Born Dumb or Smart?

[D_Bokk]

So I recently got into an argument with a teacher during class about how people are not born smart or dumb. I realize there are cases of mental retardation, as well as a few geniuses. Yet, she still claims that "most people are stupid" ::stupid laugh:: and that they're born that way.

It seems like a superiorist argument to me, almost on the same stage of Nazism. She brought up "look at Einstein and Edison" but I have no idea how that supports her argument which is a generalization of human stupidity.

I do know that at certain ages reading, along with other intellectual activities, makes the brain stronger and more apt to being able to function better than people who were not intellectually challenged at those ages. They occur at a young age around 3 and another around puberty, don't quote me on these ages though. Of course, like usually, I fumble under the gun and completely forgot about this issue... go me.

Anyway, I was wondering about any other proven elements that show people are generally born in with a "tabula rasa" (blank slate) and their intelligence is dependant on their education and experiences as both a fetus and child. Any help would be appreciated.

On a side note, I have absolutely no idea why a teacher would believe people are born stupid and are not able to learn and become "smart" by her definition... seems like she picked a hypocritical occupation.

[anomaly]

From what I've gathered from my meager education in psychology (I took a semester of it), Locke's famous 'tabula rasa' argument is not 100% correct. Neither is the opposite, which states that we learn nothing from our environment and that it's 100% biological.

I think you're right about the childhood thing. Whatever you think of Freud, once you get past all of his idealist 'psychoanalysis', he actually did do some good research on children and learning. The simple fact is that we have a stage of life in which we learn certain things (like language, numerals, reading, etc.) more easily. If we are deprived of such learning during this period (about age 0-13ish), it becomes exceedingly difficult to learn them afterwards.

There is the famous 'wild boy' of France, who was taken in by a wealthy man. The wealthy man couldn't teach the 'wild boy' anything, and the boy died at around age 30 without having learned much at all.

So, I think it's about 50% 'nurture', 50% 'nature' (as the two sources are called).

However, I don't quite agree with your teacher. Nature does have an impact upon our intelligence, but it isn't the sole factor. And most people aren't 'stupid'...most people are of average intelligence. That's why we call it 'average' in the first place--most people have it.

[D_Bokk]

Being born with a 'gift' seems unlikely to me. If the parents are healthy themselves, the child will have a friendly environment in the womb and become more intelligent. Which then will accelerate in their youth if the parent then helps the child learn.

That's the only biological intelligence I can think of, the health of the parents. Other then that I see absolutely no reason why people who have exact same health/upbringings will not be equal in intelligence. An example is that my fellow Americans are becoming dumber at the same time that we consume unhealthy foods, drugs and beverages - while more healthy nations are surpassing the US in education.

[Jimmie Higgins]

THere is probably a range of what most people are capable of - people have different abilities as far as memory and so on and different ways of learning - and much of this probably has to do with skills they are able to develop. "Natural" differences (aside from physical problems that impare metal development - such as mental retardation) are probably less wide ranging than the range of mental abilities we can have through skills and practice.

It's more complicated than this analogy but: Some people are born with a better potential for being a fast runner; the build of their frame, the length of their legs, the speed of their metabolism or the rate at which they can build mussle. But if they do nothing to develop this potential than someone with much less "natural" potential who trains a lot and does things to make him/herself more flexable or stronger will undoubtedly be faster than the "natural".

I think the idea of "natural talent" comes from the fact that not everyone has the freedom to develop their skills in a class society. So if you are a worker who shows an early aptitude for math or sports, you will probably be encouraged to continue developing thoes skills while others who may really enjoy math or science are discouraged from thinking they can ever be any good at it if they do not immediately show "talent" for it. THen it becomes a self-fuffilling prophecy - since you are bad at math when you are 12, then you need to think of something "more practical" to spend your time doing - you no longer practice and therefore your skills stay at the same level and probably regress somewhat.

If you look at handwriting now and handwriting from 100 years ago, you might be tempted to think that people then were just incredibly talented in their writing, but it's simply because people today do not write things in the US beyond the age of 12 and so most people's handwriting looks like that of a 12 year old.

[D_Bokk]

I agree with the training of certain skills that you catch onto quickly. That makes perfect sense regarding why certain people are very good at math and others are best art. I'm curious what you (and others) believe regarding specialization in occupations in Communist like Dentist/Doctors.

I used to be horrible at memorization and tended to spend all my time on Math-related education, but now I'm able to get good grades in history classes after I gained interest in Communism and wanted to learn more.

Most of the "smart" jobs are gained by the children of the Bourgeois, while workers usually take jobs that at most can be skilled. "Natural" intelligence would support a 'divine right' argument with the bourgeois who think they're better than the working class. When in reality they have far more options in their education and are able to excel, while working class kids are stuck in poor schools which halts their advancement but isn't always the case. If natural genius existed, the people in the "smart" jobs would be proportionate to the class they were born with... which is obviously not the case. So unless this teacher believes in a Nazi-esque ideology she is just spewing out crap to be funny or connect with the students.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Research into intelligence indicates that the majority of someone's intellect is due to genetics. However, their are varying debates about what percentage of intelligence is affected by the environment. Almost all experts agree that most aspects of intelligence are genetic, however, so your teacher is right to an extent. The argument that people are born stupid are smart is, in itself, quite stupid, however, because intelligence is subjective. Objectively, most people are of average intelligence, with their being an equal number of smart and dumb people.

There are some arguments for the first five years of development having the possibility of altering intelligence to a large degree, but they aren't widely found in scientific journals.

[D_Bokk]

^Do you have a source or group which studied this and came to the genetics conclusion?

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ#Genetics_vs_environment

That can give you some information. I did a project on IQ two years ago, and last year I did a small seminar on Scientific Racism for my English class. Consequently, I've had to research the matter quite a bit. Be warned, however, because the field of intelligence testing has racialism and racism within it. Many racists use IQ as a way to justify inequality. This site is apparently giving 50% heritability - which would be quite refreshing if new research states this. However, most canonical research in the field of psychometrics has estimates of 60-80%.

For more information, you may want to seek out books that are responding to The Bell Curve (a controversial book). You could read The Bell Curve itself, but, if you can finish that piece of drivel, I commend you.

[D_Bokk]

That basically proves nothing. The intelligence of these children was determined after they were born, not prior too. The time in the womb can determine the intellectual capabilities depending on what the mother consumed and as a baby the parenting can increase their intelligence by involving them in intellectual activity. Unless there is genetical evidence which claims that brain activity is naturally greater in certain people (before they are born), then I see no reason to believe genetics has anything to do with intelligence.

The Bell Curve is trash propaganda to justify racism against Blacks and Latinos.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Almost all scientists admit that genetics are a factor when it comes to intelligence. There have been various studies of kids from intellectual parents raised in other homes, and they have found correlations and data to prove that intelligence is both genetic and environmental.

I already said the Bell Curve is of poor quality - I am not defending that. Regardless, you seem to be unwilling to research this matter if what you find is contrary to your preset viewpoint. A Marxist interpretation of science does not require that one contribute intelligence to the environment.

Prenatal nutrition accounts for the largest difference in IQ when dealing with third world countries. Studies have accounted for that and determined that nutrition has little affect on genetic influence. If anything, eating improperly (on the part of the mother) is more of a handicap than a benefit. Regardless, that does not account for the entire genetic % of IQ that is argued.

I nodded to the idea of parenting (at a young age) influencing intellectual ability. However, there have been no documented cases (that I can recall) that have resulted in genius from non-genius aside from the genetic flukes. In fact, genius is in higher concentration amongst children of intellectual parents.

Just an interesting blurb:

"Shared family effects also seem to disappear by adulthood. Adoption studies show that, after adolescence, adopted siblings are no more similar in IQ than strangers (IQ correlation near zero), while full siblings show an IQ correlation of 0.6. Twin studies reinforce this pattern: monozygotic (identical) twins raised separately are highly similar in IQ (0.86), more so than dizygotic (fraternal) twins raised together (0.6) and much more than adopted siblings (~0.0)."

Intelligence is an interesting thing, but their is little reason to believe that intelligence is entirely influenced by the environment when many other aspects of our world are influenced by genetics.

Keep in mind, there are arguments for intellectual equality amongst races even while accepting genetic influences on IQ. One does not have to be racialist to accept that genetics influence a person's intelligence.

[D_Bokk]

Wouldn't scientists be bias? I would assume they like to think that they themselves are gifted and go under the assumption that other people can do just as well as them. This doesn't discount their views, however, but I've yet to see any evidence proving that if you take two people's genetics you can determine which if their children will be intelligent or sub-par. They base their opinions on the study of children with far to many outside variables to constitute as a good experiment.

I knew about the bell curve prior to you telling me and I know that it's questions were bias toward certain cultural groups and that's why scores were higher for those people. I do not need to read the whole book to come to the conclusion of racial bias.

As for Marxist interpretation I would believe intelligence is important. If one goes under the assumption they're naturally superior to another person than it will create a social division of the working class. Divisions simular to race today that will inevitably result in a ruling group of people who deem themselves more capable, or as we call it Leninism.

The most famous pianists, like Mozart, was taught by his father at the early ages of three. Mozart is one of the most famous Pianists and his genius was arguably taught to him by his father. Since he was so young, he caught on and grasped the concept quite easily and was able to master it. An intellectual parent is more like to a) expect more of their child and b) act upon the expectation and try to force the child into being a genius.

"Shared family effects also seem to disappear by adulthood." This, to me, seems to support environment since in adulthood siblings have very different surroundings.

About the adoption study, I was under the impression that IQ scores do not change. How could an adopted person, after adolescence, have a change in IQ with regards to their siblings?

The twin study I can personally discredit as there is a very heightened competition between twins to "be the best." Which is the case for my twin, ever since an early age we have competed to get the better grades in school. They generally tend to have a much simular upbringing as well. We, then, have very simular intellectual abilities because we both were trying to outdo each other. Neither one of us can claim to be better than the other.

I realize that I'm being stubborn with this argument, but until there is conclusive evidence in which genetics can predict the IQ of a child I refuse to accept intellectual superiority.

[Eleutherios]

"Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education." —Bertrand Russell

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Scientists are trained to be objective, and they can fail at this, however. They may be right-wing economically, but they are definately left socially.

Regardless, whether an experiment has enough variables is to be valid is subjective. All intelligence experiments deal with inductive logic. People of higher intelligence will still exist in a communist society, but it will be structured so that every person is treated equally. Mozart's father was of higher than average intellect, and his mother may have been as well. Additionally, genius is known to come from non-genius parents due to other genetic factors.

The shared family effects comment is saying that environmental influences on intelligence become less evident with age. IQ scores change while a person is growing, and, after that, IQ scores can change within a reasonable amount of points. The test is fairly subjective and more used for population analysis than individual comparison.

Twins have similiar genetics, and, consequently, you and your twin have similiar capabilities. You yourself mentioned that the environmental factors influencing you both are similiar. That combined with similiar genetics make for close intellectual ability.

[D_Bokk]

Mozart was taught by a Piano teacher (his dad) from a very young age. If his father did not teach him until he was older, it would have been unlikely that he would have been as successful as he was. There have been studies, as well, that Piano lessons result in higher IQs if the lessons are taken when they're young. People write off genius as genetics so quickly, but the parents who are smart will get their children intellectually active at young ages which could, just as likely, be the reason for their intellectual development.

What are these "other factors" you speak of? The factors I would say is that their parents paid a lot of attention to their education.

You've provided no genetical evidence that genetics made my sister and I so simular in intellectual capabilities. We're fraternal twins, so our genetics are quite different. The only evidence you used was statistical data that measures intelligence with two variables: Environment and Genetics. Therefore the experiment is inconclusive as to what caused people to be intelligent.

Of course, with the mental defects, come the mental genius. I'm not denying there aren't people who are born genius, but the regular old "smart" people are nothing but a product of their environment. The division among the majority of the popular is: educated and miseducated.

[bezdomni]

Psychologists can't even agree on what intelligence is, nonetheless determine if you are born with it or not.

The most popular theories say that people have multiple intelligences (creativity, problem solving, emotional intelligence...et cetera) and a general intelligence which is usually referred to as "g". Most modern IQ tests test for all of these. Studies show that people who score unusually high on one (say creativity) also score high on other intelligences (say problem solving) and have a higher general intelligence.

Intelligence is mostly genetic, but is also heavily influenced by the first few years of life. Regardless, you can still be brillant at something and not have a supergenius IQ. Richard Feynman has a good, yet unimpressive 124.