There are many comments on Ian Deary's new paper. Among the big time news sites: The Scientist gives the best overview, the Washington Post is a little shallow but balanced while the Atlantic Monthly is the home of diehard liberal creationist.
Razib gives a more in depth review and notes that the paper applies the same method to IQ that Yang (2010) applied to height. The method is a way to show where to look for the missing heritability of complex traits. It fits the phenotype as a function of thousands of SNPs modeled as a random effect thereby yielding an estimate of the lower of heritability with out some exotic data of twins, half sibs, or adoptees. The method must have been controversial since several authors wrote a commentary, Visscher 2010, explaining the method in detail in a separate journal.
In the comments section of the Razib's blog Kevin Mitchel does not agree with the paper's conclusion that the this means the IQ genes are common with small effects and claims, rather, that they could uncommon with large effects. Does it really matter? Either way the relationship between genetics and IQ is going to be complicated and never complete until the biology is understood.
Some look forward to the study will not unleash the HBDapocolypse: that glorious day when the sky parts and irrefutable evidence of inherent human differences spreads throughout the land. Maybe Steve Sailer replaces David Brooks at the NYT or Half Sigma becomes a Federal judge. Do not hold your breath it is going to take many studies.
2 comments:
I was also pleased to see this paper reported in the left wing UK paper, The Guardian. I have already enjoyed being able to use that in debates with leftists, who are stunned to find their own left wing daily reports that variation in intelligence is significantly due to variation in genes.
Things are getting strange and opening up. I am not sure if they are losing control or they are confident and are letting bits out.
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