[cmiles74]

I understand your point, and I think I understand that of the original parent comment. I don't have much to add, except that believing intelligence is not heritable strikes me as a well thought-out and, in my opinion, largely constructive decision. Up until this very moment, I have always been interested in the reality of this idea; that is, what is true and what is false. Just now it has occurred to me that there is also a political component to this idea, as well as very real moral issue.

After reading through the comments and trying to suss out the logical conclusions of the idea "intelligence is heritable", I have decided to make the same decision.

From here on out, my position is that intelligence is not heritable. This is what I will tell my children and grandchildren. When they ask why, I will tell them that I simply believe it to be true. That it "feels right" to me and the alternative feels truly wrong.

In terms of the science and what is actually happening in the physical world, what measurements and testing actually prove: I am not interested and will not take part in the discussion as I find the idea that intelligence is heritable to be morally wrong. Maybe there is some giant leap humanity could make, and maybe millions of lives could be saved, but I don't care; I think the idea is abhorrent enough that I personally do not want to take the risk.

I'm not trying to preach, but point out that there's more to it than the science and what is objectively real.

[hodwik2]

I would argue that it is dangerous to hold an idea just because it 'feels' right.

I'm on the not heritable side because I think that's what the science will show, given my understanding of how complex systems work.

It would be immoral not to understand intelligence heritability if it were true -- how could you help those who were disadvantaged if you were not aware of it?

[cmiles74]

You make a good point. If we were to understand how intelligence works and if it were to be heritable, it may be possible to ensure that everyone had some baseline of intelligence. That may be beneficial.

Maybe I've lived in the United States for too long, but it seems inevitable to me that we'll end up with a tiered system. Perhaps there will be some baseline intelligence level everyone is entitled to, but the very wealthy will surely be able to pay for even more intelligence. Likewise, if intelligence was this well understood, a measure would be applied to everyone. Perhaps it would be like your credit rating and this could easily be used to discriminate in a wide variety of ways.

IMHO, some people like to box others off and say: these are lesser than me. Should science support this opinion, this will only encourage the behavior. To me, this is the basis of the argument we're seeing on this post. Some see intelligence as heritable and, inevitably, somehow favoring one or more ethnic backgrounds.

In terms of the "just feels right", I think that the science on this issue is less than clear. Some things point towards heritability, others do not. The idea that some ethnic backgrounds may engender more intelligence than others is to me an idea so poisonous that I simply reject it on moral grounds.