Dismantling a Common Myth about Race

Dismantling a Common Myth about Race
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Dismantling a Common Myth about Race
There has been a misunderstanding of human behavior and performance through evolution within varied societies. Moreover, it is acknowledged that this myth is linked to genetic differences. However, by examining different studies that quest for human behavior and performance, genetic differences portray low impacts on human performance and behavior outcomes. Human performance, intelligence, for instance, is a concept that contains such myths. Therefore the myth can be dismantled through various means, including examining the genetic discovery and polygenic prediction from a Genome-Wide-Association Study (GWAS). In conjunction with other extensive research of the subject, this essay quest to examine the myth between race and IQ into its constituent pieces.
The myth between race and IQ can be addressed by examining the Education Attainment (EA). The EA is the significant concept of understanding the misconception since it correlates with numerous economic, social, and health outcomes of persons of color. Besides, as showcased by GWAS, it serves as a “model phenotype” for behavioral traits (Schmitz et al., 2020). From the study, an increase in sample size leads to a clear identification of lead SNPs. Moreover, the study project that polygenic predictors will attain a non-trivial level of predictive power. As such, imperfect genetic correlation among cohorts does not influence the IQ of people of color since such phenotypes are contingent on the environment (Lee et al., 2018).
From a series of studies on EA, the mentality that black people show a low IQ compared to their white counterparts is challenged. Therefore, the difference in IQ does not rely on genetic differences but rather social and economic factors such as the difference in exposure. The findings explore this, which explains 11-13% variance of EA and 7-10% of cognitive performance (Lee et al., 2018). This is also acknowledged by the polygenic scores of EA, which explains the link between the sc...