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Science denialists are always telling us IQ is discredited. But then …
From bioRxiv:
Jakob Seidlitz, František Váša, Maxwell Shinn, Rafael Romero-Garcia, Kirstie J. Whitaker, Petra E. Vértes, Paul Kirkpatrick Reardon, Liv Clasen, Adam Messinger, David A. Leopold, Peter Fonagy, Raymond J. Dolan, Peter B. Jones, Ian M. Goodyer, the NSPN Consortium, Armin Raznahan, Edward T. Bullmore
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/135855This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed
Abstract
Macroscopic cortical networks are important for cognitive function, but it remains challenging to construct anatomically plausible individual structural connectomes from human neuroimaging. We introduce a new technique for cortical network mapping, based on inter-regional similarity of multiple morphometric parameters measured using multimodal MRI. In three cohorts (two human, one macaque), we find that the resulting morphometric similarity networks (MSNs) have a complex topological organisation comprising modules and high-degree hubs. Human MSN modules recapitulate known cortical cytoarchitectonic divisions, and greater inter-regional morphometric similarity was associated with stronger inter-regional co-expression of genes enriched for neuronal terms. Comparing macaque MSNs to tract-tracing data confirmed that morphometric similarity was related to axonal connectivity. Finally, variation in the degree of human MSN nodes accounted for about 40% of between-subject variability in IQ. Morphometric similarity mapping provides a novel, robust and biologically plausible approach to understanding how human cortical networks underpin individual differences in psychological functions.
Tom Wolfe wrote on this about 20 years ago (Sorry, but your soul has just died)
Of course, brain scans will also measure deception ability, addiction to power, … it’s a matter of time.
But how do humans survive knowing themselves and their motives (when, normally, it’s the two last things they want to know)?
"It's seemingly nice, to deal with oneself, but not as fruitful. Inside no one learns about his soul. Because your measure deflects inside and sometimes is too big, and other times too small. Man only learns about himself with other men, only life can teach everybody, what he might be."***From Goehte's play Torquato Tasso. ***"Es ist wohl angenehm, sich mit sich selbst zu beschäft'gen, wenn es nur so nützlich wäre. Inwendig lernt kein Mensch sein Innerstes erkennen. Denn er mißt nach eignem Maß sich bald zu klein und leider oft zu groß. Der Mensch erkennt sich nur im Menschen, nur das Leben lehret jedem, was er sei."
“…This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed…”
Translation:
“Nobody’s expecting Scientific-Scientism Inquisition.
Yet.”
Another major reason to put it in a preprint server like bioRxiv is to prevent getting "scooped" (having someone else publish a very similar study before you) - it's basically saying, we were there first.
The title of the paper seems designed to obfuscate its findings, perhaps the NYT could give us a short summary.
It would be a godsend to get something truly bulletproof that can’t be denied.
If it doesn’t disappear without a trace, I can see this causing a ruckus. And I don’t see it slipping under the radar.
The researchers are from top-notch institutions. Cambridge University, University College London, and NIMH in Bethesda, MD and the Neuroscience in Psychiatry Network.
http://www.nspn.org.uk/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5403938/
Sigmund Freud, Psychoanalysis, and the War on the West
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/12/24/sigmund-freud-psychoanalysis-and-the-war-on-the-west/
Certainly the claim that:
"" variation in the degree of human MSN nodes accounted for about 40% of between-subject variability in IQ. """
is reminiscent of the claims about "important" genes in complex diseases. For example, about 40 genes contribute to Parkinsons disease (and account for about 50% of inheritability). BUT, these genes are neither necessary nor sufficient for the disease.
In short, this article seems to be much ado about nothing for the gullible. Sailer seems to be a gullible. Is he part of the sect?
The researchers are from top-notch institutions. Cambridge University, University College London, and NIMH in Bethesda, MD and the Neuroscience in Psychiatry Network.
http://www.nspn.org.uk/
There is, understandably, quite a bit of excitement in the comments to the abstract. Another team of Chinese researchers seems to be working on the same question—how brain function is affected by the variation in brain structure between individuals. I guess it is a hot field.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5403938/
The more a scientific article provides evidence for IQ-related hatefacts, the more authors it has. Safety in numbers! This article has 16 authors, plus an unknown additional number in the “NSPN Consortium.” Articles dealing directly with IQ and specific genes often have 25+ authors. And of course, to really ramp up the safety-in-numbers trick, you can thank another dozen or two scientists by name in the acknowledgments section.
Let us hope that they also collected DNA data for all individuals in the sample. If so, they should be able to connect their findings to the gene-based index for predicting educational attainment. That would really put the nail in the coffin of the blank-slate approach to understanding human behaviour.
Or perhaps the SJWs will now claim that neuroimaging is just a social construct.
Off-topic,
The curious rise of the ‘white left’ as a Chinese internet insult
<blockquote>The term first became influential amidst the European refugee crisis, and Angela Merkel was the first western politician to be labelled as a baizuo for her open-door refugee policy. Hungary, on the other hand, was praised by Chinese netizens for its hard line on refugees, if not for its authoritarian leader. Around the same time another derogatory name that was often used alongside baizuo was shengmu – literally the ‘holy mother’ – which according to its users refers to those who are ‘overemotional’, ‘hypocritical’ and ‘have too much empathy’. The criticisms of baizuo and shengmu soon became an online smear campaign targeted at not only public figures such as J. K. Rowling and Emma Watson, but also volunteers, social workers and all other ordinary citizens, whether in Europe or China, who express any sympathy with international refugees.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/chenchen-zhang/curious-rise-of-white-left-as-chinese-internet-insult
So glad to be able to call J. K. Rowling shengmu instead of stupid old cow.
Of course, brain scans will also measure deception ability, addiction to power, ... it's a matter of time.
But how do humans survive knowing themselves and their motives (when, normally, it's the two last things they want to know)?
To (claim to) know oneself = to deceit oneself (= Goethe, Freud & Wolfe).
The art of living (kinda Erich Fromm) should rather lead to the struggle to interact with others and the world in a productive way.
“It’s seemingly nice, to deal with oneself, but not as fruitful. Inside no one learns about his soul. Because your measure deflects inside and sometimes is too big, and other times too small. Man only learns about himself with other men, only life can teach everybody, what he might be.”***
From Goehte’s play Torquato Tasso
.
***“Es ist wohl angenehm, sich mit sich selbst zu beschäft’gen, wenn es nur so nützlich wäre. Inwendig lernt kein Mensch sein Innerstes erkennen. Denn er mißt nach eignem Maß sich bald zu klein und leider oft zu groß. Der Mensch erkennt sich nur im Menschen, nur das Leben lehret jedem, was er sei.”
If I ever come across a law firm called Goethe, Freud & Wolfe, I'll immediately put them on retainer, in case I need some help in deceit myself.
We already know this. Nobody thinks mosquitoes are dumber than humans because of stereotype threat. You can’t watch a cheap dinosaur documentary without hearing about how stupid they were on account of their tiny brains. We all fundamentally understand that whatever makes brains work, if there’s more of it, there’s more of it.
In 100 years there will be a Chinese phrase for the European era of wanting not to know.
I wonder what epicyclist explanation Gould would come up with for this one.
The curious rise of the ‘white left’ as a Chinese internet insult<blockquote>The term first became influential amidst the European refugee crisis, and Angela Merkel was the first western politician to be labelled as a baizuo for her open-door refugee policy. Hungary, on the other hand, was praised by Chinese netizens for its hard line on refugees, if not for its authoritarian leader. Around the same time another derogatory name that was often used alongside baizuo was shengmu – literally the ‘holy mother’ – which according to its users refers to those who are ‘overemotional’, ‘hypocritical’ and ‘have too much empathy’. The criticisms of baizuo and shengmu soon became an online smear campaign targeted at not only public figures such as J. K. Rowling and Emma Watson, but also volunteers, social workers and all other ordinary citizens, whether in Europe or China, who express any sympathy with international refugees.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/chenchen-zhang/curious-rise-of-white-left-as-chinese-internet-insult
Basically all the stuff we’ve been mocking them for for years. Maybe being mocked by non-Whites will get it through to them.
Have to admire the liberal left sometimes for their sheer bloodymindedness. A major sense of guilt, unremitting faith, and constant desire to confess to real or imagined sins: they would have made great Catholics.
Dieter wrote:
I don’t always take well to profound points, but maybe you’ve got something there.
I don’t want to know what a person “really is on the inside”: I want to know what he does (and is inclined to do) on the outside. So many of the people who consider themselves truly noble souls on the inside are in fact truly jerks in their actual behavior.
Dave
The best part about IQ to the left is how it’s such a Schrodinger’s cat to them: it both exists and doesn’t exist at precisely the same time.
What is the best , proven, vitamin to ensure that we build up our macroscopic cortical networks ??
Off topic, but Mark Steyn refers favorably to some of your demographic work in his “SteynPost #15” (starting at about 6:20 in the video below).
"It's seemingly nice, to deal with oneself, but not as fruitful. Inside no one learns about his soul. Because your measure deflects inside and sometimes is too big, and other times too small. Man only learns about himself with other men, only life can teach everybody, what he might be."***From Goehte's play Torquato Tasso. ***"Es ist wohl angenehm, sich mit sich selbst zu beschäft'gen, wenn es nur so nützlich wäre. Inwendig lernt kein Mensch sein Innerstes erkennen. Denn er mißt nach eignem Maß sich bald zu klein und leider oft zu groß. Der Mensch erkennt sich nur im Menschen, nur das Leben lehret jedem, was er sei."
Reminds me of the phrase “My friends (relatives, colleagues etc.) know me better than I do.” More often than not a truism– which we sometimes choose to ignore, possibly at our peril.
The curious rise of the ‘white left’ as a Chinese internet insult<blockquote>The term first became influential amidst the European refugee crisis, and Angela Merkel was the first western politician to be labelled as a baizuo for her open-door refugee policy. Hungary, on the other hand, was praised by Chinese netizens for its hard line on refugees, if not for its authoritarian leader. Around the same time another derogatory name that was often used alongside baizuo was shengmu – literally the ‘holy mother’ – which according to its users refers to those who are ‘overemotional’, ‘hypocritical’ and ‘have too much empathy’. The criticisms of baizuo and shengmu soon became an online smear campaign targeted at not only public figures such as J. K. Rowling and Emma Watson, but also volunteers, social workers and all other ordinary citizens, whether in Europe or China, who express any sympathy with international refugees.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/chenchen-zhang/curious-rise-of-white-left-as-chinese-internet-insult
This is amazing!
Translation:
"Nobody's expecting Scientific-Scientism Inquisition.
Yet."
No, you place a manuscript in something like bioRxiv to get the findings out before they are officially published after a number of (usually lengthy) cycles of submission-rejection-revision-resubmission, and to get it discussed by the field. A study like this would go to top journals and may be bounced around by reviewers and editors who don’t like the “controversial” findings. So, it could take years before it’s finally accepted for publication.
Another major reason to put it in a preprint server like bioRxiv is to prevent getting “scooped” (having someone else publish a very similar study before you) – it’s basically saying, we were there first.
I’m having a hard time penetrating the science jargon, but let me take a guess at what it means. Synaptic networks comprising the human brain make up a fractal pattern. The more space filling that pattern, the smarter you are. In other words, tissue density of the brain is important to IQ just as brain size is important.
Think of your brain as a suitcase you’ve packed for trip. If the shirts are carefully rolled and the pants neatly folded, you’re going to get more things into your suitcase. It’s also going to be easier to find things, which is why highly intelligent people show lower levels of cortical activity to perform any given task.
They need to do a study which compares the brain scans of Hillary Clinton supporters with the brain scans of Donald Trump supporters and concludes that the former have higher IQ. That ought to be accepted.
It’s not that. I’m in the field, and studies like that, involving scans of multiple cohorts of humans and monkeys, behavioral and genetic tests, diffusion tractography etc. are an enormous undertaking. You have to include folks who made substantial contribution to the study as authors, and there is a lot of them in a multi-center study like this. I should say that the senior authors are some of the top-notch people in neuroscience from top imaging centers in the world, and will not be easily shouted down by the SJW crowd.
The curious rise of the ‘white left’ as a Chinese internet insult<blockquote>The term first became influential amidst the European refugee crisis, and Angela Merkel was the first western politician to be labelled as a baizuo for her open-door refugee policy. Hungary, on the other hand, was praised by Chinese netizens for its hard line on refugees, if not for its authoritarian leader. Around the same time another derogatory name that was often used alongside baizuo was shengmu – literally the ‘holy mother’ – which according to its users refers to those who are ‘overemotional’, ‘hypocritical’ and ‘have too much empathy’. The criticisms of baizuo and shengmu soon became an online smear campaign targeted at not only public figures such as J. K. Rowling and Emma Watson, but also volunteers, social workers and all other ordinary citizens, whether in Europe or China, who express any sympathy with international refugees.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/chenchen-zhang/curious-rise-of-white-left-as-chinese-internet-insult
This is simply magnificent! I’m stealing “baizuo” (which basically means leftard) and “shengmu” ( female SJW). If I got it right.
So glad to be able to call J. K. Rowling shengmu instead of stupid old cow.
Here is a dream scenario of social progress based on these findings. Step 1: Someone in China/Japan/maybe Australia replicates the neuroimaging results on a large sample consisting of West Africans and Europeans, writing a published paper on the evidence of IQ-related neuroimaging differences across the two subsamples. Step 2: A brave legal team in the USA files suit against existing judicial precedents that all test-based differences in performance between US blacks and whites must be due to biased test questions, pointing at the new physically-based evidence for average differences. 3. A brave judge admits the new evidence and (in the spirit of an active judiciary) institutes a nationwide injunction. 4. The MSM and SJW community give up on the blank slate fantasy and society comes to grip with existing realities.
Took the words right out of my mouth. I could not have said it better. Man, I love science.
Steve, as a longtime reader, I really enjoyed this post which I think cuts to the core of much of your writing: equality is nonsense because people are different.
I wanted to point out why this seems paradoxical to most people. They are accustomed to egalitarian systems where facts are recognized on the basis of consensus, or “most people” thinking they are true.
Once we step outside of the brain-damaged world of egalitarian thinking, it becomes clear that facts are only recognized by those at the top of the IQ spectrum, and only those who are sincere and honest look for those facts.
While I detest democracy in all forms — even a group of people choosing what is for lunch — it would be interesting to imagine future voting booths with brain scans that only allowed entrance for those with high IQ, sincerity and honesty…
The researchers are from top-notch institutions. Cambridge University, University College London, and NIMH in Bethesda, MD and the Neuroscience in Psychiatry Network.
http://www.nspn.org.uk/
Perhaps the article from “psychologists” is better characterized as another example of how strongly religious pseudo-science from certain sects has infested the world of science?
Sigmund Freud, Psychoanalysis, and the War on the West
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/12/24/sigmund-freud-psychoanalysis-and-the-war-on-the-west/
Certainly the claim that:
“” variation in the degree of human MSN nodes accounted for about 40% of between-subject variability in IQ. “””
is reminiscent of the claims about “important” genes in complex diseases. For example, about 40 genes contribute to Parkinsons disease (and account for about 50% of inheritability). BUT, these genes are neither necessary nor sufficient for the disease.
In short, this article seems to be much ado about nothing for the gullible. Sailer seems to be a gullible. Is he part of the sect?
Or you can arrange that a “philanthropic foundation” gives a prize to selected members of “their” sect to give the “hatefacts” more credibility.
With sixteen credited authors plus a “consortium” of others, there probably weren’t too many peers left to review it.
The average number of authors of research papers, and the number of individuals per each Nobel prize, have been steadily increasing over the decades. Research is turning into crowdsourcing, as all the low-hanging scientific fruit has been picked. (For Fig Newtons? Sorry!)
You need to combine more perspectives to find a new perspective. Cf. Lior Zoref’s Mindsharing and Scott E Page’s The Hidden Factor, among others.
"It's seemingly nice, to deal with oneself, but not as fruitful. Inside no one learns about his soul. Because your measure deflects inside and sometimes is too big, and other times too small. Man only learns about himself with other men, only life can teach everybody, what he might be."***From Goehte's play Torquato Tasso. ***"Es ist wohl angenehm, sich mit sich selbst zu beschäft'gen, wenn es nur so nützlich wäre. Inwendig lernt kein Mensch sein Innerstes erkennen. Denn er mißt nach eignem Maß sich bald zu klein und leider oft zu groß. Der Mensch erkennt sich nur im Menschen, nur das Leben lehret jedem, was er sei."
Deceive. (Though I don’t doubt “deceit” will beverb itself in time, as “disconnect” has benouned itself. English is rather slutty that way, though it makes for wonderfully tricky crossword clues.)
If I ever come across a law firm called Goethe, Freud & Wolfe, I’ll immediately put them on retainer, in case I need some help in deceit myself.
Of course. This had to happen. And this particular technology will probably be supplanted by another more fundamental technology in the near future. Educators from time immemorial have realized that some students were better (smarter) than others. Around the end of the nineteenth century some scientists tried to measure those differences in a systematic manner.
But many in the lay public resisted the idea. They were more happy to keep matters vague and obscure. They advanced arguments against the conclusions that emerged from paper and pencil tests. They raised a whole series of obfuscating objections to mental measurement.
But science advances – slowly in the face of massed resistance – but steadily. We will soon have a new metric to replace the concept of IQ. We will image a person’s brain and develop a score that will rank him and allow us to counsel him as to life choices. Then this technique will be validated by the positive correlation with the ‘old fashion’ IQ results.
There is obviously something different in the heads of the smartest people and we are on the threshold of discovering how to measure it.
Of course, brain scans will also measure deception ability, addiction to power, ... it's a matter of time.
But how do humans survive knowing themselves and their motives (when, normally, it's the two last things they want to know)?
Yes, I’m not really getting too fond of how we know enough about ourselves so that we can finally kill off everything sacred.
The curious rise of the ‘white left’ as a Chinese internet insult<blockquote>The term first became influential amidst the European refugee crisis, and Angela Merkel was the first western politician to be labelled as a baizuo for her open-door refugee policy. Hungary, on the other hand, was praised by Chinese netizens for its hard line on refugees, if not for its authoritarian leader. Around the same time another derogatory name that was often used alongside baizuo was shengmu – literally the ‘holy mother’ – which according to its users refers to those who are ‘overemotional’, ‘hypocritical’ and ‘have too much empathy’. The criticisms of baizuo and shengmu soon became an online smear campaign targeted at not only public figures such as J. K. Rowling and Emma Watson, but also volunteers, social workers and all other ordinary citizens, whether in Europe or China, who express any sympathy with international refugees.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/chenchen-zhang/curious-rise-of-white-left-as-chinese-internet-insult
Some additional comment on its intentional rhetorical hilarity.
“White left” is a reference further to “leftism, as practiced by bored and overfed white people”, which is to imply that if leftism was supposed to reduce economic inequality and raise educational achievements(two leftist goals highly valued in China), then “white leftism” is clearly not doing it by letting rural white villages literally decay while praising rich men who cut off their dicks.
Its all pretty mystifying. And funny.
Its been around since 2015, and there’s been references by FP before on the “Chinese alt-right” which really, if FP knew anything, would make no sense. But yes, there’s a bit of a backlash toward it all. A lot of it has come to a head when France let Chinese immigrants get attacked by Muslim immigrants; it all seemed very confusing why Europe would value illegal, violent immigrants over legal, peaceful immigrants.
So making fun of it seems best.
Of course not. It’ll just make them lash out at China more.
Have to admire the liberal left sometimes for their sheer bloodymindedness. A major sense of guilt, unremitting faith, and constant desire to confess to real or imagined sins: they would have made great Catholics.
I wanted to point out why this seems paradoxical to most people. They are accustomed to egalitarian systems where facts are recognized on the basis of consensus, or "most people" thinking they are true.
Once we step outside of the brain-damaged world of egalitarian thinking, it becomes clear that facts are only recognized by those at the top of the IQ spectrum, and only those who are sincere and honest look for those facts.
While I detest democracy in all forms -- even a group of people choosing what is for lunch -- it would be interesting to imagine future voting booths with brain scans that only allowed entrance for those with high IQ, sincerity and honesty...
Why the worship of high IQs. Most of our present stupidity came out of the minds of high IQ people.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/
I think the term “baizuo” syonredux discusses in comment 8 above pretty much describes the syndrome. So what would be the Chinese phrase for ” baizuo era”? I’m sure Derb could help us out there.
I included the intonation for your convenience.
Exactly. They use density of connections rather than tissue density but the idea is as you wrote. There have been other MRI studies on Alzheimer’s detection where they literally use the fractal dimension as the estimate of brain health. As people lose the connections the dimension decreases.
In this study, the estimate of 40% IQ variance “explained” by the brain scans is a lower bound. They used a simple model where every additional connection per node in the network gives the same gain in IQ. More realistic models would be used if IQ modeling were the goal. Even with basic methods of using what they had measured, not only did they hit 40%, but their predictions went beyond the total IQ test score to capture some information from the subtests, such as performance on vocabulary vs matrix questions (the visual logic puzzles).
Wait, don’t IQ tests only measure how good one is at taking IQ tests?
By the way, since brain imaging also provides the full geometry of the skull, science is now in a position to characterize what information is and is not available through phrenology. And to establish how much is predictable from external physical appearance. As Steve likes to say, the glass is partly empty and partly full. The delusional official absolutism of the past 70 years is that it’s discredited pseudoscience, but imaging studies are starting to challenge that.
Doesn’t this make male density advantage in hippocampus problematic?
What would be interesting is a study that combined the many methods that have been reported to estimate IQ from brain measurements — the amount of white or grey matter, and size of brain, for example. Obviously some of these measures may be well correlated, but aggregating them might get a quite high overall predictability.
Sigmund Freud, Psychoanalysis, and the War on the West
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/12/24/sigmund-freud-psychoanalysis-and-the-war-on-the-west/
Certainly the claim that:
"" variation in the degree of human MSN nodes accounted for about 40% of between-subject variability in IQ. """
is reminiscent of the claims about "important" genes in complex diseases. For example, about 40 genes contribute to Parkinsons disease (and account for about 50% of inheritability). BUT, these genes are neither necessary nor sufficient for the disease.
In short, this article seems to be much ado about nothing for the gullible. Sailer seems to be a gullible. Is he part of the sect?
We all have heard about smokers who have lived to a ripe old age, and non-smokers who have been struck down by lung cancer. Hence smoking is neither necessary nor sufficient for bad health.
I guess it’s crazy for doctors to tell us to avoid smoking — only the gullible would believe that, right?
Things the human mind can not deny do not exist. Have never existed.
“I have a dream!”
If I ever come across a law firm called Goethe, Freud & Wolfe, I'll immediately put them on retainer, in case I need some help in deceit myself.
As soon as I sat on the bike this morning, deceit morphed gently into deceive (extraordinarily green and sunny May-fresh morning, this morning, in the woods and meadows at Lake Constance).
Hmm, Goethe was a lawyer, but did not like it.
And – something Swiss writer Adolf Muschg mentions in his little book about Goethe’s (three) Swiss journeys: At many occasions, Goethe made mistakes, when critizising others – especially then. He did make grammatical mistakes and mistakes in spelling words. As it happened, when I rode the bike back home in the afternoon, I thought about the fact that Goethe and Jean Paul didn’t care too much about spelling. And how this shows, just how sure they were of their status (= how little they had to care about status).
I kinda do, though, seemingly.
The curious rise of the ‘white left’ as a Chinese internet insult<blockquote>The term first became influential amidst the European refugee crisis, and Angela Merkel was the first western politician to be labelled as a baizuo for her open-door refugee policy. Hungary, on the other hand, was praised by Chinese netizens for its hard line on refugees, if not for its authoritarian leader. Around the same time another derogatory name that was often used alongside baizuo was shengmu – literally the ‘holy mother’ – which according to its users refers to those who are ‘overemotional’, ‘hypocritical’ and ‘have too much empathy’. The criticisms of baizuo and shengmu soon became an online smear campaign targeted at not only public figures such as J. K. Rowling and Emma Watson, but also volunteers, social workers and all other ordinary citizens, whether in Europe or China, who express any sympathy with international refugees.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/chenchen-zhang/curious-rise-of-white-left-as-chinese-internet-insult
Thank you! – I’ve already posted it on quite a few sites in Germany.
First of all 40% is not that much. If it was 90%, could this study weigh on any side of nature-nature divide? No, nurture is also biological. A person who learned to ride bicycle has neural connection that person who did not does not have. Nature is not a software that has no mass or volume.
Correction. In #48 it should be: Narture is not a software that has no mass or volume.
Maybe some of the juicer bits of crazy came out of the brains of psychopaths like James Fallon?
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/
“Bai2 Zuo3 Shi2 Dai4″
I included the intonation for your convenience.
Sigmund Freud, Psychoanalysis, and the War on the West
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/12/24/sigmund-freud-psychoanalysis-and-the-war-on-the-west/
Certainly the claim that:
"" variation in the degree of human MSN nodes accounted for about 40% of between-subject variability in IQ. """
is reminiscent of the claims about "important" genes in complex diseases. For example, about 40 genes contribute to Parkinsons disease (and account for about 50% of inheritability). BUT, these genes are neither necessary nor sufficient for the disease.
In short, this article seems to be much ado about nothing for the gullible. Sailer seems to be a gullible. Is he part of the sect?
These aren’t Freudian psychoanalysts spinning free-wheeling theories of the mind without any systematic experimental data.
These are neuroscientists and clinical psychiatrists drawing very circumscribed conclusions by testing hypotheses against fairly large scale experimental data derived from systematically-designed clinical experiments.