<story><title>The Latest On Intelligence</title><url>http://www.danielwillingham.com/1/post/2012/05/the-latest-on-intelligence.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>justin_vanw</author><text>&quot;A great deal of time has been wasted in the effort of measuring the heritability of traits in the false expectation that somehow the genetic nature of psychological phenomena would be revealed.&quot;&lt;p&gt;There is a strong cultural bias among much of the research community to go out of their way to deny any genetic factors in intelligence.  Perhaps this is well intentioned, but it is absurd.&lt;p&gt;I have come across very few squirrels that have mastered fire, or could be taught calculus, or even addition.  I doubt that this is cultural or due to the squirrels upbringing, diet, social status, or how many books the squirrel has available to it, or the quality of it&apos;s teachers, or pathogens.  Clearly then, it is possible for genetics to completely dominate other factors in determining intelligence.  In the animal kingdom at large heredity/genetics account for basically all of the variation in intelligence.&lt;p&gt;The unanswered question is whether there is enough genetic diversity across the human species to cause intelligence to be significantly hereditable.  The fear among scientists that try to keep the lid on this question is that the answer might be yes, and worse that  such variations will correlate with geographic or national groupings.  This would put a very nasty &lt;i&gt;perceived&lt;/i&gt; scientific stamp of approval on racism (even though this would be unjustified), and could over time lead to discrimination and &apos;scientific racism&apos;.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, in the end science will uncover the truth here, and in the meantime it is probably very prudent to not make any potentially inflammatory statements and to be very cautious about any studies that could fuel hate.  I just find it absurd that whenever this kind of question comes up people start denying that there is any hereditary component of intelligence, and that IQ is completely meaningless, etc.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Latest On Intelligence</title><url>http://www.danielwillingham.com/1/post/2012/05/the-latest-on-intelligence.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>kenjackson</author><text>This is an interesting result noted from the paper:
&quot;Even when improvements in IQ produced by the most
effective early childhood interventions fail to persist, there can be very marked effects on academic achievement and life outcomes.&quot;&lt;p&gt;As noted by the author, this suggests that IQ only captures a portion of early childhood intervention benefits.  And goes counter to those who suggest that early intervention programs serve no purpose if IQ doesn&apos;t remain high (IOW, IQ is only a portion of what constitutes success in life).</text></comment>