James_Miller comments on Open thread, 23-29 June 2014 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: David_Gerard 23 June 2014 07:21AM

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Comment author: gwern 24 June 2014 01:49:09AM *  37 points [-]

EDIT: I've removed this draft & posted a longer version incorporating some of the feedback here at http://lesswrong.com/lw/khd/confound_it_correlation_is_usually_not_causation/

Comment author: James_Miller 24 June 2014 05:05:20PM 3 points [-]

If the falling price of gene sequencing lets us determine a lot about how genes influence human behavior social scientists, I predict, will get a lot better at figuring out the causal effects of social programs.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 25 June 2014 02:26:35AM 6 points [-]

Once social scientists get past their taboo against genetic explanations.

Comment author: James_Miller 25 June 2014 03:45:19AM *  6 points [-]

Better genetic analysis will make it easier to discuss politically incorrect topics because rather than talking about IQ you could discuss complex gene clusters characterized by hard to understand mathematical correlations. And I strongly suspect that with a better understanding of genetics race would become much less significant in statistical analysis because after you account for genetics you would gain little statistical significance by directly adding race into a regression (i.e. if gene X does something important and 80% of Asians but only 5% of whites have the gene then without genetic analysis race is important but after you know who has the gene race isn't statistically significant.)