I agree with the majority of this, especially the part where we are in a race to increase our own intelligence before we destroy ourselves with AI or something else.
But I think there’s something missing in your analysis.
“Genes are the piano; the microbiome is the pianist.”
The human microbiome is irrelevant to this topic. The microbiome is highly heritable (usual twin studies & SNP heritabilities), and it is caused by genes and the environment, as well as unstable; its direct causal effects in normal humans are minimal. We know that it is supremely irrelevant because environmental changes like antibiotics or new food or global travel which produce large changes in personal (and offspring) microbiomes do not produce large changes in intelligence (of oneself or offspring); and most dramatically, germ-free humans exist and are of normal or even above-average intelligence, eg the fascinating mistakes and delusions ofDavid despite his high intelligence. (Amusingly, germ-free mice apparently even live longer.) Microbiome research is, in general, very low quality and can’t be taken seriously—look at your link:
Most of this page is meaningless mouse studies (infamous for not replicating and getting whatever result the experimenter wants and the animal model literature having huge systemic biases), and the handful of actual human studies I see here are all garbage—things like cross-sectional studies with large known familial confounding, or heavy reliance on things like breastfeeding where the beneficial effects disappear when controlling for just some confounds. This also goes for much-touted correlations like autism. There’s not a single result on this page that provides a shred of evidence for your implied thesis that microbiome interventions could, even in theory, possibly matter to ‘how to make superbabies’. It doesn’t.
In 2021 a geneticist insisted to me that the microbiome was just a fad.
EDIT: If anyone cares, I’m not bothering to respond to Harrop’s comment in depth because I think his Gish-gallopy response manages to exemplify many of the criticisms I already made, where they are not outright non-responsive (eg. his ‘disagreement’ about the reasons why germ-free mice live longer is obviously irrelevant to my point that they do), and I’m not worried anyone is going to waste any time on ‘the microbiome’ for these purposes when this is the best case he can make. You can see he has no case for ‘superbabies’ having anything to do with known microbiome stuff, and I do not care enough about the microbiome per se to prosecute it further.
I agree that woo is bad. And microbiome is of course irrelevant wrt boosting IQ. But a good part of the post was about improving health, and microbes do have serious downsides on that front. If you don’t have the good ones you are at a much greater risk of being colonized by the bad ones. And disease still has a non-zero negative effect on people’s brain development and cognition.
Removing bad behaviour from microbiome would be quite a bit more effective and easier than fixing genes, for fighting disease. And many of the diseases with a significant genomic risk scores mentioned in the post probably have an unknown necessary pathogenic cause.
Here’s a paper (Cochran&Ewald) with simple powerful arguments, I always try to push it to any doctors I meet.
Oh my god, what a disturbingly overconfident & erroneous comment. Especially coming from someone who has been immersed in science for so many years. I recognize your name from Reddit from over 10 years ago.
Due to Brandolini’s law, your comment made me look up how to block users on Lesswrong, which apparently isn’t possible. I now have to waste a huge amount of time debunking your egregious misinformation. I will only do it this once because in my experience, people who exhibit this kind of behavior will continue it. So in the future I will simply refer to this exchange as evidence that you are not someone who deserves to be taken seriously or responded to.
On any evidence-based website, your comment is the type that deserves a warning and then a permanent ban if it happens again. That you’ve had an active account on this website for 15 years makes me want to avoid this website.
The human microbiome is irrelevant to this topic.
The topic is how to make people/babies healthier, better developed, and more intelligent. Anyone who reviews this information should be able to conclude that your statement is ridiculously false:
The microbiome is highly heritable (usual twin studies & SNP heritabilities), and it is caused by genes and the environment, as well as unstable; its direct causal effects in normal humans are minimal.
You started off with largely irrelevant statements and ended with severe misinformation. FMT (fecal microbiota transplant) studies demonstrate causation. You can look through the humanmicrobiome.info wiki or do a literature search to see how many FMT studies there are showing “non-minimal” effects. So much so that a 2020 review said they thought the results were implausible.
We know that it is supremely irrelevant because environmental changes like antibiotics or new food or global travel which produce large changes in personal (and offspring) microbiomes do not produce large changes in intelligence (of oneself or offspring)
I have read that it’s not possible to make a germ-free human. What you linked to as evidence for your claim is a person living in a sterile isolator. That prevents him from exposure to new microbes, but it doesn’t make him germ-free.
germ-free mice apparently even live longer
From your citation (just adding context): “The reduced early food intake and smaller body weight of adult GF rats may be the reason ad libitum fed GF rats live slightly longer”. Here are some studies indicating that “germ-free” has detrimental consequences:
Most of this page is meaningless mouse studies (infamous for not replicating and getting whatever result the experimenter wants and the animal model literature having huge systemic biases)
Let’s put it all together; if super-SOX works as well in humans as it does in mice, this is how you would make superbabies
So are you dismissing the entire OP post as well because of this?
While animal studies definitely have their limits, it seems extremely erroneous to essentially dismiss an entire area of study since much of the research was done in mice. A lot of mouse research isn’t ethical to do on humans.
Most of this page is meaningless mouse studies, and the handful of actual human studies I see here are all garbage
You’re dismissing an entire field of tens of thousands of studies. If you’re right, you should be spending your time protesting such a massive waste of time and money rather than arguing with some random blog commenter.
breastfeeding where the beneficial effects disappear when controlling for just some confounds
This is false. There are cited studies there that control for confounders and still found benefits, including to intelligence.
There’s not a single result on this page that provides a shred of evidence for your implied thesis that microbiome interventions could, even in theory, possibly matter to ‘how to make superbabies’. It doesn’t.
This is such a ridiculous statement. But it’ll be up to each reader to review the page and decide for themselves.
He was right. BTW, you remember what happened in 2021, right?
You linked to uBiome, which was a company that sold gut microbiome tests. Your citation of them is irrelevant to your claim that “the microbiome is a fad”. If you said “microbiome testing is a fad”, that would arguably be accurate, but it’s a completely different claim.
EDIT:
Your response, your edit, and the votes, are a painful example of the need to make humans smarter. Unintelligent people being adamantly wrong are extremely harmful:
I agree with the majority of this, especially the part where we are in a race to increase our own intelligence before we destroy ourselves with AI or something else.
But I think there’s something missing in your analysis.
“Genes are the piano; the microbiome is the pianist.”
It’s time to admit that genes are not the blueprint for life (Feb 2024) https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00327-x—I see it’s closed access now; here are some quotes.
More on the microbiome & genetics: https://humanmicrobiome.info/genetics/
Examples of how important the gut microbiome, and the parents’ health, are for human development: https://humanmicrobiome.info/maternity/
A page specifically on the brain: https://humanmicrobiome.info/brain/
I have the exact same goal as you, and I’m working on it from the microbiome perspective. See:
https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/the-fda-and-fmt-regulation-part-2-jul-2024-humanmicrobes-org-i-met-wit.520/#post-1370
https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/michael-harrop-q-a-nov-2023.200/
The human microbiome is irrelevant to this topic. The microbiome is highly heritable (usual twin studies & SNP heritabilities), and it is caused by genes and the environment, as well as unstable; its direct causal effects in normal humans are minimal. We know that it is supremely irrelevant because environmental changes like antibiotics or new food or global travel which produce large changes in personal (and offspring) microbiomes do not produce large changes in intelligence (of oneself or offspring); and most dramatically, germ-free humans exist and are of normal or even above-average intelligence, eg the fascinating mistakes and delusions of David despite his high intelligence. (Amusingly, germ-free mice apparently even live longer.) Microbiome research is, in general, very low quality and can’t be taken seriously—look at your link:
Most of this page is meaningless mouse studies (infamous for not replicating and getting whatever result the experimenter wants and the animal model literature having huge systemic biases), and the handful of actual human studies I see here are all garbage—things like cross-sectional studies with large known familial confounding, or heavy reliance on things like breastfeeding where the beneficial effects disappear when controlling for just some confounds. This also goes for much-touted correlations like autism. There’s not a single result on this page that provides a shred of evidence for your implied thesis that microbiome interventions could, even in theory, possibly matter to ‘how to make superbabies’. It doesn’t.
He was right. BTW, you remember what happened in 2021, right?
EDIT: If anyone cares, I’m not bothering to respond to Harrop’s comment in depth because I think his Gish-gallopy response manages to exemplify many of the criticisms I already made, where they are not outright non-responsive (eg. his ‘disagreement’ about the reasons why germ-free mice live longer is obviously irrelevant to my point that they do), and I’m not worried anyone is going to waste any time on ‘the microbiome’ for these purposes when this is the best case he can make. You can see he has no case for ‘superbabies’ having anything to do with known microbiome stuff, and I do not care enough about the microbiome per se to prosecute it further.
I agree that woo is bad. And microbiome is of course irrelevant wrt boosting IQ. But a good part of the post was about improving health, and microbes do have serious downsides on that front. If you don’t have the good ones you are at a much greater risk of being colonized by the bad ones. And disease still has a non-zero negative effect on people’s brain development and cognition.
Removing bad behaviour from microbiome would be quite a bit more effective and easier than fixing genes, for fighting disease. And many of the diseases with a significant genomic risk scores mentioned in the post probably have an unknown necessary pathogenic cause.
Here’s a paper (Cochran&Ewald) with simple powerful arguments, I always try to push it to any doctors I meet.
Oh my god, what a disturbingly overconfident & erroneous comment. Especially coming from someone who has been immersed in science for so many years. I recognize your name from Reddit from over 10 years ago.
Due to Brandolini’s law, your comment made me look up how to block users on Lesswrong, which apparently isn’t possible. I now have to waste a huge amount of time debunking your egregious misinformation. I will only do it this once because in my experience, people who exhibit this kind of behavior will continue it. So in the future I will simply refer to this exchange as evidence that you are not someone who deserves to be taken seriously or responded to.
On any evidence-based website, your comment is the type that deserves a warning and then a permanent ban if it happens again. That you’ve had an active account on this website for 15 years makes me want to avoid this website.
The topic is how to make people/babies healthier, better developed, and more intelligent. Anyone who reviews this information should be able to conclude that your statement is ridiculously false:
https://humanmicrobiome.info/maternity/
https://humanmicrobiome.info/brain/
https://humanmicrobiome.info/aging/
Many more https://humanmicrobiome.info/intro/
You started off with largely irrelevant statements and ended with severe misinformation. FMT (fecal microbiota transplant) studies demonstrate causation. You can look through the humanmicrobiome.info wiki or do a literature search to see how many FMT studies there are showing “non-minimal” effects. So much so that a 2020 review said they thought the results were implausible.
Some examples are the plethora of studies showing that the benefits of fasting, the ketogenic diet, and other dietary interventions, are dependent on the gut microbiome, and the benefits can be transferred via FMT. And the same goes for exercise, grip strength, and muscle mass.
Firstly, this is false.
Low-dose penicillin in early life induces long-term changes in murine gut microbiota, brain cytokines and behavior (2017): https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15062
Antibiotics that kill gut bacteria also stop growth of new brain cells: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160519130105.htm
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-80982-6 - “These results suggest early antibiotic use may impact the gut-brain axis with the potential for consequences in early life development.”
Many more: https://humanmicrobiome.info/antibiotics/#harms-of-antibiotics
The damage done by antibiotics affects the offspring as well: https://humanmicrobiome.info/maternity/#brain-function
You also have to keep in mind that antibiotic use increases the risk for diseases that are known to decrease brain function.
Secondly, antibiotics are one of the biggest threats and degraders of human health and development: https://humanmicrobiome.info/antibiotics/
I have read that it’s not possible to make a germ-free human. What you linked to as evidence for your claim is a person living in a sterile isolator. That prevents him from exposure to new microbes, but it doesn’t make him germ-free.
From your citation (just adding context): “The reduced early food intake and smaller body weight of adult GF rats may be the reason ad libitum fed GF rats live slightly longer”. Here are some studies indicating that “germ-free” has detrimental consequences:
Various health problems: https://archive.is/1Rxak
“Germ-free animals have numerous other immunological defects that may lead to disease, which implicates a role for the microbiota in actively supporting health” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4095778/
Behavioural and neurochemical consequences of chronic gut microbiota depletion during adulthood in the rat (2016) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306452216305127
Germ-Free Mice Exhibit Mast Cells With Impaired Functionality and Gut Homing (Feb 2019): https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2019.00205/full
“Studies have characterized differences in host physiology in germ free and colonized mice, the most striking being the enlarged cecum” (2015) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4083815/
Let’s take a look at why that is: https://archive.fo/Nzz1Y#selection-1735.10-1735.11 - Summary: It’s largely due to microbiome differences.
Here’s a quote from the OP post:
So are you dismissing the entire OP post as well because of this?
While animal studies definitely have their limits, it seems extremely erroneous to essentially dismiss an entire area of study since much of the research was done in mice. A lot of mouse research isn’t ethical to do on humans.
You’re dismissing an entire field of tens of thousands of studies. If you’re right, you should be spending your time protesting such a massive waste of time and money rather than arguing with some random blog commenter.
This is false. There are cited studies there that control for confounders and still found benefits, including to intelligence.
Again, there are plenty of studies showing causation. https://humanmicrobiome.info/brain/#autism
This is such a ridiculous statement. But it’ll be up to each reader to review the page and decide for themselves.
You linked to uBiome, which was a company that sold gut microbiome tests. Your citation of them is irrelevant to your claim that “the microbiome is a fad”. If you said “microbiome testing is a fad”, that would arguably be accurate, but it’s a completely different claim.
EDIT:
Your response, your edit, and the votes, are a painful example of the need to make humans smarter. Unintelligent people being adamantly wrong are extremely harmful:
* https://maximiliankohler.blogspot.com/2021/06/idiocracy-part-1-scientists-in.html
* https://medium.com/@MaximilianKohler/a-critical-look-at-the-current-and-longstanding-ethos-of-childbearing-the-repercussions-its-been-6e37f7f7b13f
Every step of the way, intelligent and well-informed people are hindered by those who are not.
Another interesting phenomenon is that AI will likely help to nullify this harmful human behavior. People will simply ask an AI, “Who is right?”.