skeptical_lurker comments on SRG 4: Biological Cognition, BCIs, Organizations - Less Wrong

7 Post author: KatjaGrace 07 October 2014 01:00AM

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Comment author: KatjaGrace 07 October 2014 02:47:29AM 3 points [-]

If ten percent of the population used a technology that made their children 10 IQ points smarter, how strong do you think the pressure would be for others to take it up? (p43)

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 07 October 2014 07:16:36AM 1 point [-]

With diet, modafinil, etc this might already be the case. Sugar alone makes it more difficult to concentrate for many people, as well as having many other deleterious effects. Yet all many people do is say "you can have your chocolate, but only after you take your ritalin"

Comment author: paulfchristiano 07 October 2014 10:03:17PM 3 points [-]

I'm extremely skeptical of extracting even 1-2 IQ points (in expectation, after weighing up other performance costs) from these mechanisms. Changing diet is the most plausible, but for people whose diets aren't actively bad by widely-recognized criteria, it's not clear we know enough to make things much better. For the benefits of long-term stimulant use (or even the net long-term impacts of short-term stimulant use) I remain far from convinced.

It seems true that more research on these topics could have large, positive expected effects, but these would accrue to society at large rather than to the researchers, and so would be in a different situaiton.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 08 October 2014 02:30:08AM *  2 points [-]

I seem to remember that eating enough fruit/vegetables alone raises your IQ by several points.

But rather than IQ, stimulants affects focus and conscientiousness, which is just as important. You can still fail with an IQ of 150 if you can't sit down on focus on work. I would say the same is true of sugar.

If you can spend more time focused on work, it might raise your IQ as a secondary effect, but this isn't necessary for a boost in effective intelligence.

Comment author: Lumifer 08 October 2014 03:06:04PM *  3 points [-]

I seem to remember that eating enough fruit/vegetables alone raises your IQ by several points.

That seems highly unlikely. Links?

Certain nutrient deficiencies in childhood can stunt development and curtail IQ (iodine is a classic example, that's why there is such a thing as iodized salt), but I don't think you're talking about that.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 08 October 2014 03:56:19PM *  2 points [-]

I'm not sure exactly where I read this, but here are some links with similarly impressive claims (albeit with the standard disclaimers about correlation not implying causation):

Based on parents’ reports, researchers assigned kids to one of three diet categories: a “processed” diet, high in fat, sugar and calories; a “traditional” diet (in the British sense), made up of meat, potatoes, bread and vegetables; and a “health-conscious” diet of whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, rice, pasta and lean proteins like fish.Based on parents’ reports, researchers assigned kids to one of three diet categories: a “processed” diet, high in fat, sugar and calories; a “traditional” diet (in the British sense), made up of meat, potatoes, bread and vegetables; and a “health-conscious” diet of whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, rice, pasta and lean proteins like fish. ... For each unit increase in processed food diets, children lost 1.67 points in IQ.

http://healthland.time.com/2011/02/08/toddlers-junk-food-diet-may-lead-to-lower-iq

It would help if they said what a 'unit' is.

On measures of mental sharpness, older people who ate more than two servings of vegetables daily appeared about five years younger at the end of the six-year study than those who ate few or no vegetables.

http://www.nootropics.com/vegetables/index.html

Comment author: Lumifer 08 October 2014 04:17:05PM 3 points [-]

albeit with the standard disclaimers about correlation not implying causation

These standard disclaimers are pretty meaningful here.

The obvious question to ask of the first study is whether they controlled for the parents' IQ (or at least things like socio-economic status).

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 08 October 2014 04:43:38PM 0 points [-]

The obvious question to ask of the first study is whether they controlled for the parents' IQ (or at least things like socio-economic status).

Indeed. But I don't have the time to read their papers (not that the article linked to the original paper), and its not my field anyway. From a practical viewpoint, good diet might give significant advantages (if not in IQ, then in other areas of health) and is extremely unlikely to cause any harm, so the expected cost-benefit analysis is very positive.

Comment author: Lumifer 08 October 2014 04:57:21PM 3 points [-]

From a practical viewpoint, good diet might give significant advantages

Oh, that is certainly true. The only problem is that everyone has their own idea of what "good diet" means and these ideas do not match X-)

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 08 October 2014 05:50:47PM 3 points [-]

I think most people agree on vegetables, in fact this is one of the few things diets do agree on.

Comment author: kgalias 08 October 2014 11:07:25AM 1 point [-]

Sugar alone makes it more difficult to concentrate for many people, as well as having many other deleterious effects.

What do you mean?

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 08 October 2014 12:06:16PM 1 point [-]

I mean, if you are oscillating between sugar highs and crashes, it is difficult to concentrate, plus it causes diabetes etc..

Comment author: kgalias 08 October 2014 12:13:42PM *  3 points [-]

Is this what you have in mind?

Sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children.[230][231] Double-blind trials have shown no difference in behavior between children given sugar-full or sugar-free diets, even in studies specifically looking at children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or those considered sensitive to sugar.[232]

wikipedia

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 08 October 2014 12:58:47PM 4 points [-]

No, I have this in mind:

The results indicate that children's performance declines throughout the morning and that this decline can be significantly reduced following the intake of a low GI cereal as compared with a high GI cereal on measures of accuracy of attention (M=-6.742 and -13.510, respectively, p<0.05) and secondary memory (M=-30.675 and -47.183, respectively, p<0.05).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17224202

Comment author: kgalias 08 October 2014 05:35:57PM 2 points [-]

I don't have time to evaluate which view is less wrong.

Still, I was somewhat surprised when I saw your first comment.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 08 October 2014 05:48:56PM 1 point [-]

Upvoted for not wasting time!

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