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Intelligence is Inherited
codeButcher writes: "Now you can blame it on your parents! NewScientist.com reports on a study done on twins, that determines that IQ [and lack thereof then too, I suppose] is inherited. Quote: The finding suggests that environment - their own personal experiences, what they learned in life, who they knew - played a negligible role in shaping it."
In 1869 Francis Galton wrote a book called "Hereditary Genius" on this very subject. It's the first quantitative analysis of the human mental ability. He studied scientists, poets, politicians and many more people, classifying then into nature vs. nurture. In the end he concludes genius is hereditary in humans. Many people consider this book as the creator of the nature vs. nurture argument. He puts forth a great deal of stats in the book, something I find many case studies to be missing.
This sort of finding bothers me. It bothers me in the same way as did a news article a couple of weeks ago reporting that a women was offering something on the order $10k for primo sperm from a Stanford student with certain physical characteristics.
Given the knowledge of this genetic connection, we should in principle be able to start a breeding program to increase the average IQ of the human species.
But is this necesssarily a good thing? I'm not convinced that a high IQ is the primary trait needed for human survival. (It's not a bad thing in of itself... some of my best friends have a high IQ. grin.)
We've come pretty far as a species responding to a number of adverse environments trusting in good old Natural Selection. If we start intentionally selecting out a certain set of genes as especially desirable, what's to stop us from creating a hyper specialized race of savants that do great in math and music, but don't have the ability to bind people together to a common goal?
I guess what I'm saying is that I've seen what effect overbreeding has had on the canine species - especially when humans have gotten involved. What will happen to our species if we follow that path?
In illa quae ultra sunt
The twins shared environments, means researchers can separate genetic and environmental factors.
This means that the subjects were in the same environments and makes genetics the dependent variable. This doesn't make any indication of environmental influence on intelligence. As I understand the article, they are stating that in this experiment, environment is not significant since both of the twins had the same basic environment.
"It's extraordinary how similar they are," he says. The finding suggests that environment - their own personal experiences, what they learned in life, who they knew - played a negligible role in shaping it.
There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. -- Dr. Who
Such a stereotype! I'm 16, and I can say my parrents are fairly intelligent, from experience more so than actually being geek-ishly smart people. Of course they are also irrational and quick to anger...
;) (Hey, I'm not boasting, that's what the IQ test said.), getting straight A's in all the advanced classes. (Hell, I could sleep through most of Pre-Calc and still get an A.) And it's kind of ironic, as my parrents always tell me that I obviously don't get it from them.
On the subject of the story...While my parrents aren't all too smart (I don't think either of them ever passed an Algebra course.), a genius
Why would you think that an ability to communicate is somehow indepedent from observer bias, such that we cannot measure artistic ability -- which you link to communicative ability -- because there is too much observer bias? Isn't observer bias the heart of communication? And thus wouldn't any attempt to measure such ability independent of such 'bias' be an attempt to measure nothing? And thus not at all surprising when we fail?
Or do you suggest that I can speak perfectly good German even if no so-called German-speaker can understand me? Or that what I speak can be classified as good German or bad German without regard to how Germans are speaking?
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