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Iceland is close to eliminating Down syndrome births due to widespread prenatal screening tests and nearly 100% of women choosing an abortion in the case of a positive test for Down syndrome:
With the rise of prenatal screening tests across Europe and the United States, the number of babies born with Down syndrome has significantly decreased, but few countries have come as close to eradicating Down syndrome births as Iceland.
Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women -- close to 100 percent -- who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.
While the tests are optional, the government states that all expectant mothers must be informed about availability of screening tests, which reveal the likelihood of a child being born with Down syndrome. Around 80 to 85 percent of pregnant women choose to take the prenatal screening test, according to Landspitali University Hospital in Reykjavik.
[...] Other countries aren't lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates. According to the most recent data available, the United States has an estimated termination rate for Down syndrome [open, DOI: 10.1002/pd.2910] [DX] of 67 percent (1995-2011); in France it's 77 percent (2015); and Denmark, 98 percent (2015). The law in Iceland permits abortion after 16 weeks if the fetus has a deformity -- and Down syndrome is included in this category.
The Prenatal Diagnosis link in the summary was replaced with a working version.
National Review has a counterpoint opinion piece about the CBSN article. Snopes has a page debunking inaccurate headlines about the article.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:17PM (3 children)
https://iq-research.info/en/page/average-iq-by-country/gq-equatorial-guinea [iq-research.info]
I suppose you could argue that the work done by Professors Lynn and Vanhanen isn't "actual" because it provided a result that's not politically acceptable, kind of like some interpretations of global warming. There are "IQ Skeptics" and so forth although the science seems pretty settled. Most of the claims its invalid data tend to be pretty fluffy and political. Some of it is outright trolling by people imitating global warming denialism, which is pretty funny.
It seems unlikely, fundamentally. Its a simple individual test. Not quite as complicated as detecting gravitational waves or mapping their genomes or whatever. It would be like claiming there is no data at all on blood groups. Thats a good analogy in that its harder than height/weight but simpler and faster and cheaper than a full clinical blood chemistry workup.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:21PM (1 child)
What data set did they use? How many Guineans were actually tested? If they didn't test actual Guineans, what methodology did they use for the estimate? You answered none of those questions.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday August 19 2017, @02:02PM
The classic debate derailing tactic of reddit style "citation needed" until political opposition disappears. Not playing that, sorry.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday August 18 2017, @04:22AM
Can't find it again offhand but I recall hearing, from a meticulous source, that because of all the nay-saying about IQ, researchers have made such a point of large data sets that the total data from IQ testing now exceeds that for all other social sciences combined, AND for large chunks of biological science (brain research and the like). Data sets commonly exceed 500,000 individuals.
Also, turns out there's a very reliable way to determine IQ without any sort of cognitive-ability test: twitch reflexes (the correlation is something like .8, so very high). Seems what IQ really measures is the speed of your synapses, which is basically .... processing power.
But I guess the idea that some CPUs families are faster than others is too hard for some folks.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.