Liberals are wordcels par excellence
Matt Yglesias asks why more selective colleges are more left-wing. There are several reasons, but I think one of them is that liberals just tend to have somewhat higher verbal, […]
“Men of character” on the rise, cold numbers fading
One of the major cultural findings of the past twenty years is that developed Western nations exhibit certain peculiarities that set them out from the human norm. For example, reliance and adherence to abstract rules and laws, personal consequences be damned. In most of the world, people see merit in aiding and favoring friends and […]
Variation in general intelligence and our evolutionary history
In a bit of “TMI”, I’m far more intellectually promiscuous than I am in my personal life. My primary focus on this blog, if I have one, is probably historical population genetics of the sort highlighted in David Reich’s Who We Are and How We Got Here. But I have plenty of other interests, from […]
Higher vocabulary ~ higher income
Prompted by a comment below I was curious as to the correlation between intelligence and income. To indicate intelligence I used the GSS’s WORDSUM variable, which has a ~0.70 correlation with IQ. For income, I used REALINC, which is indexed to 19…
Common variant for “IQ gene”?
A few people have forwarded me this paper, Identification of common variants associated with human hippocampal and intracranial volumes:
…Whereas many brain imaging phenotypes are highly heritable…identifying and replicating genetic influen…
Too smart to be a good cop
Several readers have pointed me to this amusing story, Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops: A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city. … “This kind of puts an official face […]
Psychometrics, epigenetics and economics
Two papers of interest. IQ in the Production Function: Evidence from Immigrant Earnings (ungated). And Human Intelligence and Polymorphisms in the DNA Methyltransferase Genes Involved in Epigenetic Marking. My impression is that the focus on epigenetics has a higher-order social motive; even the sort of humanists who are involved with N + 1 have asked […]
Half Sigma’s flawed post on DTNBP1
A while back, Mark and I were working on a comprehensive post which would try to tally the results of the various IQ-gene studies to see what they said about racial differences. We began this quest bright-eyed and hopeful that we would help contribute…
Does the family matter for adult IQ?
A frequent claim in the IQ debates is that which family you are raised in has no lasting impact on your IQ. Jensen argues in The g Factor that the only causes of IQ similarities between adult identical twins are genetic. Many researchers go so far as…
Does the family matter for adult IQ?
A frequent claim in the IQ debates is that which family you are raised in has no lasting impact on your IQ. Jensen argues in The g Factor that the only causes of IQ similarities between adult identical twins are genetic. Many researchers go so far as…
Models of IQ & wealth
Steve Hsu has been interesting of late (interesting like Steve, not Malcolm). So, IQ, compression and simple models and If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?. For a theoretical physicist I find Steve to be eminently clear in his exposition of abstra…
The quest for common variants & cognition
A genome-wide study of common SNPs and CNVs in cognitive performance in the CANTAB:Psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia are commonly accompanied by cognitive impairments that are treatment resistant and crucial to functional outcome. There has b…