Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research A Genetic Code for Genius?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324162304578303992108696034.html
A Genetic Code for Genius?
by GAUTAM NAIK
Wall Street Journal
February 15, 2013

At a former paper-printing factory in Hong Kong, a 20-year-old wunderkind named Zhao Bowen has embarked on a challenging and potentially controversial quest: uncovering the genetics of intelligence.

Mr. Zhao is a high-school dropout who has been described as China's Bill Gates. He oversees the cognitive genomics lab at BGI, a private company that is partly funded by the Chinese government.

At the Hong Kong facility, more than 100 powerful gene-sequencing machines are deciphering about 2,200 DNA samples, reading off their 3.2 billion chemical base pairs one letter at a time. These are no ordinary DNA samples. Most come from some of America's brightest people—extreme outliers in the intelligence sweepstakes.

The majority of the DNA samples come from people with IQs of 160 or higher. By comparison, average IQ in any population is set at 100. The average Nobel laureate registers at around 145. Only one in every 30,000 people is as smart as most of the participants in the Hong Kong project—and finding them was a quest of its own.

"People have chosen to ignore the genetics of intelligence for a long time," said Mr. Zhao, who hopes to publish his team's initial findings this summer. "People believe it's a controversial topic, especially in the West. That's not the case in China," where IQ studies are regarded more as a scientific challenge and therefore are easier to fund.

The roots of intelligence are a mystery. Studies show that at least half of the variation in intelligence quotient, or IQ, is inherited. But while scientists have identified some genes that can significantly lower IQ—in people afflicted with mental retardation, for example—truly important genes that affect normal IQ variation have yet to be pinned down.

he Hong Kong researchers hope to crack the problem by comparing the genomes of super-high-IQ individuals with the genomes of people drawn from the general population. By studying the variation in the two groups, they hope to isolate some of the hereditary factors behind IQ.

Their conclusions could lay the groundwork for a genetic test to predict a person's inherited cognitive ability. Such a tool could be useful, but it also might be divisive.

"If you can identify kids who are going to have trouble learning, you can intervene" early on in their lives, through special schooling or other programs, says Robert Plomin, a professor of behavioral genetics at King's College, London, who is involved in the BGI project.

But critics worry that genetic data related to IQ could easily be misconstrued—or misused. Research into the science of intelligence has been used in the past "to target particular racial groups or individuals and delegitimize them," said Jeremy Gruber, president of the Council for Responsible Genetics, a watchdog group based in Cambridge, Mass. "I'd be very concerned that the reductionist and deterministic trends that still are very much present in the world of genetics would come to the fore in a project like this."

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Steve Hsu, one of the BGI researchers, blogs on intelligence at Information Processing http://infoproc.blogspot.com/ .

Interesting... my husband was contacted by these guys to participate, but he wasn't keen on sending a DNA sample to China.

This was my first thought too ... why would anyone want to give a sample of their DNA? Especially to Chinese who tend to be the masters of copying. Nothing like a cloned genius gone wrong! In this case, I'd much rather keep the genetic code of a genius be a mystery!

If we have to place bets I'm going to guess they don't find anything significant with that sample size but that would be very cool if they actually did find a variant strongly related to high IQs, or scores on components of IQ tests.

I'm in the middle of finally reading Frankenstein for the first time. Ah, the hubris...

All the researchers in the Behavior Genetics Association are not expecting any strong associations to be found in this study. The strongest association with SAT scores high enough for getting into the Study of Exceptional Talent, as my son did, is competent reading instruction (provided by homeschooling in our home) and competent math instruction (provided by east Asian or south Asian parents, for many SET members) in elementary education. Simply improving the quality of elementary education in the United States could change the composition of that group quite a bit, with no new shuffling of genes.

See

Johnson, W. (2010). Understanding the Genetics of Intelligence: Can Height Help? Can Corn Oil?. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(3), 177-182.

http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/Johnson%20Current%20Directions%20Psych%20Science%202010%20(G%20and%20E%20in%20IQ).pdf

for illumination of the key issues by a mathematically astute researcher on the genetics of human intelligence.

Personally, I think that this is a great thing. Irrespective of the findings the fact that this is happening is fantastic to me. Too many studies get squashed over here or have their results suppressed. Politics trumps science every time in the West these days.

I remember Watson ending up as the victim of a 21st century 'auto de fé' for having the naiveté to make honest remarks on some findings that potentially highlighted some racial differences in capacity for 'higher learning'.

As the parents of gifted children ourselves, we fully understand that an above average IQ is not the sole mark of a person and ditto for a below average IQ. I really don't understand why so many people are afraid of genuine scientific inquiry myself...

Because some people have a long memory and remember how the reults of genuine scientific inquiry were put into use by some, once upon a time?

There isn't even need to invoke Godwin's law!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell

Research findings will always be exploited by the cynical to cherry pick statistics that are then used to steer the feeble minded. Take the current hysteria over Man's alleged responsibility for climate change as an example.

It is up to the more responsible and civic minded individuals to ensure that that doesn't happen. To suppress discourse and scientific studies based on politics alone disgusts me.

Religious zeal and fervour have been replaced by ideological zeal and fervour as the enemies of free inquiry these days, from what I can see.

Wow! Fun stuff today!

IMO, the word genius is misused, especially by the media. An example I see of this idea is applying it to anyone with an IQ greater than 160 or so. I remember seeing a newspaper article about boy in the UK with an "Einstein" IQ of 160. And of course, the writer of the article about the study in China invoked genius.

Yes, 160 is a very high IQ, but there are something like 200,000 - 250,000 people with IQs that high roaming the planet right now. So even though 160+ is rare, there are still an awful lot of people out there in that category. Also, I seriously doubt that IQ alone is enough to make a person a "genius" or high-level foundational thinker, as Einstein was.

By "foundational thinker," I mean a person who consistently thinks of new ideas that are way outside the mainstream and don't follow logically from existing models. The process involves dreaming up new ideas that are fundamentally new, applying them to existing models, and creating a shift in the way people view a subject. Sometimes the ideas are subtle, yet profound shifts from existing ideas and sometimes they're radically different, but the effect is the same either way: the fields to which they apply undergo fundamental shifts.

Personally, I think that foundational thinking requires creativity, thoughtfulness (recognizing that there is a problem where others don't see one, or picking out what's critically important from a mound of ideas, and digging deep), stubbornness, and a willingness to challenge ideas that are accepted as given by most other very talented people. And a high IQ, especially in fields like the sciences.

This is all in contrast to master-craftsmen thinkers who can take a new idea, perfect it, apply it, and develop its fullest potential. These people don't have the same qualities as foundational thinkers (who in turn often don't have the qualities of the master craftsmen). Both types of thinkers are needed for healthy scientific development. IMO, we push the foundational types aside these days because they don't appear to be as "productive" by the industrial metrics currently used in academia. Big new ideas take time and don't fit the publish-or-perish model.

The most lucid explanation I've read on this subject is in the last section of The Trouble with Physics.