IQ and Epilepsy Drugs

The New York Times has an article about how valproate, an anti-epilepsy drug, reduces the IQs of children with mothers who took the drug during pregnancy. 

Pregnant women who took a popular epilepsy drug, also widely used to treat migraines, pain and psychiatric disorders, had children whose I.Q. scores were significantly lower than those whose mothers took a different antiseizure medication, a new study has found.

[...]

Three-year-olds whose mothers had taken valproate during pregnancy had I.Q. scores that were nine points lower on average than children whose mothers had taken a different antiseizure medication, lamotrigine. The I.Q. scores of toddlers whose mothers took valproate were also lower than scores of children whose mothers took two other antiseizure medications, phenytoin and carbamazepine.

[...]

Cognitive assessments were conducted in 258 2- and 3-year-olds born to 252 mothers, of whom 53 had taken valproate.

Over all, children’s I.Q. scores were strongly related to mothers’ I.Q. scores, except among the children of mothers treated with valproate, the study found.

At age 3, children exposed to valproate in utero had a mean I.Q. of 92, compared with 101 for children exposed to lamotrigine, 99 for those exposed to phenytoin, and 98 for those exposed to carbamazepine, the study found.

A nine point reduction is a large effect -- three fifths of a standard deviation. Perhaps valproate could be used on mice to help unravel the neuro-anatomy of IQ. Dose some pregnant mice with valproate. Dose others with a placebo. Compare the cognitive function of the resulting offspring. If the offspring of the mice dosed with valproate display cognitive deficits (reduced ability to learn a maze, for example), then compare the brains of the experimental mice with the control mice to see what brian structure is missing or has been degraded. 

Source: New York Times

Economic Freedom

James Gwartney has been compiling a cross country list of economic freedom for around thirty years now -- enough data to come to some robust conclusions. Countries that are more economically free are more prosperous. The correlation is causative. Compare Argentina with Chile. Under Peron, Argentina went from a first world country to a third world country. Under Pinochet, Chile went from third world to first. Compare West Germany with East Germany, South Korea with North Korea, Hong Kong with China, America with Canada.  And so on and so forth. Time and again, history has thrown us the next best thing to controlled experiments. The conclusion is monotonous in its regularity. Freedom produces prosperity. 

Gwartney’s index includes five clusters of components: size of government, legal structure, free trade, sound money, and credit-labor-and- business regulation. In his presentation at Cato, Gwartney reports that legal structure -- respect for property rights and enforcement of contracts by independent courts -- is the component most strongly related to prosperity. 

Three cheers for the rule of law.

Source: Economic Freedom of the World

Genes and Politics

Poland's Kaczynski brothers. 

City Journal has an article by James Q. Wilson about DNA and political outlook. There is evidence that genes rather than experiences account for a sizable chunk of the differences in political outlook. 

Three political science professors—John Alford, Carolyn Funk, and John Hibbing—have studied political attitudes among a large number of twins in America and Australia. They measured the attitudes with something called the Wilson-Patterson Scale (I am not the Wilson after whom it was named), which asks whether a respondent agrees or disagrees with 28 words or phrases, such as “death penalty,” “school prayer,” “pacifism,” or “gay rights.” They then compared the similarity of the responses among identical twins with the similarity among fraternal twins. They found that, for all 28 taken together, the identical twins did indeed agree with each other more often than the fraternal ones did—and that genes accounted for about 40 percent of the difference between the two groups. On the other hand, the answers these people gave to the words “Democrat” or “Republican” had a very weak genetic basis. In politics, genes help us understand fundamental attitudes—that is, whether we are liberal or conservative—but do not explain what party we choose to join.

In addition, there is evidence that genes explain much of the reason why some vote and others don't.

Genes also influence how frequently we vote. Voting has always puzzled scholars: How is it rational to wait in line on a cold November afternoon when there is almost no chance that your ballot will make any difference? Apparently, people who vote often feel a strong sense of civic duty or like to express themselves. But who are these people? James Fowler, Laura Baker, and Christopher Dawes studied political participation in Los Angeles by comparing voting among identical and fraternal twins. Their conclusion: among registered voters, genetic factors explain about 60 percent of the difference between those who vote and those who do not.

Source: City Journal

Genetic Variation in Political Participation

American Political Science Review (2008), 102:233-248 Cambridge University Press

Copyright © American Political Science Association 2008

doi:10.1017/S0003055408080209

Research Article

Genetic Variation in Political Participation

JAMES H. FOWLER, LAURA A. BAKER and CHRISTOPHER T. DAWES a1 University of California, San Diego a2 University of Southern California a3 University of California, San Diego Abstract The decision to vote has puzzled scholars for decades. Theoretical models predict little or no variation in participation in large population elections and empirical models have typically accounted for only a relatively small portion of individual-level variance in turnout behavior. However, these models have not considered the hypothesis that part of the variation in voting behavior can be attributed to genetic effects. Matching public voter turnout records in Los Angeles to a twin registry, we study the heritability of political behavior in monozygotic and dizygotic twins. The results show that a significant proportion of the variation in voting turnout can be accounted for by genes. We also replicate these results with data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and show that they extend to a broad class of acts of political participation. These are the first findings to suggest that humans exhibit genetic variation in their tendency to participate in political activities.

Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted?

American Political Science Review (2005), 99:2:153-167 American Political Science Association

Copyright © 2005 by the American Political Science Association
doi:10.1017/S0003055405051579

ARTICLES

Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmited?

 

JOHN R. ALFORD, CAROLYN L. FUNK and JOHN R. HIBBING  a1 Rice University a2 Virginia Commonwealth University a3 University of Nebraska

Abstract

We test the possibility that political attitudes and behaviors are the result of both environmental and genetic factors. Employing standard methodological approaches in behavioral genetics—specifically, comparisons of the differential correlations of the attitudes of monozygotic twins and dizygotic twins—we analyze data drawn from a large sample of twins in the United States, supplemented with findings from twins in Australia. The results indicate that genetics plays an important role in shaping political attitudes and ideologies but a more modest role in forming party identification; as such, they call for finer distinctions in theorizing about the sources of political attitudes. We conclude by urging political scientists to incorporate genetic influences, specifically interactions between genetic heritability and social environment, into models of political attitude formation.

AP Econ Quiz

The New York Times has a quiz with questions drawn from past AP Economics tests.

Most of the “correct” answers presuppose a Keynesian framework. 

Source: New York Times

Genes or Experience: Experienced Opinion

People with more experience are more likely to believe that genes are more important than experiences in determining personality.