But why an army of *nerd* clones?

[steuard]

I just got a letter from Duke University. Apparently, they want my DNA.

Years ago, Duke arranged for me (and many other 7th graders) to take the SAT. I did pretty well (very well, for a 7th grader). Now, some researchers there(?) are doing a study looking for "genetic markers of intellectual functioning" and they tell me that "There is probably no group of individuals in this country who possess higher measured cognitive abilities than the Duke TIP group to which you belong." (That's just one example of the flattery they've used.)

I'm not sure whether to participate. Being used as a genetic exemplar of brilliance sounds great and all, but I find the premise of the study to be pretty cheesy. They apparently believe that my ability to take standardized tests way back in 7th grade is supposed to correlate significantly with intelligence. That was probably a factor, but especially at that early age I'd think that my parents' habit of reading to me (and encouraging me to read grown-up books) contributed at least as much, to say nothing of the Lincoln public school system's fantastic gifted program (I had already had personal math mentors for several years at that point). It's hard for me to believe that "good 7th grade SAT score" will correlate clearly with anything but "white upper-middle class background".

So, what do you think: should I give them my genes or not?

[Edit: Just to be clear (since patrissimo seems to have missed my point a bit), I recognize that intelligence is a part of why I did well on the test. The genetic markers they identify may well correspond roughly to "smart white upper-middle class" kids. But I have serious doubts about their ability to disentangle those factors.]

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

The SAT actually does have a correlation from IQ scores, with what I understand. (I'm sure it *also* has a correlation with background.)

CTY hasn't asked me for my genes, so I can't say how I'd feel ;).

[feuervogel]

Don't IQ scores *also* have a correlation with background?

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Yup.

[feuervogel]

So, something that correlates to something else that correlates with background ... strikes me as a poor indicator of anything other than background. Which is Stu's point, I think.

[pmb.livejournal.com]

Searching for a genetic basis for intelligence makes people stupid.

I don't know what advice to give, but I like that aphorism too much not to use it whenever possible.

[zathrus.livejournal.com]

I have all kinds of thoughts on this, but need to go pack; maybe by the time I have computer access again, my thoughts will be somewhat better organized. I'm probably going to be facing the same question myself, as soon as I get my mail tomorrow; I also took the SAT with Duke's TIP.

Newt

[chalgaryn.livejournal.com]

I'm probably going to be facing the same question myself, as soon as I get my mail tomorrow

The letter was mailed to Steuard's parent's house at the same address they lived at when he was in the 7th grade, so they didn't track him down at his current address. If your parents have moved, the letter may not get to you any time soon.

[beth_leonard]

Interesting. I also took the SAT in 7th grade, but I've never heardof Duke's TIP. My parents still live at the same address though.

As for Stu's question: I am all in favor of science, exploring and learning more. It's part of why I donated my kids' cord blood at birth. Hopefully they are *also* asking you for the background information, to help tease out the answers as to which abilities to take standardized tests come from genetics and which from environment, in order to better help us get the courage to change the things we can, along with (hopefully) the wisdom to know the difference.

Watching Jon tutor his students, it is extremely clear that a well-educated white middle class background is not sufficient to produce high SAT scores. Many of his students come from well-educated and involved families (who can afford to pay $80/hr for tutoring) but the kids just aren't as bright as the parents wished they were. Jon works extremely hard to give these kids the best possible environment for learning and understanding mathematics, but some of them still just don't "get it" even though they themselves want to and try hard to figure out algebra 2.

I for one would like to understand more about why this is, because understanding why based on facts, not on feelings of how we wish life worked, will help us craft plans that address what to do about it more efficiently than if we don't understand why.

--Beth

[steuard.livejournal.com]

I've just added a link to patrissimo's response to my post, where he made this point (and then some). But as I've argued there, I think that the environmental factors are especially significant for 7th graders. Without my public schools' great gifted program, I would not have seen any algebra before I took the test, and without my parents' encouragement I doubt that I would have been as widely read before I sat down to answer its vocabulary questions. My high intelligence would have been nearly useless on the SAT if I hadn't been regularly exposed to knowledge well above my grade level. That's a much stronger environmental influence than would be typical among high school students.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

They do say that they'll link demographic information with each genetic sample, so that's something. But I'd still suspect that their initial sample will be disproportionately dominated by rich white kids, because you need both intelligence AND an unusually supportive background to do well on the SAT five years before it's intended to be taken (for all the reasons I've outlined above). I don't know how they plan to separate those factors; I'm not sure I believe that they even could. Hence my hesitation to participate: I wouldn't want to contribute to a study that was biased to conclude that intelligence turns out to be caused by genes found mostly in rich white people. If they've got plans to deal with that, I'd feel a lot better about it. Maybe I'll write to the researchers and find out.

So, when you took the SAT in 7th grade, was it just on a whim or was there some outside program that organized it? I vaguely recall that there was some agreement where Duke and two other schools split up the country for these 7th grade SAT things, and I don't know who the other two schools were or where their (rather random) territories ran.

[feuervogel]

Probably against my better judgement, I have commented in response over there.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

TIP and CTY both have regions of the country where they're better known (and, for all I know, there are other regions of the country with which I am unfamiliar which use 7th-grade-SAT for other purposes -- it's a convenient way to do screening for that sort of program).

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

(I daresay the sample dominance will be more that you need to come from the aforesaid background to even know that taking it in 7th grade is an option, but yes.)

Personally as far as participation goes I would be more concerned about privacy issues relating to my DNA. (Well, that and the CTY admins have pissed me off so I don't want to help them. But I hope TIP does not have that issue.)

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Oh, and CTY is run by Johns Hopkins and draws primarily from the Northeast and from CA. I believe that it (or rather its precursors, OTID and SMPY) was the first program to use the SAT as a 7th grade screening tool, and it ended up with the Northeast because it radiated from Baltimore. I don't know who the other school would be that you would be thinking, but my first guess would be Stanford.

[beth_leonard]

I took it in order to get into summer school at Berkeley. I wanted to take Latin *really*badly* and my parents wanted me to take Algebra. I ended up with Algebra, and it was likely a very good decision, but I still wish I could have managed to squeeze the Latin in there somewhere.

The night before taking the SAT my mom and I sat down and reviewed the sample problems and answers. I learned for the first time what a square-root sign was, and what it meant to have a little number up in the air next to a big number. The night before the test. I did well enough figuring out answers on the test that it does seem to have been (for me) more of a test of intelligence than a test of what I had been taught in the past at that point.

For 7th graders, who have not been formally taught many of the things tested on the exam, it does seem to function much as an IQ test. While a high-school junior may have had to memorize in english class that "ambiguous" means "unclear", a younger student may have been able to figure it out from context through movies or reading, a sign of higher intelligence. Yes, for some extremely well-backgrounded kids, doing well on the test may come more from their background than their raw intelligence, it still tests their intelligence -- to cite Jon's students again, they have an amazing background, but they still would not have scored as well as a high-IQ poor kid who figures out what the little 2 hanging in the air means by asking a high school kid during the break.

It isn't a perfect substitute for an IQ test, but for 7th graders, it's the cheapest available alternative. We use this inexpensive proxy to do the initial science to figure out what we really need to test, and maybe some year later we can test with that.
...
Responding to Stu's question/comment about demographics in your comment so you both get to see it, my guess is that their population is homogenous enough that they want to answer the question, "among people with a similar background who were put forward as gifted and took this test for whom we have data, are there any genetic markers that allow us to tell the difference between a top 10% individual, a top 1% individual, and a top 0.001% individual?" I would not be surprised if they ask people who give a sample to take an IQ test now to see how it correlates with genes and 7th grade scores.

The people who took the test are already fairly homogeneous, but I would bet money that Stu's and Jon's scores were higher than mine and I also came from a decent background. I'm also willing to bet money that my brother's would have been significantly worse, even though we grew up in the same household. In fact, he didn't even take the test because he wasn't interested.

...

And recalling all these memories of that test reminds me of the night before and that morning -- I was actually significantly more worried about what the High School students would do to me (would they beat me up?) than how I would do on the test. I had nightmares about it.

--Beth

[patrissimo.livejournal.com]

If they have white upper-middle class kids in their sample who aren't as smart as you, which is a certainty, then why is it hard to disentangle those factors? The more equality in environment, the more important becomes genetics, by definition. Among the white upper-middle class kids, wouldn't correlations between genetic markets and SAT scores be extremely meaningful as far as a genetic basis for ability?

[zathrus.livejournal.com]

In my sophomore year of high school, a classmate learned what my 7th grade SAT score had been, without knowing it was a 7th grade score, and on the strength of that alone, asked if I would be willing to accept money to take his SAT for him. I looked at him like he was crazy, and the conversation went no further. But I took it as an indicator then of how weird I was, even given my demographic background.

There are, I'm sure, a host of environmental factors that knock some kids out of the running for Awesome 7th Grade SAT Performance who might otherwise have a chance at it. My SIL talks about the differences in parenting styles she sees in parents of toddlers -- white middle-class parents tend to understand that toddlers need to explore, and encourage exploration within appropriate boundaries (i.e., not electrical outlets or Grandma's china), while poor black parents tend to label their children's attempts at exploration as "bad" and respond with punishment rather than redirection. (Note: I'm not against the occasional punishment to enforce boundaries; you don't want your kid getting electrocuted or cut on broken glass because they did things you could have taught them not to do. But when exploration consistently gets a large negative response, you're going beyond enforcing boundaries to teaching a kid not to explore, to stay only with what's safe and known. It's that killing of a child's natural scientific curiosity that my SIL sees, and that she thinks (and I suspect she's right) matters more than a lot of other factors that have been studied more.) How much "math talk" a child is around has a lot to do with how early and readily they start picking up on math. I know someone who spent a few years teaching at a high-quality Montessori preschool that served both paying middle-class clients and charity (or government-funded?) clients drawn from a poor black neighborhood, most of whom heard very little language at all at home; the poor kids often entered the program barely talking, and thanks to the preschool, would almost catch up with their middle-class age-mates by the end of the year. Environment does play a role.

And yet: I remember standing in line the morning of the SAT, hearing one high school senior remark to his buddy, "There's all these smart little kids running around, and it's making me feel stupid." (I immediately felt much less apprehensive about the test.) I remember encountering geometry problems for the first time while taking the SAT that morning -- I learned all the necessary geometry in my accelerated math class the following month -- and the feeling of exhilaration I got from actually being challenged on a test for the first time in my life and having to figure out things that no one had tried to laboriously teach me. I remember going to TIP and finally discovering that there was a place where it was OK to be smart, and still not really opening up enough to make friends until my third summer there because being open with anyone had been so beaten out of me by my public school classmates.

And now I'm watching three (soon to be four) kids grow up, and realizing how much of their abilities and personalities was there from the very beginning. There are things I can do to help them shore up their weaknesses, and things I can do to help the world get out of their way so they can run with their strengths and sometimes soar. But I cannot fundamentally change the fact that D struggles with perfectionism but automatically picks up on occasions when her brothers could use a little help accepting what Mommy has asked them to do, or the fact that T moves through a world of self-created chaos and somehow constructs fantastical stories and astute mathematical observations and exhales them as if he's just been breathing the whole time, not doing anything unusual here, nope, not him, or the fact that J feels the need to impose order wherever he goes (and does so with unusually precise manual dexterity).

(to be continued)

[zathrus.livejournal.com]

(continued)

There are, I think, two areas of real interest here. One is what it is that causes these apparently inherent, inborn abilities. What is it that makes the difference between a child who breezes through calculus at 12 and one who struggles with it at 20, when they started with largely the same background and opportunities? The other is how we can help children -- all children -- reach their full inborn potential. Looking at your DNA can only really address one of those questions -- but it can address that one, at least potentially, and being eligible for TIP marks you (along with most (all?) Mudders) as being in a very small subset of the population, rather far from the mean, that would be difficult to get a statistically significant sample size of without the aid of identification programs like TIP, CTY, etc.

Of course, getting information from you and your parents that went far beyond your DNA could get at other angles on these questions -- are there possibly things going on here that are deterministic but not directly genetic? Gifted kids seem to be more likely in families with gifted parents, but sometimes they happen in families with seemingly no history of intellectual giftedness; why? How? What are the things our parents and/or schooling experiences gave us that enabled us to come to their attention and subsequently excel on the SAT? Are there better things that our parents and/or schools could have done? Etc. Right now, a lot of the research on these things is at the anecdotal stage; moving beyond that would be pretty amazingly helpful to a lot of parents and future generations of gifted kids.

Newt