Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Genes Don't Just Predict Intelligence, But Also How Well You Do In School

Posted by Soulskill on from the banking-on-my-extra-credit-genes dept.

sciencehabit writes: If you sailed through school with high grades and perfect test scores, you probably did it with traits beyond sheer smarts. A new study of more than 6000 pairs of twins finds that academic achievement is influenced by genes affecting motivation, personality, confidence, and dozens of other traits, in addition to those that shape intelligence (abstract). The results may lead to new ways to improve childhood education.

14 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The high heritability of educational achievemen by jonnyj · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...Did they factor in the socio-economic background of the parents, as in children of rich-folk get better education than children of poor-parents, and therefore do better, and are expected to do better, in exams.

    Yes they did.

    Did you bother to read the article, or did you expect someone to read it for you?

  2. Re:The high heritability of educational achievemen by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...Did they factor in the socio-economic background of the parents, as in children of rich-folk get better education than children of poor-parents, and therefore do better, and are expected to do better, in exams.

    Yes they did.

    Did you bother to read the article, or did you expect someone to read it for you?

    Read the article? You must be new here...

    --
    Only to idiots, are orders laws.
    -- Henning von Tresckow
  3. Re:The high heritability of educational achievemen by diamondmagic · · Score: 5, Informative

    It didn't need to, the study was on twins. Further, testing on both identical and fraternal twins allowed researchers to calculate how much genetics plays into it, because the genetic makeup for both kinds of twins is highly predictable.

    --
    Wonder what the public key field is for?
  4. Re:The high heritability of educational achievemen by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Funny

    In related news, genes shown to influence the ability to read linked articles.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  5. Just what any parent knows by jonnyj · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's reassuring to see a study that so closely reflects what any parent knows. Given the same home and school environments, some kids do much better than others, or excel at different tasks. My own kids appear to have broadly similar abilities in IQ-style tests, but they are very different in their responses to failure, willingness to perform repetitive tasks, level of curiosity or preference for strategic vs detailed thinking. Each child has an area of academic strength that matches his character rather than his intelligence.

    1. Re:Just what any parent knows by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The article is misleading as all fuck.

      Motivation is hormonal: extra testosterone will lead a man to develop more as a jock, trying to impress women, perhaps going onto the football team, whatever. Different balances of various hormones and different sensitivities of neural receptors will, likewise, lead a man to seek to impress his peers (and women) by feats of intelligence; or lead a man to seek any other thing he wants--not just women--by sheer exertion of effort.

      In other words: shit is hard, and your mood-influencing biochemical factors will manipulate how much you value an outcome, and thus how much effort you're willing to invest. More value means more effort, and more effort means better results. That's motivation.

      Accepting that and then quickly setting it aside as assumption, we don't get "genetic factors for intelligence". Everyone is exactly as intelligent as a human, unless they're brain damaged by disease or defect. Any child, any adult, properly motivated, with proper practice and effort, can be a genius. It is just that simple.

      The human memory works by association. Some folks have obscenely good natural memories; they often develop strategies or possess involuntary synesthesias which associate information in unusual ways--numbers to shapes and ideas, sounds to colors, and so on. Others achieve and even surpass the same memories as these people by employing mnemonics strategies to mimic and improve upon these natural talents and defects (synesthesia can be interesting and useful, but also debilitating--a strong synesthete can get a lot of visual imagery when reading, and thus not understand wtf is being said).

      Because the human memory works by association, it becomes easier to know more when you know a lot already. If I were to teach your kids hard-core botany, they would be confused as living hell; but I could teach them to grow plants from seed, and teach them the same botanical principles. I could teach them how a plant seed germinates by releasing water-soluble enzymes to break down starch into sugars, illustrating this by breaking open a grain of flour and corn and by growing a seed. I could teach them about the plant's nutrient needs and biochemical processes, showing how it changes colors and becomes sick as I remove various nutrients from its soil or hydroponics feed. They would see and understand the plant, and come to know about its basic processes.

      Just as I could use a graphical and demonstrative guide to teach your kids complex biological concepts, I could use their new knowledge of those concepts to teach them deeper and more complex topics. Similarly, I could use your worldly knowledge to teach you much more complex things--they would make sense to you because of all the things you already know. This is how memory works; and learning is memory, for you cannot understand what you don't know, and you cannot know what you don't remember.

      The question is: are your kids interested in the growth of seeds? If so, are they interested in all this technical bullshit about amylase enzymes and photosynthesis and the potassium cycle and nitrogen fermentation? If they aren't sufficiently motivated, it will be hard to get them to learn; that doesn't mean they're stupid, but that they don't fucking care.

      Building on these base concepts, we have mnemonics (the mind palace, the mnemonic major system, the Person-Action-Object system, acrostics, acronyms) and study methods (SQ3R, SQW3R). By using study methods like SQW3R, a student can strongly learn new textbook information in less time.

      The method of SQW3R is to Survey, Question, Write, Read, Recite, Review (would that we could reverse those last two--Survey, Question, Write, Read, Review, Recite; but Recite before Review, or forget what you once knew): survey the topics, headings, the summaries, the graphics; create questions from this material; write down questions and minor notes about what you know and want to know; read, considering the questions as you read;

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
  6. If the genes predict it, why bother with change? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seriously. If the genes predict how well we'll do in school, why are we wasting the time of the people with the wrong genes? Couldn't they do something more pleasant and productive with their time? That's a depressing thought.

  7. Re:STOP THE VIDEO ADS SLASHDOT! by nospam007 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "STOP THE VIDEO ADS SLASHDOT!"

    If you are unable to stop them yourself, you should be on Digg instead.

  8. Intelligence by jandersen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't think this is entirely unexpected; there has long been controversy over what intelligence is or indeed whether it is a meaningful concept at all. It has certainly proved difficult to construct a practical test that doesn't depend on things like cultural context etc.

    1. Re:Intelligence by silfen · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It has certainly proved difficult to construct a practical test that doesn't depend on things like cultural context etc.

      Early IQ tests involved knowledge about a specific culture, but those questions have been eliminated in most tests and they are easy to spot.

      Let's take something less contentious. Let's say we want to test whether people are good lugers, so you put them on a sled and measure their times. Now, I may have a kick ass genetic potential for luging, but if I've never done it before because I grew up in a culture where people don't value luging, I'm not going to be very good at it. Objectively, my luge performance is low. It's the same with IQ.

      IQ tests test actual IQ, not potential IQ. Actual IQ depends on your culture and how you were raised. And those interact in non-linear ways. Primarily, your genetic potential limits how high your actual IQ can go: environment can turn an Einstein into a moron, but it can't turn every moron into an Einstein.

  9. And this is why designer babies will come by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No matter whether we try to legislate against that. When you're a parent, and you have a means within reach to avoid your kids doing bad in life, you will use it. It would be immoral not to. (I've also read an article this morning that said that tall people and blondes do better career-wise, so there's even more room for genetic improvement there.)

  10. Re:The high heritability of educational achievemen by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 4, Funny

    Did you bother to read the article, or did you expect someone to read it for you?

    Dude. Not cool. You need to check your literacy privilege.

  11. Yet "intelligence" genes have little effect by enderwig · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Please keep in mind something from a couple of days ago...

    "'Smart genes' prove elusive - Study of more than 100,000 people finds three genetic variants for IQ — but their effects are maddeningly small." http://www.nature.com/news/sma...

    This twins study shows that general intelligence and academic achievement are affected by many different "aptitudes", not just "smart." Taken together with the Nature commentary, suggests that intelligence is just a part, maybe even a small part, of achievement.

    If only this could seep into the general consciousness of the masses, then we might not have so many students think they cannot do something because they are not "smart enough."

  12. Re:The high heritability of educational achievemen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hey, I went to a private school (cause public schools in Tennessee are horrible) and it was $8500 a year to go there. I saw plenty of rich, priviledge kids from very good socio-economic backgrounds who were dumb as sh1t.

    This one kid literally had been in the same private school from Pre-K all the way to the end of high school and the first time he took the ACT, he got a 11. He took it 2 more times and got a 16 and a 17, respectively. Some people are just stupid. You can throw them in nice schools and blame poverty, but there are plenty of people who have it all and still drop the ball, so you can't blame everything on socio-economic background. That's a cop out.

    Coincidentally, I now work at a very large organization and have a very "good" job (by 4 year degree standards) and I've yet to meet a single person in my 100 person department who went to private schools. I'm the only one. Everyone else had a crappy public school education but were prosperous because they were inherently intelligent and sought to learn on their own. We're talking white trash, lower Alabama trailer park kids who should by all rights be working as laborers or in construction, but they're smart as sh1t and working in computer science.