(The following was originally posted as a comment on my recent post, “The Trump Hysteria. (Big Brother Isn’t Watching You, You’re Watching Him). [<http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2018/3/31/12440/8209>] It grew, and it’s now a standalone article.)
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Here is some additional info regarding the onset of a real life, 21st century version of “1984’s” world, from the MIT Technology Review. Read it and weep.
DNA tests for IQ are coming, but it might not be smart to take one.
Scientists have linked hundreds of genes to intelligence. One psychologist says it’s time to test school kids.
by Antonio Regalado April 2, 2018
Read on.
Ready for a world in which a $50 DNA test can predict your odds of earning a PhD or forecast which toddler gets into a selective preschool?
Robert Plomin, a behavioral geneticist, says that’s exactly what’s coming.
For decades genetic researchers have sought the hereditary factors behind intelligence, with little luck. But now gene studies have finally gotten big enough–and hence powerful enough–to zero in on genetic differences linked to IQ.
A year ago, no gene had ever been tied to performance on an IQ test. Since then, more than 500 have, thanks to gene studies involving more than 200,000 test takers. Results from an experiment correlating one million people’s DNA with their academic success are due at any time.
The discoveries mean we can now read the DNA of a young child and get a notion of how intelligent he or she will be, says Plomin, an American based at King’s College London, where he leads a long-term study of 13,000 pairs of British twins.
Plomin outlined the DNA IQ test scenario in January in a paper titled “The New Genetics of Intelligence,” making a case that parents will use direct-to-consumer tests to predict kids’ mental abilities and make schooling choices, a concept he calls precision education.
As of now, the predictions are not highly accurate. The DNA variations that have been linked to test scores explain less than 10 percent of the intelligence differences between the people of European ancestry who’ve been studied.
Even so, MIT Technology Review found that aspects of Plomin’s testing scenario are already happening. At least three online services, including GenePlaza and DNA Land, have started offering to quantify anyone’s genetic IQ from a spit sample.
—snip—
Several educators contacted by MIT Technology Review reacted with alarm to the new developments, saying DNA tests should not be used to evaluate children’s academic prospects.
“The idea is we’ll have this information everywhere you go, like an RFID tag. Everyone will know who you are, what you are about. To me that is really scary,” says Catherine Bliss, a sociologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of a book questioning the use of genetics in social science.
“A world where people are slotted according to their inborn ability–well, that is Gattaca,” says Bliss. “That is eugenics.”
—snip—
Are you Einstein or Bozo?
Several scientists told MIT Technology Review they don’t believe genetic IQ tests can tell individuals anything useful and aren’t sure why Plomin is saying they will.
“We will never be able to look into someone’s DNA and say your IQ will be 120,” says Danielle Posthuma, who led the big 2017 IQ study. “I don’t think it makes much sense to use it that way. I would just give people an IQ test.” Posthuma says her main interest is in discovering how the brain works at a basic level, where finding genes associated with intelligence can help.
Plomin, however, points out that IQ tests with colored blocks barely work for little kids, failing to accurately capture how they will do on tests later in life. Your DNA, on the other hand, is there from the day you are born and doesn’t change. Early in life, Plomin says, DNA may already provide a better intelligence prediction than any test does.
Still, the issue is accuracy–or lack of it. Right now, the polygenic scores capture only a fraction of the genetic determinants of intelligence and none of the environmental ones. That means the predictions remain fuzzy.
This is clear from Plomin’s own data. His center calculated polygenic scores for hundreds of the twins he’s followed since their birth and whose DNA it has on file. He then compared the gene scores with how well the twins (now in their 20s) had done on a UK-wide exam that everyone takes as a teenager.
Genetic studies of intelligence may shed light on school choices and social mobility. Here, boys from the elite British school Harrow have onlookers. [See the article.] Plotted one against the other, the result looks more like a slightly elongated cloud of dots than a straight line. That is, the DNA predictions and the test scores tended to line up, though not perfectly. Some with low DNA scores had gotten great test results as teens. Others had bombed despite the promise in their genes.
To Aaron Panofsky, a sociologist of science with the University of California, Los Angeles, that’s a huge problem. With this technology, you could end up branding an Einstein as a Bozo, and vice versa. “Is the claim that you are going to have kindergarteners spit in test tubes and get some traction on their achievement when they graduate high school? Well, in aggregate, it looks like it will be better than rolling dice,” says Panofsky. “But what if we want to determine if your kid should be in the gifted or remedial program?”
When it comes to using DNA tests in the real world, Panofsky says, “I don’t think they thought about it very hard.”
IQ scores for sale
MIT Technology Review found that genetic IQ assessments are already being offered by websites that provide information to people who’ve previously had their DNA measured by 23andMe or Ancestry.com.
Users of GenePlaza, for example, can upload their 23andMe data and pay $4 extra to access an “Intelligence App,” which rates their DNA using data from the big 2017 study on IQ genes.
It shows users where their genes place them on a bell curve from lower to higher IQ. A similar calculation is available from DNA Land.
—snip—
Eugenics 2.0: We’re at the Dawn of Choosing Embryos by Health, Height, and More
Will you be among the first to pick your kids’ IQ? As machine learning unlocks predictions from DNA databases, scientists say parents could have choices never before possible.
The results come with disclaimers saying the results don’t mean much yet, because they predict only about 5 points of IQ. “I hope people are not getting it thinking that this is a true measure of their intelligence,” says Alain Coletta, a bioinformatics scientist and the founder of GenePlaza.
He says he put up the app “for fun.”
So far, the major consumer DNA testing companies have steered clear of intelligence reports. “There are obviously some concerns about how it gets used and gets talked about,” says James Lu, cofounder of California-based Helix, a leading app store for DNA tests.
Given the history of eugenics, big companies have to fear being called out as Nazis and racists. What’s more, customers might not be pleased to receive a prediction of less than average intelligence.
—snip—
Genotocracy
Although it’s still taboo to talk about, some medical scientists are trying to figure out how to use the polygenic intelligence scores to pick the smartest embryo from an IVF dish, choose the best sperm donor, or discover fetuses at high risk for an expanded menu of cognitive disorders, including autism.
Dalton Conley, a sociologist at Princeton University, says as soon as the IQ predictions reach the double digits–something that could occur very soon–we will need to have a “serious policy debate” about such “personal eugenics.” One concern is that IVF is expensive. That could lead to a situation in which the wealthy end up using IQ-test technology to pick kids with select genes while the poor don’t, leading to an unequal society that Conley calls a “genotocracy.”
Others suggest that genetic models of intelligence will be used to compare races, ethnic groups, or people from different parts of the world. In an editorial about the genetics of race published in the New York Times on March 23, Harvard University biologist David Reich cited the new genetic IQ predictors and cautioned that “all traits influenced by genetics are expected to differ across populations.”
The warning was implicit: differences in IQ could be due to genes, not circumstance, and polygenic scores might prove it.
For psychologists working in genetics, the breakthroughs of the last year have brought DNA prediction of behavior much closer to practical use. In the public square, though, they face a throng of skeptics, who say their science is misleading or who disavow it altogether.
“We are in a situation when you mention you work in intelligence, people say, “Oh, you can’t measure that.’ What is intelligence?” says Stuart Ritchie, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh. “The debate we need to be having is on the actual ethics of doing this genetic prediction, whether it’s measuring kids to predict how they will do in school or selecting embryos.”
—snip—
For Plomin, at least, the answer is already clear. He says polygenic scores for IQ will further reveal the role of intelligence in determining people’s salaries, their choice of partners, and even the structure of society. People will want to know.
Plomin says he’s writing a book, titled Blueprint, that he thinks is “going to piss a lot of people off” by arguing that DNA is the “major systematic force in making people who they are.”
The kicker?
Sure.
Right here.
…[testing] is expensive. That could lead to a situation in which the wealthy end up using IQ-test technology to pick kids with select genes while the poor don’t, leading to an unequal society that Conley calls a “genotocracy.”
Bet on it.
That’s the way it works.
Look around you.
George W. Bush went to Harvard. He’s dumb as a stick and one should need no IQ test to figure that out.
Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker…three true geniuses, take my word for it if you don’t already know that…came up black and poor in Jim Crow America. In a true gerontocracy, they would have been too poor to have been tested honestly. How many more relatively poor but brilliant children of all races would be stopped in their tracks by this kind of testing/ranking system? This is nothing but a modernized, technological version of eugenics, and look what happened to that idea!!!
From Wikipedia
A major criticism of eugenics policies is that, regardless of whether “negative” or “positive” policies are used, they are susceptible to abuse because the criteria of selection are determined by whichever group is in political power at the time. Furthermore, negative eugenics in particular is considered by many to be a violation of basic human rights, which include the right to reproduction. Another criticism is that eugenic policies eventually lead to a loss of genetic diversity, resulting in inbreeding depression due to lower genetic variation.
Long story short?
Sure.
Hitler happened.
Is there any doubt whatsoever that such practices will be further monetized by Big Corp., Big Academe and the like? They’re already on it. Plomin and other, similar researchers are going to get very rich before this is through.
Watch.
Update [2018-4-3 14:51:37 by Arthur Gilroy]: P.S. I want to add a little something here.
I have been taught hat there are essentially three “intelligences” involved in man beings…physical intelligence, emotional intelligence and mental intelligence. They all continuously interact with each other, as well. We are three-brainedcreatures, perhaps the only ones on earth.
At the highest levels of human achievement there is likely to be one or even two that are predominant, but they all have their place in the scheme of things, and for most humans a good balance among the three is to be desired.
Have these “scientists” even begun> to understand this? Are they actively looking for genetic markers that predict physical strength and health? Or markers that predict emotional balance, especially under stress? Even the IQ “testers” basically ignore the physical and emotional brains in favor of the mental brain.
Can these brains be stunted by over long periods of time when their positive characteristics are not necessarily a survival aid? For example, in conditions of real stress over generations…poverty, war, slavery etc…are strong and active mental and emotional brains not in some ways drawbacks to survival? Drawbacks to potential reproduction? Will a smart and highly emotional person not be more likely to be driven crazy under inhuman conditions? Or turn to crime and be punished? I think so, myself. The genome of the people in a society under that kind of pressure for generations becomes lowered. I call this a “gene sink,” and it is easy to see in a societal sense in any long-suffering society. The smart ones get out and reproduce with members of other groups.
What to do about this?
Well, the U.S. has dealt with it by imprisoning huge portions of its own less prosperous societies rather than of alleviating the reasons for that gene sink. With a large enough distressed population, this becomes a big problem, of course. A criminal society is created inside of that gene sink.
Will some sort of genotocracy change this?
I think not. It will only produce more talented jailers and controllers, especially if the genes that are most favored are the ones that produce stronger mental brains.
I have no solutions, of course. This society will continue on the paths in which it is now headed until it breaks down. All I can do is play Paul Revere.
I do keep trying…