DTNBP1 again

I’ve appended the following to the DTNBP1 post which made the front page of reddit this weekend:

UPDATE 2/1/2010

I already admitted I was just over-exuberantly playing around with the HapMap project and I’m now aware that the method was flawed. At the blog Gene Expression, you can read a more detailed explanation of why this specific analysis doesn’t prove much.

But once again, the bigger point of it all is that (1) there are SNPs associated with brain function; and (2) these genes have a very different distribution in different racial gene pools. This demonstrates that there’s a sound basis for the theory that IQ differences and other behavioral differences between races has a genetic explanation.

Comments

[JewishAtheist]

"I already admitted I was just over-exuberantly playing around with the HapMap project and I’m now aware that the method was flawed... But once again, the bigger point of it all is that..."

Uh, yeah. The bigger point is that you are extremely biased and will twist any facts you can find to support your previously-determined conclusions.

(Not that I'm saying you're wrong on the genetic-IQ link necessarily, I have no idea whether that's true.)

[Blumenthal]

Meanwhile, new report shows Head Start not working

"HHS released the Head Start Impact Study Final Report last week. There are several remarkable things about it:

The study demonstrated that children’s attendance in Head Start has no demonstrable impact on their academic, socio-emotional, or health status at the end of first grade. That’s right. If you were a mother who lost the lottery, couldn’t get your child into Head Start, and had to care for her at home, she was no worse off at the end of first grade than she would have been had she gotten into Head Start. That isn’t to say that she was well off. In the critical area of vocabulary, 3-year-olds entered the study at the 29th percentile in terms of national norms and finished first grade at the 24th percentile whether or not they attended Head Start. That is not good.
The study went virtually unnoticed. You can’t find anything about it in the Washington Post or the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or any other media outlet that serves the general public. The Post has 11 reporters covering education. Why isn’t a report on the effectiveness of the nation’s largest federally administered education program, one that serves thousands of needy children within the Post’s metro area, deemed worthy of newsprint? Is Head Start so sacrosanct that bad news about it is to be ignored?
The report of the study was inexcusably delayed. Data collection for the first grade follow-up was completed in the spring of 2006. Best practice in federal agencies would have seen a report released 12-18 months later. In fact, a draft report was provided to government officials in 2008 but wheels turned for long periods afterwards as the contractors were pushed to try different analytic techniques in the hope that something positive for Head Start could be found. Residuals of that effort are apparent in the released report, wherein findings are reported as suggestive or moderate that do not meet well accepted standards for statistical significance. The inexcusable delays continue as a report on a follow-up at the end of third grade, on which data collection ended in the spring of 2008, is no where in sight."

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0121_head_start_whitehurst.aspx