Then there are the conservative anti-government types, who want to find a genetic basis (and so supposedly immutable) for difference in intelligence - and intelligence to them is a one-dimensional IQ score; they pay lip service only to the idea that intelligence is multi-dimensional, such as Howard Gardner's musical–rhythmic, visual–spatial, verbal–linguistic, logical–mathematical, bodily–kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic dimensions. All achievement in life is highly correlated to this IQ according to these theorists. The idea is that immutable genetic differences make all government programs to help the less intelligent poor quite pointless.
Some of these themes come together in this recent paper:
Autism As a Disorder of High Intelligence
The abstract begins (emphasis added):
A suite of recent studies has reported positive genetic correlations between autism risk and measures of mental ability. These findings indicate that alleles for autism overlap broadly with alleles for high intelligence, which appears paradoxical given that autism is characterized, overall, by below-average IQ. This paradox can be resolved under the hypothesis that autism etiology commonly involves enhanced, but imbalanced, components of intelligence. This hypothesis is supported by convergent evidence showing that autism and high IQ share a diverse set of convergent correlates, including large brain size, fast brain growth, increased sensory and visual-spatial abilities, enhanced synaptic functions, increased attentional focus, high socioeconomic status, more deliberative decision-making, profession and occupational interests in engineering and physical sciences, and high levels of positive assortative mating.
For the highlighted part, e.g.,
Compared to What? Early Brain Overgrowth in Autism and the Perils of Population Norms
Elsewhere in the paper we see this:
However, a suite of recent studies, described in more detail below, has demonstrated that alleles “for” autism, that is, common alleles that each contributes slightly to its risk, overlap substantially and significantly with alleles “for” high intelligence (Bulik-Sullivan et al., 2015; Clarke et al., 2015; Hill et al., 2015; Hagenaars et al., 2016). To a notable, and well-replicated, degree, then, many “autism” alleles are “high intelligence” alleles. How can these paradoxical observations be reconciled?
When I chase the citations, I go, oh really? If I find the enthusiasm, then you might see more about it here.
Guest · 443 weeks ago
macgupta 81p · 443 weeks ago
Guest · 443 weeks ago
macgupta 81p · 443 weeks ago
Guest · 443 weeks ago
There are lots of reasons to study intelligence and autism, among them the fact that autism and mental retardation can be crippling diseases that it would be nice to know how to prevent. Beyond such medical reasons, there is the basic motivation of all science - the urge to understand how the world works. It's obvious that humans are a lot more intelligent than our close animal relatives and that this difference in intelligence is linked to the genetic changes which caused the forebrain to increase dramatically over the last 2 million years of evolution.
Does such knowledge have the potential of misuse? Sure, but the pervasive misuse of ignorance seems far more threatening to me.
macgupta 81p · 443 weeks ago