

Are math smarts innate? - kenjackson
http://news.discovery.com/human/are-math-smarts-innate-110815.html

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tokenadult
The submitted article reports a preliminary study that can't possibly answer
the headline question because

1) the abilities were estimated in early childhood, not immediately after
birth, so that they didn't only reflect "innate" influences on the children's
development, and

2) the study didn't have a genetically sensitive design.

But see

[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20Online%20CV/Turkheimer%20\(2008\).pdf)

and

[http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20O...](http://people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Articles%20for%20Online%20CV/Johnson%20\(2009\).pdf)

for scientific reasons to be open to the possibility that environmental
interventions (e.g., education) might still make a big difference later in
childhood, even if an ability is shown to be innate.

I think Fields Medal winner Terence Tao (who previously was a gold medalist at
the IMO) has some valuable things to say about the role of "genius" in
learning mathematics.

[http://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-
to...](http://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-
genius-to-do-maths/)

