NY Times says IQ is genetic

An article in today's NY Times demonstrates that IQ is correlated with observable differences in the brain. IQ is genetic. Yes, the liberal NY Times now says that!

I.Q. scores and measuring intelligence have long been controversial. Brain-imaging studies by Dr. Thompson and the study group have advanced the field by identifying physical features of the brain that correlate with I.Q.

In 2001, Dr. Thompson reported that based on imaging twins' brains the volume of gray matter in the frontal lobes and other areas correlated with I.Q. and was heavily influenced by genetics.

The fact that IQ is primarily a genetic trait is extremely important to determining social policy. For example, my recommendation that children be assigned a school based on their intelligence received an angry comment. The commenter wrote "Furthermore, the inert intelligence is crap." Not true, the NY Times article demonstrates that intelligence is a genetic trait.

The commenter also wrote, "That a kid can be judged by one test, at any age, putting he/she in a track that will dictate the quality of their elementary, highschool, and ultimately college education, runs contrary to common logic." Sorry, the NY Times article states that IQs are very stable and change very little with age: "The I.Q. was tested when the children entered the program. Further tests were not needed because I.Q.'s are so stable, Dr. Rapoport said."

Our schools cannot be fixed until we acknowledge basic facts of biology and take them into account when designing educational programs.

Comments

[mikeca]

I thought it was well known that IQ, what ever that means, is at least in part genetic.

The idea that intelligence can be boiled down to a single number measured by some test I find silly. Intelligence has many aspects. I have always been very, very good at mathematics and engineering/science, but could never learn to spell. Other people are excellent at spelling, but weak on mathematics. Leadership skills are also very important. Many CEOs and political leaders are not necessarily the most intelligent people, but they have excellent social skills. They know how to work with and motivate people.

From talking with venture capitalists here in Silicon Valley, they say that most successful start up companies are founded by people that were C+ or B- students in college.

Basing education policy on intelligence test scores, when we really don’t understand what they measure, would be foolish.

[Half Sigma]

It has been well documented by decades of research that there's a "general factor of intelligence" that corresponds to the standard dictionary definition of intelligence, which is the ability to learn and reason.

And if we go by that definition, then it's obvious that the ability to motivate people is different from the ability to learn and reason. On the other hand, intelligence is the most important skill needed for doing well in school, because school is about learning and reasoning.

As far as political leaders go, the only really dumb president we ever had was Harry S Truman.

[William]

Speaking of reasoning, its interesting that you labeled you call IQ genetic when the article offers no firm evidence of such. It seems you missed two key parts of the article. First,

"The pattern of development may also be affected by factors like diet, hours spent in school or the number of siblings, and these may come to light by asking parents how they raised their children."

And second,

"Dr. Thompson said experience could also change the brain."

These clearly suggest that education could form IQ, not the other way around.

But then it goes even further, when the article clearly states that,

"The analysis reported today was not intended to look at the relationship between genes and intelligence."

Now until you start correctly analyzing articles, I'm not even going to buy the "general factor of intelligence" theory although it sounds reasonable.

So, from the article, we can conclude that the jury is still out on whether intelligence is genetic or based on experience (twins generally have similar experiences, ie families, schools, etc).

But that wasn't my point. My point, and I believe Mikeca's as well, is that there's alot more to success than intelligence. Work ethic, social skills, courage, reasoning, these are usually as, if not more, important than intelligence in the determination of one's fate.

This is common logic. As I previously mentioned, (and you previously ignored) colleges don't make their selection based on tests which measure aptitude and intelligence. That's a factor, but so too are grades (more often determined by work ethic than intelligence), extra-curriculars, and your character in general (measured by recs, interviews, and your essay). The same goes for jobs and success in the workplace. No successful company hires employees of any import based soley on their perceived intelligence.

So, regardless of whether or not intelligence is genetic, if nobody (except you) judges adults based soley on their intelligence, why should our schools judge our pre-schoolers based soley on their intelligence?

[Half Sigma]

Regarding companies hiring employees, read my post Do companies really want to hire the best employees?

And regarding selection criteria for getting into college, read Advice for getting into an elite college: be a leader.

Children need to be placed in a class where they are taught at a level that challenges them. Children vary too much in intelligence for the same level of instruction to be appropriate for all children of a given age group.

[Burlap Sack]

Half is just sore he scored high on an IQ test but couldn't get in a good law school. :)

[Half Sigma]

I could have gotten into a much better law school, I'm "sore" that I didn't realize that the "free" tuition at the Arizona State University College of Law came with a huge price--the price of having a worthless JD.

People who read my essay Law school, the big lie don't have to make my mistake.

[William]

Now there's a point I believe we can agree on. Yes, children need to be challenged, and no, the same instruction cannot apply to the same age group, but this is easily remedied. Simply give smarter children the opportunity to get into advanced math, english, language, social studies, etc. tracks. The AP's are an excellent example, where many schools will have a normal history and an AP history for their more intelligent history students.

Yet whether or not they get into these advanced tracks is dictated by their performance in one specific area, not a broad, all encompassing, IQ test. And these tracks do not form seperate schools, rather just varying levels in the same school. Usually a smart student has one or two great interests, thus will be in one or two advanced tracks, not all of them.

It is important that they still go to school with people that have different specialties, or people with non-academic ones, for characterization purposes.

It is more important that they are still attached to a class of the same age-group, again, for obvious characterization and maturation developments that happen to kids in the process of education.