One of the calling signs of the inheritability of intelligence is that fossil records demonstrate our ancestors systematically acquiring larger and larger brain mass over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. This can only be the result of evolution favoring those with bigger brains, or pre-historic chicks diggin’ da humpin’ those with bigger brains. Either way, the steady, aggrandizement of brain mass is indicative that Homo Sapien’s basic wiring has undergone radical alterations in design what is, in evolutionary terms, a heartbeat.
The main problem with the debate of environment vs. genetics, as I see it, is that there isn’t yet a sufficient understanding of the mechanics of intelligence to provide the framework for a meaningful opinion. It’s like monkeys debating the merits of hardware vs. software on the Space Shuttle – any correct opinions are probably as much the result of random chance as they are brilliant deductions.
I’m not yet convinced that we’ve developed a firm model of the mechanics of heritability. It’s assumed (without much in the way of proof) that identical twins must have been subjected to identical genetic influences. But if our DNA constructs us in a similar fashion to the way the Soviet Union constructed MIG fighters (ie, only to a certain technical specification except on drunken Tuesdays), then it’s pretty much a slam-dunk that no two people in history have ever been subjected to exactly the same genetic construction. Just as one twin often is better looking than another, it might be the case that a some of the difference in intelligence was randomly assigned by genetics within the construction tolerances of this or that neurological substrate.
With regards to environment I’m even less impressed - many of the measurable differences between identical twins occur, upon analysis, for no apparent reason whatever. What appears to be an environmental influence can actually be one of a number of things:
1) A genetic influence exerted by non-inherited DNA. For instance, perhaps a slight degradation of eventual intelligence in one twin was on account of the unknown and unanticipated impact of a viral DNA.
2) A feedback system whereby certain genetic traits are being triggered by certain environmental triggers. (ie, what appears to be purely environmental is actually a complex interaction between inheritance and environment, such that any two sets of twins might react, but differently, to the same environmental stimulus).
The main problem with the debate of environment vs. genetics, as I see it, is that there isn’t yet a sufficient understanding of the mechanics of intelligence to provide the framework for a meaningful opinion. It’s like monkeys debating the merits of hardware vs. software on the Space Shuttle – any correct opinions are probably as much the result of random chance as they are brilliant deductions.
I’m not yet convinced that we’ve developed a firm model of the mechanics of heritability. It’s assumed (without much in the way of proof) that identical twins must have been subjected to identical genetic influences. But if our DNA constructs us in a similar fashion to the way the Soviet Union constructed MIG fighters (ie, only to a certain technical specification except on drunken Tuesdays), then it’s pretty much a slam-dunk that no two people in history have ever been subjected to exactly the same genetic construction. Just as one twin often is better looking than another, it might be the case that a some of the difference in intelligence was randomly assigned by genetics within the construction tolerances of this or that neurological substrate.
With regards to environment I’m even less impressed - many of the measurable differences between identical twins occur, upon analysis, for no apparent reason whatever. What appears to be an environmental influence can actually be one of a number of things:
1) A genetic influence exerted by non-inherited DNA. For instance, perhaps a slight degradation of eventual intelligence in one twin was on account of the unknown and unanticipated impact of a viral DNA.
2) A feedback system whereby certain genetic traits are being triggered by certain environmental triggers. (ie, what appears to be purely environmental is actually a complex interaction between inheritance and environment, such that any two sets of twins might react, but differently, to the same environmental stimulus).