{"id":97357,"date":"2016-05-26T09:19:57","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T17:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=97357"},"modified":"2016-05-26T09:19:57","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T17:19:57","slug":"how-siddhartha-mukherjee-gets-the-gene-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=97357","title":{"rendered":"How Siddhartha Mukherjee gets The Gene wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stuart Ritchie writes<\/a>: But although Mukherjee is awed by the intelligence of geneticists, he doesn\u2019t think much of scientific attempts to measure intelligence. Indeed, in one chapter he launches an all-out attack on IQ tests. Why study the genetics of general intelligence, Mukherjee asks, when new evidence from the psychologist Howard Gardner shows that there are actually multiple intelligences? This will come as a surprise to Gardner, who has never provided any data for his now-debunked \u2018multiple intelligences\u2019 theory. In fact, general intelligence is probably the most well-replicated phenomenon in all of psychological science. But how would Mukherjee know this? His reading of the research on intelligence is cursory and out of date; he fails to cite a single scientific paper on the genetics of intelligence more recent than 2003, with most sources coming from the 1970s or earlier.<\/p>\n

This lapse in scholarship is made all the more frustrating in the next two chapters, where Mukherjee discusses gender, sexuality and personality, happily concluding that they are all strongly genetically influenced. Perhaps he thinks IQ is one controversy too far. But a glance at the scientific literature shows that the research on the genetics of intelligence is vastly more developed than on, say, sexuality. No attempt is made to cover intriguing (and solid) findings such as the increasing genetic effect on IQ with age, or the first glimmers in large gene-hunting studies of DNA variants linked to more efficient brains.<\/p>\n

Another underdeveloped topic examined in The Gene is \u2018epigenetics\u2019, the notion that the environment leaves marks on the genome that switch genes on and off, with concomitant health effects. Might these marks be passed on to our children, and even grandchildren? Mukherjee\u2019s recent New Yorker essay on this topic angered scientists because it signally failed to acknowledge other genetic \u2018switches\u2019 that are far better known. That essay\u2019s magpie-like focus on the shiny new ideas of epigenetics is not found in the book, but Mukherjee still leans too heavily on studies of the effects of the Dutch famine of 1944 \u2014 which do not rule out non-epigenetic explanations \u2014 and dismissively relegates alternative views (which are far more in line with the limited evidence on epigenetics) to a footnote.<\/p>\n

What of the future? In The Gene\u2019s final section, we get a little on embryo selection, a little on gene editing and a little on stem cells, all of which may soon be used to \u2018engineer\u2019 healthier, smarter or otherwise altered humans. The book\u2019s coverage of these techniques \u2014 on which the importance of a full, frank debate cannot be overstated \u2014 is accompanied by a vague \u2018manifesto\u2019 on some of their pitfalls and caveats, but the whole treatment feels rushed, as if Mukherjee didn\u2019t wish to scare the horses by getting too far into the \u2018newgenic\u2019 implications.<\/p>\n

This disappointing failure to grasp the genetic nettle can be illustrated by a quotation from Mukherjee\u2019s section on IQ tests. \u2018Is g [general intelligence] heritable? In a certain sense, yes.\u2019 Alas, the \u2018certain sense\u2019 here really means \u2018after much qualification\u2019; in fact, after so much qualification that you\u2019ll go away thinking the answer is actually \u2018no\u2019, and not worrying too much about it. So, in the same spirit: is The Gene worth reading? In a certain sense, yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stuart Ritchie writes: But although Mukherjee is awed by the intelligence of geneticists, he doesn\u2019t think much of scientific attempts to measure intelligence. Indeed, in one chapter he launches an all-out attack on IQ tests. Why study the genetics of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29700],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genetics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97358,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97357\/revisions\/97358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}