| > He doesn't define what distinguishes the population of 120 IQ parents from the population as a whole. ...Surely what distinguishes them is that they have IQs of 120, whereas the parent population has average IQ of 100? > Further, he says that 120 IQ parents having children with mean IQ of 110 is an example of regression to the mean. I would say the exact opposite: the 110 IQ children _define the mean_ of the next generation (in the correct usage of the equation). Surely you understand there is not only one mean in play here? There is also the mean of the population from which the IQ 120 subset was drawn. It is their mean that "regression to the mean" normally refers to, and has referred to since Galton invented the concept in 1886. > With regards to "ideological warfare", the author himself explicitly introduced eugenics into the conversation with his analogy about the desert island populated by National Merit finalists Not all things "eugenics" are inherently evil. Genetic screening of embryos to avoid infant suffering from horrible genetic diseases is also eugenics. Should mothers not have a choice to save their children from horrible genetic diseases? It's ideological warfare to paint all eugenics with the same moral brush, as all having "unpleasant undertones". There is no moral flaw, per se, in seeking to understand how desirable traits might be increased in the human species. I can't speak on whatever research the author has done on "human races", but it does not seem relevant to the discussion of the breeder's equation or to eugenics in the broad, perfectly benign sense of increasing desirable traits in a population. |