Genes, Brains, and Human Potential The Science and Ideology of Intelligence

22 PINNING DOWN POTENTIAL

looks like— and then, when we’ve captured something, not being at all
sure what we’ve got.
Even more critical is the prob lem of demonstrating that such statisti-
cal associations are causal. Th at requires satisfying a phenomenal array
of conditions. Th is prob lem is sidestepped in the imperative to fi nd the
genes. So reports are littered with terms like “gene for,” “gene eff ects,”
“due to,” “accounts for,” “explains,” “infl uences,” “underlies,” and so on. I
won der why journal referees and editors allow authors to get away with
this. “Common Ge ne tic Variants Infl uence Human Subcortical Brain
Structures” is the title of a 2015 paper in Nature, when, of course, the
paper demonstrates only statistical association covering less than 1  percent
of variation.
Teachers and professors constantly remind naïve students of the dangers
of interpreting correlations as causes. Correlations—or related associa-
tion measures— are honeytraps for investigators; they are also the cheapest
weapon of ideology. A correlation merely mea sures the extent to which
two entities co- vary, or vary together, not of how one causes the other. Ice
cream sales may well correlate with the extent of sun tans in white people:
it doesn’t mean that ice cream is causing sun tans. Stephen Jay Gould, in
his 1981 book Th e Mismea sure of Man, described such misinterpretation
of correlations as “prob ably among the two or three most serious and
common errors of human reasoning.”^23 But inquiry and interpretation
in the fi eld of human potential and genes for IQ thrives on it.
In view of this, it is perhaps not surprising that many scientists are now
worried about relations between this kind of science and the general
public. A yawning gulf is opening up between hype and real ity. Th e speed
with which results fi nd an esteemed journal, and a press statement is is-
sued, is beginning to turn science into something akin to show business.
So Michael Hiltzik remarked in the Los Angeles Times (October 27,
2013) how “the demand for sexy results, combined with indiff erent follow-
up, means that billions of dollars in worldwide resources... is being
thrown down a rathole.” An investigation reported in In de pen dent Sci-
ence News (August 8, 2013) states that “ human genome research has now
reached a crisis point. Very little in the way of ge ne tic predispositions
have been found yet the public has become convinced that ge ne tics is a
key factor in human disease, mental health and social in equality.”

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