To learn about the genetic and environmental basis of intelligence study children who have significantly higher IQs than either of their biological parents.
Yeah. If all you want is mutations which decrease IQ, well, studies of the profoundly retarded have turned up dozens, perhaps hundreds or thousands by now, confirming what everyone guessed in the first place (that the retarded had genetic problems which broke all sorts of biological systems, which intelligence is downstream of). But these findings have yet to lead to any breakthroughs in understanding the biology of intelligence that I’ve heard of.
To learn about the genetic and environmental basis of intelligence study children who have significantly higher IQs than either of their biological parents.
First step in the study: paternity tests for the potential subjects.
Child IQ scores tend to regress toward the mean as they get older.
Adult IQ scores do too, I think.
Perhaps this means students shouldn’t be excluded from advanced classes on the basis of IQ, but rather on the basis of being less willing to try.
Why do you think this would be better than also studying children with lower IQs than their parents? I’m curious to know your reasoning.
There are a lot more ways something can be messed up than improved.
Yeah. If all you want is mutations which decrease IQ, well, studies of the profoundly retarded have turned up dozens, perhaps hundreds or thousands by now, confirming what everyone guessed in the first place (that the retarded had genetic problems which broke all sorts of biological systems, which intelligence is downstream of). But these findings have yet to lead to any breakthroughs in understanding the biology of intelligence that I’ve heard of.
(This reminds me a little of the paper “Can a Biologist Fix a Radio? — or, What I Learned while Studying Apoptosis”.)