Is Intelligence Inherent?
I’d like to clearly define what I mean by “intelligence”, state my own opinion and keep a mind to direct the thinking towards a system of action (ie if intelligence is or isn’t inherent, what should we do about it?)
Firstly, the definition I’ll be using is from Webster:
in•tel•li•gence
1 a (1) : the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations : REASON; also : the skilled use of reason (2) : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests)
Firstly, intelligence, especially in public conversation, often gets confused with wisdom or knowledge. These things are not intelligence. Someone who is capable of understanding complex information (intelligence) can obtain knowledge quickly and easily, and such capacity for understanding can also make someone very wise, so those who are intelligent are often wise and knowledgeable, but not always. Wisdom and knowledge don’t necessarily require intelligence, and vice versa.
Wisdom and knowledge are products of experience or association. Intelligence, however, I can’t seem to imagine how it could be anything other than innate. It is the foundation of mental capacity, as the depth of the acquiring of knowledge and wisdom depend on the individual’s ability to learn, understand and manipulate their environment. Intelligence comes first; wisdom and knowledge come through the practice of intelligence.
Quite obviously, people are born in different environments with different influences. Some are provided with an ease of education and the flexibility of lifestyle to practice mental activities, whereas others are not. Diet plays a part in this as well, as it’s been shown that peoples who lived in impoverished areas, when given proper nutrition actually increased their IQ, I think even to the degree of an entire standard deviation (don’t have the reference on me if anybody else is failure with this).
(Perhaps I should mention that I believe that the IQ test is an accurate method for measuring intelligence. The test is being redeveloped all the time to exclude socially biased questions and focus on the individual’s ability to produce correct answers to basic-although challenging-problem-solving questions. An IQ test is not valid if it includes questions that the participant hasn’t had the education to know, like using an alpha-numerical system that is unfamiliar or asking foreign historical questions. Also, if the participant is disinterested, coursed or forced, the results are suspect. I should also note that IQ =/= intelligence itself; it is just a method of measurement, like how a quart =/= water itself.)
But putting too much emphases on diet and education as a means of producing intelligence, such as suggesting they are the only means, is incorrect, I think. One cannot eat themselves into Beethoven, and we all know people who we would never call intelligent even with all the education in the world. The mentally retarded have a limited mental capacity. They absolutely can not understand certain things that most other people can. There is no natural means, through diet or education, which can increase their intelligence beyond their innate capacity.
What I’m suggesting is that we all have such capacities, and that there are degrees of limitation and excellence, and that they are similarly derived through genetics. The more science advances, the more we understand the role of the genome in our lives; the way it impacts us or determines what we’re capable of. For the most part we are average, normal. Most of us are capable of most things, and so we seldom see any major differentiation. Your genes are much like your neighbors’. The Bell Curve suggests that this is entirely natural.
However there are the ends of this spectrum: the exceptional and the unexceptional. I’d like to use an example that is less disputed, more widely accepted, which is that of the genetic influence on physical ability. Many people are moderately physically able, which is to say they can run, bend, jump, lift, etc. without much difficulty. But how many are exceptional, such as, say, strongmen? Only a very small amount of the world population can lift and hold 150 kilos of weight above their head for any length of time, for example. The men who can do this are the definition of exceptional. Now, there is a innate genetic limitation for most people to be able to do this. You can get training-intense personal training-and become quite strong and physically able, but most will never reach that level of physical strength despite their greatest efforts. Getting to that level is contingent on genetics. This is also exemplified in that most winning strongmen in the world are Teutonic; Scandinavians, Celts, Icelandic, etc. This is genetic first, in that the individuals must have the innate capacity, cultural second, in that they must be nurtured to express the potentialities of their capacity.
You will find that among the top strongmen in the world, they have a family history of strongmen. Their father and father’s father and so on were capable as they are. On a broader scale, take a look at the Samoan people. Large, physically imposing to a degree that is nearly unimaginable in, say, somewhere like China, where people tend to be physically small, unimposing. Such physical qualities get passed on. It is extremely unlikely for an average Chinese couple to give birth to a child who is of average Samoan size.
Why should genetics affect our capacities in such a way in every other aspect of our lives except intelligence? Smart people give birth to smart people, except on rare occasion. Education is important of course, and so is a nurturing culture, because without those things the intelligent may well be unrecognized and never reach their potential. But even among the educated, only a handful will ever be able to do something as historically groundbreaking as devising a theory of gravity, to extract a complicated abstract system of knowledge by being hit on the head with an apple. It is productions such as that, and the minds that are able to produce them, that allow a civilization to advance.
You can educate someone to reach their natural capacity, but you can’t educate everyone into a genius. It is my opinion that yes, intelligence is inherent, and if inherent intelligence is required for advancing civilization, systems should be put into place that allow the intelligent to breed more frequently than the less intelligent. Thoughts?
Firstly, the definition I’ll be using is from Webster:
in•tel•li•gence
1 a (1) : the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations : REASON; also : the skilled use of reason (2) : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests)
Firstly, intelligence, especially in public conversation, often gets confused with wisdom or knowledge. These things are not intelligence. Someone who is capable of understanding complex information (intelligence) can obtain knowledge quickly and easily, and such capacity for understanding can also make someone very wise, so those who are intelligent are often wise and knowledgeable, but not always. Wisdom and knowledge don’t necessarily require intelligence, and vice versa.
Wisdom and knowledge are products of experience or association. Intelligence, however, I can’t seem to imagine how it could be anything other than innate. It is the foundation of mental capacity, as the depth of the acquiring of knowledge and wisdom depend on the individual’s ability to learn, understand and manipulate their environment. Intelligence comes first; wisdom and knowledge come through the practice of intelligence.
Quite obviously, people are born in different environments with different influences. Some are provided with an ease of education and the flexibility of lifestyle to practice mental activities, whereas others are not. Diet plays a part in this as well, as it’s been shown that peoples who lived in impoverished areas, when given proper nutrition actually increased their IQ, I think even to the degree of an entire standard deviation (don’t have the reference on me if anybody else is failure with this).
(Perhaps I should mention that I believe that the IQ test is an accurate method for measuring intelligence. The test is being redeveloped all the time to exclude socially biased questions and focus on the individual’s ability to produce correct answers to basic-although challenging-problem-solving questions. An IQ test is not valid if it includes questions that the participant hasn’t had the education to know, like using an alpha-numerical system that is unfamiliar or asking foreign historical questions. Also, if the participant is disinterested, coursed or forced, the results are suspect. I should also note that IQ =/= intelligence itself; it is just a method of measurement, like how a quart =/= water itself.)
But putting too much emphases on diet and education as a means of producing intelligence, such as suggesting they are the only means, is incorrect, I think. One cannot eat themselves into Beethoven, and we all know people who we would never call intelligent even with all the education in the world. The mentally retarded have a limited mental capacity. They absolutely can not understand certain things that most other people can. There is no natural means, through diet or education, which can increase their intelligence beyond their innate capacity.
What I’m suggesting is that we all have such capacities, and that there are degrees of limitation and excellence, and that they are similarly derived through genetics. The more science advances, the more we understand the role of the genome in our lives; the way it impacts us or determines what we’re capable of. For the most part we are average, normal. Most of us are capable of most things, and so we seldom see any major differentiation. Your genes are much like your neighbors’. The Bell Curve suggests that this is entirely natural.
However there are the ends of this spectrum: the exceptional and the unexceptional. I’d like to use an example that is less disputed, more widely accepted, which is that of the genetic influence on physical ability. Many people are moderately physically able, which is to say they can run, bend, jump, lift, etc. without much difficulty. But how many are exceptional, such as, say, strongmen? Only a very small amount of the world population can lift and hold 150 kilos of weight above their head for any length of time, for example. The men who can do this are the definition of exceptional. Now, there is a innate genetic limitation for most people to be able to do this. You can get training-intense personal training-and become quite strong and physically able, but most will never reach that level of physical strength despite their greatest efforts. Getting to that level is contingent on genetics. This is also exemplified in that most winning strongmen in the world are Teutonic; Scandinavians, Celts, Icelandic, etc. This is genetic first, in that the individuals must have the innate capacity, cultural second, in that they must be nurtured to express the potentialities of their capacity.
You will find that among the top strongmen in the world, they have a family history of strongmen. Their father and father’s father and so on were capable as they are. On a broader scale, take a look at the Samoan people. Large, physically imposing to a degree that is nearly unimaginable in, say, somewhere like China, where people tend to be physically small, unimposing. Such physical qualities get passed on. It is extremely unlikely for an average Chinese couple to give birth to a child who is of average Samoan size.
Why should genetics affect our capacities in such a way in every other aspect of our lives except intelligence? Smart people give birth to smart people, except on rare occasion. Education is important of course, and so is a nurturing culture, because without those things the intelligent may well be unrecognized and never reach their potential. But even among the educated, only a handful will ever be able to do something as historically groundbreaking as devising a theory of gravity, to extract a complicated abstract system of knowledge by being hit on the head with an apple. It is productions such as that, and the minds that are able to produce them, that allow a civilization to advance.
You can educate someone to reach their natural capacity, but you can’t educate everyone into a genius. It is my opinion that yes, intelligence is inherent, and if inherent intelligence is required for advancing civilization, systems should be put into place that allow the intelligent to breed more frequently than the less intelligent. Thoughts?