"Heritable" 👏 doesn't 👏 mean 👏 "immutable" 👏
(I genuinely think a big chunk of the angst about genetic studies would evaporate if people understood that)
(I genuinely think a big chunk of the angst about genetic studies would evaporate if people understood that)
This study found that myopia is *85%* heritable. AND YET... if you put on the right pair of glasses, your myopia is (effectively) gone. iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?a…
The whole argument about the difficulty of raising IQ isn't due to IQ being heritable. It's about the fact that we just don't know that many ways of raising IQ - there isn't (yet?) the equivalent of "putting on a pair of glasses".
But there are some hopeful hints for future studies - for instance, see our meta-analysis that seems to show education affects intelligence test scores: psyarxiv.com/kymhp/
Clarification: we do know SOME clear ways of boosting IQ, of course - fixing malnourishment, iodine deficiency, and so on. It's just that those kinds of issues have, to a large extent, been solved in the Western/developed world.
But nevertheless - you should consider donating to the Iodine Global Network, a brilliant charity (highly recommended by charity raters GiveWell!) who are trying to solve iodine deficiency worldwide: ign.org
