EXTRAORDINARY ACADEMIC IGNORANCE ABOUT TWINS AND IQ

Below we see academic "experts arguing about something that they obviously know nothing about. The article is a discussion of the findings in "The cognitive cost of being a twin: evidence from comparisons within families in the Aberdeen children of the 1950s cohort study", by Georgina A Ronalds, Bianca L De Stavola and David A Leon, which appeared in the British Medical Journal of 18 November 2005:

"Twins may be livewires but they are certainly not bright sparks, according to new research showing that they have lower IQs than single children. The study has ignited debate, with some experts claiming the lower IQ is a result of the twins spending less time in the womb and having less room to grow while they are in there. But others have argued that what happens after birth is more important, with twins losing out because they do not have a parent's undivided attention.

"We know there are language problems with twins - it's very difficult for a parent to adequately develop the language skills of two children at the same time," said David Hay, professor of psychology at Curtin University in Perth, who challenged the assumptions of the British research team. Professor Hay said previous research had shown that if one twin died in early childhood, the IQ of the surviving twin reached normal levels, suggesting the post-natal environment - in particular, one-on-one contact with a parent - played a part.

The study, published yesterday, found a five-point average shortfall in IQ among twins compared to single children - and the difference remained apparent even after factors such as the mother's age, the child's sex and the number of older siblings were taken into account. When the twins in the study were aged seven, their average IQ was 5.3points behind the single children in the same family. By the age of nine, it was 6points behind. Girl twins tended to make up the IQ deficit by the age of about 13, which was not always they case with boys.

The researchers who wrote the paper, published online by the British Medical Journal, were sticking with their theory that the "likely explanation" was a shorter gestation. Lead author David Leon concluded that social and economic circumstances could not explain the IQ gap".

These guys must know twins only via columns of numbers about them. Anybody who has helped bring up twins -- as I have -- will know perfectly well what the problem is -- and it is "none of the above". What happens is that twins do not need others for social support as much as singletons do, so they develop language skills primarily to talk to one-another. But because of their similar age and situation, even dizygotic (fraternal) twins tend to understand one-another with a much reduced use of adult language. They to a degree develop a private and largely non-verbal language of their own. So they have much less incentive to develop adult language skills and are therefore slower to develop such skills. And language skills are a central part of IQ development.

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ELSEWHERE

I am pretty shaky, come to think of it! "People with high levels of education and demanding careers also have an increased risk of developing Parkinson�s disease, research has suggested. Scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, have found that the chances of developing Parkinson�s rise with years of education, or intellectually challenging jobs. The highest risk was found in people who had studied for at least nine years. Miners, machine operators, metalworkers and farmers were less often affected. The study, published in Neurology, says that the findings do not mean that education or professional achievement cause the condition, but that people in these groups may lead lives that predispose them to the disease, or be more alert to its symptoms: doctors were the most likely to develop the disease".

Interesting point from a comment on Rishon-Rishon (also see here): How come the Left happily compare Bush to Hitler because of the invasion of Iraq, even though the guy Bush TOPPLED was a real dictator who did gas people, was a member of a national socialist party, AND had a moustache. Doesn't that make GWB more like FDR? There's no logic on the Left, though.

Muslims even intolerant of one-another: "France and other Western democracies offer Islam an opportunity that it has never enjoyed since the first Islamic civil war during Ali's Caliphate: the possibility for Muslims to develop their own approach to their faith and to practice it freely and in accordance with their deepest beliefs, without fear or hypocrisy. The West is the only place where all Muslim schools freely propagate their ideas and maintain their places of worships and seminaries without restriction. In Muslim-majority countries, the dominant school of Islam bans all other schools. Iran, for one, calls itself an Islamic Republic, but won't allow a single Sunni mosque to be built in Tehran, a city with at least 1.5 million Sunnis. Elsewhere in the Muslim world, sectarian feuds claim thousands of lives each year".

Islamofascism as a neurosis: "I came to the conclusion that we are facing a neurosis at the level of an entire civilization. Most neuroses have in common a dramatic event, generally linked to an unacceptable sexual behavior. In this case, we are talking of kids living all their lives in pure frustration, with no opportunity to experience sex, love, tenderness or even understanding from the opposite sex. The separation between men and women in Islam is absolute. So is contempt toward women, who are totally dominated by men. This leads to a situation of pure anxiety, in which normal behavior is not possible. It is no coincidence that suicide killers are mostly young men dominated subconsciously by an overwhelming libido that they not only cannot satisfy but are afraid of, as if it is the work of the devil. Since Islam describes heaven as a place where everything on earth will finally be allowed, and promises 72 virgins to those frustrated kids, killing others and killing themselves to reach this redemption becomes their only solution."

An early libertarian: "In 1851 Herbert Spencer published a treatise called Social Statics; or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified. Among other specifications, this work established and made clear the fundamental principle that society should be organized on the basis of voluntary cooperation, not on the basis of compulsory cooperation, or under the threat of it. In a word, it established the principle of individualism as against Statism -- against the principle underlying all the collectivist doctrines which are everywhere dominant at the present time. It contemplated the reduction of State power over the individual to an absolute minimum, and the raising of social power to its maximum; as against the principle of Statism, which contemplates the precise opposite."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here).

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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