> On Fri, 17 Jan 1997 owner-virus@maxwell.lucifer.com wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 16 Jan 1997, Martz wrote:
> >
> > > Perhaps you'd like to support my new campaign.
> > >
> > > Free to forward, free to copy, free to mutate.
> > > ----------------------------------------------------------
> > [CLIP]
> > > The people with the most kids are the people with the least
> > > brains. This propogation of stupid genes carries the seed
> > > of mankinds destruction, yet it is dangerous to advocate the slaughter
> > > of the senseless. They outnumber us by a huge margin, after all, and
> > > are prone to using violence as a debating tool of first resort.
> > >
> > > I have a solution.
> > >
> > > NEUTER THE STUPID!
> >
> > I have a problem with the direction this argument is taking. Not that
> > the stupid shouldn't be neutered (a fine idea), but it overlooks the data.
> > Statisticly two idiots are as likely to have genius offspring as two
> > geniuses are of having idiot children. The outcome will tend toward the
> > mean and therefore idiots are much more likely to have children whose
> > intellect is an improvement than the geniuses.
> >
> > Both you and Dave Pape assume that intelligence is a wholely genetic
> > trait. I see no statistical evidence for this.
>
> In the same vein, what evidence do you have for your assertion of "tend
> toward the mean"?
>
> If you admit that any component of intelligence is genetic then this
> assertion is undermined. Remember chimpanzees and humans differ only
> by 2% in DNA sequence. Therefore it is likely that there are genes linked
> to intelligence just as there are genes linked to certain behaviours like
> novelty seeking, alcoholism and schizophrenia.
You have just named some genes linked to intelligence--namely, the ones
linked to schizophrenia. Toss in the ones for bipolar once they're
located [existence is fairly high confidence, statistically].
It's a matter of reinforcement.
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/ Towards the conversion of data into information....
/
/ Kenneth Boyd
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