[hayst4ck]

I suppose what you're looking for is a study based on children adopted by PhDs.

My intuition says genetics is vastly less important than memetics. Success is almost certainly proportional to ability to manage dopamine and I think nurture is probably vastly more important than nature (although I think nature can assert itself forcefully).

This certainly seems to suggest that genetics probably is not a key factor:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/rich-pe...

Because things like success are the result of many factors, I think the study is fair even in the absence of genetics. I have a hard time believing that genetics being a dominating factor for outcome would not be an obvious/major/easily discovered and proven finding.

[Bran_son]

> I have a hard time believing that genetics being a dominating factor for outcome would not be an obvious/major/easily discovered and proven finding.

IQ is 57-80% heritable [1]. It's not the same as probability of getting a PhD, but it's hard to argue it wouldn't be a significant (it doesn't have to be "dominating", as you put it) factor.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

[hayst4ck]

Directly from the Wikipedia article you linked:

  Although IQ differences between individuals have been shown to 
  have a large hereditary component, it does not follow that 
  disparities in IQ between groups have a genetic basis.[11][12]
  [13][14] The scientific consensus is that genetics does not 
  explain average differences in IQ test performance between 
  racial groups.[15][16][17][18][19][20]

[Bran_son]

Of course of course. Now let's look at what happens to researchers who claim otherwise, to see if there might be publication bias...

[hayst4ck]

I think if you stepped outside of your shoes and said "would someone who disagrees with me find the way I have conducted myself convincing?" you wouldn't like the answer.

No, you are asking for social reinforcement of your idea to make you feel good about what appears on the outside to be quite unpleasant beliefs that wouldn't fly around educated people.

You are invoking a conspiracy to justify your belief.

[Bran_son]

Systemic racial discrimination in academia (despite Democrats outnumbering Republicans 10 to 1 in faculty [1] - curiously few studies look at whether that might be due to discrimination) is a perfectly analogous conspiracy, yet it is accepted by default.

However, you are correct - cherry-picking which parts of an article to believe is not very convincing. So let me substantiate my claim:

The authors also submitted different test studies to different peer-review boards. The methodology was identical, and the variable was that the purported findings either went for, or against, the liberal worldview (for example, one found evidence of discrimination against minority groups, and another found evidence of "reverse discrimination" against straight white males). Despite equal methodological strengths, the studies that went against the liberal worldview were criticized and rejected, and those that went with it were not. [2]

That was in 1985. Nowadays, it is done openly: Nature publicly stated they will not publish studies that may "harm" (broadly defined) various groups [3], regardless of validity, and commitments to diversity are officially required by one fifth of academic jobs [4].

Of course, if we're talking about discrimination in academia, we skipped a step: as your own quotation implies ("it does not follow that disparities in IQ between groups have a genetic basis"), there are group IQ disparities. Since IQ is a useful (if imperfect) measure of academic ability, from that alone we would expect disparate outcomes, even in a perfect meritocracy. It does not matter if the IQ disparities are genetic, cultural, or socio-economic in origin (or some combination thereof).

Though it is strange. Bizarre even. Nearly every other heritable human trait - height, skin pigmentation, lactose tolerance, eye and hair color, bone density, sickle cell trait, muscle composition, high altitude adaptation [5], alcohol metabolism [6], etc., is unevenly distributed among human groups. Yet even though IQ and personality are both heritable [7] and variable, they're the rare exception, perfectly equally distributed among all human groups? Nature truly works in mysterious ways.

[1] https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/31/2/homogenous_the_p...

[2] https://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bi...

[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-022-01443-2

[4] https://www.schoolinfosystem.org/2021/11/11/study-diversity-...

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_adaptation_in_hu...

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_flush_reaction

[7] https://www.nature.com/articles/tp201596

[ars]

I completely disagree. From my experience it's virtually 100% genetics.

The reason it's not an "obvious/major/easily discovered and proven finding" is because it's basically illegal research. Anyone who tries to study the genetics of success gets their reputation and career destroyed because race and genetics are also linked.

[hayst4ck]

> From my experience

I have a strong feeling that I am going to regret asking this, but what exactly is your experience?

[ars]

Working with lots of kids from various families.

The kids end up like their birth parents, their economics or social environment makes little difference.

Some kids are so opposed to how their parents are they actually move out (in early teens) and live with other people, and have little contact with their parents.

And despite that, they still end up just like their parents once they are past the teen stage.

It's also amazing to see how some kids are just like their father, some like their mother, and some a mix of both (some traits from one parent, some from the other parent).

But you don't see kids who are unlike either parent.

[rjsw]

For one example, see Richard Feynman's children.