Originally Posted by
alsbos
No need for us to break it down, as others already have. The human genome project has been underway for 20 years and as a whole has failed to connect the lines between genes, expressed proteins, and disease. The entire scientific community has accepted the fact that we don't have the ability to go from genome to phenotype expect in a few examples. That's just the way it is, that is the current state of the science. Bioinformaticians continue to churn through billions of DNA sequences, attempting to dig out some correlations. And of course they look at different ethnicities since this can be issue an issue in clinical trials. There's a lot of money to be made. But it just doesn't work well (or at all)...and this is looking for simple things, like correlations to heart disease, alzheimers, or certain kinds of cancer.
The Bell Curve is based on IQ tests, which no one (expect you it seems) believes is an accurate measure of intelligence when testing across widely different economic and social groups. There isn't a trusted method of measuring intelligence which isn't polluted with environmental factors. That's why you need to dump your reliance on such tests, and go straight to genome-proteins-phenotypes. But that connection is too complex and isn't understand.
Regarding dogs. Yes, you could breed humans. We all know this. But the different ethnicities weren't purposefully 'bred' towards a certain phenotype. There has been evolutionary pressure, but we have no clue if that made some groups more 'intelligent' than others. It could have, but how would you measure it anyways, you can't strip away the environmental factors.
And back to dogs. You can sequence the parent's genome, and x-ray them...but you still won't know if your labrador (or shepard) will have hip dysplasia. Breeders can't even figure out how to predict that, and that's WITH DNA testing the parents. And dyslpasia is easy to diagnose, and dogs are purposefully bred, and you can breed through many generations quickly in a controlled manner. Its not simple stuff.
And back to the Bell Curve again. This is a purely correlational study. That's another red flag. This is not proven, accepted stuff, at all.