Is IQ inherited?
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Anonymous
| Went to a party last night for PS grads. All going to Ivies, all parents and grandparents went to Ivies. Just coincidence? |
Anonymous
This is correct. |
Anonymous
I feel the same way about my 4 year old. I was advanced at 4 too (yay to read that it is inherited from me!), but he is years ahead of where was in reading and math. It IS stressful and worrying to be honest. On the one hand I'm proud of him, on the other it causes me a lot of anxiety about what the future will bring. |
Anonymous
Not exactly. What regression or reversion to the mean means: The concept of regression comes from genetics and was popularized by Sir Francis Galton during the late 19th century with the publication of Regression towards mediocrity in hereditary stature.[7] Galton observed that extreme characteristics (e.g., height) in parents are not passed on completely to their offspring. Rather, the characteristics in the offspring regress towards a mediocre point (a point which has since been identified as the mean). By measuring the heights of hundreds of people, he was able to quantify regression to the mean, and estimate the size of the effect. Galton wrote that, “the average regression of the offspring is a constant fraction of their respective mid-parental deviations”. This means that the difference between a child and its parents for some characteristic is proportional to its parents' deviation from typical people in the population. If its parents are each two inches taller than the averages for men and women, on average, it will be shorter than its parents by some factor (which, today, we would call one minus the regression coefficient) times two inches. For height, Galton estimated this coefficient to be about 2/3: the height of an individual will measure around a midpoint that is two thirds of the parents’ deviation from the population average. Galton coined the term regression to describe an observable fact in the inheritance of multi-factorial quantitative genetic traits: namely that the offspring of parents who lie at the tails of the distribution will tend to lie closer to the centre, the mean, of the distribution. He quantified this trend, and in doing so invented linear regression analysis, thus laying the groundwork for much of modern statistical modelling. Since then, the term "regression" has taken on a variety of meanings, and it may be used by modern statisticians to describe phenomena of sampling bias which have little to do with Galton's original observations in the field of genetics. Galton's explanation for the regression phenomenon he observed is now known to be incorrect. He stated: “A child inherits partly from his parents, partly from his ancestors. Speaking generally, the further his genealogy goes back, the more numerous and varied will his ancestry become, until they cease to differ from any equally numerous sample taken at haphazard from the race at large.”[7] This is incorrect, since a child receives its genetic makeup exclusively from its parents. There is no generation-skipping in genetic material: any genetic material from earlier ancestors than the parents must have passed through the parents. The phenomenon is better understood if we assume that the inherited trait (e.g., height) is controlled by a large number of recessive genes. Exceptionally tall individuals must be homozygous for increased height mutations on a large proportion of these loci. But the loci which carry these mutations are not necessarily shared between two tall individuals, and if these individuals mate, their offspring will be on average homozygous for "tall" mutations on fewer loci than either of their parents. In addition, height is not entirely genetically determined, but also subject to environmental influences during development, which make offspring of exceptional parents even more likely to be closer to the average than their parents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean |
Anonymous
They tend to get very similar grades. My husband is an identical twin and he and his brother always had very similar or identical grades as much as they tried to distinguish themselves from each other. They are also both very smart. And we have exceptionally smart kids. |
Anonymous
No, not a coincidence. Rather, the result of affirmative action for legacies. |
Anonymous
This really makes me uncomfortable. Both my husband and I have done well educationally and our oldest is so far showing signs of being extremely gifted (I am uncomfortable using that word, but don't know how else to describe a 4 year old who is reading books that are at a 4th or 5th grade level), but we had NO - that is ZERO expectations of him, or his brother (who so far is following the same trajectory as our oldest). |
Anonymous
Interesting. I had no idea of this. My son is exactly the same way and we've been wondering how to address it. I think it's because everything comes so easily for him that if he can't do something correct immediately (and fast) he gets really upset, shuts down and won't try. Any tips on how to address it? One thing that I've been trying to move away from is people (his teachers, in particular) telling him he's "smart". I think he gets upset because he has taken this to heart and thinks that means he should be able to do things perfectly and gets annoyed when he can't. We praise him for achievements rather than innate intelligence. |
Anonymous
The average IQ of African Americans is 85, Whites 100, Asians 106. Are you suggesting that black people are stupider rather the effects of lower socioeconomic levels and the legacy of slavery are reflected in the scores. |
Anonymous
| Could this thread be any more obnoxious? |
Anonymous
While I'm sure that there are "laid back" gifted people, there seems to be a lot of smart kids who don't respond well to life's little stresses. I would move a step further and praise your son for effort rather than accomplishment (real effort, not showing up and half-a**ing it). A lot of smart people are perfectionists and are anxious about failure- many hear the word "smart" and incorporate it into their identity. Imagine their insecurity when they struggle with academic problems- thinking, why aren't they "getting it" if they're so smart? I went through this in high school and it caused me to choose easier classes and areas where I knew I wouldn't "fail." Long term, I think it might help if teach your son the learning trajectory - we may make a lot of mistakes as we're introduced to new material- gradually with some struggle and practice, we make fewer mistakes- mastery is achieved when mistakes are rare. Another thing, I don't wait for things to get "hard" at school- if the school doesn't provide the challenge I supplement within reason at home-- not because I'm a Tiger Mom, but because I realize that the kids who are learning about struggle now, may end up "tougher" than my son- willing to put in the time and effort because they have spent their earlier years building a strong character and good habits. |
Anonymous
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Yes. But like most complex phenomena, not 100% inherited, and also like most complex phenomena, you can't tell for any individual person the extent to which the result of their ability to retain information (in general, or specific instances of retention) is genetic, environment, or an interaction of the two.
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Anonymous
| Of all the smart people that I know -- and I am surrounded by them, I have yet to meet a single one whose does not have a very smart kid. Not one. Except for the adopted ones. |
Anonymous
My husband and I are pretty smart (phd. tech industry). My 4 year old son is not precocious in any way. Doesn't even know his letters yet despite A LOT of exposure. So now you've met one. |
Anonymous
He's too busy planning how to take over the world to learn his stupid letters... which will become obsolete, anyway, when he becomes Master Emperor of Earth. 
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