Folks stay away from this one. After reading the whitepaper, they have made strong assertions which are categorically false. For example, they have suggested that intelligence and personality are directly attributable to genetics with no effect by or consideration of environmental contributions (see the many twin studies on this very topic). Any second year undergrad biology student knows that this is completely false. However, when I brought this up in their slack, I was provided a link with a paper authored by the founders which did not corroborate this assertion. When I brought this up again in their slack, a fellow named michael messaged me saying that he had ample evidence that intelligence is determined by genetics, removed the messages I had posted and then banned me. If the authors can't take criticism and cannot provide evidence which clearly corroborates their findings, then it suggests that this is a fly by night operation not worth of investment. Given that there are literally thousands of ICOs available to chose from, there is no reason to pick one in which the authors are clearly uneducated about this topic and who chose to ban skeptics rather than engage them. If the authors cannot get second year undergrad biology straight, what else have they screwed up? Honestly I would have just closed slack and moved on but after being banned, it suggests that censorship of dissenting opinions is occurring and this is something that should be made clear.
Relevant bits from the "whitepaper" "... DNA contains information on a person’s ethnicity and heritage" and "...personal traits such as intelligence and personality". It's absolutely true that genetics play a role in many diseases processes and disorders, but to suggest so boldly that so many characteristics about an individual can be derived from genetic material given our current technology is pushing the boundaries of reality.
Despite all of this ridiculousness. I made it clear that the multichain tech this firm was planning to use was very interesting and did not see any red flags with respect to their tech stack as outlined in the whitepaper or the development team . In addition, one of the cofounders, David was very polite to me in slack and it also seems that Vanessa (cofounder) is an exceptional research scientist. This is why to me it's so bewildering that statements that I've outlined above have made it into the whitepaper...
This individual was told *3 TIMES* to post his ramblings in the #random channel, and was banned for not following the rules.
They don't care if you want to deny that the sun exists, or if the Earth is flat, just don't do it on the #general channel.
Very simple. Follow the rules, and stay.
I was told very clearly that general was for discussion of the platform. Apparently discussion of the whitepaper and the contents of it are not considered related to the platform. Seconds before being banned, michael stated to me "My personal opinion as someone that has been reading science for the last 20 years, is that there's virtually no argument, whatsoever, that Intelligence is genetic. There's a deluge of evidence." and then linked papers which do not support his position. In the first paper linked to me by michael: "We show that the identified genes are predominantly expressed in brain tissue, and pathway analysis indicates the involvement of genes regulating cell development (MAGMA competitive P = 3.5 × 10−6)." It's a pretty big leap to suggest that SNPs or loci that correspond to expression of genes involved regulating cell development implies that intelligence is genetic. Further, the study referenced analyzed over 78,000 individuals all of whom were of European descent, which reduces this study's explanatory power. Lastly, the authors of the paper have said 'The current genetic results explain up to 5% of the total variance in intelligence." I completely agree, that as usual, more studies are needed, but to suggest right off the bat that intelligence (and ethnicity and personality) are determined in the manner described in the whitepaper is disingenuous.
The next paper he provided me with does not even address the issue we were discussing. It seems like random papers were strewn about in the hopes of dissuading any further investigation. The paper stated "The combined (and all three individual samples) showed a small positive phenotypic correlation between intelligence and lifespan." Okay? How is this even relevant to the discussion of genetics influencing intelligence. This paper discusses the correlation among intelligence and lifespan NOT intelligence and genetics. Source:
https://academic.oup.com/ije/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/ije/dyv112I could keep going on like this for the remaining 3 papers cited to backup these claims, but it's mostly the same thing repeated. The point is, if such unfounded statements are being made in the whitepaper, then it suggests to me that other areas may also be lacking. In addition, the banning individuals who want to support these types of endeavours by ensuring accuracy is just silly and frankly pisses me off. If you are going to run a platform dedicated to storing genetic information, you have to expect that individuals who have training in the field will look on with interest. Have you really not had Vanessa, Barry, Nick or another advisor proofread the paper?