6 ms·

You're right -- it feels true, which probably explains why it has so much staying power. Though the idea has been around for decades, it was really popularized

by clarkm 13y ago

You're right -- it feels true, which probably explains why it has so much staying power. Though the idea has been around for decades, it was really popularized by Hart and Risley in the 90s. However, it has been popping even more frequently over the past couple years. A few months ago, when a similar article ran in the New York Times, Steven Pinked opined: > The Blank Slate lives: Yet another story on parent-child correlations that dares not mention the g-word https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/322367630331740160 https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/322367630331740160

ShardPhoenix 13y ago
Just because genetics is important doesn't mean that talking doesn't help - and the difference is that talking is in the parents' control.
zizee 13y ago
It's weird how people are happy to say genetics plays a hand in the limits of human abilities, but when it comes to talk about intelligence, there are so many people in denial. Perhaps it is just that you can't sell as many self help books if a lot of our brain's wiring is preordained.
- a3voices 13y ago
  Intelligence is a mixture of upbringing and genetics. If you're raised by a pack of wolves in the woods, you'll probably be rock dumb by all measures, regardless of your DNA.
  - bkirkbri 13y ago
    > If you're raised by a pack of wolves in the woods, you'll probably be rock dumb by all measures, regardless of your DNA. Depends on how you define "dumb". I bet you'd be insanely good at hunting and eating enough prey to survive the winter.
    - telephonetemp 13y ago
      Going a step further, you have to wonder if the genetic correlates of IQ (or g) affect survival and health in feral children.
      - clarkm 13y ago
        I can't remember where I read it, but I know that hunting and tracking skills don't correlate very well with g. Though surprisingly, marksmanship does.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - Kudzu_Bob 13y ago
    If a wolf is raised by humans, how much will that improve its IQ score?
- smtddr 13y ago
  What you call "denial", I call reasonable doubt. And by that, I mean we don't have any concrete way to measure intelligence potential/capacity in the same way we can measure 12 inches. We know what 12 inches mean, but can anyone tell me what it means to be smart? What subjects do I need to learn to qualify? And to what level of detail? Why do we conclude Stephen Hawkins is smart? Who is an example of someone that isn't smart and could never become smart no matter how hard that person tried? Barring any serious mental illness, I am of the belief anyone can learn whatever they want. The speed may vary, but I don't believe there is more information in the human-society than the human brain can contain.
  - Kudzu_Bob 13y ago
    We do have concrete ways to measure intelligence, and have had them for over a hundred years. The literature on this subject is quite extensive.
    - smtddr 13y ago
      We do not. Are there answers to the questions I presented? You can't observe any exact thing and say "Right there! This person is exactly 49 intelliunits smart". IQ tests may give you an idea of one point of view of a measurement of intelligent is, but it is certainly not concrete like 12 inches is. Not concrete like we know 2 hydrogens & one oxygen is water. I think our obsession that everything must be measurable & categorized fails when it comes to the human mind. We are more than the sum of our measurable parts... for now. You can look at a car engine specification and know exactly the maximum speed given optimum conditions and assuming no mechanical failures. There's no such measurement for the human brain. You cannot know what my top performance is. At the absolute best, you can have a ball-park guess. You could end up being right or being way off.
      - Kudzu_Bob 13y ago
        Human personality contains any number of traits that can be measured. To pretend that pyschometrics does not exist is the equivalent of refusing to look through Galileo's telescope.
- worldsayshi 13y ago
  It might be that intelligence is a plastic ability ("software"), while many other abilities are less plastic ("hardware"). We agree that the human brain is highly adaptable, people loose half their brains in early age and can still function. It doesn't seem that far fetched that such small differences as those between someone bright and someone not so bright is about adaptation. And perhaps the right type of curiosity.
Alex3917 13y ago
> Yet another story on parent-child correlations that dares not mention the g-word Except for that the Hart & Risley study measured the impact of genetics, and found it to be insignificant. Maybe Pinker should try actually reading the studies he's criticizing instead of just reading about them in the paper.
- bjterry 13y ago
  If I am understanding your argument correctly in context, based on what you quoted, you are saying that the impact of genetics on g was found to be insignificant in the Hart & Risley study. That objectively seems not to be the case. First, the measurement outcome of the study was language use. They didn't attempt to measure IQ or g except when the children were 3. As far as I can tell from references, without access to the primary source, they did not perform any IQ tests on the children at later dates. I verified this with google searches within the book which only returned mentions of a test given at age three, but this is not iron-clad given google books' search mechanism. As far as I can tell, any claims that IQ was shown to be increased by the intervention are based on the very high correlation found between IQ and vocabulary at that age three test. Second, they only evaluated children (for language use) until the age of 9-10, which would be broadly consistent with the consensus understanding of psychometricians, which is that the heritability of IQ increases throughout childhood (implying in simplified language that non-heritable environmental factors have lesser correlation with IQ at adulthood, even if they have a greater impact during childhood). The study wasn't designed to measure the impact of genetics on g, so we shouldn't be surprised that it fails to measure it. It was designed to measure the impact of in-home language use on vocabulary acquisition, which it clearly does well. That effect has been further validated in meta-analysis, e.g. [1]. 1: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sbneuman/pdf/marulisNeuman.pdf http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sbneuman/pdf/marulisNeuman.pd...
  - Alex3917 13y ago
    The study looked at the impact of genetics on language acquisition, and found that at most the contribution of IQ to language acquisition could only be a few percent. They were not really looking at the impact of genetics on IQ, although I think this is mentioned at one point and they say genetics plays a larger part here.
philwelch 13y ago
If there are genetic components to intelligence, presumably you can't do anything about them after you've had kids so what do they matter?

by clarkm 13y ago

ShardPhoenix 13y ago

Just because genetics is important doesn't mean that talking doesn't help - and the difference is that talking is in the parents' control.

zizee 13y ago

It's weird how people are happy to say genetics plays a hand in the limits of human abilities, but when it comes to talk about intelligence, there are so many people in denial. Perhaps it is just that you can't sell as many self help books if a lot of our brain's wiring is preordained.

a3voices 13y ago
Intelligence is a mixture of upbringing and genetics. If you're raised by a pack of wolves in the woods, you'll probably be rock dumb by all measures, regardless of your DNA.
- bkirkbri 13y ago
  > If you're raised by a pack of wolves in the woods, you'll probably be rock dumb by all measures, regardless of your DNA. Depends on how you define "dumb". I bet you'd be insanely good at hunting and eating enough prey to survive the winter.
  - telephonetemp 13y ago
    Going a step further, you have to wonder if the genetic correlates of IQ (or g) affect survival and health in feral children.
    - clarkm 13y ago
      I can't remember where I read it, but I know that hunting and tracking skills don't correlate very well with g. Though surprisingly, marksmanship does.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- Kudzu_Bob 13y ago
  If a wolf is raised by humans, how much will that improve its IQ score?
smtddr 13y ago
What you call "denial", I call reasonable doubt. And by that, I mean we don't have any concrete way to measure intelligence potential/capacity in the same way we can measure 12 inches. We know what 12 inches mean, but can anyone tell me what it means to be smart? What subjects do I need to learn to qualify? And to what level of detail? Why do we conclude Stephen Hawkins is smart? Who is an example of someone that isn't smart and could never become smart no matter how hard that person tried? Barring any serious mental illness, I am of the belief anyone can learn whatever they want. The speed may vary, but I don't believe there is more information in the human-society than the human brain can contain.
- Kudzu_Bob 13y ago
  We do have concrete ways to measure intelligence, and have had them for over a hundred years. The literature on this subject is quite extensive.
  - smtddr 13y ago
    We do not. Are there answers to the questions I presented? You can't observe any exact thing and say "Right there! This person is exactly 49 intelliunits smart". IQ tests may give you an idea of one point of view of a measurement of intelligent is, but it is certainly not concrete like 12 inches is. Not concrete like we know 2 hydrogens & one oxygen is water. I think our obsession that everything must be measurable & categorized fails when it comes to the human mind. We are more than the sum of our measurable parts... for now. You can look at a car engine specification and know exactly the maximum speed given optimum conditions and assuming no mechanical failures. There's no such measurement for the human brain. You cannot know what my top performance is. At the absolute best, you can have a ball-park guess. You could end up being right or being way off.
    - Kudzu_Bob 13y ago
      Human personality contains any number of traits that can be measured. To pretend that pyschometrics does not exist is the equivalent of refusing to look through Galileo's telescope.
worldsayshi 13y ago
It might be that intelligence is a plastic ability ("software"), while many other abilities are less plastic ("hardware"). We agree that the human brain is highly adaptable, people loose half their brains in early age and can still function. It doesn't seem that far fetched that such small differences as those between someone bright and someone not so bright is about adaptation. And perhaps the right type of curiosity.

Alex3917 13y ago

> Yet another story on parent-child correlations that dares not mention the g-word Except for that the Hart & Risley study measured the impact of genetics, and found it to be insignificant. Maybe Pinker should try actually reading the studies he's criticizing instead of just reading about them in the paper.

bjterry 13y ago
If I am understanding your argument correctly in context, based on what you quoted, you are saying that the impact of genetics on g was found to be insignificant in the Hart & Risley study. That objectively seems not to be the case. First, the measurement outcome of the study was language use. They didn't attempt to measure IQ or g except when the children were 3. As far as I can tell from references, without access to the primary source, they did not perform any IQ tests on the children at later dates. I verified this with google searches within the book which only returned mentions of a test given at age three, but this is not iron-clad given google books' search mechanism. As far as I can tell, any claims that IQ was shown to be increased by the intervention are based on the very high correlation found between IQ and vocabulary at that age three test. Second, they only evaluated children (for language use) until the age of 9-10, which would be broadly consistent with the consensus understanding of psychometricians, which is that the heritability of IQ increases throughout childhood (implying in simplified language that non-heritable environmental factors have lesser correlation with IQ at adulthood, even if they have a greater impact during childhood). The study wasn't designed to measure the impact of genetics on g, so we shouldn't be surprised that it fails to measure it. It was designed to measure the impact of in-home language use on vocabulary acquisition, which it clearly does well. That effect has been further validated in meta-analysis, e.g. [1]. 1: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sbneuman/pdf/marulisNeuman.pdf http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sbneuman/pdf/marulisNeuman.pd...
- Alex3917 13y ago
  The study looked at the impact of genetics on language acquisition, and found that at most the contribution of IQ to language acquisition could only be a few percent. They were not really looking at the impact of genetics on IQ, although I think this is mentioned at one point and they say genetics plays a larger part here.

philwelch 13y ago

If there are genetic components to intelligence, presumably you can't do anything about them after you've had kids so what do they matter?