Intellectual DNA

DNA tests for IQ are coming, but it might not be smart to take one

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The search did not go well at first. Plomin failed to discover any links when he looked at the genomes of 7, children in He later became involved in a misadventure involving a Chinese sequencing company, BGI, to which he supplied the DNA of more than a thousand American geniuses.

The gene hunt finally paid off in May By this March, the tally had rapidly risen to , people and genes. Plomin says a forthcoming report will establish links to 1, genes. Each genetic variable found so far has only a tiny effect, either weakly increasing IQ on average or weakly decreasing it. Plomin was quick to sign up. Last year, he spit in a tube and had his DNA scores calculated by his research center. Now, during talks, he presents his genetic rankings.

To Plomin, whose weight sometimes nears pounds, the genetic prediction explains his lifelong battle with starches and sweets. Of course, he knows his percentile rank for predicted academic achievement, too. I would just give people an IQ test. Early in life, Plomin says, DNA may already provide a better intelligence prediction than any test does.

Still, the issue is accuracy—or lack of it. Right now, the polygenic scores capture only a fraction of the genetic determinants of intelligence and none of the environmental ones. That means the predictions remain fuzzy. He then compared the gene scores with how well the twins now in their 20s had done on a UK-wide exam that everyone takes as a teenager. Plotted one against the other, the result looks more like a slightly elongated cloud of dots than a straight line.

That is, the DNA predictions and the test scores tended to line up, though not perfectly. Some with low DNA scores had gotten great test results as teens. Others had bombed despite the promise in their genes. With this technology, you could end up branding an Einstein as a Bozo, and vice versa. It shows users where their genes place them on a bell curve from lower to higher IQ.

A similar calculation is available from DNA Land.

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So far, the major consumer DNA testing companies have steered clear of intelligence reports. Given the history of eugenics, big companies have to fear being called out as Nazis and racists. What's more, customers might not be pleased to receive a prediction of less than average intelligence. Take the testing company 23andMe, which has studied the DNA of more than five million people and offers consumers reports on 21 traits, including everything from the chances of having a cleft chin to the likelihood of developing a bald spot.

Of these trait reports, 16 are calculated employing polygenic scores. The debate is not about evolution, it is about, "Where did the information required by the first cells come from? No naturalistic model has shown otherwise. Jeff Snipes July 7, at Allen, Evolution is, and has been known to be a blind undirected process since Darwin first put forth the idea of descent with modification centuries ago.

There is no thought, goal, or plan of any kind behind it. Hence the description of it being "undirected. As for the following: Under these circumstances, you would be very hard pressed to find a way for nature on its own to construct enough code for a functional replicating cell; such is the minimum for evolutionary processes to even begin any trial and error process. Darth Vader, "Nature however shows that complex systems emerge from simple rules. Under those circumstances we would expect to see some emergent order. Someone killed their kids, therefore we came about by contingency and necessity?

Where's the science in that? Why does the answer to everything have to be god. Just by this article you dont' even have to read the book based on his flawed conception of what information is. Keep this in mind also. Science has no agenda: His quest is to find God and when this hypothesis doesn't pan out for him he will try to find god another way. I must conceed there is no god. There is a god in his mind and nothing will change that.

And wat if we did find god He would not be the loving one in your bibles and books. July 7, at 2: Dave July 7, at 2: Ryan July 7, at 2: Allen, it seems I didn't have to read very far in the comments to find the first falsehood. You claim Evolution is not undirected and accuse Meyer of being ignorant for claiming it is so. Of course, it's a pointless argument, since ID proponents already acknowledge the deterministic nature of natural selection as one half of the Darwinian mechanism. Recognizing this, it can be observed that each individual evolutionary event is, in a sense, actually random because it requires a random event mutation to take place before anything can happen.

There is also a sense in which we can carry this observation further. As you may be aware, It is a disservice to humanity to deliberately or ignorantly misinform people about another person's views on any given matter. You might want to inform yourself on relevant matters before making exclamations about who is and is not qualified to write on this subject. Additionally, you might want to try actually reading Meyer's book or becoming familiar with his arguments - rather than seeking a way to excuse yourself from having to put forth the effort to do so - before mindlessly criticizing its author and accusing him of ignorance.

I'm talking, of course, of the DNA in your cells. Louis C July 7, at 2: Sheroniak, your claim that science has no agenda is sufficiently idealistic and ahistorical as to be absurd. It's a trend I've noticed in debates between ID proponents and Darwinists. Lacking any convincing Darwinian pathways to answer scientific questions about development posed by ID, the Darwinist regularly turns from scientific argumentation to philosophical and theological argumentation, and as regards both they seem woefully uninformed.

July 7, at 3: Richard Ball July 7, at 4: Standard, non-ID science is ID's best friend. The gap between non-life and life has gone from an inch in the 19th cc. The intelligence packed-into the simplest life-form has gone from a thimble-full to Grand Canyon- full. All the movement in the past 60 years has been towards intelligence, complexity and design. Just keep gathering the evidence -- and then follow it to its logical conclusions. There is a Designer. There is a Creator. Life is the result of direct divine agency and not merely an intelligently designed, morally-infused process.

Where there is information, there is a mind. Where there is information-infused life, there is a Creator-God.

Scott July 7, at 6: The theory of Darwinian evolution from my understanding of it should be Start with a small simple program, introduce copying errors, deletions N. Ryan July 7, at 7: Scott, It really does boggle the mind, doesn't it? I remember several years ago watching some show in which a couple of Darwinian philosophers and biologists were talking about how computer programs duplicating Darwinian mechanisms proved the sufficiency of random mutation and natural selection to produce the complexity of life.

I was in my mid-teens at the time and mostly uninitiated to the debate. However, even then, it was immediately obvious to me that appeals to computer programs in support of Darwinian evolution was something of a non-starter, since any such efforts required, well, effort Of course, if your undirected process is being conducted by the application of various intelligent and purposeful functions, then you're not really duplicating an undirected process taking place in an environment that is supposed to be devoid of any intelligence or guidance.

And when you program the evolutionary target into the program and then sift through random changes to save those most suitable to achieving the target, you're hardly portraying a process that is claimed to be absent any teleological endgame. Richard Dawkins' attempt at a programmatical proof was one of the worst offenders. This is not surprising considering the poor grasp of logic he seems to display nearly every time he opens his mouth, which I guess also serves to explain the nature and character of his legions of adoring fans.

Paul July 8, at Accordingly, the universe is supposed to have started very orderly, decreasing in order and in intelligence? Strangely, information seems to be increasing.

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Humans are evidently quite complex entities. Does that imply that there was something more complex before, since the law of entropy suggests that we are a 'fallout' of something more 'orderly'. Evolution seems to be evolving as well, to greater complexity, not less, or so it would seem. The entropy model clarifies that order 'can be deceptive'… one can effectively decrease entropy tend to greater order by drawing from outside the 'closed system' that we are observing.

This however implies that we can mistake order and disorder perhaps there is an answer hidden away here as to why there is the appearance of 'good and evil' in our world, for instance, and of other things that seem contradictory. We just can't fathom and don't see the 'big picture' of it all. Scott; What do Jesus and Mary have to do with the article and the points being made by Mr.

Your comments are obviously mindless, spiteful and desperate. The evidence for the ID theory that Stephen has presented, is hardly deniable. Perhaps you didn't read his book yet? The arguments don't pre-suppose you to be a religious fundamentalist nor an atheist. Unfortunately religious fundamentalists want to claim a potential victory here and the atheists, perhaps defeat; that may be the fallout arising from this work, a separate issue and battle. The theory could have been conceived by anyone… the data and evidence don't require any religious predisposition.

One needs to keep and open and objective mind on the material and arguments presented. Getting personal doesn't win you points in this debate. The ID theory obviously has hit a sensitive spot in challenging your hardened beliefs, conclusions about reality etc.

If you try to approach the points made by Meyer in support of ID, with an open, intelligent mind, you will see real sense in it all. Try to keep religious discrimination out of the picture for now… that's all coming out from our 'human condition'. The case work for ID is very thorough, academic and scientific.

Totally agree to keep ID and theology apart. We need to take one step at a time. The Case for ID needs to be debated for now… but it certainly appears to be an extremely impressive and jaw wrenching case, for the moment at least. Brian Chaffin July 8, at 8: Ryan July 8, at Paul, What Scott are you directing your comments to? I agree with your points but you don't seem to be applying them to the right person. Skails July 8, at 1: DNA itself has designed every creature to ever exist on Earth. It intelligently learns to adapt to changing circumstances, and has increased in complexity in order to ensure its survival in one form or another.

Human intelligence is a creation of DNA. Can DNA prove the existence of an intelligent designer? It is the designer. We human beings on Earth currently lack the perspective and scope to identify the origins of DNA. I think it would help if we saw that life involves many planetary and universal factors that aren't just DNA based. TK Jaros July 8, at 1: Perhaps it might be better to say that ID and theology are distinct?

It would seem awkward to say that theology, the study of God, is separated from ID, God's craftsmanship, wouldn't it? Ryan July 8, at 2: ID is the study and detection of design in nature, period. If the designing intelligence happened to be aliens, ID as a theory would not find itself diminished.

Since aliens would find themselves within a universe that had a beginning and a product of it, it could hardly be argued that their existence is necessary or eternal rather than contingent and temporal. I'm not sure I totally understand your point. You seem to be assigning will and intelligence to DNA as the designer of life, not needing a designer external to DNA. This would be like assigning the intelligence responsible for the information in the Encyclopedia Britannica to the Encyclopedia itself rather than its authors, thinking that it is somehow keeping track of the shifting state of knowledge in society and authoring its own revisions to follow suit.

Michael July 8, at 3: Interesting that Meyers would choose the one vague category that could also include a supernatural being.

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It's begging the question: It is an unsupported supposition. Why don't doctors ever say that disease is caused by sin, therefore exorcism or faith healing are the best prescription? Because that's not what science or medicine are about. Even if confronted with a miracle, we must still attempt to develop useful materialistic models that are predictive and explanatory because miracles are non-reproducible, non-predictable, and therefore not very useful for scientific understanding.

I am astounded that these kinds of bad arguments are proffered in the name of apologetics. The interviewer and interviewee would both have failed my class on philosophy of science. Cambridge appears to have lowered their standards for Meyer. Dave July 8, at 4: Meyer's only conclusion is that information comes from an intelligent source which you admit.

He does not suppose the nature of this source. Michael July 8, at 5: My distaste is with the subcategory he has chosen. Since this is absurd, we can dispense with Meyer's logical argument altogether. Furthermore, there are no recognized tests for non-human intelligence at the code-making level. There are conditions of prior experience and intentionality that we can not satisfy with our current knowledge. All of this ignores the evidence put forward at the Dover School Trial that intelligent design is merely the latest species of creationism; a legal ploy to subvert Constitutional protections about government interference in religious matters.

Dave July 8, at 6: There are no adequate models showing how the information in DNA could have originated from unguided, natural processes. That, in combination with the "intelligent source" fact we agree on, is a strong enough argument to present an alternative theory ID. Darth Wader July 8, at 6: DNA is not a computer program. It doesn't work like a computer program. You cannot treat DNA in the same regards as a computer program. I don't have enough time, energy or space on here to explain how it does and doesn't work, but the relating it to a 1mb program turning into win7 is a strawman argument.

The processes of evolution by natural selection are very will understood. There are volumes of supporting evidence, and not a shred evidence that refutes it. If you disagree with it because of a personal conviction or religious reason well thats fine, but you might as well support a geocentric universe.

There is no serious scientific refutation of evolution period. If you choose to turn a blind eye to the the mountains of data thats fine, but to make it seem that your convictions are based on anything more than a blatant and willing misunderstanding of the theory and blind faith a bronze age cult is very dishonest. Ryan July 8, at 6: It's clear you haven't even bothered to peruse the literature actually written by ID proponents, since they regularly address the objections you put forward as arguments that you seem to think they're too dumb to have thought of.

I find your logic to be highly illogical. Does that have any logical implications? Since we see some degree of intelligence throughout the rest of the animal kingdom - something that, at least in some creatures, surpasses instinct - but we do not see those creatures producing specified information, it is logical to assume that the creation of such information could not be created by an intelligence significantly inferior to that held by humans.

This fact was well known to Francis Crick, who saw no logical problem in his theory of Directed Panspermia, whereby the complex information seen in biology led him to posit the existence of a superior alien intellect that had seeded this earth with life. He was, after all, an atheist. Further, you may have heard of the S. Its members would dispute your claim that their search for alien intelligence is non-scientific and logically flawed. The very notion that evidence can't reasonably lead someone to posit the existence of something heretofore unseen and not experienced is contra science and is an assertion you might want to take up with physicists.

And if you do not argue it about subatomic particles, why argue it about larger things? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, as they say. And if logic cannot eliminate the possibility of attributing creative intellect to some unseen, contingent, material being, who for the very reason his existence is posited the existence of specified complexity in the contingent biological entities known as humans is subject to the problem of infinite regress, then logic cannot eliminate the possibility of attributing creative intellect to some unseen, necessary, immaterial being, who by reason of his nature is not subject to the problem of infinite regress.

As for the Dover trial, I suspect you have not bothered to read any of the court transcripts for yourself and have no idea why the judge is being referred to by some as an "activist judge", a charge he actually tried to preempt in the body of his judicial opinion because its nature as such was so clear.

But frankly, the issues surrounding the trial are too numerous to get into here, and the problems with the so-called evidence to which you refer too profound. But what do expect from someone like Ken Miller, who can't decide what his argument against ID is in the first place? He argues it's not science because it's not experimentally testable or falsifiable, then he turns around and claims ID is to be rejected because it has been experimentally tested and found false.

It's amazing how much you can say when you've mastered talking out of both sides of your mouth. Dave July 8, at 7: Darth, this thread and Meyer's book has absolutely nothing to do with evolution. Darwin had nothing to say about how the first living cell originated. In fact, many people who support the theory of ID believe in natural selection. How did the "digital code", as Dawkins describes it, get compiled into the first cell?

Jeff Snipes July 8, at 8: You wouldn't by any chance happen to be referring to the early drafts from "Of Pandas and People" would you? I'm told from a good friend that these drafts were not only central to that cases outcome, but that Jones completely misinterpreted there content. Maybe someone here would beg to differ? Or the failure of HIV to produce heavy quantities of new biochemical characteristics despite the fact that it mutates thousands of times faster than eukaryotic living systems?

It spent almost no time whatsoever on the objection ID has brought forth with regards to the power of evolutionary processes - evolution at the cellular level. He did give his own flawed interpretation of the Lenski experiment, that's it.

Darth Wader July 8, at OK well biology isn't my specialty compound eyes made of chitin, eww no thank you so I won't post any more after this. Snipes, Its Wader, Vader was an angry guy who wore a helmet and cape. Darth Wader is a happy dude who wears flip-flops I am the most mellow of Sith lords.

Also I am aware that Meyer the non scientist is a philosopher is a philosopher of science. Lets say that that Karl Popper wrote an book refuting the big bang. Karl Popper is not a physicist or astronomer and while he may be far more knowledgeable about the subject than the the average person, it wouldn't be honest for him to write from a supposed position of authority on the subject. Dave I am well area that Darwin didn't delve into the realm of abiogensis, Darwin couldn't even understand what prevented traits from being diluted, Mendel did.

Just because Darwin didn't work on a particular problem though he did write that he believed that the beginning of life would be solved or have every detail correct doesn't invalidate his theory or diminish the importance of his work. Like Behe's work "Darwin's Black Box" irreducible complexity Meyer's central idea can be very easily summarized. Look at the rings of Saturn sorry but astronomy is where I feel more comfortable you see a microcosm of the ordered complexity seen in DNA but it is simply ordinary matter following physical laws. I do however respect people who do hold these values believe it or not my best friend is a devout Catholic and can argue them with respect and levelness.

My final thought is why not simply untie your faith from science. Perhaps there is a creator deity and chooses to leave no fingerprints. Maybe homage could best be paid by seeking to understand the wonders of "creation" but without looking for evidence of a creator. Attaching faith to the gaps of human knowledge will put science and faith in eternal conflict because the stated goal of science is to remove gaps from knowledge.

And one thing I think we can agree on is "FTW to the newage stuff on here! You really should actually read Signature in the Cell before making the sort of comments you do here.

Can DNA Prove the Existence of an Intelligent Designer?

You recommend "The Greatest Show on Earth" because it was written by a biologist, however, Dawkins is neither a biochemist nor a molecular biologist, and I think you would find, as I have, that people in those fields consider him to be no more than a layman when it comes to the issues under discussion here. What is more, I don't believe that Dawkins has devoted a significant portion of his academic career to origin of life studies. You don't seem to get this is precisely Meyer's area of expertise. Regarding the complexity of DNA, you compare it to the rings of Saturn and say that we "see a microcosm of the ordered complexity seen in DNA but it is simply ordinary matter following physical laws.

You offer matter obeying physical laws as an explanation for complexity as though it is a possibility that has been foolishly overlooked. And yet, Meyers has a section of his book devoted to explaining and demonstrating precisely why this is not a viable explanation for the specified complexity of DNA. It's amazing how willing and eager people are to offer their two cents on Meyers knowledge and the value of Signature in the Cell without ever cracking it open and giving it a read.

It strongly suggests an underlying psychological or social motive rather than a scientific or intellectual one. Dave July 9, at 6: Right, the rings of Saturn show "ordered complexity", but that is vastly different than DNA. Even if natural processes could explain the structure of DNA they cannot explain the specified sequencing. This is the difference between digital "code" and digital jibberish. Edson July 9, at 7: Nature just preserves what comes about by chance. ID have serious philosophical implications. That's why the criticisms, as seen in the comments below, concern supposed flaws in the arguments and anti-religious reasons, instead of looking closer to see where the evidence is leading.

Why don't you guys just stop feeling comfortable with the dominant atheistic guardians' view and, at least, AT LEAST, read the book to give an opinion without being ignorant? Ryan July 9, at You've got it exactly right. In a sense, ID is a call for intellectual honesty, and that's part of what makes criticism of ID as intellectually dishonest so ironic. ID says, essentially, "Let's look at the evidence we have and allow that evidence to guide our inference to the best explanation for that evidence.

Some here would try to argue that it seeks to deny the supernatural as an explanation, but it actually seeks to deny intelligence as an explanation, since as I've addressed in previous comments here, that intelligence need not be supernatural. That is the very same reason the Big Bang Theory took so long to gain purchase And if the source of the intelligence was supernatural, what of it? If that is the truth, what is the value of methodologically excluding the possibility of that discovery?

The idea that it is, by its very nature, a "science-stopper" is absurd. It was the methodological assumption that was responsible for the very existence of the modern observational sciences in the first place.

I mean, really, every single argument that has been raised against Meyer and the book in these comments is actually addressed in detail in the book itself. These comments might just as easily be refuted by posting nothing more than page references where the detailed rebuttal is to be found. TK Jaros July 9, at 1: Is it wrong for me to believe that ID and the teleological argument are very closely related? And if the teleological argument is under the category of theology, why shouldn't ID? Perhaps some more clarification from your perspective could help my understanding. Michael July 9, at 1: Ryan I have read some bargain-bin copies of Black Box and Icons.

I found them uninteresting. God of the Gaps thinking of the worst kind. Panspermia does not answer the question of life's origins, it merely changes the arena from Earth to the distant Beyond. Name-dropping Crick, as though he had some special insight on this problem, is pointless. I couldn't care less about his opinions, only evidence. Your assertions on SETI are a good test.

How would we know if a signal was coming from aliens? Would we test it's information content? None of these, in fact. We would know a signal because of it's artificiality, by its inability to be produced by natural sources. Is there anything artificial about living things? Have we found, as was proposed by Wells, a series of prime numbers encoded in base pairs in our DNA? We know where living things come from: You would assert that ID is not a re-branding of creationism.

How, then are intelligently designed organisms "produced"? What agency is involved in transferring the abstract, immaterial "information" into the material being? Is it a physical process, governed by natural laws? How is the chain of causality interfered with to make possible intervention?

Even if we ARE talking about aliens, what beam did they use? If we propose a supernatural being, we are talking about no less than a miraculous intervention, a material creation. This is necessitated for the intelligent design to be manifest. Therefore, "intelligent design" is, in fact, "intelligent design and miraculous creation". I hear a lot of protesting about religious motives, but I have researched the sources of funding for the Discovery Institute.

Their work is sub-par, and there has been no new name added to their roster in the last 5 years. They have more philosophers, theologians, and lawyers than scientists. So far as I can tell, they have only two published biologists in the entire group. Hardly a research powerhouse. Paul Johnson July 9, at 2: I think Richard Dawkins said it best when he quipped, "So the way to explain complexity of the universe is to postulate an initial being even more complex than what you seek to explain in the first place? Being funded by the Discovery Institute is already one mark against him being taken seriously as a scientist.

It simply implies a designer, period. Now, ID and the Teleological Argument are related in the sense that both imply purposive intelligence. The reason that the Teleological Argument is often thought of as theological is because it implies an intelligence that transcends and is external to the universe itself, which then fits very well with the concept of God, obviously. On the other hand, ID theory only implies an intelligence that is external to terrestrial biology. ID theory, on its own, does not necessitate that this intelligence is also external to the universe.

If ID theory can allow for an entirely "natural" designer that exists within the natural universe, then it can hardly be classified as theological in nature. This is why you are highly unlikely to find a real ID proponent arguing for God's existence based purely on the application of ID to biology, even if that proponent happens to believe in God.

They regularly point out that ID theory is not sufficient to get you to the conclusion of God. Andy July 10, at 3: Well I dunno about all these sceptics. I'm not highly educated but I think if you had to place three diagrams next to one another of a Boeing and its workings, a computer and its workings and the human ear and its workings, and if you had to place those three diagrams in front of a 7-year old child with no "programming" or "brainwashing" and ask the child if he thinks somebody designed all three or only one or two, even the child will tell you someone designed all three.

Doesn't really take a rocket scientist to work that one out. But it takes a great, great deal of blind faith to believe the design in the human ear is accidental, in my opinion. But I'm no rocket scientist. LAL July 10, at You have a choice. You must either believe in eternal material or eternal intelligence. Watching those who believe in eternal material try to explain away the universe, life, laws, reason, logic, information etc.

Was Jefferson incorrect in saying that we are endowed by our Creator with certain rights? The materialist must say there are no such endowed rights, only the "rights" given to us by those in power, which are no rights at all. There is a reason why the political left is so dangerous to free people-most of them are Darwinian materialists. Ryan July 10, at I'm glad you pointed that out.

And what is today found not to be self-evident could tomorrow be found not to be inalienable. If human rights are determined only by human leaders, then human rights can easily be curtailed by same. And, in fact, there remains no absolute truth to affirm that humans have any rights whatsoever. Ryan July 10, at 9: A rebuttal of Dawkins' argument could easily span pages in order to magnify and multiply examples of its silliness, but I can probably give a relatively quick overview of the problems here over the next few posts.

We don't speak of the probability that I will succeed in setting a coin on a table with the heads side facing up if that is what I intentionally set out to do. This is not an activity that finds itself subject to the realm of probabilities. We would, however, speak of the probability of the coin landing heads up if I flipped it through the air onto the table.

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The odds against a random emergence of biological complexity is, from a probabilistic perspective, prohibitive. However, if biological complexity is not the result of random processes but intelligent and purposeful activity, then it doesn't belong to the realm of probability at all. The complexity is no longer improbable but certain. But recognizing this we must then ask exactly what random process is supposed to be responsible for the emergence of God such that his emergence is improbable?

This is one of the many places where Dawkins' argument falls apart. Dawkins argues against a big, improbable, contingent, biological being in the sky, subject to the same issue of improbable complexity that would face the biological beings on earth, who, according to him, have come about by random processes. But again, if biological complexity or complexity in the universe did not come about by chance, then they are not, by reason of their complexity, improbable. No improbable universe, no improbable God.

What we have, we have because we must, not because we might. As I've already said in these comments, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and if Dawkins assumes that an improbable event is in need of an explanation beyond, "It is improbable and it happened," we might wonder why Dawkins, allowed access only to contingent forces, does not stop to demand an explanation for how life improbably arose on earth or how the Darwinian mechanism, kicking into gear once presented with reproducing organisms, managed to so easily clear its probabilistic hurdles time and time and time again without access to the probabilistic resources that would be required by any other process to achieve significantly more modest results.

When it comes to the matter of whether a complex universe requires a complex God, we must once again ask what the goose is eating. Dawkins claims that a complex universe would need a more complex God by way of explanation. And yet, Dawkins is prepared to affirm that complex biological life arose from more simple biological life, that simple biological life arose from more simple non-biological materials, and that non-biological materials arose from simply nothing at all.

Dawkins seeks to disprove God as the explanation for a complex universe by reason of a need for greater complexity to precede lesser complexity, but he then seeks to replace God with a process that assumes great complexity arose from the greatest of simplicity. Lacking a beginning, he requires no cause. Lacking contingency, he is not improbable. Should the eternal existence of God seem troubling to the scientific atheist, they need only remind themselves that, prior to the Big Bang Theory in the 20th century, the universe itself was believed by scientists to have existed eternally.

But there is a further point to be made here, and David Berlinski addresses it quite succinctly in "The Devil's Delusion," which I'll try to summarize here. He begins by saying, "What a man rejects as distasteful must always be measured against what he is prepared eagerly to swallow. And if nothing caused the Landscape, it does not answer the question why it should be there at all. Instead of shovelling the problem back to an unobservable God he shovels it back to an unobservable Landscape.

And if our universe is simple in its fundamental laws, what on earth is the relevance of Dawkins' argument? Simple things, simple explanations, simple laws, a simple God. More than 60 years ago Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the double-helical structure of deoxyribonucleic acid—better known as DNA. Today, for the cost of a Netflix subscription, you can have your DNA sequenced to learn about your ancestry and proclivities. Yet while it is an irrefutable fact that the transmission of DNA from parents to offspring is the biological basis for heredity, we still know relatively little about the specific genes that make us who we are.

That is changing rapidly through genome-wide association studies—GWASs, for short. The major goal of the study was to identify single-nucleotide polymorphisms —or SNPs—that correlate significantly with intelligence test scores. Found in most cells throughout the body, DNA is made up of four molecules called nucleotides , referred to by their organic bases: Within a cell, DNA is organized into structures called chromosomes. Humans normally have 23 pairs of chromosomes, with one in each pair inherited from each parent. For example, one person might have the nucleotide triplet TAC, whereas another person might have TCC, and this variation may contribute to differences between the people in a trait such as intelligence.

Genes consist of much longer nucleotide sequences and act as instructions for making proteins—basic building blocks of life. Of the more than 12 million SNPs analyzed, correlated significantly with intelligence, implicating 22 different genes.

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