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About Half of Kids' Learning Ability Is In Their DNA
Taco Cowboy writes with this story about new research that finds a strong genetic component to a child's ability in math and reading. "You may think you're better at reading than you are at math (or vice versa), but new research suggests you're probably equally good (or bad) at both. The reason: The genes that determine a person's ability to tackle one subject influence their aptitude at the other, accounting for about half of a person's overall ability. The study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, used nearly 1,500 pairs of 12-year-old twins to tease apart the effects of genetic inheritance and environmental variables on math and reading ability. The researchers administered a set of math and verbal tests to the children and then compared the performance of different sets of twins. They found that the twins' scores — no matter if they were high or low — were twice as similar among pairs of identical twins as among pairs of fraternal twins. The results indicated that approximately half of the children's math and reading ability stemmed from their genetic makeup.
A complementary analysis of unrelated kids corroborated this conclusion — strangers with equivalent academic abilities shared genetic similarities. What's more, the genes responsible for math and reading ability appear to be numerous and interconnected, not specifically targeted toward one set of skills. These so-called 'generalist genes' act in concert to determine a child's aptitude across multiple disciplines. The finding that one's propensities for math and reading go hand in hand may come as a surprise to many, but it shouldn't. People often feel that they possess skills in only one area simply because they perform slightly worse in the other."
A complementary analysis of unrelated kids corroborated this conclusion — strangers with equivalent academic abilities shared genetic similarities. What's more, the genes responsible for math and reading ability appear to be numerous and interconnected, not specifically targeted toward one set of skills. These so-called 'generalist genes' act in concert to determine a child's aptitude across multiple disciplines. The finding that one's propensities for math and reading go hand in hand may come as a surprise to many, but it shouldn't. People often feel that they possess skills in only one area simply because they perform slightly worse in the other."
strangers with equivalent academic abilities shared genetic similarities
and these are unequally distributed in different races
Sure, you can stunt someone, butof course our abilities - our potentials - are genetic. The surprise would be if environment has any effect beyond the ability to stunt an otherwise present potential. Why do PC nuts always hyperventilate, when aptitudes turn out to be inborn.
The link between reading and math runs, as nearly as I can tell from this and other studies, over general intelligence. If you have an IQ of 130, likely you are pretty good at both. If you have an IQ of 80, not so much.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
1) What is meant with "skill at reading"? This does not become clear from the summary. If they mean just the ability to convert symbols into sounds I'd assume the plateau for that is pretty low and most people reach it pretty early on in their lives. If they mean interpretative ability, how do they quantify that, and how do they distinguish between correct and incorrect interpretations beyond a certain point? In the sentence "When the cat entered the room, he sat down on the mat." it is obviously incorrect to interpret "he" as referring to a dog, but when asked to interpret who or what "the shadow" refers to in Eliot's The Hollow Men it becomes a lot less clear which responses are correct and which ones incorrect. Compared to the high end of interpretative ability, mathematical ability is much easier to test and quantify, so how can they say that reading ability and mathematical ability are comparable? Maybe my reading ability is particularly low, but the more I think about it, the less I understand of what is meant by these researchers.
2) What does "twice as similar" mean? I obviously realize that this refers to some statistical characteristic of the data, but that doesn't make "twice as similar" as an expression any more comprehensible. I guess a fish is twice as similar to a horse as grass is (all three are alive, but only horses and fish have spines, and only horses and fish convert oxygen into carbon dioxide), but I doubt that's what they mean.
Thank you. Just what I was thinking.
A complementary analysis of unrelated kids corroborated this conclusion — strangers with equivalent academic abilities shared genetic similarities.
This could be of real interest, but racism might skew things.
What I'm wondering is what implications this will have for standardized tests. Most of the tests assume that everyone is on the same playing field - but if this is true, and genetics play a role equal to 50% of a student's learning ability, this would essentially mean that some students will intrinsically perform better than their peers simply because they have the genes and other people don't.
I'm willing to bet that the second they come up with a test for these genes, there will be lawsuits by school districts who lose funding over standardized tests, claiming that they are at an unfair disadvantage because their students simply don't have the genetic makeup to score well on the tests.
In my many years of computer consulting, I have ended up teaching many people various computer/math skills. I have no doubt that some people simply come under the category of thick headed. I will explain something simple 8 different ways and they just don't get it. While other people might not have a knack for things computery they only need to be shown something once.
.15 is the tax and together they get the total. But I also just say, do 1.15 and it will just work. Write it on the calculator if needed. Easy Peasy.
The same with math. For some reason I have ended up teaching people elements of math. Some people I have shown how to calculate percentages multiple times, while others I will show something far more complex such as how to calculate a mortgage payment and it sticks. Both groups will have had roughly similar math educations.
I wonder if this is where some people choke when learning to program. There are many concepts in programming that must be mastered. There is no wiggle room with each concept such as ifs, whiles, switches, etc. You either get it or you don't, and with so many to learn they must be gotten quickly in a typical intro to programming course. Again I have helped people with their programming homework and while some would instantly absorb what I was saying there were groups to whom I might as well have been just making up words.
Maybe I am a lousy teacher but lets say I am teaching someone to do the local sales tax (15%) and I tell them to do 1 x 1.15 to get the total on a calculator. I might even explain that the 1 represents the original price and the
They have not shown a causal relationship.
What do you suggest it's down to? Identical twins being under greater pressure to perform similarly?
This indicates that if there is a genetic component, it is largely irrelevant as the learning environment has the greater impact.
I don't read it that way. I think they're highlighting the learning environment's potential because it can be changed, while genetics can't.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It's just anecdotal evidence, but my kids Adopted from Africa... he's smart but in regards to entirely different things than I am. I'm your typical computer guy... terrible with people but good with math, bad at spelling and grammar. He's totally outgoing, a natural leader. I take him to the park and he's organizing group activities with all the kids within minutes. It's truly amazing. I couldn't do that now, as an adult! He's 6, and already reading at a level I wasn't at until middle school. So genetics are definitely a factor.
That being said, I'm intensely interested in the mechanics of just about everything. How do you build a fence? How does a lawn mower work? I've passed this curiosity on to my son. So nurture is a factor to.
I've learned more about life by adopting than just about any other thing I've ever done in my life. I highly recommend it, you'll get more out of the venture than you ever had to put in.
I've got a kid who is clearly ahead of the class with mathematics but clearly behind the class with reading. So, these studies probably mean it isn't a fundamental ability problem, so where do I go from here?
Aptitude is only half the story. The other half is being interested in the subject.
They have not shown a causal relationship.
True.
This indicates that if there is a genetic component, it is largely irrelevant as the learning environment has the greater impact.
False. I'm unclear how you came to that conclusion based on the quote you highlighted. It does not say that learning environment has a *greater* impact. It says learning environment has *some* impact. Overall, but it is less than or equal to the importance of genetics.
This result is consistent with other studies on the topic. Unfortunately, this fact pisses people off, especially educators. (Understandably since it is their job to educate everyone equally, and especially to raise the level of the poorest performers). But it is well correlated at this point. Think back to high school: everyone realized this at some point - there were some students who just seemed smarter. Some of them didn't even have to work for it. It sucked if you sat in one of these kids' shadow. It doesn't mean hard work doesn't pay off, it doesn't mean you should not invest in your children, but it does mean that just like in sports, your genes are as big a contributor as the environment.
On that note: why are people willing to accept this in sports, but not in academics? It's totally cool to say something about Nigerian runners having long legs, or say "white men can't jump, hahaha" or "Asians are short" but if you say some people are genetically gifted in intelligence sets off everyone's alarm bells.
Excerpt from Freakanomics:
Eight factors that correlate to higher test scores
Highly educated parents
Parents have high socioeconomic status
Mother was thirty or older at the time of first child's birth
Child had low birth weight
Parents speak English at home
Child is adopted
Parents are involved in the PTA
Child has many books in the home
Eight factors that do NOT correlate with higher test scores:
Family is intact
Family's recent move to a better neighborhood
Mother did not work between birth and kindergarten
Child attended Head Start
Parents bring children to museums regularly
Child is regularly spanked
Child frequently watches television
Parents read to him nearly every day
Well, possibly, but experience teaches that flat-out racism is a more likely culprit. We've seen people of all races and ethnic background perform at a very high level at every possible field, including Jewish and Italian basketball players and African-American pure mathematicians. What Murray (and you) are always looking for is the ceiling and floor. That's racist.
Plus, we've learned that there is one additional defining characteristic of racists: They will go to great lengths to try to rationalize their bigotry. And that, was my point. You've confirmed that.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"The correlation between reading and mathematics ability at age twelve has a substantial genetic component
The problem is "all siblings presumably experience similar degrees of parental attentiveness, economic opportunity and so on" which is of course very unlikely to be a
I think the issue at hand is it isn't quite controlled well enough to trumpet the genetic component as *the* correlation of interest. Other factors are handwaved away by saying "all siblings presumably experience similar degrees of parental attentiveness, economic opportunity and so on". Anyone who has grown up alongside twins (there actually were a few sets of twins in my town growing up, two sets of them identical, one set mixed gender) knows this is too much to presume. When people look identical, there is a much stronger expectation that they *are* fundamentally identical. The identical twin sets both had rhymed names, but the other twins did not. Parents and teachers and fellow kids more naturally treat fraternal twins like any other set of siblings, but identical twins do not receive the same experience. People assume they like the same things, they should hang out together, they *should* be good at the same things. Many believe there is some mystical/telepathic link between identical twins. Fraternal twins are 'just siblings', to the extent that until explicitly mentioned no one may even realize they are *twins*. Identical twins are blatantly obvious from the moment you see them and trigger a large amount of preconception before anyone so much as utters a word. All these societal expectations undoubtedly have *some* impact on their development that shouldn't be so casually dismissed.
Basically, there is no reason to believe identical and fraternal twins receive a comparable life experience in aggregate when raised together. With that in mind, the study should be saying there is a correlation for identical versus fraternal twins rather than 'there is a correlation with genetics'.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Teach him to read numbers well, then start looking for things with numbers. I'm looking at my car registration renewal letter and it has dollar figures, dates, descriptions, rates ("tax rate per $100 value"), tabular data, etc. You can make math problems out of these, like "what is the total of city and county tax?" that will require him to read words like "city" and "county" in the table.
I don't know how serious of a reading problem your son has, but if he's clearly behind a 1st grade class I'm guessing he's having trouble even reading words aloud. Even short things like this letter might help him get started.
Of course if you just mean he's behind a little bit because he isn't interested in reading, but knows the fundamentals, that's a different matter.
It's totally cool to say something about Nigerian runners having long legs, or say "white men can't jump, hahaha" or "Asians are short" but if you say some people are genetically gifted in intelligence sets off everyone's alarm bells.
Actually, I would say it's pretty much not cool to say things that are intentionally stereotyping people, even when it comes to physical ability. There are short Nigerians, tall Asians, and white men who can jump in the world. And our preconceptions about "athletic prowess" often also harbor weird stereotypes that we may not even be conscious of. My favorite example of this is the stars of professional basketball in the 1920s through early 1940s. You know who they were? Jews. Often specifically short Jewish men. At that time, basketball hadn't yet been dominated by only tall guys, "dunking" was not yet common, and it was a much more aggressive game than it often is today. Short ("well-balanced" and "fast"), "crafty, scheming" players with high intelligence were considered to have superior skills for the game -- which fit perfectly into Jewish stereotypes. (See here or do an internet search if you don't believe me.)
You may think this is an abberration, but such arguments have been made throughout history, for athletics as well as for intelligence.
I'm not saying that one can't find measurable differences between races -- certainly, on average, one can. The question is always what such differences mean. So, when it comes to intelligence, do IQ tests really show differences of "innate intelligence" between races, or have we just not properly controlled for educational quality or home environment or whatever? And what exactly about "intelligence" are we measuring -- there's a lot of disagreement even among educational psychologists who study this stuff about what exactly "general intelligence" is. Just because one group of people scores a few points above another group, does that mean the second group is actually "stupider" or does it mean that they just don't have certain skills the test tested, while they have other cognitive abilities that could allow them to perform just as well in real-world conditions if they were given the chance?
Again, I'm not at all saying such differences don't exist. I'm saying it's really hard to measure them accurately, and even when we do, we need to really identify what precisely we are measuring and what valid conclusions we can draw from that data.
Otherwise, we might just be doing something like assuming that Jews are the best at basketball without ever conceiving of the tall guy who can dunk the ball and do other things on the court that would completely change the game.
Mine was the reverse. Still is. I suggest spending some money on a psych-ed assessment. You'll learn a lot about your child's learning and mind... Plus you'll have the information handy should you find the need to send your child to a school more suited to his/her needs...
Both of us had issues at school but our child was reasonably bright, we always thought... It wasn't until we watched our son play with other kids that we realized he was brighter than your average kid... It wasn't until the beginning of 4th grade that we were alerted to there being a problem... He was acting up in class, not finishing his work, and not focusing... We had a Psych-ed assessmennt done and, long story short, is technically 'gifted'... He was bored at school and was trying to find ways to amuse himself... Because of that, and some issues with bullies, we pulled him from that school and put him in a local school for the gifted, and on being picked up from his first day, proudly proclaimed "Mom! I've found my people!"
Now that we know how his mind works, where he needs help, etc... We see a lot of the same in ourselves but never understood it to be unusual.
My son, now in second grade, was like that too. He refused to even acknowledge that he knew how to read and would complain that reading was "too hard." We were patient and read to him. We also reassured him that him reading wouldn't mean the end of time spent with us reading to him. A couple of weeks ago, he read his first chapter book (in the Bad Kitty series) and it sparked something in him. Over the past couple of weeks, he has read the entire rest of the Bad Kitty series as well as a bunch of other chapter books.
It might be a confidence issue or a desire to keep spending reading time with Mom/Dad. Be patient and keep reading to your child. Encourage him to read a page or paragraph whenever possible. That might help build up your son's confidence in his own reading ability.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
We did this with the Harry Potter series. We let my oldest (now almost 11) watch the first two movies and then insisted that he read the books with me before he could see any more movies. (He could see a subsequent movie when he finished the book.)
We recently started his with our youngest (7). I let him watch the first movie and now he's reading the first book with my wife. He will be able to watch the other movies as he finishes the books.
In other words, we used the first movie as a hook to get them interested in the series. Not something you can do with any book/movie, but works very nicely with Harry Potter. As a bonus, they can really appreciate what was cut out of the books to make them into movies. As much as I like the movies, the books contain a LOT more details for why things happen and have many subplots that were cut entirely.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
For about 20 years I figured (before the anthropologists made it gospel), that we didn't kill off Neanderthals but interbred with them. Much of the superior Neanderthal strength however was bred out. Why? I figure the reason the weaker branch outbreak the genes for strength during an ice age was due to "metabolism." Super strong muscles even if the creature is smart requires more food.
Humans are about the weakest mammal pound for pound, but we also seem to have nearly the lowest metabolism. Only the Armadillo has lower average body temperature and it's barely a proper mammal.
Humans learned to cook to improve digestion and concentrate energy in food, and we also turned into omnivorous wimps to survive on what an animal a third our size requires -- and meanwhile manage to carry around a large brain. Something had to go. If this is accepted theory or not today, I haven't checked.
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Lactose intolerance is about the GUT bacteria not the genetics of the person. You can transplant gut bacteria and get rid of lactose intolerance. This has been known (not mainstream) for a long time already.
No evolution is involved except perhaps in the bacteria why exist to carry. Face it, you are the minority of your own body and those bacteria let you live so you can bring them food.
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