Yes. I'd wager Jewish infants adopted into a random family would perform better than black infants adopted into the same family, in a controlled study.
You're probably right, but for the wrong reasons. Racism leads to positive and negative expectations [1]. And do explain how you'd control for expectations based on race in your study.
I think the most likely possibility is that it is fixed to some extant - i.e. your genetics give you a baseline. Then, of course, your environment effects how much you grow above your baseline.
Brain damage can lower intelligence, and I see no reason why it could not be raised as well. Even if genes provide something "defaults" or "limits," environmental effects are still relevant.
Are you really suggesting that brain damage can increase intelligence or just suggesting that intelligence can be raised?
It is pretty pointless talking about if intelligence can be raised or not unless we actually define what we mean by intelligence. In the absence of a tight definition all we end up doing is arguing about what each of us thinks intelligence is.
If by intelligence you mean something along the lines of information processing/synthesizing ability, then intelligence has been shown (hedging- strongly suggested) to be dynamic as the result of neuroplastic brain events. Assuming you believe some version of the brain = mind identity theory (otherwise, your intelligence may not depend on physical events and my example fails).
My pre-theoretic intuition is that it's plastic up to some fixed degree determined primarily by genetics and secondarily by early life experiences.
Given the degree of ignorance and uncertainty involved, though, I think a more interesting discussion centers on the risks involved with what we choose to believe: namely, what's the upside (for individuals, for societies) of assuming "intelligence is fixed" (however interpreted) or that it's not? What's the downside risk of believing the same?
How are these risks and potential gains distributed across segments of the population? Lastly, how do these potential distributions square with our moral intuitions (particularly if one considers oneself a nice Rawlsian liberal committed to a maximin distribution of social benefits...).
I actually polled HN because tthere is a fairly large body of knowledge that points to people who believe intelligence is fixed are less successful and at higher risk of depression.
That's intuitive, and a bummer. I don't think it has any bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim, though. I wonder if "soft pessimistic" (fixed limits) view creates as much depression as the "hard pessimistic" (fixed level) one (assuming the causal arrow points in that direction in the first place.)
I don't even think intelligence itself is understood.we have very few things to compare human intelligence to. And there's many known cases of "less intelligent" species accomplishing things that "more intelligent" species cant. (Eg. Humans cant organize like ants can, though ants cant do calculus as far as we know)
So without knowing how to measure intelligence or what high intelligence is. I don't think I can have an opinion on if intelligence is fixed.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 49.1 ms ] thread[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect
It is pretty pointless talking about if intelligence can be raised or not unless we actually define what we mean by intelligence. In the absence of a tight definition all we end up doing is arguing about what each of us thinks intelligence is.
Given the degree of ignorance and uncertainty involved, though, I think a more interesting discussion centers on the risks involved with what we choose to believe: namely, what's the upside (for individuals, for societies) of assuming "intelligence is fixed" (however interpreted) or that it's not? What's the downside risk of believing the same?
How are these risks and potential gains distributed across segments of the population? Lastly, how do these potential distributions square with our moral intuitions (particularly if one considers oneself a nice Rawlsian liberal committed to a maximin distribution of social benefits...).
So without knowing how to measure intelligence or what high intelligence is. I don't think I can have an opinion on if intelligence is fixed.