The Nature/Nurture debate of intelligence

[Creole]

Please help me settle an argument with my colleague.

She seems to believe that one is born with intelligence i.e. it is innate and ?if you haven?t got it, you haven?t got it?. I disagree, I believe that everybody is born with some from of intelligence in them and it all depends on the nurturing for it to grow. However, some (a small percentage) do not need the nurturing, they excel in whatever circumstances.

What do you all think?

Definitely and decidedly daft hunkermunker.

I'm off to bed now - clearly demonstrating my superior intellect in the process

Did you say pregnant? Congratulations! Have you just recently found out? (or am I just not up to speed...)

Did read an article in the Times a few weeks ago about how the things we think affect intelligence (reading to our children, limiting TV, etc) are far less important than we think. I did look for the article online, but couldn't find it to link to.

Very interesting though - it said that if a child comes from a house which has plenty of books, it doesn't matter whether they're read to him or not. What matters is coming from a family which values books enough to purchase them (and, possibly controversially, being able to afford to buy them). Ditto TV watching - doesn't really matter, apparently. What does affect intelligence (according to this article) is mother's level of education, economic status (if you move into an area with good schools, etc, your child still won't do as well as the children who were born there).

Some controversial stuff - wish I could find the article now! I hope I've remembered it right too...!!

I did, HMC! I'm 15 weeks now

Well done you! Hope that you aren't feeling too queasy. Anyway, off to bed now.

Somebody (cod I think) linked to it on here, hunker - it was funny because she listed all the factors, mentioned without specifying which were supposed to be positive (like the books) and which negative (like low birthweight), and everybody got very confused.

I will try to find it. It was v interesting.

found it!

(There is a link to the piece on the thread )

I read an article which indicated that intelligence is linked to the X chromosome, which means that boys only get their intelligence from their mother, whereas girls get some from each parent. That b&ggers up my boys then .

I wouldn't have thought that something as complex as intellegence could be determined by a single gene.

Probably goes along with statistics, statistics and damned lies, as in articles, articles and complete rubbish.....

This is a very interesting thread. My dss seem above average intelligence to me, and I don't want to blow my own trumpet but I was also advanced at school, read early passed exams comfortably, in some subjects got very good results but by the time I took my degree it was more a case of "99%perspiration, 1% inspiration".

I went to schools with average level kids. If I had gone to a grammar or private school I may not have been in the top level. But although my mother drummed into us the importance of education and study, I think for me it was more a case of self-motivation.

Having said that, while I was good at "book-learning", in the work-place I was less comfortable as a lot of other skills were required.

Hunkermunker - on that article about children doing well if the house has lots of books - I have been wondering how that relates to clutter clearing (have been on a clutter-clearing thread today). so, if you have loads of books (like us) but clear them out to Oxfam, will the children be then less intelligent?

is it the having and keeping of books or the having had and read aspect of the environment?

how come I am so brainy and both my kids are not? Dd1 can barely count to 30 and dd2 is a force of nature (but only 3 so...)

its all the fault of strawberry yoghurt

lol Fennel - pre book clearing exercise there will be bright, but post book clearing to Oxfam they will be temporarily dim.

But will score very highly on emotional intellegence due to all that empathy and caring!

I feel that everyone has the potential to achieve intelligence, but some have to work much harder than others (does that make sense?). I am one of those who was born with the intelligence, and things came easily to me, but my sister got similar results to me, but had to work very hard for them.

I think its like things like spacial awareness and artistic talent - you can learn them, but to some it is natural.

I agree that hard work will get you so far, but I do feel that there is a natral upper limit to what we can acchieve. This is not to say that you don't do your damndest to get kids to do as well as they possibly can, but in reality you are never going to get a child to get a Grade A at A level unless they have some natural aptitude for the subject

Yup - definately a cut off point

hmb - Just going to say the same thing, I usually agree with you on education.

Eu-genius

Are you trying to tell us something with your name?