Mdyar wrote:
MrLoony wrote:
Mdyar wrote:
I remember growing up with a family that lived just a few houses down. The oldest was a genius by his IQ +160 and his brothers not even close.
He became quite successful, the others didn't do nearly as much.
Do you think Ma and Pa missed the other two in some way, then?
Anecdotal evidence? Aside from that, if intelligence is genetic, there's no way at all the other brothers should have been so different, since parents are the only influence there and genetics don't change (aside from epigenetics, but we'll not go into that). However, significant events in the parents' lives can change their outlook, as well as new friends, old friends gone, etc.
This is aside from the fact that I didn't say parents are the ONLY influence, just the most important.
I'll give that outside influence to age 5. At 5 you are very much the you that is now. There is evidence that working with them up to this young age will make differences. But how much, and how could one accurately delineate this?
I'm thinking of that Bell shaped curve. To me it seems counterintuitive that 3.5 billion are below the curve due to upbringing, as being the significant factor vs. hardwired factors, including personality. I seems to be reversed to me.
I want to try to say one thing, which is off the main point. (On the main point, I've never had any clear thoughts about how intelligence or IQ is determined by nature or nurture, although I could say something about how IQ only measures a component of intelligence, and anyway, personal attributes, including intelligence, can't literally be "measured", as if people were things - IQ is more accurately comparable to ranking in some kind of sport or game, and we all know how many personal and interpersonal factors can influence that kind of thing, including a simple lack of interest in playing the game.)
I'm always amazed when people talk of the influence of a family environment as if it were like some kind of uniform radiation which shone alike on all the children! We all know perfectly well (don't we?) that a family is an extraordinarily complex living system, which incorporates all the individual characteristics of the parents (and of course not just their genes, but we all agree on that), in a mysterious way, and in its turn acts in mysterious ways to form the individual characters of the children. Each member of the family has a role to play, and character is as much determined by role as role is by character (a word which can even mean a role).
I don't have an axe to grind, either about the narrowness of IQ as a "measure" of intelligence, or about nurture as an influence on either IQ or intelligence. I just want to point out that "environment" or "nurture" (or the opposite of nurture, abuse) is as unique and unrepeatable thing as individual character, and it is an absurd oversimplification to imagine that children in the same family all have the same "environment" or "nurture" - so absurd that I actually cannot imagine how anybody even entertains such an idea for an instant, and I would quite appreciate an explanation how it is possible to think such a thing!
Yes, of course a family has an individual "character" of its own, which is shared by all its members (I have quite a strong sense of what my own family "character" is like, I don't much like it, and I hate having to admit that I share it), but internally it is very dynamic and ridden with conflicts, and individual members of the family all play different roles, sometimes vastly different, and it is these very distinct individual roles, not the family character as a whole, which constitute the true "environment" for each child. [Edited for awkward grammar!]
(Excuse me if I'm frothing at the mouth a bit! Although I'm against simplistic views of the influence of families, and I don't have an axe to grind about IQ not measuring all of intelligence, I do have very strong feelings about all of these matters.)
I'm not sure what point you are critiquing here.
. It measures a selection of different abilities on the test gauged against your peers.
It certainly isn't the panacea in determining life outcomes, but does indicate a strong correlation with this.
I believe our intersests or choices in life is at least partially determined by our abilities, or one showing a lack thereof in something indicates an inabilty.
It's (cognition) alterable, but not significantly. One can't become a genius by will power.
15 May 2011, 2:25 am
