Check out this article I found about the nature vs nurture debate.
http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/dickens/200104.htm
The article breaks down nature vs. nurture over the IQ paradox. Basically descibes that large intergeneration changes in IQ have been noted that cannot possibly be due to heritability.
Pretty interesting. Let me know what you think?
1 comment:
It's an interesting theory, and I'm one that's probably right to a significant extent. Still, I think the authors are glossing over a few important issues.
1. Environments come in many different varieties, even in countries less heterogeneous than the USA, and I'm skeptical that all environments reward all standout talents equally, or perhaps at all. The same environments that reward 4.3 speed in the 40-yard dash do not reward, say, math theory creativity the same way.
Just yesterday, I was told by some professors who teach at a university that shall remain nameless that many of their students took business as a major because it was the only way their parents would pay for college. I don't want to get into ethnic correlations because they're not the key point--the key point is that these environmental subsets are rewarding one kind of (dubious) talent and penalizing others, i.e. every discipline that isn't directly involved with making $$$. (That semiconductor engineers and petroleum geologists make more out of college than the average business major ironically shows how even "well-intentioned" environments can fail even by their own narrow standards.)
2. I'm not sure that creativity and originality became much more valued with the industrial revolution, or even after WWII. For example, in late 19th century Germany, Bismarck devised a two-tier system: creativity for the elite and mindless obedience with narrow technical skill for the masses. And I don't think the 1950s in the US were a time of universal intellectual freedom either.
3. I didn't parse the article carefully, but I thought the authors were making the argument that there was a more or less proportional and linear relationship between amount of 'excess aptitude' and environmental nurturing. My personal observation would lead me to generally disagree.
I would propose a more quantum model of environmental recognition. For example, being 10% better than the average could get 0% extra environmental encouragement--but 20% could get 25% extra encouragement, because 15% is where the environment sits up and takes notice for one reason or another. I also suspect that thresholds vary by aptitude and specific environment.
OK, enough for one comment. On to the final...
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