Intelligence tests highlight importance of genetic differences

The Guardian ^ | 08-09-11 | Alok Jha

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Genetic differences between people account for up to half of the variation in intelligence, according to a study of more than 3,000 individuals.

Intelligence is known to run in families, but no single genes have yet been identified that can be reliably linked to mental ability. Instead, researchers think, many hundreds or thousands of genes could be involved, each with a small influence on a person's overall intelligence.

"It has been getting clearer and clearer that any genetic contribution to traits on which people differ – like height and weight – comes about from large numbers of gene differences, each with very small effects," said Prof Ian Deary of the University of Edinburgh, who led the research on intelligence.

[globelamp]

Some science news.

[Sherman Logan]

The scientific work being done in this field holds the ultimate defeat of liberalism/socialism, which is in the final analysis based on the unexamined dogma that all variance between humans is “socially constructed,” that humans are born as a blank state that society and the State can write on as they wish, thus creating utopia.

In actual fact, of course, it is likely that the ill-defined human traits we call intelligence are somewhere between 40% and 60% inherited. Which means that no conceivable human efforts will make people “equal” in all ways.

It is also probable that science will determine there are differences on average between ethnic groups in these regards, as we would expect with inherited traits, ethnic groups being merely large extended families from a genetic standpoint.

Look for increasing efforts to have such studies banned to prevent us from finding out inconvenient facts.

I believe with all my heart that “all men are created equal,” but this equality has nothing to do with their intelligence or ability to earn a lot of money or otherwise to function effectively in our society. It is a function of their being human and created by God, for whom such distinctions are paltry. The equality should translate into social, political and legal equality, but it is foolish to think it can ever translate into economic equality.

[luckystarmom]

Just want to add that IQ is not the only way to tell how smart a person is.

Also, IQ can change. One of my daughters has a brain injury, Her original IQ test was an 89 when she was around 6. Her latest at 14 was a little over 100.

She has short term working memory problems and speech/language problems.

If you test her on math, she has always tested around 95%. She’s great at math.

Her grades in a top private school are good! If she gets a B, it’s a high B. Most of the time she gets As. Typically, she’s gotten Bs during the semesters where she’s had to increase or decrease anti-seizure medication.

She’s a hard worker and IQ does not test that. She’s also very responsible. I personally think she’ll do better than her gifted brother and sister because of her work ethic. My son and other daughter tend to be lazy because everything has come to themsoeasily.

Last week, my brain-injured daughter worked at an education camp for low income kids. She was totally amazed that kids without brain injuries did not know their abc’s or could not read.

[devolve]

[globelamp]

“Just want to add that IQ is not the only way to tell how smart a person is.”

Of course - many people are highly intelligent, yet not very smart.

I should add that intelligence tends to be volatile during upbringing, for obvious reasons. Your brain does a lot of changing around when you grow up. Things tend to settle down a bit after puberty.

Finally, it should be noted that a lot of the is variablity is most likely due to that pen and paper IQ tests are hardly the perfect instrument for measuring the concept that we term intelligence. It is amazing that IQ tests have the predictive power that they do, given how blunt an instrument we are talking about.

PS.

Note that despite the significant variation that is ascribed to the environment, there is a dearth of effective interventions that can raise IQ permanently. Even the prime academic champion of the concept of IQ-raising interventions, Heckman, has admitted as much. He now focuses his research on raising non-cognitive skills instead.

[luckystarmom]

The bad part about the IQ tests on younger kids is that schools will treat kids differently based on the tests. We pulled my daughter out of public school because they wanted to dumb down her work.

The other thing is that kids get tagged as “gifted” and out into thaws special programs. My other 2 kids were put in them, and they weren’t interested. They were all sic ce based, and my kids are not into science.

I think kids who show an interest in a subject should be allowed to explore that subject. Probably one of the reasons I like homeschooling, even though we didn’t do that with my kids.