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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1397 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 21, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Shower thought:

Is there a contradiction between the typical progressive belief in blank slateism and progressive women's (and some men's) choosiness in who to partner up and have babies with? If any baby can be nurtured and educated into becoming an astronaut or [insert high status white collar profession], then what's the big deal about getting DNA from a sub-optimal mate?

I don't think there are a lot of actual genetics deniers out there who don't believe in the heritability of DNA from parents to children. What gets strawmanned or parodied as "blank-slatism" is either a denial that there is a strong race/class correlation because we aren't sorting efficiently enough as a society, or a quibble about what percentage chances are involved. There's a tension between stated beliefs and revealed preferences, much like choosing schools and neighborhoods, but one can find one's way around it pretty easily.

Good substack article on the weakness of twin studies here, the particular portion I think is relevant to this question (check the article for the scatter plots):

Heritability is, by construction, a population-level aggregate. Before it can inform policy-making (or even personal decision-making), it must be interpreted at the level of individuals. This is where things get interesting and counterintuitive. Let’s say, for example, that you are a genetically average person. How much does that affect your prospects? Surprisingly, at 30%, it’s as if your genes didn’t matter at all. With an average potential, you still have a decent chance of landing at the top or bottom of the IQ distribution. Actually, in this specific random sample, one of three smartest people around (the top 0.3%) happens to have an almost exactly average genetic make-up, and the fourth dumbest person has a slightly above-average potential. At 50%, being genetically average starts to limit your optionality, but the spread remains massive. Had you been marginally luckier—say, in the top third for genetic potential—you’d still have a shot at becoming one of the smartest people around. At 80%, though, your optionality has mostly vanished. It’s still possible to move a notch upward or downward, but the game is mostly over. In this world, geniuses are born, not made.

Most debates aren't between genetics deniers who think that there is zero correlation between parents and children and feudal pedigree enthusiasts who assume that children are clones of their parents. It's a debate between people who think there's a 30% correlation and people who think there's an 80% correlation. And further, I think most of the debate between blank slatists and genetic determinists is a debate is between people who agree that the correlation is 50% but disagree about whether society is overrating or underrating that correlation. A 30% correlation is still a chance that one wants to take to benefit ones children, but it might not be a chance that you think society should shut doors against. Most people would acknowledge that there is a correlations between IQ and wealth and between parent IQ and children IQ, people still wring their hands about the fate of coal towns in Appalachia.

There's also a simple element: I don't get along with dumb people. Even if I thought having kids with a dumb girl wouldn't lead to dumb children, I wouldn't get along with the dumb girl anyway.

It's a debate between people who think there's a 30% correlation and people who think there's an 80% correlation.

I don't think that situation around this could be properly called "debate", when "good link" you posted uses "pseudoscientific" to label his opponent. Also, many people on the blank slatist side would say "this 30% is on a population level and confounded by population stratification, true causal is about 8-15%".

Median argument on public policy assumes there's 0% correlation. Even if a person agrees on paper that h2 is 30%, they are usually fiercely opposed towards updating public policy to aknowledge these 30%, so why do you think "genetics denier" is inappropriate?

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