Genetic literacy

[MaggieMae]

It is not inheritable spelling skills.
It is not inheritable knowledge.
It is not connected to race.

GENETIC LITERACY refers to the knowledge people have about GENETICS.

I cannot believe there are people on this board who are stupid enough to think that literacy can be inherited.

Wait, yes I can. It makes perfect sense that the same people who think that literacy is inherited would also think that genetic literacy refers to inherited knowledge.

And the final irony....the fact that most of the people who are reading this STILL don't get it is evidence of TRUE illiteracy, i.e., the inability to make sense of what you're reading and a lack of education and ability. It's classic.

It's probably the same people who don't believe that evolution is a fact.

Well, now that I can see what AB's OP was all about, it's clear that SHE is the one who didn't *get* what I was saying, or more accurately did get it and chose to go on the attack with her own bogus analysis.

"Genetic literacy" can mean the study of genetics as an educational tool, of course, but it can also mean an environmental causation which, over time, can mutate genes responsible for learning capabilities, which is the theory I originally espoused, and appears to be backed up by some credible research. She took that to be a racist comment, but of course didn't comprehend that the implication of illiteracy AND literacy are traits that I believe can become transcended by a genetic restructuring, just as physical characteristics do. In my original statement, it was in reference to JUST the black population under discussion, not a generalization, which is why she was off and running about it's racist implication.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Maggie, I think you have a common mistake here. Literacy is like strength. You can have brains and muscles, but unless you exercise them, they just sit there. You run every day, you get big muscles. You read every day, you get the benefits of literacy.

People who are taught to read, and read a lot are literate. there is no genetic component to it. There is no racial component either.

You can not inherit things like intellectual skills or muscle skills. Those have to be refreshed by every individual on a person to person basis.

As to intellegence..... It is hard to quantify, measure and even define. The Binet Simon test can give widely variant results based on things beyond what it is supposed to measure. Things like what you had for breakfast can result in vastly different results, in a range of 4 or five points. Which is almost the width of the standard deviation, which is 8 points.

And cultural differences mean more for literacy than capacity. You don't have to have really powerful intellectual equipment to be a reader. Folks pretty far down into subnormal, almost 3 deviations, can be taught to read, and a lot of them probably read a lot. Which explains why Ann Rice sells so many books.

So Black literacy is not a matter of Genetics, but a matter of interest, culture, or incompetence in the schools.

 

[MaggieMae]

Maggie, I think you have a common mistake here. Literacy is like strength. You can have brains and muscles, but unless you exercise them, they just sit there. You run every day, you get big muscles. You read every day, you get the benefits of literacy.

People who are taught to read, and read a lot are literate. there is no genetic component to it. There is no racial component either.

You can not inherit things like intellectual skills or muscle skills. Those have to be refreshed by every individual on a person to person basis.

As to intellegence..... It is hard to quantify, measure and even define. The Binet Simon test can give widely variant results based on things beyond what it is supposed to measure. Things like what you had for breakfast can result in vastly different results, in a range of 4 or five points. Which is almost the width of the standard deviation, which is 8 points.

And cultural differences mean more for literacy than capacity. You don't have to have really powerful intellectual equipment to be a reader. Folks pretty far down into subnormal, almost 3 deviations, can be taught to read, and a lot of them probably read a lot. Which explains why Ann Rice sells so many books.

So Black literacy is not a matter of Genetics, but a matter of interest, culture, or incompetence in the schools.

Yes, I DO understand all of that. And I totally agree that unless you exercise your brain, it will remain illiterate. All I'm saying is that with close association and/or inbreeding, I don't understand how that ultimately would NOT lead to an evolutionary change in the genetic makeup of learning capacity. There must have been a suspicion that that happens over time, because we've heard our entire lives that it isn't wise for first cousins to engage in sex because it has produced low-levels of mental capabilities in the offspring. So suffice it to say that I'm not the first one to look at this as being a potential problem.

And I certainly never implied that this theory is applied to ALL black people. Originally, the discussion was about inner-city pockets of black people who generation after generation seem unable or unwilling to pull themselves out of the darkness (no pun intended).

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Doubt either of those issues are much of a problem. Inbreeding is not a problem associated with Blacks that I have ever heard of. The popular stereotype is quite the reverse.

And given the way the world works, as generations progress, the lack of reading skills or intellectual skills in general will be culled out of the species in the rather harsh manner of darwinian evolution.

People can be taught to read even the Japanese alphabet with IQ's in the low 70s. I don't see literacy as something that will atrophy from species disuse. Literacy over the 10% mark is relatively new as a phenomenon. The 90,000 years the species didn't write or read seems not to have harmed the skill that was latent in the human brain waiting for an opportunity to exercise itself.

 

[MaggieMae]

Doubt either of those issues are much of a problem. Inbreeding is not a problem associated with Blacks that I have ever heard of. The popular stereotype is quite the reverse.

And given the way the world works, as generations progress, the lack of reading skills or intellectual skills in general will be culled out of the species in the rather harsh manner of darwinian evolution.

People can be taught to read even the Japanese alphabet with IQ's in the low 70s. I don't see literacy as something that will atrophy from species disuse. Literacy over the 10% mark is relatively new as a phenomenon. The 90,000 years the species didn't write or read seems not to have harmed the skill that was latent in the human brain waiting for an opportunity to exercise itself.

I hope you're right.

 

[antagon]

Maggie, I think you have a common mistake here. Literacy is like strength. You can have brains and muscles, but unless you exercise them, they just sit there. You run every day, you get big muscles. You read every day, you get the benefits of literacy.

People who are taught to read, and read a lot are literate. there is no genetic component to it. There is no racial component either.

You can not inherit things like intellectual skills or muscle skills. Those have to be refreshed by every individual on a person to person basis.

As to intellegence..... It is hard to quantify, measure and even define. The Binet Simon test can give widely variant results based on things beyond what it is supposed to measure. Things like what you had for breakfast can result in vastly different results, in a range of 4 or five points. Which is almost the width of the standard deviation, which is 8 points.

And cultural differences mean more for literacy than capacity. You don't have to have really powerful intellectual equipment to be a reader. Folks pretty far down into subnormal, almost 3 deviations, can be taught to read, and a lot of them probably read a lot. Which explains why Ann Rice sells so many books.

So Black literacy is not a matter of Genetics, but a matter of interest, culture, or incompetence in the schools.

Yes, I DO understand all of that. And I totally agree that unless you exercise your brain, it will remain illiterate. All I'm saying is that with close association and/or inbreeding, I don't understand how that ultimately would NOT lead to an evolutionary change in the genetic makeup of learning capacity. There must have been a suspicion that that happens over time, because we've heard our entire lives that it isn't wise for first cousins to engage in sex because it has produced low-levels of mental capabilities in the offspring. So suffice it to say that I'm not the first one to look at this as being a potential problem.

And I certainly never implied that this theory is applied to ALL black people. Originally, the discussion was about inner-city pockets of black people who generation after generation seem unable or unwilling to pull themselves out of the darkness (no pun intended).

what would make you think that there is a genetic rather than socio-economic concern at play with the poor?

are you saying black people are inbred? ive not heard that.

 

[AllieBaba]

She's saying they're inbred, genetically illiterate, stupid...and it's whitey's fault.
LOLOLOL!
What a nutjob.

 

[chanel]

Inbreeding will always be a risk in communities where fathers are unknown. I do not say this in jest.

 

[Old Rocks]

Interesting conversation.

Literacy. A very complicated process of the creation of a common system of symbols by which to convey not only information, but emotion and philosophy.

At some point in our evolution, we began to develop this ability. What were the precursors that helped this develop? There are some very old peices of bone and wood from africa that seem to indicate that someone what keep track of lunar phases. At what point did we develop the ability to look at a mark, and give it meaning other than just a mark?

It would be interesting to see a study done on people who have the inate inability to read and see if there are specific areas in the brain that operate differantly than that of the rest of us.

 

[IanC]

Maggie, I think you have a common mistake here. Literacy is like strength. You can have brains and muscles, but unless you exercise them, they just sit there. You run every day, you get big muscles. You read every day, you get the benefits of literacy.

People who are taught to read, and read a lot are literate. there is no genetic component to it. There is no racial component either.

You can not inherit things like intellectual skills or muscle skills. Those have to be refreshed by every individual on a person to person basis.

As to intellegence..... It is hard to quantify, measure and even define. The Binet Simon test can give widely variant results based on things beyond what it is supposed to measure. Things like what you had for breakfast can result in vastly different results, in a range of 4 or five points. Which is almost the width of the standard deviation, which is 8 points.

And cultural differences mean more for literacy than capacity. You don't have to have really powerful intellectual equipment to be a reader. Folks pretty far down into subnormal, almost 3 deviations, can be taught to read, and a lot of them probably read a lot. Which explains why Ann Rice sells so many books.

So Black literacy is not a matter of Genetics, but a matter of interest, culture, or incompetence in the schools.

sorry but I think you are wrong, or at least confused on all of your points.

genetics lays down a baseline for intelligence, character and physicality. and of those three only the physical is highly malleable.

literacy is a skill that is highly dependent on intelligence and to a lesser degree on character (wanting to read) and culture (placing value on reading). low intelligence makes it hard to advance from learning to read into reading to learn. this is starkly shown in K-12 education where most of the drop-outs and a sizable fraction of the graduates never attain full literacy. I wish I still had the source that showed that the top 5% of grade five students had stronger english skills than 50% of grade 12 graduates.

as far as intelligence testing goes...I have never heard of one with a standard deviation of 8. they are mathematically set to have a STD of 15 or 16 and an average of 100 for a representitive group. some groups may have a different STD and average for the test eg blacks commonly have an average of 85 and a standard deviation of 13.5 . were you saying that different types of food change testing results or that lack of food can impair functioning and concentration?

although I am pretty sure you were making a joke, it is impossible that IQ55-70 individuals are reading Ann Rice novels for comprehension. a lot.

while culture and individual affinity can affect personal literacy, our society exposes all of our children to reading. a smart kid who prefers other activities will do better on reading and comprehension than a dumb kid who loves to read but just doesn't quite 'get it'. this may not be 'fair' but all we can do is offer opportunity, we can't guarantee results.

 

[Coyote]

It is not inheritable spelling skills.
It is not inheritable knowledge.
It is not connected to race.

GENETIC LITERACY refers to the knowledge people have about GENETICS.

I cannot believe there are people on this board who are stupid enough to think that literacy can be inherited.

Wait, yes I can. It makes perfect sense that the same people who think that literacy is inherited would also think that genetic literacy refers to inherited knowledge.

And the final irony....the fact that most of the people who are reading this STILL don't get it is evidence of TRUE illiteracy, i.e., the inability to make sense of what you're reading and a lack of education and ability. It's classic.

You're really obsessing on this, to put out so many threads.

Technically speaking though...(a type of) illiteracy - CAN be inherited.

Dyslexia: an inherited condition that makes it extremely difficult to read, write, and spell —despite at least average intelligence.

Dyslexia likely to be inherited, study shows

 

[Coyote]

Maggie, I think you have a common mistake here. Literacy is like strength. You can have brains and muscles, but unless you exercise them, they just sit there. You run every day, you get big muscles. You read every day, you get the benefits of literacy.

People who are taught to read, and read a lot are literate. there is no genetic component to it. There is no racial component either.

You can not inherit things like intellectual skills or muscle skills. Those have to be refreshed by every individual on a person to person basis.

As to intellegence..... It is hard to quantify, measure and even define. The Binet Simon test can give widely variant results based on things beyond what it is supposed to measure. Things like what you had for breakfast can result in vastly different results, in a range of 4 or five points. Which is almost the width of the standard deviation, which is 8 points.

And cultural differences mean more for literacy than capacity. You don't have to have really powerful intellectual equipment to be a reader. Folks pretty far down into subnormal, almost 3 deviations, can be taught to read, and a lot of them probably read a lot. Which explains why Ann Rice sells so many books.

So Black literacy is not a matter of Genetics, but a matter of interest, culture, or incompetence in the schools.

Yes, I DO understand all of that. And I totally agree that unless you exercise your brain, it will remain illiterate. All I'm saying is that with close association and/or inbreeding, I don't understand how that ultimately would NOT lead to an evolutionary change in the genetic makeup of learning capacity. There must have been a suspicion that that happens over time, because we've heard our entire lives that it isn't wise for first cousins to engage in sex because it has produced low-levels of mental capabilities in the offspring. So suffice it to say that I'm not the first one to look at this as being a potential problem.

And I certainly never implied that this theory is applied to ALL black people. Originally, the discussion was about inner-city pockets of black people who generation after generation seem unable or unwilling to pull themselves out of the darkness (no pun intended).

The problem with what you are saying is a problem of time - even if it did lead to evolutionary changes, not enough time and generations have passed to make such changes evident. For long lived mammels, not in a genetic bottleneck I would think you would need thousands of years.

 

[casper4020322]

Let's quit bullshitting and get down to it...are Blacks genetically illiterate? I am Black but I am also part White. So tell me this, if not for the White genes that I have would I be considered illiterate totally?

 

[Amanda]

Let's quit bullshitting and get down to it...are Blacks genetically illiterate? I am Black but I am also part White. So tell me this, if not for the White genes that I have would I be considered illiterate totally?

Is race really your only concern? Do you really believe it has anything to do with anything? Quite sad if you do.

 

[AllieBaba]

Quite sad that Maggie Mae believes it does.

Which is the point of the thread.

 

[MaggieMae]

Let's quit bullshitting and get down to it...are Blacks genetically illiterate? I am Black but I am also part White. So tell me this, if not for the White genes that I have would I be considered illiterate totally?

No, of course not. I'm talking about evolutionary changes to the genetic makeup which results from environmental and cultural mores in suppressed societies. And Coyote is undoubtedly correct that it takes hundreds or thousands of years for such "genetic" changes to occur.

 

[antagon]

"Genetic literacy" can mean the study of genetics as an educational tool, of course, but it can also mean an environmental causation which, over time, can mutate genes responsible for learning capabilities, which is the theory I originally espoused, and appears to be backed up by some credible research. She took that to be a racist comment, but of course didn't comprehend that the implication of illiteracy AND literacy are traits that I believe can become transcended by a genetic restructuring, just as physical characteristics do. In my original statement, it was in reference to JUST the black population under discussion, not a generalization, which is why she was off and running about it's racist implication.

the biggest fail in your argument is that you take it to the extent of literacy/illiteracy. all humans are capable of literacy, barring a disorder of some kind. there's no evidence, whatsoever, that can demonstrate that this basic capability is imperiled by any genetic trends, or any evolution among any populace. it is a joke, mm.

at black american's expense?

 

[MaggieMae]

"Genetic literacy" can mean the study of genetics as an educational tool, of course, but it can also mean an environmental causation which, over time, can mutate genes responsible for learning capabilities, which is the theory I originally espoused, and appears to be backed up by some credible research. She took that to be a racist comment, but of course didn't comprehend that the implication of illiteracy AND literacy are traits that I believe can become transcended by a genetic restructuring, just as physical characteristics do. In my original statement, it was in reference to JUST the black population under discussion, not a generalization, which is why she was off and running about it's racist implication.

the biggest fail in your argument is that you take it to the extent of literacy/illiteracy. all humans are capable of literacy, barring a disorder of some kind. there's no evidence, whatsoever, that can demonstrate that this basic capability is imperiled by any genetic trends, or any evolution among any populace. it is a joke, mm.

at black american's expense?

So maybe the correct word is intelligence rather than literacy. Either way, I beg to differ that there is indeed research being done in that area, and have posted links to it.

 

[antagon]

"Genetic literacy" can mean the study of genetics as an educational tool, of course, but it can also mean an environmental causation which, over time, can mutate genes responsible for learning capabilities, which is the theory I originally espoused, and appears to be backed up by some credible research. She took that to be a racist comment, but of course didn't comprehend that the implication of illiteracy AND literacy are traits that I believe can become transcended by a genetic restructuring, just as physical characteristics do. In my original statement, it was in reference to JUST the black population under discussion, not a generalization, which is why she was off and running about it's racist implication.

the biggest fail in your argument is that you take it to the extent of literacy/illiteracy. all humans are capable of literacy, barring a disorder of some kind. there's no evidence, whatsoever, that can demonstrate that this basic capability is imperiled by any genetic trends, or any evolution among any populace. it is a joke, mm.

at black american's expense?

So maybe the correct word is intelligence rather than literacy. Either way, I beg to differ that there is indeed research being done in that area, and have posted links to it.

i could fillet any 'research' aiming to isolate intelligence from genetic transfer from what intelligence is gained over a lifetime. i'd like to see that joke. might you produce a link on this thread?

 

[MaggieMae]

the biggest fail in your argument is that you take it to the extent of literacy/illiteracy. all humans are capable of literacy, barring a disorder of some kind. there's no evidence, whatsoever, that can demonstrate that this basic capability is imperiled by any genetic trends, or any evolution among any populace. it is a joke, mm.

at black american's expense?

So maybe the correct word is intelligence rather than literacy. Either way, I beg to differ that there is indeed research being done in that area, and have posted links to it.

i could fillet any 'research' aiming to isolate intelligence from genetic transfer from what intelligence is gained over a lifetime. i'd like to see that joke. might you produce a link on this thread?

In biology today, epigenetics has two closely related meanings:

Epigenetics Epigenetic Theory Gene Biology Dna Development

Excerpt (the second meaning):

The study of heritable changes in gene function that occur without a change in the sequence of nuclear DNA. This includes the study of how environmental factors affecting a parent can result in changes in the way genes are expressed in the offspring (see Waterland citation).

The Epigenome learns from its experiences

Genetics and Intelligence: What's New?


There's a ton of research going on. I'll let you Google your own, since it appears very few accept this possibility and, frankly, I'm bored with the subject until some breakthrough announcement is made.