It’s one of the more bizarre beliefs of the modern left that genes don’t play any part in intelligence. That we’re born as a tabula rasa, it being society and solely society that imprints upon us. It is this underlying belief that drives the insistence upon equality of outcome. If it’s only the structure of reality which makes for differences in people then we can reorder society in order to eliminate those differences of outcome. It’s also this belief that is the purest colei*.
Take this latest finding, that the stability of marriage depends upon genetic factors:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] The secret to a happy marriage lies in the genes, scientists have discovered, as new research finds a predisposition not to be anxious is the key to marital stability. A study by Yale University which examined 178 married couples found a gene trait in common among those whose marriages were more secure. Researchers focused on the role of a genetic variation that affects oxytocin, a hormone that plays a role in social bonding, known as the GG genotype. The found that once factors such as physical attraction and shared values had been taken into account, the genotype explained what those who felt themselves secure in their marriages had in common. [/perfectpullquote]Not banging the au pair is genetically influenced at least if not determined. And yet we’re expected to believe that being able to count to 13 while shod is not?
This is before we even think about evolution itself – if intelligence isn’t genetically influenced then how the hell did it arise in the first place? Why is that intelligence level of the majority of human beings above that of the average collie dog and well above that of the average sphagnum moss or politician? What is it that keeps that intelligence level high enough to both breathe and walk at the same time across the generations?
Intelligence simply must be genetically determined given that this is how speciation works. And thus dies one of the major claims of that modern left. We’re not all the same. We’re all God’s Little Snowflakes, sure enough, but we’re not the same.
*Gibbon.
The ML also holds that strange belief that higher intelligence makes you a more “worthy” person in the snowflakey warm fuzzy social justice sense of the word.
If you concede the IQ/genetic link you then are on the way to a conclusion with regard to race that the left consider unpalatable. Whereas really it’s just a statistical likelihood that doesn’t really affect day-to-day situations at all. You are inevitably going to make a subjective judgment (or guess) about how smart people are who whom you have to deal with. But you make it on the basis of observation not the shape of their IQ distribution, the bell curve. (If you’ve got any sense).
As stated by Tim in his excellent points, there must be a genetic component to intelligence; otherwise how do humans have different (greater) intelligence than each other type of animal. I have stuff to add to that. (i) The genetic influence must have biophysical consequences, such as brain size and brain structure. Being biophysical, these effects are available for observation and evidence gathering. However, such effects are those that show as differences between individuals. These individual differences are different from any relational co-occurrences (correlations) between different genes, Such hypothesised relational co-occurrences requires extra evidence, which might or might not be… Read more »
The estimated proportion of IQ variance associated with genetic factors in children is 40-60 per cent and in adults is approximately 80 per cent. The estimated proportion of IQ variance associated with shared environmental factors is relatively constant at approximately 30 per cent for ages up to 20 years but then drops to 0 per cent in adulthood. The nonshared environmental variance is relatively constant and close to 20 per cent. The upshot of this is that education and other social factors have zero effect on adult intelligence.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/10131-003
Notice also that the “study” states that “once factors such as physical attractiveness and shared values have been taken into account” – this would seem to introduce quite a bit of subjectivity into this bit of Science. And 178 couples? Seriously?