[rosejn]

This sounds like a humanist reaction to the increasing amounts of research and evidence that intelligence does in fact have a large genetic component. Nobody says environment and hard work aren't vital factors for success, but it's already understood that intelligence doesn't equal success anyways. Still, that doesn't mean intelligence isn't by and large an innate quality. Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate goes into this in detail, but his point was virtually the opposite of this author. He was instead making the case that much more about a person than most people expect is a direct result of their genotype, and that it's best if we face up to reality and talk about these things in the open rather than pretending that everyone is equal. As for success, it seems there is wide agreement that insane amounts of practice and perseverance are are sure fire recipe. I wonder how much the ability to persevere in the face of difficulty is affected by a persons genes?

[jsomers]

I wonder how much the ability to persevere in the face of difficulty is affected by a person's genes?

Exactly. The authors of that famous paper, "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance," said something along these same lines in their conclusion: that we should begin "viewing expert performers not simply as domain-specific experts but as experts in maintaining high levels of practice and improving performance."

[jeromec]

I agree. One thing that came to mind is that if we take a pure scientific view then humans are 99% like apes, and apes are reasonably intelligent and can learn. Are we to believe we can extrapolate and say that environment has more to do with the intelligence averages of apes than genes, and further, that they too can potentially be geniuses?

[tokenadult]

It's a more scientific view of the human genome to focus on the genetic differences that are "fixed" in distinction between the genomes of Pan troglodytes (or Pan paniscus) and Homo sapiens. There is something profoundly different about the intelligence of any human being as contrasted with the intelligence of any chimpanzee (or gorilla, or more distantly related animal).

[tokenadult]

I have Pinker's book at hand as I type this. Pinker's detailed chapter on that issue is based on an article by Turkheimer, the author whose more recent paper I already cited to this thread as the first reply here. Pinker by no means has done anything at all to show that intelligence is "by and large an innate quality." The new and emerging rethinking of the interaction between genome and environment, which Turkheimer is doing a lot to pioneer, is driven by the data, not so much by any reaction from people in other disciplines.

[lucifer]

"I wonder how much the ability to persevere in the face of difficulty is affected by a persons genes?"

That's character, and based on lingual evidence alone (which I'll take to be a summation of collective knowledge) "the development of character" is very much an individual endeavor.

[itistoday]

Well, it's not like this author isn't providing evidence to back up his argument. I haven't read The Blank Slate (though I've heard of it, and like to hear Steven Pinker speak), nor have I read The Genius in All of Us, but now they are both on my Amazon Wish List. :-)

Soon... I have finally have the answer to this age-old debate, and I suspect the nuances in it will be enough to fill a book on its own.