More About Genes (Part 1): Is intelligence genetic?
Recently articles have been published saying things such as: Europeans evolved to be smarter than Africans because of the ice age (and so sub-Saharan peoples are less intelligent), the reason poor people are poor is because they are less intelligent, and the major reason for poor health is low IQ and that is why there is so much disease in poor places such as Africa.
These and similar statements are, in short, wrong and have their basis in the idea that intelligence has some significant genetic component. This was the argument of "race science" which has been unwittingly supported by high profile publications such as in Arthur Jensen's 1964 paper on black American intelligence published in the Harvard Educational Review. Despite its 29 academic rebuttals some more recent publications seem to tread a similar path such as Nicholas Wade's 2014 book A Troublesome Path. This led to 139 of the world's leading evolutionary theorists signing a letter in the New York Times refuting his conclusions.
Clever Twin Studies
However, it is the twin studies on heritability showing a 0.72 correlation between genes and intelligence which, at first, seems to convincingly "prove" the link. (A correlation of 1.0 would indicate a perfect link between genes and intelligence down to a correlation of zero which would indicate no link). However, psychologist Eric Turkheimer recognized that all the twin studies had been done with middle class or wealthy families. He repeated the studies with 320 pairs of twins from very poor families. He found that genetics played a very small role in this case with environment having by far the major impact.
It's the Environment Stupid
This suggests that a positive environment does not play an enabling role as much as a negative one plays a disabling (at least in childhood). In many ways it is common sense. If we planted one seed of wheat in good soil and another genetically identical seed in poor soil, then we would not be surprised when one wheat stalk outgrew the other massively. The environment is key and a nurturing one multiplies small initial affects as Dickens and Flynn highlight in their insightful analysis The IQ Paradox Resolved. For example, if someone starts with a 10% higher academic intelligence and so initially does better than others in this area, they may practice that particular intelligence more. Then with more recognition they may be motivated to spend more time studying in that area, like it more, and then work with others who are also better at it and so learn more quickly. When they started they were in the 60th percentile but with all this effort, as long as the environment is a nurturing one, then they may end up in the 90th percentile at the end of their career. And it was the environment not genes that made the difference.
At the end of the day a wider perspective shows clearly how much more important environment is:
- Epigenetics. This is the study of physiological variations that are caused by external or environmental factors that switch genes on and off and so affect how cells read genes instead of being caused by changes in the DNA sequence. In effect we potentially change our genetic profile depending on the foods we eat, chemicals we put on our body, development experiences we have, emotions we go through, and so on. This has alerted us to the importance of the environment.
- Flynn effect. This is the observation, first noticed by the moral philosopher James Flynn, that IQs have risen steadily over the last century. So IQ tests have had to be made continually more difficult to keep the average down to 100. They have risen 30 points in 100 years - so someone scoring an IQ of 100 now would have scored 130 a century ago - which would make them "moderately gifted" and someone then scoring 100 would now score 70 making their classification "borderline mental disability"!
- The intelligence gene. The most important gene for variation in intelligence was discovered last year by Doctors Dubal and Mucke. They were studying the effects of KL-VS on ageing and found that those with this gene had better cognition than those without account for up to six IQ points in the white American group studied. To put this into perspective, it is equivalent to the average IQ increase obtained by studying at university for two years. (See Genes and intelligence, The Economist-10 May 2014).
There is of course a problem with the idea of IQ itself. Firstly, it measures, strictly speaking, one's ability to do IQ tests not intelligence directly. Therefore, while results indicate African Americans get lower average IQ scores it does not follow that they are on average less intelligent because IQ is not the same as "intelligence". Secondly, there are four fundamental intelligences and IQ just tries to measure one. We are all naturally high on two of them and naturally low on two of them. So a good way to appreciate relative intelligence is to always expect everyone you meet to be more intelligent than you in some ways, and for you to be more intelligent than them in some ways.
The good news is that all four intelligences are highly trainable and can be increased if you know what you are doing.
For more information on intelligence we recommend the book Maximum Brainpower by Breznitz and Hemingway or join us on the MarkTwo Personality Training where you will learn about the four fundamental intelligences and how to practically increase them.
Stay tuned for Genes Part 2 where we will guide you through understanding the effect of genes more widely, including on your health.
Want to know more about personality and the 4 fundamental human intelligences?
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Quote of the Month
Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid - Albert Einstein
TED Talk - the key to success? Grit
Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn’t the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of “grit” as a predictor of success.
MarkTwo's Months
Back from Spain, France and UK via Singapore and then to the Southern Highlands
The CEO has spent 5 weeks travelling through Europe meeting various professionals as well as taking the chance to have some down time and Barcelona is a wonderful city. He then ran a master class in Singapore on Competency and Assessment to a group of senior international managers who came from as far away as Bhutan. On his return he took a specialist team of faciltators to run a 3 day advanced coaching leadership workshop. It is a very powerful workshop with actors and the participants rose to the challenge.
Executive Coaching and Manager Mentoring
Clients are still seeing the importance of coaching and MarkTwo has been coaching seven executives and senior managers over the last three months, with fourteen more interested in being coached remotely out of Indonesia and another five out of Laos. MarkTwo has also been informally mentoring as well as providing in depth and critical feedback to about 20 other managers and staff.
Off to Dubai and Bali, Indonesia
The CEO, Mark Oliver is heading to Dubai to deliver a master class in Competency Assessment and Profiling. Then he is off to Bali to deliver two master classes; one on Competency and Assessment and the other on Transformational Leadership.
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