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NaN comments on Q&A with Harpending and Cochran - Less Wrong
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There is now substantial evidence that there is a causal link between prolonged focusing on close objects - of which probably the most common case is reading books (it appears that monitors are not close enough to have a substantial effect) - and nearsightedness/myopia, though this is still somewhat controversial. This is the typical explanation for the correlation between myopia and IQ and academic achievement.
A genetic explanation is possible, and would be fascinating, but I wouldn't want to accept that without further evidence. If the genetic explanation is true and environment makes no contribution, then I think one should find that IQ is more highly correlated with myopia than academic achievement -- I don't know if this has been found or not.
It's like saying "if evolution is true, crocoducks should exist". You are (deliberately?) misrepresenting opponent's views. He meant that of all genetic variation affecting IQ, only small, but non-negligible, subset affects both myopia and IQ. However I still don't quite get how larger brain can cause myopia rather than hyperopia.
Maybe the larger brain leads to more intelligence, and people with more intelligence read more, and reading more leads to myopia. (Whether reading actually leads to myopia can be questioned, but that doesn't affect the point.)
More correlated than academic achievement is correlated with IQ, or with myopia?
Your comment is a very good point. But IQ may be more-closely correlated with academic achievement than academic achievement is with reading books; so this comparison might not help. (And you want to talk about the variance in X accounted for by Y but not by Z, rather than place a bet on whether Y or Z has a higher correlation with X.)
Yes, of course. But remember that in science we are not in the business of "accepting" one thing of another. That is the domain of religion and politics. The only thing that matters is finding good hypotheses and testing them.
HCH