Friday, February 10, 2012

UC Davis colloquium

I'll be giving a colloquium at UC Davis on Monday. Please come if you can!

slides

Title: Genetics, intelligence and other quantitative traits

Abstract: How do genes affect cognitive ability or other quantitative traits such as height? I begin with a brief review of psychometric measurements of intelligence, introducing the idea of a "general factor" or IQ score. The main results concern the stability, validity (predictive power), and heritability of adult IQ. Next, I discuss ongoing Genome Wide Association Studies which investigate the genetic basis of intelligence. Due mainly to the rapidly decreasing cost of sequencing, it is likely that within the next 5-10 years we will identify genes which account for a significant fraction of total IQ variation.

Monday, Feb 13 4:10pm Room 55 Roessler
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9 comments:

  1. RKU12:07 PM

    I guess someone learned a lesson from Harvard, namely not announcing the talk too far in advance...

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  2. Iamexpert2:20 PM

    IQ and height are analogous in many ways.

    Both are highly genetic within countries and within generations but highly environmental between countries and between generations.

    Both increase in heritability from early childhood to later adulthood.

    Both are wholly biological variables

    Both can not be improved through exercise or stimulation (physical or mental)

    Both can be faked (IQ can be faked through test sophistication and education; height can be faked through wearing lifts and good posture)

    Both are highly valued and respected in our culture and give one a huge competitive advantage in virtually every situation

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  3. WEN3:46 PM

    hi steve,

    i downloaded the slides twice and both times acrobat reader indicates the PDF file had corruption.
    please check and corrupt.
    thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. 53714:31 PM

    Taking HGH as a kid won't do much for your IQ, though ...

    ReplyDelete
  5. brown_slacker4:35 PM

    All the best! UCD seems more liberal than Hahvahd.  

    http://www.myplan.com/education/colleges/college_rankings_14.php

    Note I: Self-reported data.  

    Note II: UCD produced one of the brighter Republicans, Mike Dugas, who contested elections, lost, and wound up going in industry. 

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  6. steve hsu5:37 PM

    Works OK for me, but I use Preview on OSX. Can you try again? Or use gdocs?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Richard Seiter6:03 PM

    I am able to view the slides in both Google Chrome and Adobe Reader on Windows.

    Davis is close enough to be tempting, but far enough away to be a long drive.  Would anyone be interested in carpooling from the South Bay?  I would be coming from Santa Cruz.

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  8. Richard Seiter6:25 PM

    Steve, I think there is a minor typo on slide 27  "1.-.2"  Are you going to be adding content for slides 43-50 or are they just placeholders?

    I'm glad to see you are getting an opportunity to present this.

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  9. steve hsu6:36 PM

    Thanks for pointing out the typo. The slides at the end are just for fun in case someone is curious about that topic -- it's very speculative.

    Note this talk is very similar to the one I gave at Google, although if you look carefully you'll see there's some progress.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62jZENi1ed8

    ReplyDelete