Gobuchul ..understood ( but.. Beardsley brilliant but not in the same class ..and I’ve more reason to agree with you if it were true)
Gascoigne never played for Wallsend Boys Club 😉

I doubt the bushman would be much help at telling you which knife to use at a formal dinner, or even how to survive in Greenland though and the advice they’d give you about the Kalahari has very little to do with intelligence.

Correct decision-making in matters of life and death strike me as a better definition of intelligence than memorising etiquette.

Gascoigne never played for Wallsend Boys Club

Well, that’s a surprise, I always thought he did!

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb8F8CJmGsg[/video] 😀

Correct decision-making in matters of life and death strike me as a better definition of intelligence than memorising etiquette.

Both are useful in a particular time and place.
At the court of a King where everyone is a backstabbing arse then not knowing which spoon to use would limit your career and hence life prospects.
To claim that being able to recognise and prepare say 100+ plants isnt more complicated than learning formal etiquette is an interesting one though. Especially as the tribe would likely have equally complex etiquette for their gatherings.

and both driven by your genes…

and both driven by your genes..

Both driven by a mixture of factors.
Which is the entire problem when people get overly excited about one measure or another of intelligence.
Yes genes play a part but that can easily be masked by environmental factors.
The easiest example for IQ is the average yank in 1900 measured using todays IQ tests would end up as mentally impaired. Do you really think that is true?

Yes genes play a part but that can easily be masked by environmental factors.

Sort of, Genes are by far and away the largest part. Genes mark out intelligence: End of discussion. A person with the right gene mix (what that is at this point isn’t clear) WILL have greater intelligence in a given mix of people. It is a measurable variable.

Envirnomental factors may give that person less life chances, perhaps worse health outcomes, worse socio-economic outcomes…but NO impact on how intelligent they are.

Driven by your jeans?

those are the wrong jeans…

jus’ sayin

Very wrong jeans.

Genes are by far and away the largest part. Genes mark out intelligence: End of discussion. A person with the right gene mix (what that is at this point isn’t clear) WILL have greater intelligence in a given mix of people.

See, I partly agree with this, but I’m still a “everyone’s a different snowflake” theory kinda guy. Siblings can have markedly different intelligence levels. I know this from my own family.

Siblings can have markedly different intelligence levels

To be expected, you’re only sharing 50% of your genes after all…twins on the other hand (even those raised as adopted) show almost identical outcomes.

Gobuchul ..Im shocked to my core 😯 ..how had I never twigged this before ..Lionel Messi is Peter Beardsley’s love child …
The daddy of them all though in terms of the most intelligent, skilfully blessed footballer that this pair of eyes has ever seen ..Tony Green .
I promise that to be my last football reference ( before it turns into a debate 8) )

iblings can have markedly different intelligence levels. I know this from my own family.

And that’s the point Robert Plomin was making; the variance in outcome between identical twins and non identical twins in the same environment (school, house, parents etc) is what shows us the degree to which intelligence is genetic.

There is far less variance in outcome for the latter than the former.

but NO impact on how intelligent they are.

Wrong. End of discussion.
Firstly you have the difficulty of “what is intelligence”. That is highly influenced by the environment. Again IQ is the perfect example of this. Were USA citizens in 1900 borderline mentally impaired? Since they are by todays tests.

Secondly there is plenty of evidence showing that nutrition in the early years will influence cognitive development as well other factors. Its one of the reasons lead is now heavily restricted.

Genes play a big part but how that balances against environment still isnt clear.

Why are you so fixated by it Greg? What does it matter to you?

So are people here arguing that there is no such thing as ‘intelligence’, or at least not a unified concept of such, or that there is no means by which we can ever measure intelligence?

Both suggestions would seem fanciful to me since the differences between high and low intelligence are pretty obvious.

I appreciate that there is a lot of debate around both predictive and face validity of intelligence tests but that doesn’t mean that this value is zero or even close to zero. There’s a very strong correlation between the results of these tests and a whole range of other outcomes that one would expect to be both correlated and causally correlated.

For example, would anyone seriously suggest there isn’t a causal correlation between high IQ and being a rocket scientist?

Wrong. End of discussion.

Plomin disagrees with you, you’d better take it up with him 😆

Not sure about USA citizens in the 1900’s being borderline mentally impaired ..but their current leader hits the mark ! 😆

Why are you so fixated by it Greg? What does it matter to you?

I’m not ‘fixated’ I’m very interested. Fixation suggests a pejorative interest and that’s just not the case.

Why am I interested? I’ve always been interested in these questions, I guess for two reasons.

First, because I have an uncle who is a world expert on personality profiling so I’ve been exposed to the subject from a young age. Second because of what happened to me as a child (I spent a number of years with a child psychologist who helped with my experience of abuse at school). Again, I guess exposure to a subject at a young age stimulated the interest.

What are you interested in Three_Fish?

For example, would anyone seriously suggest there isn’t a causal correlation between high IQ and being a rocket scientist?

Never mind rocket science!!! Have you read Davidtayforths “Theory of Small Change”?

That lads IQ must be truly immense!!!

Have you read Davidtayforths “Theory of Small Change”?

Waiting for the movie to come out, aren’t I?

Plomin disagrees with you

They dont.
Its just either that podcast oversimplified things or you didnt understand it.
Looking at a few articles from them they seem to go with the 50/50 split for genes and environment.

Genes play a big part but how that balances against environment still isnt clear.

Well yes, they do play a big part. Specifically they account for 60% of the variance. Other multiple factors account for the rest.

You’re not disagreeing with Plomin and the hypothesis that intelligence has a very strong hereditary component there. You are indeed agreeing with it.

You are indeed agreeing with it.

Where did I say otherwise?
I was arguing against the overly simplistic positions being put forward.
Just to take IQ. Do you think US citizens in 1900 were borderline mentally impaired?

See above ..

IQ and general knowledge are all wrapped up in that.

Exactly. Why isn’t DezB doing a TED talk. Or telling Stephen Hawking what to do in the Kalahari.

or you didnt understand it.

Oh look, we’ve got one.

To claim that being able to recognise and prepare say 100+ plants isnt more complicated than learning formal etiquette is an interesting one though

Do you think so? I think that being able to stay alive in a hostile environment takes a bit more up top than memorising which knife to use.

Where did I say otherwise?

I’m not sure you did to be honest.

I was arguing against the overly simplistic positions being put forward.

Yes, I see that, I think that’s what you were saying ‘wrong, end of discussion’ about.

Just to take IQ. Do you think US citizens in 1900 were borderline mentally impaired?

That’s an interesting point though I confess I know nothing about the data you’re referring to. I am guessing you mean that IQ tests taken in 1900 showed the general US population to score at a level that today would place them as mentally impaired. Is that correct?

If we assume for a moment that this data does exist and does indeed show this feature then from a data sufficiency perspective the questions this raises are how accurate were the results in 1900?

You can’t assume that the tests done now are only as accurate as the tests done then. Given that the whole field of psychology (of which intelligence is a facet) was only developed around that time it’s possible that IQ tests in 1900 were far less accurate than they are today (in tems of both face and predictive validity).

But, if you were to establish that there have been no new developments in the accuracy of IQ tests since 1900 and you had data that showed a huge difference between the results on a broad but like for like basis between 1900 and now, that would raise some interesting questions.

I don’t think you need such a convoluted approach though to testing the validity of IQ tests. There are much simpler ways of doing it.

An interesting documentary on the nature v nurture argument…

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maRanuCqY64[/video]

Definitely seems to have an impact on your ability to dance

angeldust – Member
I can ride a bike with no handlebars

I bet you can’t!

Just to take IQ. Do you think US citizens in 1900 were borderline mentally impaired?

In 2017 they definitely appear to be…..

that would raise some interesting questions.

Look up the Flynn effect.
Surprised you havent come across it before if you are interested in the subject.

Binners ..stop copying ..use your own intelligence to come up with something original 😆

if you really want to look into this in depth then I’d recommend this:

puts IQ in the context of the history of various measures used to examine man.

use your own intelligence to come up with something original

I was quite proud of ignoring the temptation to include something similar whenever I use the 1900 bit.

genetics lays the foundations for intelligence but you have to have a nurturing environment to make the most of it.

The mumsnet version of this thread was arguably less combative/personal?

Am wondering is this because they customarily forego special funnels that would be required in order to reach the same heights of debate? 😉

Look up the Flynn effect.
Surprised you havent come across it before if you are interested in the subject.

I haven’t read about it before (or heard about it) so I really appreciate you referencing it as it’s fascinating. Thank you, I will indeed read about it.

The op asked about

Intelligence and personality

It’s interesting that the response’s on the thread are overwhelmingly concerned with “intelligence”
I am aware that personality is a much more fluid concept and probably doesn’t easily provide measurements and statistics for discussion. However it really important in interpersonal skills and therefore in almost every part of life.