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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

"Cochran's new theory of IQ genetics"

27 Comments -

1 – 27 of 27
Blogger Jehu said...

A lot of ancient cultures had the narrative that they were the inferior descendants of much more awesome ancestors. Perhaps there's more truth in that than we realized?

4/10/12, 4:39 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fascinating. Brings to mind Wigner's commentary about von Neumann- "only he was fully awake."

I wonder how you'd go about removing this genetic noise. Averaging pictures leads to an amazingly pretty face, because it has no defects. Might averaging across a million people do better than trying to figure out what makes geniuses similar to each other?

4/10/12, 4:56 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"At lower IQs, more and more kids are considered to suffer from ‘organic’ retardation."

Then, how do you explain the looks of people like Woody Allen?

4/10/12, 5:09 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Averaging pictures leads to an amazingly pretty face, because it has no defects. Might averaging across a million people do better than trying to figure out what makes geniuses similar to each other?"

Isn't this the whole hivemind - crowdsource approach?

4/10/12, 5:21 PM

Anonymous TH said...

This theory is not original to Cochran. Geoffrey Miller, for example, has often written about it. See here. John Maynard Smith regarded it as the most obvious explanation of intelligence differences.

4/10/12, 5:38 PM

Blogger ziel said...

Then, how do you explain the looks of people like Woody Allen?

Yeah, and a lot of other people who are like Woody Allen if you know what I mean, are also really smart and kinda funny looking that way. Interesting.

4/10/12, 5:48 PM

Blogger Felix said...

So does this mean that back 30,000 years ago before man had accumulated all these mutations everyone had an IQ of ~140? Seems very unlikely, but that's what you get if you take this theory to its logical conclusion.

4/10/12, 5:56 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Need a name for high quality commentary law.

Low quality commentary is Godwin's Law "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

High quality commentary "As the quality of the discussion reaches a maximum, the probability of a reference to Von Neumann approaches 1"

4/10/12, 6:21 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Then, how do you explain the looks of people like Woody Allen?"

Woody Allen isn't "funny looking" (to borrow Cochran's phrase); he's just unattractive.There is a difference.

4/10/12, 6:36 PM

Anonymous Catperson said...

So does this mean that back 30,000 years ago before man had accumulated all these mutations everyone had an IQ of ~140? Seems very unlikely, but that's what you get if you take this theory to its logical conclusion.

There is evidence that cranial capacity was larger 10,000 years ago

4/10/12, 6:46 PM

Blogger gcochran said...

To Felix: don't be silly.

4/10/12, 6:51 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm 47 yo white guy. Average IQ. Wife 35 yo. Smarter. Not sure that I want to spend the last 30 years of my life taking care of a special needs kid. First cousin had autistic kid in her 40's. Brother had a kid with a dusting of autism in his mid 40's. Should we have a kid?

4/10/12, 7:18 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Baby Q guy...My wife is Asian...

4/10/12, 7:35 PM

Anonymous wren said...

Is this going to be another Cochran theory mystery that goes unanswered?

I'm still waiting for that living group of Neandertals...

4/10/12, 7:54 PM

Anonymous couchscientist said...

"On the other hand, shared chromosomal segments would mostly contain the same slightly deleterious mutations, and so IQ should correlate with genetic similarity, which is what Visscher has found."

The cost of outbreeding. We are always being told that outbreeding increases fitness. But Cochran is saying that it might increase noise. Therefore, you would expect the 400 hp's to come from homogenous (less noisy) groups. You should also to see some small average fall off (less intelligent than their sum should be) when an Englishman marries a Russian because they are each bringing different glitches to the table. Interesting.

4/10/12, 7:56 PM

Anonymous Crawfurdmuir said...

"Many great scientists and mathematicians have likely had relatively low levels of genetic noise combined with some fairly deleterious de novo mutations; with the net effect of a powerful mental engine strangely focused on some particular topic not directly related to fitness.  Low noise, high weirdness.   Math, not sheilas. One might look for advanced paternal age in such cases."

A couple of observations in connection with this:

1) Melancholia (what we would now call bipolar syndrome) was anciently associated with creative genius. See F. Saxl, et al., "Saturn and Melancholy."

2) Aristotle held - and his opinion was apparently shared by many in classical antiquity - that the ideal ages for marriage were 18 in the case of the female, and 35 in that of the male.

4/10/12, 8:27 PM

Anonymous candid_observer said...

Well, if indeed geniuses should tend under this theory to have older fathers, is that what the empirical evidence shows?

If it is so, why don't we know this fact already, given that it could readily be checked via simple historical sources?

4/10/12, 8:43 PM

Anonymous Auntie Analogue said...

"Would good-looking but not very bright people also tend to have more genetic noise, as well, just in different places[?]"


Gosh, Mr. Sailer, I dunno. Perhaps you might you leap up onto your sofa and shout that question to Tom Cruise?

4/10/12, 9:42 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The late, great WD Hamilton once wrote an essay entitled 'The Planetary Hospital' - a dystopian account of a future plagued by genomic degradation, due to 'natural selection' being abandoned.
I've tried hard to find this on the web, but I search in vain.

4/11/12, 12:47 AM

Blogger ziel said...

Well, if indeed geniuses should tend under this theory to have older fathers, is that what the empirical evidence shows?

That's not what he's saying. You can't be a top salesman, or a CEO, or a senator if you've got some weirdness in you do to one of these highly deleterious mutations. But you can be a top-echelon mathematician, and sure enough such top-notch mathematicians have existed. So among these weird super-geniuses (not all super-geniuses), we might find older fathers to be common.

The key is he said "many" not "most". The weirdness is not necessary to a genius career, it just doesn't hurt that much.

4/11/12, 4:11 AM

Anonymous candid_observer said...

The key is he said "many" not "most".

And when I write "tend", I mean tend.

4/11/12, 8:38 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why can't a mutation increase your fitness as opposed to decrease it? This article seems to associate mutations only with negative Darwinian effects.

It seems to me that a collection of "small-effect" mutations could explain why two average-IQ parents are able to have the occasional offspring who is a little above average. On average, maybe these mutations would not have a large affect in either direction - but maybe sometimes you'll maybe see a 5-10% change in IQ (this is just a fictional number I created) in either direction.

Statistically, its seems improbable that those "small-effect" mutations would push you very much in a particular direction beyond just small statistical quirks. However some kind of eugenic selection could result in, over time, the IQ-increasing mutations being selected. Maybe this explains people who are above-average in IQ but not at the level of "super genius"?
Maybe it takes the actual "large-effect" mutations to get up to that level?

I also wonder about highly-inbred and highly-selected populations like Ashkenazi Jews. It is theorized that intelligence has been selected for this group (due to historical circumstances). What about the effects of inbreeding? How does that play a role in the expression of mutations? I know A. Jews have a statistically higher than normal incidence of various genetic disorders - would that play the same role for "large-effect" types of mutations in IQ/genius?

(Disclosure - I'm not well-educated in genetics or biology. Just tring to infer and extrapolate information from the article and bits of knowledge I've picked up reading HBD blogs.)

4/11/12, 8:51 AM

Anonymous Geoff-UK said...

"Read the whole thing there. There's one phrase in it that hints at the next stage of his theory, but I'll leave it at that."


Mr. Sailer,
For the benefit of those who can't figure out what you're hinting at--please skip past the hint and say it plainly? Thanks very much.

4/11/12, 10:16 AM

Anonymous Lise said...

@wren:


He did answer that but it is not what you would think:


From Frost, "Greg thinks there may be infectious organisms that originally developed from Neanderthal tumors several tens of millennia ago. These organisms might look like amoebae, but genetically they would be Neanderthals."
http://evoandproud.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/neanderthals-in-my-sinus.html

4/11/12, 10:36 AM

Anonymous Dahinda said...

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

Charles Darwin

4/11/12, 11:10 AM

Anonymous Catperson said...

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change, at least on the behavioral level.

4/11/12, 5:29 PM

Blogger ziel said...

And when I write "tend", I mean tend.

And your still wrong.

4/11/12, 9:03 PM

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