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A Genetic Hypothesis for American Race/Ethnic Differences in Mean g: A Reply to Warne (2021) with Fifteen New Empirical Tests Using the ABCD Dataset
John G.R. Fuerst, Vladimir Shibaev and Emil O. W. Kirkegaard
Published: 2023/06/01
Abstract
Intelligence tests are excellent predictors of school and job performance, and racial/ethnic differences in mean IQ are common. Based on five lines of evidence, Warne (2021) builds a case for partly genetic causes of differences in general intelligence (g) across American self/parental-identified race or ethnicity (SIRE). Based on a careful reading of Warne (2021) and the authors he cites, we generated 15 predictions flowing from a partial genetic hypothesis. These predictions concern (1) mean cognitive differences and Spearman’s hypothesis, (2) measurement invariance across European genetic ancestry, (3) high within-group heritability and low shared environmentality, (4) admixture regression for g, (5) polygenic scores, (6) brain volume, and (7) results based on the method of correlated vectors. We used the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study sample (N = 10,245) to test these hypotheses using classical and state-of-the-art statistical techniques. Decomposition of variance using twins showed that the heritability of intelligence and of brain/intracranial volume estimates were, respectively, moderate and high for both the White and the non-White subsamples, while the variance attributable to shared environment was low. Within SIRE groups, both genetic ancestry and education-related polygenic scores (eduPGS) predicted both brain volume and g. Moreover, brain volume was weakly but statistically significantly related to g (r = .14 to .25). Path and mediation analysis showed that total brain volume explained approximately 15% of the association between European ancestry and g and also explained approximately 8% of that between eduPGS and g. Finally, based on the method of correlated vectors (MCV), a positive manifold was found for genetic, brain volume, and ancestry/SIRE-related variables. We conclude that the results support the hypotheses tested and are in line with a partial genetic hypothesis. Keywords: Brain volume, g, Ancestry, Admixture, Heritability, Polygenic scores, SIRE
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