Hum Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Those who think geniuses are born and not made should think again, says author David Shenk. Where do athletic and artistic abilities come from? With phrases like "gifted musician", "natural athlete" and "innate intelligence", we have long assumed that talent is a genetic thing some of us have and others don't. But new science suggests the source of abilities is much more interesting and improvisational. It turns out that everything we are is a developmental process and this includes what we get from our genes. A century ago, geneticists saw genes as robot actors, always uttering the same lines in exactly the same way, and much of the public is still stuck with this old idea. In recent years, though, scientists have seen a dramatic upgrade in their understanding of heredity. They now know that genes interact with their surroundings, getting turned on and off all the time. In effect, the same genes have different effects depending on who they are talking to. "There are no genetic factors that can be studied independently of the environment," says Michael Meaney, a professor at McGill University in Canada. "And there are no environmental factors that function independently of the genome. [A trait] emerges only from the interaction of gene and environment." This means that everything about us - our personalities, our intelligence, our abilities - are actually determined by the lives we lead. The very notion of "innate" no longer holds together. The notion of a fixed IQ has been with us for almost a century. Yet the original inventor of the IQ test, Alfred Binet, had quite the opposite opinion, and the science turns out to favour Binet. "High academic achievers are not necessarily born 'smarter' than others," they write in their book Talented Teenagers, "but work harder and develop more self-discipline." James Flynn of the University of Otago in New Zealand has documented how IQ scores themselves have steadily risen over the century - which, after careful analysis, he ascribes to increased cultural sophistication. In other words, we've all gotten smarter as our culture has sharpened us. full article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devHead Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 IQs may have gotten higher, but people aren't necessarily smarter. I see evidence of that in more and more people who can't spell correctly, don't know how to use punctuation properly; heck my mother-in-law puts an apostrophe at the end of every word ending in an 's' and a space before the period, question mark, and exclamation mark at the end of sentences. Where did this start? No, some people are smarter than others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yxz Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 IQs may have gotten higher, but people aren't necessarily smarter. I see evidence of that in more and more people who can't spell correctly, don't know how to use punctuation properly; heck my mother-in-law puts an apostrophe at the end of every word ending in an 's' and a space before the period, question mark, and exclamation mark at the end of sentences. Where did this start? No, some people are smarter than others. fo sho ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
threetonesun Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 IQs may have gotten higher, but people aren't necessarily smarter. I see evidence of that in more and more people who can't spell correctly, don't know how to use punctuation properly; heck my mother-in-law puts an apostrophe at the end of every word ending in an 's' and a space before the period, question mark, and exclamation mark at the end of sentences. Where did this start? No, some people are smarter than others. 100 years ago your mother probably wouldn't have been able to write at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cacoe Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Any people with down syndrome ever been classed as a genius? Don't want to sound harsh but I don't think the right environment could even help here. Unless we had a whole generation born with down syndrome, then the playing field would be levelled... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
team_NOOB Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Any people with down syndrome ever been classed as a genius? Don't want to sound harsh but I don't think the right environment could even help here. Unless we had a whole generation born with down syndrome, then the playing field would be levelled... What are you talking about? Of course those with disabilites (who are born with a defect) would fall outside the generalisation implied within the study. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farstrider Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 IQs may have gotten higher, but people aren't necessarily smarter. I see evidence of that in more and more people who can't spell correctly, don't know how to use punctuation properly; heck my mother-in-law puts an apostrophe at the end of every word ending in an 's' and a space before the period, question mark, and exclamation mark at the end of sentences. Where did this start? No, some people are smarter than others. You forgot to add that 90% of people (here) do not know the difference between the words "your" and "you're" "This is definitely so true!" 100 years ago your mother probably wouldn't have been able to write at all. 100 years ago it was more likely that your father was the Dumbo and not your mother. It would most definitely have depended on what society/class people came from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devHead Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 100 years ago your mother probably wouldn't have been able to write at all. no, i think people knew how to write in 1911. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astra.Xtreme Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 I think the movie, Idiocracy, makes a fair prediction. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Growled Member Posted January 14, 2011 Member Share Posted January 14, 2011 Being able to read and write properly (according to our current definition) is not in any way an indication of IQ. "High academic achievers are not necessarily born 'smarter' than others," they write in their book Talented Teenagers, "but work harder and develop more self-discipline." We usually say that high achievers are smarter but they are not. They work harder or they have an aptitude in a certain direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mirumir Subscriber¹ Posted January 18, 2011 Subscriber¹ Share Posted January 18, 2011 Being able to read and write properly (according to our current definition) is not in any way an indication of IQ. We usually say that high achievers are smarter but they are not. They work harder or they have an aptitude in a certain direction. I disagree. Literacy is a definitive indication that a person has at least some intelligence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nubs Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 IQs may have gotten higher, but people aren't necessarily smarter. I see evidence of that in more and more people who can't spell correctly, don't know how to use punctuation properly; heck my mother-in-law puts an apostrophe at the end of every word ending in an 's' and a space before the period, question mark, and exclamation mark at the end of sentences. Where did this start? No, some people are smarter than others. A person's knowledge of grammar is not a determining factor of intellect. Critical thinking, imagination, and intuition... those are far more important in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Memphis Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 A person's knowledge of grammar is not a determining factor of intellect. Critical thinking, imagination, and intuition... those are far more important in my opinion. Not only that, but a German person might be much smarter than you, and know nothing about changing oil on a car. My father used to change the Doctors who worked with him at the hospitals oil because most of them didn't have any idea how. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tiagosilva29 Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 This thread is fun and all, but I'm the real genius here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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