Researchers Try To Identify the Intelligence Gene 254
An anonymous reader writes "The world's largest brain study to date, with a team of more than 200 scientists from 100 institutions worldwide collaborated to map the human genes that boost or sabotage the brain's resistance to a variety of mental illnesses and Alzheimer's disease. The study also uncovered new genes that may explain individual differences in brain size and intelligence. From the article: 'Following a brain study on an unprecedented scale, an international collaboration has now managed to tease out a single gene that does have a measurable effect on intelligence. But the effect – although measurable – is small: the gene alters IQ by just 1.29 points. According to some researchers, that essentially proves that intelligence relies on the action of a multitude of genes after all.'"
Re:That's the stupidest thing I have heard in a wh (Score:3, Informative)
This is one of those studies that we're constantly going to hear about in ads for a couple of decades to come and then somebody tries to replicate it and doesn't get a statistically significant result. I bet this gene lets us use 10.1% of our brains or something, right? 1.29%. You have got to be kidding.
a) The "only use 10%" meme is a myth.
b) There's a difference between "big effect" and "statistically significant effect".
6 genes just for height (Score:5, Informative)
I've been told, by a bio ethicist, that there at six genes that influence height. So the idea that's there's just one gene for IQ seems odd.