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Is intelligence genetic?
ravkes
Veteran
Why are some people smarter than others?
0
Comments
I just now think people are more skilled than others in certain things they have more practice/exposure to, that's all.
Perhaps he has taught psychology so long, that now it's just drilled into his brain that intelligence is genetic. Sometimes you do have to think outside of what you're taught, and consider there is a possibility for other factors to be the main culprit of intelligence. Because I don't believe something like this is absolute.
When I went to kindergarten the teachers sort of thought my head was full of rocks. (It was my first year of school). My mind was always in space, or basically doing my own thing. I rarely paid attention to them, and more than anything else I was always looking around the room for inspiration and drawing different objects on the back of my assignment sheets. Sometimes the teacher even hung up my drawings, instead of my completed assignments (which I barely finished any). I wasn't very articulate either. I was quiet and always doing my own thing.
But then, when I was around 14 I went through a thorough IQ test at a hospital. They were checking me for mental disabilities. It was due to the fact that I ditched school so much in middle school (I just didn't like traditional school). I did all sorts of things in that IQ test, from puzzle solving, to ink blots, to math problems, it seemed pretty thorough. The doctor seemed genuinely stunned with the results and just told me that it was extremely high. He never even gave me a number. It's probably in my records somewhere. He made me promise to him that I would finish a higher education after high school. Unfortunately with my dislike for attending several years of school, I never followed through with that. Maybe I will eventually.
But anyways, I never felt like my parents were that intelligent. Maybe average at best. I did not learn too much from them. They did not help me be successful. It was through other mediums and my own efforts that really helped me survive and to learn what I know.
Again, it's just a test, what's good about it is it's scientific, tells us something (but not that much).
I dunno. I'm no expert. I should have Googled it and forwarded the best possible link, instead I'm just talking and guessing. AWWGGGH Sorry. :banghead:
S+1, If you're having difficulties discerning definition, this may help you.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0783660#m_en_gb0783660
However I do not think that intelligence will bring you anywhere in itself. My personal life experience tells me that curiosity and discipline takes you farther - the extra IQ-points may determine the difference between studying 1 or 2 hours, and maybe the difference between A and A+.
An interesting observation is this though: A normal person has an IQ of 100-110. If we meet someone with an IQ of less than 85, we'll notice that they aren't that bright and we'll maybe even tire a little from their rambling. The difference is 15 points form the norm. Now go to 115 - also 15 from the basic norm. That 115 person will experience the "normal" person as unintelligent as the normal person experiences the half-wit.
An IQ of 30 below normal will mean you are have difficulty being around normies and dealing with society. Now take a 130 IQ - the person has to navigate in a world where everyone seems like drooling monkeys in comparison
That's theoretical anyway
It's basic nature vs nurture. Right now, nurture is the bottleneck of human intelligence. Most people are not interested in learning anything new... things just don't fascinate them.
As Compassionate Warrior so succinctly put it, intelligence measured in adulthood is due to both nature and nurture. And I think there can be an opposite effect; if a child experiences trauma in infancy or childhood, intelligence can stall, or lose points. Trauma really does a number on the mind; it can handicap mental, emotional, intellectual growth.
Intelligent people have a bias for valuing invented (unreal) mappings of ideas onto reality, as well as purely virtual (abstract) worlds. We value knowing about relating and doing, instead of actual skills at them. It's cool and gives us a leg up in school and in the knowledge-worker world, but it's just an artificial bias.
On the other hand, some people appear to simply have simpler minds, as evidenced by very low IQs. Some of these people are not particularly skilled in any area.
I guess the real question is, is it important? It's important, to me, that people not suffer, that we keep moving towards freedom and health for living things, away from global warming and calamities of war, famine, disease. Education is important. Finding opportunities to earn a living and contribute are important. Taking care of one's health is important. Freedom from oppressive (fearful, stressing) thoughts is important...
For the IQ genetic/learned question, it's good to inquire into it to use it to learn about ourselves and life and brains, etc. I can't see any value to the answer, though... Now that I say that, having a component of "genetic" means people shouldn't worry that their lack of IQ is "their fault." Having a component of learning means they should keep learning, keep challenging themselves.
IQ seems to be a combination of the two- we live in a perfect world!
The scientists will always look for genes etc. to explain things because they cannot accept the law of karma which is unprovable to them.
the law of karma merely uses tools such as genetics to bring a result....but the true reason is karma for all the differences and uniqueness of every individual being.
Then there are beliefs and other automatic thoughts. Whether good ideas or not, Buddhism teaches they're of no value. Meditate and you'll see your mind generating them without human input. Karma helps non-thinkers accept life, not rebel that "it shouldn't be so", and to give them a "reason" to be good.
We all have beliefs, but they're all very, very coarse approximations, generalizations about life. They don't tell us about life, they map life onto the rough constructs of language. To pursue intelligence, think. Discover your beliefs and let them go. Discover who and what you are beneath them, in the spaces between the beliefs and words.
Now what? 'Back to life: awareness, intent and actions against the background of sensations and thoughts...
For example, I love my parents to death, but they aren't very intelligent. This is going to sound arrogant, but I don't mean to be. I'm light years ahead of them both in the brains department, as is my sister. The conclusion I have come to is that they don't put any effort into it. The knowledge of the world is literally at our fingertips with the internet and books. Instead they sit there and mindlessly watch television.
So ... yaaaaa
I agree with your first sentence--I said the same thing in my first post.
My friend's teenage son is also autistic but is mentally disabled (IQ around 60). However, he is able to do a lot of things for himself and talks quite well. OTOH some of the kids at my son's school are intelligent on paper, but non-verbal and very dependant on others.
What I learn from this children I meet is that intelligence isn't as relevant as people imagine. Some people do a lot with very little; others struggle regardless of their raw intelligence.
My experience is that we're all human, regardless of our abilities and we need to accept people who are less able, as well as those who are very able.
And then so many questions are truly ambiguous unless you have good cultural understanding or understanding of test makers. I have a son with Aspergers Syndrome (which the spell-checker says in an error:-) and O.C.D. He'll find the most interesting "errors" and then his OCD prevents him from making an assumption... Tests and scores are vastly overrated...
And how do you take points off for ability to take tests, but not ability to do real-world problems because the physical world is so much messier than a problem on a test sheet?