Identical twins raised apart match IQ scores
Study of babies separated during adoption under China’s one-child policy has revealed nature may play greatest role in intelligence
And of course it will make no damn difference at all to the blank slate idiots.
Reproducing other studies in the west that have found the same thing.
There’s also a thing about kids interests being more “nature” than “nurture”. You might be a bunch of nerds, but if you adopt the child of musicians at birth, they’re more likely to be into music than math. There’s a story about an accidental IVF swap and the family were more into literature, the son into sports. When they discovered the mix up, the genetic father is into sports.
This isn’t very persuasive since there is every likelihood that the seperated twins will have grown up in near identical environments in a highly conformist society.
Do IQ scores correlate with intelligence? I see little sign of it.
Haven’t we all known this since we were at school? You don’t need a scientific study to know that intelligence varies and that there is a hereditary factor involved, you just need to be paying attention.
In other news, scientists have tracked down litters of dalmatian puppies and found that they are all spotty.
TMB,
Do you dispute the effects of genes on Mo Farah? No-one disputes the effects of genes on bodies, whether it’s Somalis being good at long-distance running, or Polynesians being good at storing food. The daughters of the prettiest actresses tend to also be pretty. Why should the genetics that affect the brain be any different to the genetics that affect the symmetry of the face or ability to run a long distance?
I have fraternal twins. Both boys. They have been brought up the same way, at the same time. If tabula rasa was a thing then they ought to have the same interests, capabilities and behaviour patterns. They don’t. By a country mile. Even to the point that they hit (IIRC) walking and first-word milestones opposite ways round.
What nature has not provided cannot be nurtured.
This is why after 50 years of Comprehensive Schools for ‘equality’, all those rocket scientists, brain surgeons, engineers, professors from poor, underprivileged, disadvantaged homes haven’t materialised and why the 50% who go to Uni graduate to be shelf-stackers and serve hamburgers.
Its two decades since Stanley Pinker assembled the evidence against it in his book “The Blank Slate” which should have buried the notion for those who would like their world view to be empirical rather than ideological. The chapter on lying and cognitive dissonance apply in this case.
Western Bloke – I’m not sure what opinion you’re imputing to me there or even why. My point was that the nature versus nurture experiment would be more telling if there were a greater divergence in the nurture of separated twins.
Imagine a sterling fellow like you adopts a child without knowing that it was one of a monozygotic pair of twins while the other one was adopted by Capt. Potato. If, at twenty years old they are broadly similar in being able to make a logical argument and not obsessed by taxing the world into oblivion, I’d say this was an important revelation.
TMB,
I don’t know any data on that. But having read about Steve Jobs’ biological father, he sounds more like Jobs than his Dad – successful businessman, workaholic.
Do IQ scores correlate with intelligence? I see little sign of it.
Arguably the leading definition of “intelligence” is “that which IQ scores measure”. On that basis there’s a pretty strong correlation.
TMB if you are going to argue that all Chinese have similar family lives, because the state is “monolithic”, then ALL Chinese should score the same.
In reality, of course, the CCP has minimal effect on family life. The more intrusive the state the more families shield themselves from it, to have somewhere safe.
When I do parent-teacher interviews the phrase that I have to struggle to not say is “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”.
I also have fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. They’re very different from each other personality wise. They’re both studying engineering, but distinctly different types, as that’s where their specific interests lie. They got nearly identical scores all through school, right up and including their leaving exams (they went to different schools and now different universities). You could say that’s a point in favour of the “nature” argument.
“ Arguably the leading definition of “intelligence” is “that which IQ scores measure”. On that basis there’s a pretty strong correlation.”
Up to a certain point, but there’s also an element of just being able to pass IQ tests.
A lot of years ago I had access to the Mensa magazine and it was quite enlightening. They had one of those sections where members wrote in to ask questions, this was pre internet.
One question left me astounded: “I read that the Chinese had compasses that pointed south, how did they make them?” This was a serious question.
I also went to a number of lunches and found the members to be credulous. On one occasion they were giving card and teal leaf readings, at another, a guy with physics and maths PhDs claimed he drank a solution with silver finings in it because it was good for the stomach. I could go on….
Does not IQ measure the ability to manipulate information (of a known and accepted quality), rather than the ability to assess the quality of information ‘in the wild’? The latter being more related to skills of interacting with the real world, both the physicality of it (ie practical skills), and dealing with people? A highly intellectual person may fall for the stupidest scams, because their ability to manipulate information is not tempered by their ability to understand how the world and people tick.
It therefore follows that the highly intellectual should never be allowed to be in positions of power (where decision making skills are of great importance) because they only have half the skill set required. Having 2X or 3X intellect and 0.1Y real world skills is far worse than X intellect and Y real world skills. Ideally you’d like those in charge to be 2X and 2Y but those are very thin on the ground. Above average intellect with average real world skills is probably the sweet spot that has enough people in it to populate the decision making posts a society needs.