I think that people are born with an innate intelligence that can be fostered to become greater with one's environment. Once again, though, the out of school factors must come into play. If a child does not acquire enough language in the the first few years of life, it is a fact that the child will have a difficult time in school. This would coincide with the belief that these neurons in the brain did not make the connections during this critical learning time and therefore would definitely affect one's intelligence. Herrnstein and Murray suggest though that a person is born with a certain amount of intelligence and nothing can change that. They believe that heredity play a major role in intelligence has little or nothing to do with the environment. I have to disagree with that. Although I agree that heredity must play some part in one's intelligence, environment must play a part too.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Intelligence debate
The intelligence debate has been around for a long time and does not seem to be going away any time soon although it seems to come and go as a 'hot' issue. As I see it, there are basically two camps in the intelligence issue: you are born with an innate amount of intelligence or your environment affects your intelligence. Many refer to this simply as nature versus nurture. A book called "The Bell Curve" by Herrnstein and Murray is probably the most controversial book written on the subject. Although it was written in 1994, it still is the cause of many hot debates on the topic because it questions how much the problems in modern society could be explained by intelligence. The word intelligence itself is a difficult word to define because it evokes so many connotations for people. Is it something that is mathematically measurable? Scientists and researchers have been debating this for years and hence the controversy. I read an article called "Intelligence: Heredity-Environment Debate Resolved?" (http://www.unisci.com/stories/20021/0117021.htm). These authors suggest that intelligence is created when connections in the brain are changed in response to environmental cues. They also say that these connections must be made in childhood because the capacity to respond to the environment stops at maturity. They reason that this is why young children are able to learn multiple languages whereas adults have a more difficult time learning a new language.
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Interesting study. We should consider that everyone has the ability to learn and experience in whatever physical or mental state they are in. There are people who are gifted with photographic abilities who come from different colors of people. You also have mentally and physically disabled people of all colors. Your environment and what you are exposed should have a profound effect on how you develop because if you are exposed to lots of different situations and given the opportunity to learn a flourish educationally then you will. If you aren't, then you wont.
ReplyDelete"The issue of the cause of intelligence has been one of the great controversies of modern psychology, with a fierce debate between two opposing camps," said Garlick. "Those who argue for environmental factors and those who argue for innate factors. The model described in the paper provides a resolution to the debate and shows that both sides have been seen, at least partially, correct. It also allows recent advances in the neuro and cognitive sciences to increase our understanding of human intelligence."
(Reference: "Understanding the Nature of the General Factor of Intelligence: The Role of Individual Differences in Neural Plasticity as an Explanatory Mechanism," Dennis Garlick, Ph.D., University of Sydney, Australia; Psychological Review, Vol 109, No. 1.)
John Dewey once famously said that the nature/nurture problem is like the "stomach/digestion" problem. (Or something like that.) The point is very much what these two articles are saying: the actualization of potentials of any kind depend on whether the environment affords the opportunity for its expression. This is why lower-IQ parents tend to have lower-IQ kids...they parents simply don't provide the children with the same opportunities for language, problem-solving, etc. Schools have as one of their missions to equalize opportunities...but school starts too late to make a huge difference. Early-childhood programs provide a partial solution, but, frankly, the quality of instruction in early-childhood programs probably varies by child's income almost as much as their home opportunities do. What to do? Plato suggested taking the kids away from the parents at birth. It may be the only way to "equalize" environmental opportunities, if that's what we want.
ReplyDeleteIntelligence is, as you said, difficult to define. Does intelligent mean that a person is good at math or science, is inventive, is able to solve problems? The multiple intelligence theory says that everyone is intelligent - just in different ways. That said, Michael Jordan is just as intelligent as einstein - their intelligence simply shows itself in different forms. That being said, as your blog expressed, would Michael Jordan's potential intelligence have ever been met if he had never had the opportunity to be involved in sports?
ReplyDeleteI read a novel about feral children with my class every year. This novel shows one child raised by animals and one who was isolated by her family who are found and taken to a research facility for study as they acquire language. While a work of fiction, the story's science on language development is rooted in real studies of feral and other isolated children. These show that kids raised in isolation who do not learn to speak before 3-4 years old never really learn language. They all reach a certain "peak" when taught and never progress past it. The younger they are when they are found and taught to speak, the better chance they have at learning. I think that this speaks to the "nurture" side of the argument. I doubt it is as black and white as that, but an interesting topic to think about.
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