to think in a certain way….

anyway...this whole nonsense of eugenics is based on a false idea of evolution and the false notion that we should improve the human species. And then there is the false assumption that a smarter human is a better human.

And I probably forgot to mention 300 other false assumptions.

Now come with a coherent theory and we will discuss it rationally.

(this post is not aimed at weebee of course! it just happens to be after his/hers)

My postal notification system of this site must have been buggered, and I missed your other reply;

>I take it then that you consider yourself stupid, and you would prefer to live in a society where the average intelligence is much lower. May I recommend Angola. Try booking a vacation trip there on the Internet, see how far you get and then ask yourself why.

you are really funny ;)

Angola’s IQ is not reflected in the ability to book vacations there over the internet…


(this post is not aimed at weebee of course! it just happens to be after his/hers)[/QUOTE] dito spuriousmonkey :D

Nuenke: You missed my sarcasm and also the point of my post. I have now scanned, if not read the "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" paper and it fails to agree with what you've said in the following contexts:

- It states that MRI and PET scans are promising new tools which may bring interesting findings in the future:

Advances in research methods, including new forms of brain imaging such as PET and MRI scans, will surely add to this list. In the not-too-distant future it may be possible to relate some aspects of test performance to specific characteristics of brain function.

I have a personal problem with these techniques, as I don't really believe that blood flow or glucose metabolism patterns in the brain necessarily reflect the thought processes of a person in any meaningful way. BUT, that aside, this report has nothing to say about them because it really predates their use in research of this kind.

- It states that SocioEconomic Status (SES) has more to do with income variance than IQ does:

One way to look at these relationships is to begin with SES. According to Jencks (1979), measures of parental SES predict about one-third of the variance in young adults' social status and about one-fifth of the variance in their income. About half of this predictive effectiveness depends on the fact that the SES of parents also predicts children's intelligence test scores, which have their own predictive value for social outcomes; the other half comes about in other ways.

We can also begin with IQ scores, which by themselves account for about one-fourth of the social status variance and one-sixth of the income variance.

This seems to me to be the opposite of what you said, unless the report then goes on to retract these statements at some later point.

In any case there are some points that you should consider in this matter, including the one I was originally trying to make.

1) All people, including researchers, sometimes see what they want to see. That was my point about EQ; the current theory of the EQ'ers is that academic education is damaging to the psyche and that only people who somehow naturally inherit a greater quantity of human empathy are going to be successful in life.
This is obviously garbage and yet! this is what they're teaching in business training courses and throwing around in the media. Soon EQ will become a "truth" accepted by many people, and become so lodged in the popular consciousness that it will be almost impossible to get rid of. The same, I think, could be said about the idea that intelligence is trivially quantifiable. Binet stated that his IQ tests were only appropriate for comparing classmates in school to see which one needed more help, and that he was concerned that they would be used as a means of general discrimination. His concerns have been borne out as badly as he feared.

2) Whereas I understand the mechanistic point of view of the human brain, the popular psychological PET-scan concept of brain construction right now is a bankrupt one. It appears to amount to a giant circuit of buttons and lights as a representation of the brain, where they say: "When the subject does a math problem, this part of the brain lights up." The theory, presumably, is that if they can just figure out where all them wires are going then they'll have that whole brain figured out.
In reality there is no reason to believe that the brain functions in this way, since the neurons are all highly interconnected and the placement of "brain centres" where certain kinds of activity are supposed to happen is highly circumstantial in many cases. If I were going to choose a mechanistic description of the brain, I would be more inclined toward something like Daniel Dennett's theory of many interdependent associative parts, which would not be easily analyzed through patterns of blood flow or glucose metabolism, because the parts being used need not be unique, and deployment of a single part toward a problem would be highly circumstantial.

3) Do not underestimate the tendency of a researcher to, even unintentionally, misrepresent a logical argument to bolster the funding of their field of research. (Or for other reasons as well.)
The popular opinion today (and this includes many researchers) is that being homosexual is genetically determined. Some even go so far as to say that having an enlarged amygdala (in men) makes them homosexual (because normally only women have enlarged amygdalas). Now, apart from the logical fallacies present in this argument, we should understand why it is that people continue to pursue it.
The (politically) homosexual community wants recognition as a minority group, which didn't come so easily when it was being painted as a lifestyle choice. So, the "scientific" claim was made - homosexuality is a case of biological predestination, and "you can't help being gay". This is bolstered with a number of questionable scientific assertions and cross-species generalizations - like the "homosexual fruit flies" experiment that everyone was so proud of.
(I heard a lecture from the originator of that experiment not too long ago. He was extremely pissed off that his experiment, which actually involved male flies that would engage in courtship behaviour with any other fly and not just male ones, was being used as supporting evidence for genetic determination of homosexuality in humans. Apparently he didn't understand his own experiment as well as the homosexual community, however, because the "gay flies" assertion still stands as far as I know.)
Now, that's an agenda being pursued by a political group to set themselves up as a minority to gain such benefits as that would entail. It is just as easy to imagine that a researcher would make a reifying claim - "Intelligence is genetically determined, we need only find the related genes" - in order to develop their career, whether or not they believed it.

4) Now, let's address one of the most egregious errors in your post.

Also wrong. Intelligence is the single most important predictor of success, while SES hardly matters at all. This is the official position of the AMA as early as 1995 in a special task force report "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns." It stated that intelligence is the single most important indicator of success AND that intelligence is about 80% genetic in adulthood. You can easily find that report on the Internet.

I searched far and wide in this paper, and I found this quote:

In the case of IQ, h2 is markedly lower for children (about .45) than for adults (about .75). This means that as children grow up, differences in test scores tend increasingly to reflect differences in genotype and in individual life experience rather than differences among the families in which they were raised.

This does not say anything like what your quote said. I will quote a few other helpful passages here:

A common error is to assume that because something is heritable it is necessarily unchangeable This is wrong. Heritability does not imply immutability. As previously noted, heritable traits can depend on learning, and they may be subject to other environmental effects as well. The value of h2 can change if the distribution of environments (or genes) in the population is substantially altered. On the other hand, there can be effective environmental changes that do not change heritability at all. If the environment relevant to a given trait improves in a way that affects all members of the population equally, the mean value of the trait will rise without any change in its heritability (because the differences among individuals in the population will stay the same).

So, to recap, you said that:
Genes account for 80% of intelligence in adults.
If you are drawing upon the AMA paper, then this claim is total unadulterated BS, and you are either unfamiliar with the terms being used, or are intentionally misinterpreting to support your case.
The AMA paper said that in adults, heritability is .75, which means (superficially) that their intelligence is 75% dependent upon that of their parents. The heritability statistic, as the AMA noted, can normalize environmental variables right out of the equation, since some environmental variables will affect all subjects equally and therefore not be expressed by a percentage. However, it can also reflect environmental variables, because when they say HERITABILITY they're NOT TALKING ABOUT GENETICS. I assume you understand this, so I won't extemporize.

Now, this statistic could be interpreted many different ways.

It could mean that intelligence has a high genetic factor, and so the child tends to have the same intelligence as the parent. However, the fact that child heritability of intelligence is much less strongly related (.45), would tend to suggest that the genetic explanation is not reliable, since it fails to predict their intelligence until they reach adulthood.

It could mean that the intelligence of children depends upon the circumstances of their educations, but that the intelligence of adults tends to settle into certain normal ranges because - for the most part - adults' education is nonexistent except for that related directly to their work. Hence, the baseline adult intelligence is "that which is required to do their job", and this doesn't change that much between generations.

It could also reflect a problem with the intelligence tests being used - variation in results could decrease as the scale goes up, for instance, which is what happens with high school students. All "A+" students have about the same marks, because you can't crack 100% without cheating on the part of the administration.
So, the high heritability for adults may just reflect a test that is unable to distinguish finely between the relative intelligence levels of highly intelligent people.

In conclusion, I will assume for the nonce that your misinterpretations were accidental and not the result of intellectual dishonesty. However, I would ask that you read your sources more carefully before using them to support your opinion - which in this case, the AMA paper does not support. Since I am unable to get a copy of the other work you mentioned I cannot examine the assertions made in that book.

BUT

The case you have made is otherwise not convincing.

It is missing the point to focus on the relative merits of intelligence only. Manipulating the human genome is, I feel, the best hope for our species. In the future, we can use the genome like a paintbrush. The question is what kind of human being do we want? Do you want to breath underwater? Explore space without a spacesuit? Breath methane atmospheres? There is no practical limitation.

‘we can use the genome like a paintbrush.’

I’ve heard that the genome sequence is a jazz score, but this metaphor is wonderful…I just hope you don’t actually believe it. :p

Why not? The next revolution in animal life will be self-directed evolution.

Because the painter never paints the image that is in their imagination

Witness the creation of the spidergoat, goats that produce spidersilk protein in their milk. I think such hybridisation will become much more common. How would you like an exoskeleton? Or the skin of a chameleon? Or, poisonous fangs? How about using algae to produce muscle tissue, thus making vegetarian meat?

The first thing would be to try and weed out genetic diseases and birth defects from the species.

"Manipulating the human genome is, I feel, the best hope for our species."

In what way?

"In the future, we can use the genome like a paintbrush."

I think thats a flawed metaphor, due to it assuming both that you can see what youve done clearly enough, corect it a will, and also assumes what is likely a false mutability of the genome.

"The question is what kind of human being do we want? Do you want to breath underwater? Explore space without a spacesuit? Breath methane atmospheres? There is no practical limitation."

I think there will be practical limitations, its just impossible to say exactly what when what is being lauded is still pie in the sky.

"Manipulating the human genome is, I feel, the best hope for our species."
In what way?
Well, we evolved to fit a very different world than the one that now exists. It is unlikely that we will fit back into nature in a sustainable way.I feel our most likely hope will be a forward escape, into space. Evolved human traits like aggression will be obsolete and counterproductive in space, so will skeletons, for that matter.

"In the future, we can use the genome like a paintbrush."
I think thats a flawed metaphor, due to it assuming both that you can see what youve done clearly enough, corect it a will, and also assumes what is likely a false mutability of the genome.


Yes, I am assuming alot, but given the rate of scientific advancement, in 100 years, who know what will be possible?

I think there will be practical limitations, its just impossible to say exactly what when what is being lauded is still pie in the sky.
maybe, but this is the place to talk about our visions of the future, what we think humans will be like in 1000 years, 10000 years, etc... More likely than not, the boundries between the imagination and the possible will dissolve, and the only question will be, what do you want to do? We will make ourselves gods. Certainly, we will have to confront many dangers along the way.

100 years of research? Only a telemarketer, creationist or a eugenecist could make a remark like that.


I rely on 140 years of research that neo-eugenics is bull. I refer to 'on the origin of species'.

Yes, general intelligence has about 100 years behind it, but one could increase that ten fold if you included exams for Chinese civil servants and even older exams. My point is that research in general intelligence is far older than research into personality traits, etc. Nothing very astonishing in that - except they made a lot of mistakes early on, just like medical doctors did by bleeding people to cure them.

anyway...this whole nonsense of eugenics is based on a false idea of evolution and the false notion that we should improve the human species. And then there is the false assumption that a smarter human is a better human.

And I probably forgot to mention 300 other false assumptions.

Now come with a coherent theory and we will discuss it rationally.

(this post is not aimed at weebee of course! it just happens to be after his/hers)

You fail to understand the basics of science. First, as a breeder, if I want to breed a new breed of dog, I do not have to have reason other than a desire to do so. As a eugenicist, if I want to breed a smarter human, I do not need a reason other than I want to do so. Now, can I breed a smarter human? I think if human intelligence is based on genes, as surely it must or we could train chimpanzees to physicists, then it is very doable. I fail to see where there is any difficulties in this scenario. You seem to just hate some scientific adventures - which eugenics is. It is not based on any ethical or moral imperative as you seem to think it is.

spuriousmonkey said:
Unintelligent organisms tend to do quite well in this world.
The operative phrase is "in this world". Perhaps you are right, we are too clever to do well in this world, let's go somewhere else.

I have heard of this theory about jews, and it goes like this; In jewish society, the job of the rabbi (similar to the christian priest), was where the best opportunity for advancement in society occured. They learned to read (unusual for other professions), they got paid well, they had a high status, so natually, the job attracted the brightest people. The difference between jewish society and the christians was that rabbis were allowed to have a family, and being succesful, they were more able to support a large family, passing intelligence traits down to their children. Christian priests, also representing the best and brightest people, could not marry (or have sex of course), and thus, the genes for intelligence were not passed on to succesive generations.

I'm doubtful, but it is an interesting theory.

- It states that SocioEconomic Status (SES) has more to do with income variance than IQ does:

This seems to me to be the opposite of what you said, unless the report then goes on to retract these statements at some later point.

I will assume for the nonce that your misinterpretations were accidental and not the result of intellectual dishonesty. However, I would ask that you read your sources more carefully before using them to support your opinion - which in this case, the AMA paper does not support. Since I am unable to get a copy of the other work you mentioned I cannot examine the assertions made in that book.


I will respond first to your objections to my assertions with regards to SES. It has been a number of years since I have read "Knowns & Unknowns" so I was winging it. Anyway, to answer your objections, I will use the following quote from The Scientific Study of General Intelligence, edited by Helmuth Nyborg, 2003. It is more recent. We have come a long way since 1995:

"IQ and SES background are not independent forces, of course. Sociologists tend to assume that IQ differences are largely created by differences in family resources, such as better educated parents, more books in the home, and the like. In other words, IQ scores really reflect mostly socioeconomic advantage. In contrast, many intelligence researchers assume that the accomplishments of parents and children have overlapping genetic roots. Namely, if parents have favorable genes for IQ, this genetic advantage will yield them greater socioeconomic success as well as brighter than average children who, consequently, will have their own favorable odds for socioeconomic success. If this assumption is true, then controlling for family background before assessing the causal impact of g actually controls away part of g itself and results in underestimating its impact.

Thus, although there is no argument among social scientists that IQ correlates moderately strongly with socioeconomic success, there is heated debate about whether higher intelligence might be a result rather than a cause of social advantage. The causal question has not been an issue in the job performance literature, partly because it strains credulity to attribute differences in job performance -- for example, post-training success at assembling a rifle, reading maps, making good managerial decisions, and so on -- to distal social forces rather than to proximal personal ones. The job performance research leaves no doubt, either, that earlier cognitive ability predicts later performance in training and on the job. It also shows that the most relevant distal characteristics, such as years of education, have scant value in predicting who performs best in a particular job.

The causal question is still a major one, however, when the job outcomes at issue are broader, more personally consequential ones such as occupational prestige and income level attained. Although many social scientists still assume that intelligence is a result rather than a cause of social class differences, research continues to show the opposite. Sibling studies, for instance, provide evidence that g does, in fact, have a big causal influence and that social class has a comparatively weak one on children's adult socioeconomic outcomes. Biological siblings differ two-thirds as much in IQ, on the average, as do random strangers (12 vs. 17 IQ points). Despite growing up in the very same households, their differences in IQ portend differences in life outcomes that are almost as large as those observed in the general population. Even in intact, non-poor families, siblings of below average intelligence are much less likely to have a college degree, work in a professional job, and have high earnings than are their average-IQ siblings, who in turn do much less well than their high-IQ siblings.

Behavioral genetic research also indicates that g is much more a cause than consequence of social advantage. First, research on the heritability of IQ indicates that differences in family advantage have a modest effect on IQ scores -- about equal to that of genes -- in early childhood, but that these family effects -- called shared environmental effects -- wash out by adolescence. Perhaps counterintuitively, the socioeconomic advantages and disadvantages that siblings share turn out to have no lasting effect on IQ. By late adulthood, the heritability of IQ is about 0.8, which means that phenotypic intelligence is correlating about 0.9 with genotypic intelligence (0.9 being the square root of 0.8). Environmental differences account for up to 20% of IQ differences in adulthood, but they represent non-shared effects that we experience one person at a time (such as illness), not family by family (such as parents' income and education). In short, differences in adult IQ are not due at all to differences in socioeconomic advantage.

Second, multivariate behavioral genetic analyses reveal not only that education, occupation and income level are themselves partly heritable (that is, our differences in education, occupation and income can be traced partly to our genetic differences), but that they also share some of the same genetic roots as does IQ. The heritabilities of educational level, occupational level and income are, respectively, about 0.6-0.7, 0.5, and 0.4-0.5. More importantly, half to two-thirds of the heritability for each outcome overlaps the genetic roots of IQ."

Hopefully this will clarify the latest data on SES and mental ability. Often, it is hard to provide convincing data on these subjects in just a few paragraphs, but this should suffice to show that SES has been long abandoned as an explanation for success in life, though it is still used by the Academic Left.

Sociologists tend to assume that IQ differences are largely created by differences in family resources, such as better educated parents, more books in the home, and the like. In other words, IQ scores really reflect mostly socioeconomic advantage.

This is a gross misrepresentation of SES. How many people do you know who are employed because "their father got them a job"? Nyborg is entirely dismissing some of the greatest benefits of social status, namely that of personal connections. SES does not usually come without these personal connections, and in actual fact is often better represented by personal connections than by a person's current financial situation.
(Id est, Even if Martha Stewart goes totally bankrupt, in ten years she will probably be rich again. This is not solely due to her IQ.)

If your parents work at the canning plant, can they get you a job at the bank? Probably not. If your parents work at the bank, can they get you a job at the bank even if you're stupid? Probably. Most jobs do not require even average human intelligence to perform, and so even the rich couple's most idiot children can be given a job where they'll be useful. The poor couple doesn't have any jobs to give away in the first place.

The causal question has not been an issue in the job performance literature, partly because it strains credulity to attribute differences in job performance -- for example, post-training success at assembling a rifle, reading maps, making good managerial decisions, and so on -- to distal social forces rather than to proximal personal ones.

This reasoning is a form of intentional blindness on his part. Most people can keep their job once they get it, because - again - most jobs are fairly easy even for the poorly educated. The reasons for which people lose their jobs are as often social as they are related to performance, and usually when a person fails to perform in a job it's because of their laziness or poor attitude, not their lack of ability.

The point is whether or not they can get a job in the first place. If a person has a resume entirely consisting of janitorial work and manual labour, they'll never get an office job, and chances are their kids will be doomed to the same forms of employment and hence the same relatively low pay, poor working conditions, and poor job security.

I must also comment on his terminology:

Second, multivariate behavioral genetic analyses reveal not only that education, occupation and income level are themselves partly heritable (that is, our differences in education, occupation and income can be traced partly to our genetic differences), but that they also share some of the same genetic roots as does IQ.

Does heritability really mean "traced to genetic differences"? As far as I understood, heritability was just the tendency for the children to have the same judged characteristic as the parent. That is, if my mother has fifty dollars in her pocket, does that make me more likely to have fifty dollars in my pocket? No one would say (or at least, most people would not say) that having fifty dollars in your pocket is genetically determined. Most, in fact, would say that this was circumstantial and strongly related to your environment.

Now, I have to take issue with this statement:

Behavioral genetic research also indicates that g is much more a cause than consequence of social advantage.

Well, I suppose their research would indicate that because it's one of the theses of their field of study. Witness:

Namely, if parents have favorable genes for IQ, this genetic advantage will yield them greater socioeconomic success as well as brighter than average children who, consequently, will have their own favorable odds for socioeconomic success. If this assumption is true, then controlling for family background before assessing the causal impact of g actually controls away part of g itself and results in underestimating its impact.

Nyborg is saying "We need not control for family background in our studies of g because we just know a priori that g determines family background." This is highly suspect reasoning. I'm sure many great experiments begin with the words, "We can assume that we already know everything about this."

The field of behavioural genetics, and the psychological disciplines associated with it, are fraught with this sort of poor reasoning. I understand why this is so; the researchers are contending with two major problems.

1) At the chemical level, genetic effects and environmental effects are interdependent and can't really be extracted from one another. This makes information gathering very difficult unless you cast your information in the context of both, which creates a level of imprecision unacceptable to molecular biologists.
Unfortunately, it has come to pass that they will fudge, as Nyborg has done here, and just say "Let's assume it's all genetic and then find the genes for all of it." Sorry to break this to you, but it ain't all genetic - and if it is, that doesn't solve your problem. I'll see if I can explain.

Studies have also shown that, all other things being equal, a taller person will be hired before a shorter person. Now, if we assume that the position is that of, say, Accountant, then height really has nothing to do with performance in the job (in most high-paying jobs height is not much of a factor, except in playing golf). So...
On the one hand, height can be said to be genetically determined.
On the other hand, the hirer is choosing taller people based on a social prejudice toward taller people.
So, is the social effect really all that "distal" compared to the genetic effect?
Once the behavioural geneticist starts to argue that social prejudice is genetically determined, you can't abandon social effects like this as unimportant anymore. The common tactic of "leveling the playing field" by claiming that everything is genetic, and the other common tactic of "eliminating the trivialities" by saying that social effects don't really mean anything, are not compatible with one another. You have to choose.

2) The second is that behavioural genetics and its attendant psychologies are wandering into the field of bioethics, a field which neither molecular biologists nor psychologists are required to have any training in.

They are placed in a situation where, despite their complete lack of ethical training, they are forced to make value judgements about ethical subjects such as marriage/pair-bonding and socioeconomic doctrine.

When you are uneducated in the vagaries of scientific study, but have a good grasp of English, you may read a statement like:

Sibling studies, for instance, provide evidence that g does, in fact, have a big causal influence and that social class has a comparatively weak one on children's adult socioeconomic outcomes.

And interpret it as meaning:

"A poor person is not poor because their parents were poor; rather thay are poor because they are stupid. Socioeconomic status is a relatively secure index of your intelligence and therefore your value as a person."

And Presto! A "scientific" judgement suddenly becomes an "ethical" judgement! Of course, Nyborg will protest that he is only showing us the truth, even though (as stated before) his foregoing assumptions may be extremely suspect. Don't get me wrong, I'm not asserting that all researchers' mistakes are intentional, but it doesn't need to be intentional to cause a problem.

Science is biased. It's too bad, but it will never be objective, and cases like this cause a particular problem. Don't give too much credit to their findings without any examination of their reasoning.

Well, we evolved to fit a very different world than the one that now exists. It is unlikely that we will fit back into nature in a sustainable way.I feel our most likely hope will be a forward escape, into space. Evolved human traits like aggression will be obsolete and counterproductive in space, so will skeletons, for that matter.
Even so, Space isnt an ultimate escape, it all depends if we get FTl and how good our technology gets. WE know how to fit into nature in a sustainable way, hpwever, it requires going back in time in our methods of survival. FAiling that, we have to technologise our way forwards. I do look forwards to careful, sensible applicaiton of new technology with an eye on how it affects "nature" but I am all too aware of humanitys hubris. And I get tired of people painting the future in bright colours with what ifs, and stuff taken straight from SF. Hopefully I dont sound like i'm snapping at you.
As for bones, i think we wil need them in space, unless your plannign to float around like a jellyfish. Its just htat we will be able to get by with much lower density, unless we're doing serious high G manouvring. It may be that the best for of human for space living resembles a blob of protoplasm, with some serious genetic tinkering behind it. And aggression of a sort will eb necessary, its just it wil have to be directed outwards at the "nature" people are trying to survive in, rather than at each other. A more cooperative variety of humanity? maybe.


Yes, I am assuming alot, but given the rate of scientific advancement, in 100 years, who know what will be possible?
Aye, but then, who knows what wont be possible?


maybe, but this is the place to talk about our visions of the future, what we think humans will be like in 1000 years, 10000 years, etc... More likely than not, the boundries between the imagination and the possible will dissolve, and the only question will be, what do you want to do? We will make ourselves gods. Certainly, we will have to confront many dangers along the way.
Again, maybe. It all depends.
anyways, would you count your dreams as actaul eugenics, or merely sensible adaptations of the stock for different environments?

Nuenke: You missed my sarcasm and also the point of my post. I have now scanned, if not read the "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" paper and it fails to agree with what you've said in the following contexts:


In fact I do mean that mental ability, or g, is 80% heritable meaning that genes are responsible. And others agree including the leading researchers on intelligence. The AMA report is now dated, so let me give you a later, short conclusion of the fings:

Nyborg in The Scientific Study of General Intelligence: Tribute to Arthur R. Jensen
Edited by Helmuth Nyborg, 2003. "Yet, both the previous and the later methodologically better studies of the heritability of intelligence have come up with figures that, on average, compare favorably with Burt's original numbers. What remains of substance of the much hailed defamatory attacks is that an ageing Burt probably was inexcusably careless with the presentation of his own data. The really interesting question has now changed to the question of why so many critics still find the Burt case a good reason to reject the entire notion of the major inheritance of intelligence in face of the fact that, once you remove all Burt's data and use only the updated and technically much better evidence, it does not change one iota of the conclusion that genes count for about 80% of the familial transmission of genes for intelligence in late adulthood (but seemingly much less in childhood!)"

Heritability in fact does change with age because human development is under genetic-environmental interaction control. Children's brains change with age, as different genes get activated. Neurons are trimmed back, myelination of axons increases to speed up signal transmission, etc. Genes are active and changing throughout a person's life. Why do you assume that a person's heritability cannot change over time?

You seem to be filled with just-so stories about intelligence that does not correlate with what has been published. Mental ability correlates with performance in school and on the job. Heritability is why intelligent managers can keep learning on the job. Learning does not stop for intelligent people, they keep on learning throughout their lives. Following is a recently published abstract that addresses you assertions:

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Copyright 2004 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 2004, Vol. 86, No. 1, 148–161. Academic Performance, Career Potential, Creativity, and Job Performance: Can One Construct Predict Them All?

"This meta-analysis addresses the question of whether one general cognitive ability measure developed for predicting academic performance is valid for predicting performance in both educational and work domains. The validity of the Miller Analogies Test (MAT; W. S. Miller, 1960) for predicting 18 academic and work-related criteria was examined. MAT correlations with other cognitive tests (e.g., Raven’s Matrices [J. C. Raven, 1965]; Graduate Record Examinations) also were meta-analyzed. The results indicate that the abilities measured by the MAT are shared with other cognitive ability instruments and that these abilities are generalizably valid predictors of academic and vocational criteria, as well as evaluations of career potential and creativity. These findings contradict the notion that intelligence at work is wholly different from intelligence at school, extending the voluminous literature that supports the broad importance of general cognitive ability (g)."

"Many laypeople, as well as social scientists, subscribe to the belief that the abilities required for success in the real world differ substantially from what is needed to achieve success in the classroom. Yet, this belief is not empirically or theoretically supported. A century of scientific research has shown that general cognitive ability, or g, predicts a broad spectrum of important life outcomes, behaviors, and performances. These include academic achievement, health-related behaviors, social outcomes, job performance, and creativity, among many others (see Brand, 1987; Gottfredson, 1997; Jensen, 1998; Lubinski, 2000; Ree & Caretta, 2002; Schmidt, 2002, for reviews of variables that display important relations with cognitive ability). A particularly powerful demonstration of the influence of g comes from Jencks et al. (1979) who showed that even with background and socioeconomic status (SES) controlled, cognitive ability measured at adolescence predicted occupational attainment. Cognitive ability “is to psychology as carbon is to chemistry” (Brand, 1987, p. 257) because it truly impacts virtually all aspects of our lives."

"How is it that many people believe that the abilities required for success in the real world differ substantially from what is needed to achieve success in the classroom? Perhaps the fact that tests and measures are often developed for particular settings (e.g., educational vs. occupational) has perpetuated this myth. The main purpose of the current study is to evaluate whether a single test of cognitive ability that was developed for use in educational settings is predictive of behaviors, performances, and outcomes in both educational and occupational settings. We first conduct a series of meta-analyses to establish that the Miller Analogies Test (MAT; Miller, 1960) assesses cognitive ability. We then report metaanalyses examining the validity of the MAT for predicting multiple criteria in academic and work settings, including evaluations of career potential and creativity. The results address the theoretical question of whether a single cognitive ability measure is valid for predicting important criteria across domains. In this article, general cognitive ability and g are defined as the underlying trait that leads to the well-documented positive intercorrelation observed between measures of cognitive behaviors. The phenomenon of g has been shown to have important, domain-general relationships with knowledge, learning, and information processing, and the general thesis of this article is that tests of general cognitive ability or g are predictive of success in academic and work settings, regardless of the setting for which they were developed."

"Although our thesis and findings may surprise some readers, it was our a priori expectation that the MAT would be a valid predictor of a wide range of academic and work criteria, as well as creativity and career potential. Our prediction was based on the enormous literature that unequivocally demonstrates the existence of a general factor of cognitive ability and its broad importance as a predictor of numerous life outcomes (for reviews, see, Brand, 1987; Gottfredson, 2002). Therefore, this study builds on and contributes to the substantial body of research already supporting the nomological network in which the construct of g is embedded."

I will post some additional data on the heritability of g and other research findings. For now I would like to address your concerns with brain scans and your assertions with its use. I also agree with Dennett, and I doubt that he would object to the use of brain scans to falsify or confirm scientific theories. It seems from your statements that you do not understand how science operates.

Scientists present theories and then go about testing them. If a standing theory cannot be falsified, and it has predictive validity as well as construct validity, etc. then it stands until it can be refuted or built upon by theories that are more elaborate. Brain scans, IQ tests, etc. are all useful for confirmatory or exploratory use in science. That is, even if an fMRI research project is not conclusive or informative, it can at least be used to give credence to or falsify any particular theory. What is important in scientific investigation is that ALL available tools be used to try to falsify standing theories as well as test new or expanded theories. In science, no methodology is off limits because one has a "personal problem" with a technique or a device was not "originally intended for" a specific purpose or that investigations into certain areas "would be used as a means of general discrimination." Science stands independent of moral choices about what to do with the results. Again, Dennett would not agree with you with regards to your selective use of scientific tools for political purposes.

I do agree with you about ALL scientists having a political, moral or personal agenda when it comes to research. However, this can be taken care of by some simple measures as follows:

[Gerald V. Barrett, Alissa J. Kramen & Sarah B. Lueke 2003] In the 1920s and 1930s basic theories of intellectual ability were developed along with operational tests which proved effective in predicting job performance. In a series of studies and meta-analyses throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Schmidt and Hunter showed that cognitive ability was the best overall predictor of job performance. Partially in reaction to the meta-analytic findings, research to expand on the definitions of competencies continued. The development of competencies by McClelland was followed by a discussion of tacit knowledge, practical intelligence, and multiple intelligence. In the 1990s, emotional intelligence became the intelligence of interest.

All these new theories and proposed measurement instruments pose a challenge to traditional cognitive ability tests since it is claimed that these tests are more valid and have lower adverse impact. It is our contention that many of these tests are nothing more than pop psychology. It is distressing to see such books quoted as if they had some merit. We will review the themes present throughout all of these "creative" concepts and examine whether they have practical implications and can withhold legal scrutiny in the public and private sector.

It is our opinion that despite all these theorists' claims of validity, if challenged in court, they would fail. The Daubert Standards for scientific tests are a set of guidelines for admissibility of scientific evidence into court (see Table 19.1).
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Table 19.1: Daubert criteria.
1) The theory must have been tested, or is at least able to be tested.
2) The theory (& expert) must have (been) published in peer reviewed publications.
3) There must be a known or potential error rate.
4) The theory must be generally accepted in the relevant scientific community.
5) The methods for testing the theory must meet scientific standards.
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The criteria were set forth in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993) and clarified through subsequent supreme court cases (General Electric Company v. Joiner 1997; Kumho Tire Company Ltd. v. Carmichael 1999) and federal district and appeals court cases (e.g. Black v. Rhone-Poulenc 1998; Butler v. Home Depot, Inc. 1997; Camp v. Lockheed Martin Corporation 1998; Clark v. Takata Corp. 1999; Gerlib v. R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co. 2001; Smith v. Ford Motor Co. 2000). (See American College of Trial Lawyers 1994, and Barrett 2000, for a discussion). In the U.S., the Daubert standards pertain to any selection instrument used or advocated by a plaintiff. This is part of American case law, but the basic principles of scientific standards are relevant to everyone considering a particular measure or construct's use for personnel selection.

The following seems to support your view of the brain or Dennett's view. But it does show you how researchers are cautious about any one technique, and prefer to "triangulate" using many methods of investigation:

[Britt Anderson 2003] The large number of MR studies replicated multiple times by independent groups has unequivocally confirmed a relationship between brain volume and higher IQ scores for normal men and women. The value of this correlation hovers near r=0.35. While the studies are consistent for their global findings, they are less consistent for their details. Most of the studies, especially the more recent studies with larger numbers of subjects and more sophisticated imaging protocols, fail to find any important contributions of left-right size asymmetries. The evidence for a differential effect of gray matter and white matter volumes favors gray matter volume being more important, but the issue cannot be considered fully resolved. No specific pattern of regional differences correlates with a specific pattern of cognitive skills in normal subjects, but it is important to note that the sizes of individual brain structure are themselves highly intercorrelated. There seem to be general factors for brain size as well as intelligence.

While the consistent finding of a correlation between intelligence and total brain size is important and reassuring, perhaps more important is the relatively small size of the correlation. Far less of the normal variation in human intelligence is explained by brain size than is explained because of it. This observation suggests that additional investigations are necessary to determine the biological bases of individual differences in intelligence and leads directly to the additional ways in which MRI can be employed….

Anatomical and metabolic imaging techniques using magnetic resonance technology have provided a clear answer to the question of whether brain size is correlated to intelligence. The correlation is positive and in the order of r=0.35. This result has been so consistent across multiple experimental groups that its veracity should not be in dispute. Still open are questions as to whether there are specific brain regions or compartments (e.g. gray matter versus white matter) that are the principal basis for this relationship.

While providing a clear answer to the gross size-ability question, these studies have also pointed out that the majority of individual variation in intelligence is not explained by variation in brain volume. This sets the stage for further experiments using additional capabilities of MRI and other technologies to assess the physiological function of the brain. So far, the most dramatic result has been the correlation between white matter NAA levels and performance on timed cognitive tasks. However, both reports of this relationship have come from a single research group and await independent confirmation. Other applications of MRS, such as measuring brain neurotransmitter levels and intracellular pH, have only really been demonstrations of technical feasibility. While these new techniques have not resolved open question about normal variation in brain-behavior relations they light the way to a bright future for understanding the biological bases of interindividual variation in general cognitive ability, a research aspiration that one can trace from Spearman through Jensen to many of the authors of the present volume, this one included.

The following addresses your concerns about intelligence in adulthood. Mental ability is just as important in adulthood as it is while in school, if not more so.

[Ree, Carretta & Green] Te Nijenhuis & van der Flier report that g was predictive of truck driver training in the Netherlands on a sample of foreign born and native participants. Uncorrected results for job knowledge criteria were r=0.222 and r=0.245 for immigrants and native born truck drivers, respectively. Their sample is of interest as it includes Turks, North Africans, Surinamese and (formerly) Yugoslavs. These findings buttress the ubiquity of g as a predictor.

Roznowski et al. demonstrated the predictive efficacy of g for learning electronics information from a computerized tutor. Their second study showed similar results for a flight-engineering tutor. They proposed a hierarchical model in which g was superior to paper-and-pencil cognitive factors and to factors derived from measures of information processing. This is consistent with Stauffer et al. who found measures of information processing (called cognitive components by their developers) to be mostly measures of g.

Although misunderstanding our previous use of "not much more than g", Colquitt et al. have produced a comprehensive meta-analytically-based path analysis of the role of g in producing training outcomes. They showed g directly influencing declarative knowledge, skill acquisition, retraining self-efficacy and post training self-efficacy. They also found g to indirectly influence a host of other training effects such as motivation to learn, transfer and job performance.

The following is a sample of the type of research that does in fact consider your assertions about restriction in range. In good research, when only A+ students are used, this is noted and adjusted for using either mathematical tools or broadening the sample:

[Philip L. Ackerman & David F. Lohman] Later authors have suggested that what Spearman ultimately meant was that it doesn't matter what tests are used to assess g, that by virtue of the concept of "the indifference of the indicator" conjecture, g is rather best conceptualized as the factor that gives rise to the ubiquitous positive correlations among mental ability tests. This inductive approach lacks specificity, but provides a rubric for estimating g in a generally robust fashion -- that is, if a wide-enough sample of ability tests is administered to a sample that is sufficiently heterogeneous in talent. Historically, empirical studies that employ such methods for assessing g tend to provide sufficient information to obtain omnibus intelligence, or IQ scores. Another approach is that advocated by Gustafsson. From Gustafsson's analysis of extant literature, g is essentially equivalent to Cattell's conceptualization of fluid intelligence (Gf) -- which in turn is best identified by measures of reasoning and working memory.

The following is an introduction to the importance of mental ability or g. It addresses what you I think imply: that intelligence tests are useful for school but are then unimportant:

[Linda S. Gottfredson] Arthur Jensen has reinvigorated and redirected the study of human intelligence in major ways. Perhaps the most important has been to turn the field's attention back to Spearman's g, the general intelligence factor. The discovery that the same g factor emerges from diverse batteries of mental tests in diverse populations, together with the consequent option to derive scores for individuals on this common factor, has allowed intelligence researchers to make some crucial advances.

To clearly distinguish "intelligence" (g) from the vehicles of its measurement (e.g. test format or content);

To employ a common working definition of intelligence -- g -- despite using different tests of mental ability;

To narrow the range of theoretical possibilities for what intelligence is, and to focus specifically on conceptions that emphasize a highly general (i.e. content- and context-free) set of mental capabilities or properties of the brain; and thereby;

To transcend some long-standing debates over the "real" meaning of intelligence and IQ: Which of the many verbal definitions of "intelligence" is correct for guiding research? (With g as the common yardstick, the question becomes moot.) Don't IQ scores represent just the arbitrary cultural knowledge that IQ tests happen to require? (No, they tap something much more general.)

The construct of g has arguably become our most valuable conceptual tool for probing the nature and origins of differences in "intelligence", as many chapters in this volume attest.

Another advantage of the g construct is that, in providing a common scale for measuring the differences in intelligence among people, the g factor also provides a common yardstick for comparing the mental demands of different tasks. Just as individuals can be distinguished in their levels of g (their "mental horsepower"), so too can tasks be distinguished in their g loadedness (the degree to which they call forth g). The classification of tasks and tests by g loading (their correlation with the g factor) has been essential in explaining why test results can differ substantially across different mental tests. In particular, we now know that some IQ tests and subtests are more g loaded than others (call forth g more effectively) and therefore should yield different patterns of results (for example, to better distinguish retarded from normal or gifted individuals). This variation in results stems not from flaws in intelligence tests or in the concept of intelligence itself, as was once alleged, but from the variability among tasks being used to evoke g.

The notion that tasks differ in their demands for g has importance far beyond psychometric testing, however. The notion is key to unraveling the consequences of intelligence in social life, what Jensen calls the horizontal aspect of g. Jensen himself has focused mostly on the vertical aspect of g (its biological roots), but he has provided the conceptual tools for others to advance its horizontal study. For instance, Jensen's insights on the properties of mental tasks have prompted sociologist Robert Gordon to analyze the psychometric properties of daily life as an intelligence test. He shows how the degree to which daily life mimics rather than departs from the properties of a reliable, valid test of intelligence helps to explain the pattern of both g's impact across life as well as people's likelihood of perceiving that impact. Jensen's insights on mental tasks have also led to research on how differences in task attributes systematically shift g's gradients of effect in employment, health and other domains of life. This chapter develops these themes further in order to show that, by turning attention to the psychometric properties of the tasks people perform, Jensen has opened up new ways of understanding how individual and group differences in g shape our individual and collective fates.

Finally, I would like to direct you to some work that is very much in keeping with your attraction to Dennett's work: Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity by Thomas Metzinger, 2003. You can read my review of this book towards the last third of the article at http://home.Comcast.net/~neoeugenics/Being.htm

It is a fascinating book about how none of us has direct contact with the outside world, and therefore, we must act collectively to discover the realities outside of ourselves.

This is a gross misrepresentation of SES. How many people do you know who are employed because "their father got them a job"?

Very few. Where is your data. Anecdotal observations are invalid.

1) At the chemical level, genetic effects and environmental effects are interdependent and can't really be extracted from one another. This makes information gathering very difficult unless you cast your information in the context of both, which creates a level of imprecision unacceptable to molecular biologists.

There is a great deal of research that links genetic/environmental interaction. The point you seem to miss is that none of the researchers I submit here are free to make any statements that are not reviewed and critiqued by their colleagues. Where are your resources? Show me the data.

Studies have also shown that, all other things being equal, a taller person will be hired before a shorter person.

Where is your data. Why should I believe you? You make me produce research supporting my position. Please do the same.

2) The second is that behavioural genetics and its attendant psychologies are wandering into the field of bioethics, a field which neither molecular biologists nor psychologists are required to have any training in.

And they don't need to have training in religion. Bioethics does not exist, it is a fabricated notion like reincarnation.

Hey, if Bioethics is fabricated, how do you justify what you do when your tinkering with biology?

Is there any data on whether smart parents have smart children and so on, for several generations? Or do you simply want to breed smart with smart like with dogs, and see what happens?

Hey, if Bioethics is fabricated, how do you justify what you do when your tinkering with biology?

Is there any data on whether smart parents have smart children and so on, for several generations? Or do you simply want to breed smart with smart like with dogs, and see what happens?

I don't try to justify what I do based on morality, ethics, utopain ideals, social justice, or any other normative criteria. I only accept an evolutionary accounting of altruism/morality. That is, those human behaviors that have come into play for our survival, but not for any lofty goals. I am perfectly content to let eugenicists experiment and compete to see which ones can can breed the most fit future generations based on any criteria they want - good looks, intelligence, athletic ability, etc. I advocate intelligence primarily because of what I know about its benefits. But others might pursue different traits to enhance - such as psychopathy and aggression.

As to data about breeding - my web site has a review of Kevin MacDonald's research on high Ashkenzi Jewish intelligence, and how it was selectively bred for over several thousand years, using Talmudic studies as the primary test for scholarship and marriage oppotunities to wealthy Jewish daughters. This was a eugenic result of a group evolutionary strategy. You can review his works at my web site http://www.neoeugenics.com

Also, it has been estimated that Ashkenazi Jewish IQ is in the range of 108 to 115, depending on the studies. This is a phenomenally high average IQ for a race of people - and it shows in how successful they are in almost anything they undertake to do.

For a direct link to my review of MacDonald, go to:

And from http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/mac.htm

I finally located the book and quote from Jensen on heritability of intelligence in "Intelligence, Race, and Genetics: Conversations with Arthur R. Jensen" by Frank Miele, 2002:

[Jensen] Consider the heritability of height. In our population, height has a heritability of about 0.30 in infancy, which gradually increases, up to about 0.95 in early adulthood. IQ shows a similar developmental increase in heritability, going from about 0.40 in early childhood to about 0.70 in adulthood, then up to about 0.80 in older adults. If environment and experience were the chief determinants of mental growth throughout our life span, you would predict that the longer we have lived, the lower the heritability of IQ, because the difference between our life experience and those of our kin should accumulate. But just the opposite is found to be true. IQ behaves like height and other physical traits in that the resemblance between genetic relatives increases with age, despite their differences in cumulative life experience.

Eugenics is being used here in a social context, so any criticism of it on a 'evolutionary' basis falls flat. It is when the inferior get their hands on superior technology that problems result. Eugenics will be inevitable with greater technology getting in the hands of the lower classes. Spuriousmonkey is a marxist that should follow the eugenic example and exterminate himself.

And they don't need to have training in religion. Bioethics does not exist, it is a fabricated notion like reincarnation.

Okay. I get that we're not seeing eye to eye here.

First of all, I did not demand that you produce sources to fortify your position; you really didn't have to. You called Knowns and Unknowns to support your decision, and it did not, so I pointed out why. I don't really feel like critiquing your other sources, whether or not they support your argument, because that isn't really the point here and I'm not even sure if I can get access to them.

I'll try to explain the point I'm making here.

The study of ethics is not a "fabrication" as you would have it. There is now and has always been a need for people to consider the justification and repercussion for a particular action; bioethics is the fancy new name for a pre-existing discipline of trying to determine the ethical underpinnings of an action and its results without appealing to religious morality. The legal systems, or the schedules of Human Rights that various countries have, also do this. Research scientists are often poorly educated in the ethical ramifications of their research, and thus are in a bad position to judge what they should say of their findings and why.

Now, let me express what I was saying about height in another way, which may help you to understand why I'm not really convinced about the your argument.

Gender is 100% genetically determined. (We'll discount "transgendered" individuals for the moment.) You can apply genetic tests at a very young age to a child and determine with high accuracy what their gender will be.

Since pay equity still doesn't exist at the moment in North America (and let's forget about rationalizations), we know that females, on average, will not be as successful as males in their careers, by measure of the money that they make.

So let's look at the syllogism we generated here.

1. Gender is genetically determined. (True)
2. Gender is a strong determinant in career success. (True)
3. So, career success is genetically determined with respect to gender. (FALSE)

We hit the wall just there at 3. The career success of women is not lesser than that of men because of their genetic makeup; it's lesser because the social policy of the environment they live in leads other people to believe that women are less valuable employees, and thus deserve a lesser salary, fewer promotions and so on. Social policy has an effect which cannot be related immediately to genetics.

As a result, although I could produce a study which shows a correlation between the genetic markers for gender and career success (quite easily in fact, and without any need for lab work), it is ethically irresponsible to produce this study with the conclusion "men are genetically better employees than women". Now, this example has been extremely simplified for the sake of clarity, but a much more obfuscatory study could be produced that linked a more obscure trait - particularly one which is, say, measurable on an arbitrary scale and open to interpretation - to career success as well. Seeing the problem would be more difficult, but the conclusion would be equally irresponsible to make.

There are two different problems at work.

1. Correlation does not imply causation.

This is a major problem in media coverage of science right now, but is often a problem even in academic circles. In the very simple analysis, it means that establishing a statistical link between two things does not mean that the relation:
- goes in the direction that you want it to
- means what you want it to mean, or
- implies any connection other than coincidence or even just the capricious nature of human observational capacities

To demonstrate the "direction" point, consider a hypothetical study on smoking performed by a cigarette company. To keep things simple, let's say they establish a statistical link between smoking and house fires. So, the conclusion of the study states:

"It has been determined that there is a statistical connection between house fires and smoking. This is probably due to the stress of the house fire, as it has been shown that stress is a factor in taking up smoking. Those who have house fires may turn to cigarettes as a means of calming their nerves after the fact."

I think the gender example I made above illustrates the "means what you want it to mean" point well enough.

To demonstrate the "capriciousness" point, I'll give another example.
Let's say I study lethal car accidents involving children.
Let's say I find that in a given year in New York State:
1873 children die in accidents in a mini-van
642 children die in accidents in a family sedan
11 children die in accidents in sports cars.

Were I willing to I could make the case that "mini-vans are deadly to children! We must remove this child-killing scourge from the roads at once!" Such a study would roar across the front pages all across the US if it were published in even the most pedestrian of academic publications. Of course, with a critical eye we might see that the ratio of vehicles with children in them on the road is roughly equal to the ratio of fatalities, that is 1:60:180, with the 1 being the fraction represented by sports cars, the 60 being family sedans and the 180 being mini-vans. However, public knowledge of this study would surely fail to encompass this little fact: that your chance of traffic accident fatality as a child, according to this study, is actually about the same no matter what kind of vehicle you're in.

Given what we've just reviewed here, it is ethically irresponsible to come to a conclusion like "career success is a reflection of one's genetically determined intelligence" for several reasons.

Reason 0. This is not actually a reason, but it should be addressed. When a researcher's findings are criticized, they will often retrench to the position that "this is pure science, and it's not my fault if you don't want to hear the truth". THIS IS NOT AN ARGUMENT. The observations of a researcher are published in a study because the statistical analysis, the conclusion and even the hypothesis of a scientific study are all higly suspect unless they address an extremely simple or atomic observation. The personal bias of a researcher can find quite obtuse conclusions from very reliable, simple and reproducible sets of observations. (Ol' Paul Broca had a little of that.) ANY part of the study that involved more than the most basic interpretation by the researcher can be irretrievably influenced by their biases.

Reason 1. Finding a statistical correlation does not give the researcher license to interpret that correlation as they see fit. I already discussed this above so I won't extemporize, but it applies to genetic markers as well - if they've found any. Last I heard there weren't any known genetic markers that were correlated with intelligence, unless they represented diseases which damaged someone's ability to learn in a demonstrable way.

Reason 2. Let me analyze one of your own statements here, and we'll see if we can find a logical flaw in the argument you're trying to make.
Roznowski et al. demonstrated the predictive efficacy of g for learning electronics information from a computerized tutor. Their second study showed similar results for a flight-engineering tutor.
Now, the actual statistical measurement of g is determined with a series of written cognitive tests, not by any genetic testing as far as I understand what you've said.

So, g (scale of cognitive ability determined by cognitive testing) is predictive of learning ability (determined by cognitive testing). This is tautological and utterly fails to demonstrate anything except that a person who is good at one kind of test will be good at another similar one. This fails to show any helpful information and does not bolster the genetic argument in any way.

The fact that you, as well as (apparently) the researchers in this field were willing to let such an error of reasoning as this slip by, does not give me great confidence in the final conclusion that you and they come to.

This has long been an unfortunate hallmark of genetic research; for whatever reason, the researcher will use this sort of verbage as an advertisement for the field.
The notion that tasks differ in their demands for g has importance far beyond psychometric testing, however. The notion is key to unraveling the consequences of intelligence in social life, what Jensen calls the horizontal aspect of g.
Why should we believe that Jensen will become an authority on social life if he determines a genetic factor that is correlated with better g test scores? This is no better than the empty promises of the various human genome projects that they would unravel "the secrets of life". The actual foreseeable benefits of the HGP:
Insights into protein formation and metabolic pathways: Yes!
Consequent development of drugs to aid those with metabolic problems: Yes!
Opening the door to further research into the meaning and expression of various genes/alleles: Yes!
Finding out the Meaning of Life: No.

It was an empty promise made to strengthen investment in an industry. The behavioural genetics researchers often make similar claims about things like "understanding the genetic basis of social differences", as if that were something so easily isolated that all it took was a knowledge of genetics. These claims are easily believed by a public which does not understand how little knowledge we have that is actually provable, and how often the claims made by researchers (who, it is only fair to say, are staking their own careers on the success of their research) are inflated and fabricated to ensure that their field of research is considered important enough to be funded.

Again, maybe. It all depends.
anyways, would you count your dreams as actaul eugenics, or merely sensible adaptations of the stock for different environments?
Eugenics seems to involve breeding, and fussing with someone's breeding habits is quite rude. I don't think we will go this way, it's too slow.

I see genetics as an extension of engineering; with nanotechnology advancing to the degree that we can make miniature differential gears, the next step is self-assembling machines, and why re-invent the wheel? Biology has already created a system for assembling very tiny machines (DNA). I don't think there is such a thing as the perfect human. What we can create are people to fit a specific purpose, or environment, or, organisms that are intelligent, but not recognizable as people. The social issues involved with this are staggering, and we may not figure out how to integrate this technology into society for a long time yet.

The study of ethics is not a "fabrication" as you would have it. Research scientists are often poorly educated in the ethical ramifications of their research, and thus are in a bad position to judge what they should say of their findings and why.

Humans managed to evolve to our present state without any formal religion or ethicists. Ethics is nothing more than another dogma that has replaced religious dogma. There is no scientific basis for why anyone should follow one ethical system over another, so it is entirely arbitrary and in the end, is entirely emotional and driven by and emotional need to control other people's actions. Ethical systems like religion are irrational. Any reading of John Rawls recent attempts at formulating and ethical system shows how fruitless it is - the arguments can not be based on anything more than emotional biases.

Now, let me express what I was saying about height in another way, which may help you to understand why I'm not really convinced about the your argument.

[Jensen] Consider the heritability of height. In our population, height has a heritability of about 0.30 in infancy, which gradually increases, up to about 0.95 in early adulthood. IQ shows a similar developmental increase in heritability, going from about 0.40 in early childhood to about 0.70 in adulthood, then up to about 0.80 in older adults. If environment and experience were the chief determinants of mental growth throughout our life span, you would predict that the longer we have lived, the lower the heritability of IQ, because the difference between our life experience and those of our kin should accumulate. But just the opposite is found to be true. IQ behaves like height and other physical traits in that the resemblance between genetic relatives increases with age, despite their differences in cumulative life experience.

Gender is 100% genetically determined.

Your syllogism fails because you have mixed up "career success" with "income." Women who are highly intelligent are more successful than women of low intelligence. However, for the same intelligence, men are more aggressive and goal oriented and make more money because of the genetic differences between men and women. There is a large volume of research on this from every extant culture studied.

Given what we've just reviewed here, it is ethically irresponsible to come to a conclusion like "career success is a reflection of one's genetically determined intelligence" for several reasons.

Science of course has a way of dealing with your assertions of absurd studies. I come across them all the time. The simple solution is verification by other researchers, peer review, etc. You never CONCLUDE anything when you publish research results because others will take issue with your conclusions and refute them. That is why there is no such thing is science as "ethically irresponsible" research. It is bad research. You seem not to understand how science works. Scientists do not want to produce research results and then have others find numerous flaws in the results. So the best way to proceed is to let everyone compete in an open and free forum of ideas without ethical restrictions. It is time we put the "Inquisition" far behind us. You seem to want to bring back political censors. Personal bias of researchers is cancelled out when all biases present are allowed to critique the results.

So, g (scale of cognitive ability determined by cognitive testing) is predictive of learning ability (determined by cognitive testing). This is tautological and utterly fails to demonstrate anything except that a person who is good at one kind of test will be good at another similar one. This fails to show any helpful information and does not bolster the genetic argument in any way.

The argument for g has nothing to do with the argument for a genetic basis for intelligence. If you deny that intelligence exists, that is another story. Do you? But your argument is absurd, it is straight out of the Marxist screeds from Gould, Lewontin, Kamin and Rose. The study of mental ability over that last 100 years uses all kinds of validity including predictive, correlational, factor analysis, twin studies, adoption studies, longitudinal studies, work related studies, employment studies, and on and on and on. Science is all about numerous studies from many fields to focus what exists. Your denial of intelligence is like denying gravity because we can't hold it in our hands or explain where is comes from - but most people believe it is real.

The fact that you, as well as (apparently) the researchers in this field were willing to let such an error of reasoning as this slip by, does not give me great confidence in the final conclusion that you and they come to.

Now let me ask you. If intelligence is a fabrication, why isn't racism and antisemitism a fabrication? Are not the same politically motivated participants trying to show that White males are evil and have oppressed minorities?

Look, I can see you've been fighting this war for a while, so I'll agree to disagree. To answer a few points in your last post:

You never CONCLUDE anything when you publish research results because others will take issue with your conclusions and refute them. That is why there is no such thing is science as "ethically irresponsible" research.
The studies I have read often end with two sections called "Conclusions" and "Areas for further research". These are generally the "findings" quoted on the news, and are often highly misleading.
Ethically irresponsible research is easy to do; pharmaceutical researchers will sometimes stop a study to avoid doing so, if a drug turns out to kill people, or to provide such an improvement to the condition of a disease that they feel it is necessary to provide all of the subjects with that treatment.
However, what I am talking about here is an ethically irresponsible conclusion drawn from ethically sound observations.

The argument for g has nothing to do with the argument for a genetic basis for intelligence. If you deny that intelligence exists, that is another story. Do you?
No I don't. I'm suggesting that the intelligence tests being used are highly self-referential and may not reflect an accurate measure. A researcher should not be willing to treat insufficient information as if it were a complete picture, just because it is all that they have.

Humans managed to evolve to our present state without any formal religion or ethicists.

This is a thoughtless statement. Evolution is not cleanly divisible from social development, whatever you may think. Finding the genetic basis for behaviour will not allow us to draw this line either.

Any reading of John Rawls recent attempts at formulating and ethical system shows how fruitless it is - the arguments can not be based on anything more than emotional biases.

The same is true of our understanding of mathematics, language, geometry, and - gasp - science thereby. Don't play this card.

Those who study language have consistently failed to account for linguistic structure in a logical manner. Should this failure be interpreted as "the truth"? Th