

The Genius in All of Us - onoj
http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/03/07/genius_in_all_of_us/index.html

======
rosejn
This sounds like a humanist reaction to the increasing amounts of research and
evidence that intelligence does in fact have a large genetic component. Nobody
says environment and hard work aren't vital factors for success, but it's
already understood that intelligence doesn't equal success anyways. Still,
that doesn't mean intelligence isn't by and large an innate quality. Stephen
Pinker's The Blank Slate goes into this in detail, but his point was virtually
the opposite of this author. He was instead making the case that much more
about a person than most people expect is a direct result of their genotype,
and that it's best if we face up to reality and talk about these things in the
open rather than pretending that everyone is equal. As for success, it seems
there is wide agreement that insane amounts of practice and perseverance are
are sure fire recipe. I wonder how much the ability to persevere in the face
of difficulty is affected by a persons genes?

~~~
jeromec
I agree. One thing that came to mind is that if we take a pure scientific view
then humans are 99% like apes, and apes are reasonably intelligent and can
learn. Are we to believe we can extrapolate and say that environment has more
to do with the intelligence averages of apes than genes, and further, that
they too can potentially be geniuses?

~~~
tokenadult
It's a more scientific view of the human genome to focus on the genetic
differences that are "fixed" in distinction between the genomes of Pan
troglodytes (or Pan paniscus) and Homo sapiens. There is something profoundly
different about the intelligence of any human being as contrasted with the
intelligence of any chimpanzee (or gorilla, or more distantly related animal).

------
AngryParsley
The studies most favorable to Shenk's position put the heritability of IQ at
around 0.5. That is, parents account for 50% of their descendant's IQ
variance. Environmental factors would account for the other half. More recent
meta-studies
([http://www18.homepage.villanova.edu/diego.fernandezduque/Tea...](http://www18.homepage.villanova.edu/diego.fernandezduque/Teaching/PhysiologicalPsychology/zCurrDir4200/CurrDirGeneticsTraits.pdf)
for instance) put IQ heritability at around 0.8.

Even if the studies most favorable to Shenk are correct, the best way to be
smart is still to choose your parents. Parents determine genes and a large
amount of environment, which together are the largest influences on
intelligence.

This is a bit off-topic, but I want to point out a distinction that is often
overlooked. Heritability is not quite the same as genes. Genes definitely
influence intelligence. If you could edit someone's genes, you could quite
easily make them very sharp or very dumb. Scientists have identified
individual genes and groups of genes that drastically influence intelligence.
Down's syndrome is an obvious one. Single genes affecting intelligence include
GDI1 (<http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/11/21/2567>) and ALDH5A1
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldehyde_dehydrogenase_5_family...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldehyde_dehydrogenase_5_family,_member_A1)).
There are others that cause problems such as autism and schizophrenia.
([http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7215/full/nature0...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7215/full/nature07458.html))

I really think the "ignore genetics, work hard to succeed" people are going
about their argument the wrong way. Instead of disregarding the evidence, they
should acknowledge it while stressing a caveat: Intelligence, to be useful,
_must be used effectively_. The smartest person in the world might not be
best-suited to solve a problem; similar to how the strongest person in the
world might not be the best fighter.

~~~
tokenadult
_heritability of IQ at around 0.5_

Heritability of IQ has nothing whatever to do with malleability (or, if you
prefer this terminology, controllability) of human intelligence. That point
has been made by the leading researchers on human behaviorial genetics in
their recent article that I cited in the first reply to this submission on HN.
It is a very common conceptual blunder, which should be corrected in any well
edited genetics textbook, to confuse broad heritability estimates with
statements about how malleable human traits are. The two concepts actually
have no relationship at all. Highly heritable traits can be very malleable,
and the other way around. It looks like the author of the new book mentioned
in the submitted article has gathered a lot of evidence about malleability of
human intelligence, which I will check as I read the book. (I've read other
writings on this subject, and regularly participate in scholarly discussion of
the latest research on this with Ph.D. psychologists.)

 _Intelligence, to be useful, must be used effectively._

I do agree with this point.

------
tokenadult
"Instead, 'one large group of scientists,' a 'vanguard' that Shenk has labeled
'the interactionists,' insists that the old genes-plus-environment model (G+E)
must be jettisoned and replaced by a model they call GxE, emphasizing 'the
dynamic interaction between genes and the environment.' They don't discount
heredity, as the old blank-slate hypothesis of human nature once did. Instead,
they assert that "genes powerfully influence the formation of all traits, from
eye color to intelligence, but rarely dictate precisely what those traits will
be."

That's a pretty good summation of current human behavioral genetics research.
An earlier comment of mine here on HN

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=842315>

cited and linked to a recent publication on this issue,

Johnson, Wendy; Turkheimer, Eric; Gottesman, Irving I.; Bouchard Jr., Thomas
(2009). Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral Research. Current
Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 4, 217-220.

with some interesting new ideas from researchers who have been working on
human behavioral genetics longer than most HN readers have been alive.

~~~
araneae
Agreed. GxE is certainly better then G+E, but that doesn't mean there's a
genius in all of us.

I see this kind of response to progress in science all the time. If you change
the way you conceive of a problem, like genes and environment, people suddenly
think that all the beliefs about genetics from the past are wrong. But GxE
doesn't mean that genetics isn't important all of a sudden, simple because in
the days of G+E it _was_ important. In fact, I would argue that GXE makes G
MORE critical.

In a computer science class I took, our professor would multiply our homework
and our exam grades instead of adding them. This way, even if you aced your
homework, a 0 on an exam would give you a 0 overall (a solution to the
inherent problems of team projects). The same is true for genetics- you can
have all the good environment you want, if you ain't got the genes you're
screwed (Down's syndrome). Of course, the same is true for environment; take a
child with the best genes in the world and put it in a box during the early
periods of its life, and it will never learn language well enough to even take
an IQ test.

This reminds me when epigenetics started getting a lot of press, IDers were
coming out in droves saying, "look! Richard Dawkins is wrong! The
evolutionists are wrong!". But epigenetics doesn't mean evolution is wrong any
more than GxE means that genetics aren't pretty damn significant.

------
el_dot
_According to Shenk, we are erroneously led to believe that stars like Tiger
Woods and cellist Yo-yo Ma were born to climb to the top of their fields, when
in fact the environments they grew up in are just as responsible (if not more
so) for their spectacular feats._

I would love to see this Shenk guy raise a Tiger Woods/Yo-yo Ma 2.0. Do that
and you have an immensely more powerful argument, otherwise you're just
another wave in the ocean.

~~~
ericb
I would say László already won this argument:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r>

 _She and her two older sisters, Grandmaster Susan and International Master
Sofia, were part of an educational experiment carried out by their father
László Polgár, in an attempt to prove that children could make exceptional
achievements if trained in a specialist subject from a very early age.
"Geniuses are made, not born," was László's thesis. He and his wife Klara
educated their three daughters at home, with chess as the specialist subject.
However, chess was not taught to the exclusion of everything else. Each of
them has several diplomas and speaks four to eight languages. Their father
also taught his three daughters the international language Esperanto._

~~~
araneae
So you're saying that László and Klara were poor genetic material?

This kind of anecdotal evidence means nothing. Undoubtedly these girls had
great genes, in addition to being trained quite well. If both G and E are
high, the product of the two is quite high.

I'd like to see him try this with a kid he adopted.

~~~
ericb
_So you're saying that László and Klara were poor genetic material?_

Where do you see me say anything of the kind?

No, what I would say is the myth of genius being a special constellation of
traits that the gods bestow upon that rare soul, which can only be seen ex
post facto, is false. High G is quite common. What isn't is a specially tuned
E.

If someone known to be a mediocre chess player can thrice create chess
grandmasters, then that is a strong argument, and frankly, anecdotal is about
as good as you can get with this stuff.

I suppose if you're arguing for "genius" in the ex post facto sense, you could
say "wow, what a coincidence that he had 3 children with that amazing chess
grandmaster gene." To me, saying anyone with high G could be Einstein given
the correct E says something very different about genius than the idea that
Einstein was one of a kind and had some innate, unique genetic gift.

------
rms
META: I would just like to point out to all potential commenters that the
degree to which IQ is genetic is one of the most controversial unresolved
recurring topics on Hacker News. The arguments never really seem to go
anywhere.

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edwilliams612
The 'great man' theory of history is ingrained into most of us in early
childhood as we learn about larger than life historical figures such as
Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Abraham Linchon, and the like
(obviously I'm an American, but I imagine other nationalities have similar
figures). A lot of people consider themselves 'normal', and thus not capable
of great things. This is of course bullshit... While everyone may not be able
to be a 'genius' as the article claims, most people are capable of a whole lot
more than they think.

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lionhearted
> Instead, they assert that "genes powerfully influence the formation of all
> traits, from eye color to intelligence, but rarely dictate precisely what
> those traits will be."

Man, eye color is a bad one to pick if you're making the case against genes
being predictive of traits. I reckon you could get something like 60-80% of
the world's eye color right based on knowing the descendency of their parents.

~~~
tokenadult
_eye color is a bad one to pick if you're making the case against genes being
predictive of traits_

Not so, actually. The author of the article did research before writing that
rather than just misremembering something taught in school based on obsolete
research. Eminent geneticist Victor McKusick developed his interest in human
genetics in large part because eye colors of his immediate family members were
not always as expected on the basis of naive views of the inheritance of eye
color.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color>

<http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=29>

<http://www.bookrags.com/research/eye-color-gen-02/>

------
shalmanese
404 for everyone or just me?

