[tremon]

because intelligence is mostly genetically-determined

None of the points of Idiocracy depend on whether intelligence is by nature or by nurture. The premise of the movie stays exactly the same if you replace those two minutes of backstory with a dysfunctional education system, the return of child labour, an increase in teen pregnancies, and anti-intellectualism in general.

[cjbgkagh]

I think the opening scene makes the hereditary position very clear, I don’t know how anyone could interpret that as not marking the case of ‘nature’ determining intelligence.

Edit; sorry, either I misread your comment or it was changed. On the premise that ignoring the intro a nurture based idiocracy could be possible, I would suggest it’s the thoroughness and extent of dumbing down that wouldn’t be possible if it was based on nurture.

[tremon]

smart people are born into dumb families pretty regularly

Are you implying widespread infidelity here, or are you making the case that something besides "nature" may be determining intelligence?

[cjbgkagh]

I did edit that out before your comment because I didn’t feel I needed it, but I still stand by it.

There is still quite a lot of randomness in genes, the idea that intelligence would always be the average of the parents would require that that a very large number of SNPs are involved. GWAS studies do say this but this is more a side effect of using linear regression for the scores as this assumes independence which I think is not a safe assumption. I think some intelligence genes can be recessive so you can have two carrier parents where 1/4 of their children will be smarter than either of them.

I should also add, by pretty regularly I mean from the point of view from the smart people. Given a sample of smart people how often are they notably smarter than both parents.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

Is it hereditary when parent is a dumb jock who creates a ridiculously bad environment in terms of 'nurture' aspect? I am not sure you thought your argument fully through.

[cjbgkagh]

Yes, and science explicitly allows him to continue procreating where otherwise he would have not been able to (he was in an accident because he was stupid). It’s explicitly saying the darwinian winnowing of the weaker (dumber) members of the species has been interfered with.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

Fair point. I re-read your argument and I accept it.