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."

Good book on the subject

[bofh31337]

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.

I don't know if this is good or not...

[wnknisely]

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?

IQ Bunkum

[daigu]

Couple of points:

1. There is no good quantifiable measurement for intelligence.
2. Physical structure of the brain may not indicate ability, e.g., even with identical brain structures is it possible for the twins to have defniitely levels of ability?
3. Sample size of the study leaves considerable margin for error. Perhaps these 20 twins were an anomoly.

I know next to nothing about brain functioning, and it does not seem based that this study, as reported here, provides any real evidence -- although, it may be provide some interesting points of departure for further research.

However...

[Anonymous Coward]

When the starved kid lives to be 80 and the "nurished" one dies at 38 from a heart-attack because of being over nurished who wins then? Sometimes being too smart can be a bad thing. For example until college i weighed 160-165lbs (5'10") after college I weigh 215. Simply because all I do now is sit in front of a computer. Where as in school I waited tables (40hrs of exercise) and didnt have time to eat and couldnt afford to eat out. Now all I do is eat out b/c my time is more precious and i can afford it!

Conclusion is faulty

[Beowulfto]

This conclusion appears to be flawed.

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.

Re:Please tell this to teenagers...

[Radish03]

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...

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 ;) (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.

Re:IQ Bunkum

[pubudu]

For instance, a certain type of artist needs to know how to paint, how to communicate ideas through pictures, and use pictures to inspire certain emotions or thoughts in others. Ok, there's your skill list, and a pretty short one at that. But how do you test it without so much observer bias getting in as to make scores or rankings of ability unusable?

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?