I don't believe for a second that the doctor believes that intelligence has no inherited component whatsoever. She is dealing with a problem in the real world using what tools she has at her disposal.

Edit: Responding jamesaguilar's and true_religion's point about the title. Yes, that's true. I had just read the article and the title wasn't in the forefront of my mind. But when you get a title like that, you simply can't know whether it is meant as a bald statement or rather as something to pique the interest (or as link bait, if you aren't feeling charitable). So, if you elect to click the link, read the article to find out!

I'm not even sure it proves what he thinks it proves. Is he inherently smarter than the rest of his family? Or just more motivated? Or more interested in technology? Is success in computer programming direct proof that someone is very smart? I think a lot of programmers take that as received wisdom, but again I'm not so sure.

Anyway, if a child is one of the rare born geniuses, talking to them a lot will not harm them, and it might feed their latent abilities. If a child is genetically normal, talking will help them too. There is no practical reason to object to this article.

HN doesn't allow changes to the title. People writing articles will chose a click-baity title.

All titles suck.

If we "simply can't know" what the point is, then how do you decide what's relevant?

But to respond: No, not at the same time. As I said in the edit, the title slipped my mind. Without the title it came across as a useless nitpick, with the title it does not even if I find it an uninteresting avenue of discussion.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption

The conclusion of the book is: provide a healthy environment, but don't agonize over violin lessons and other 'enriching' activities.

That said, I went and bought another book with advice on how to talk to your child to stimulate language development ('look who's talking') and we read to him a lot. So, I believe the twin studies in theory, but not in practice.

Finally, on this general topic, 'how children succeed' points out that character traits like grit (willingness to keep trying something hard and unpleasant) and conscientiousness (desire to do the right thing) are more important than intellect in success, beyond some modest intellect baseline. I suspect my son is plenty smart, but what really interests me is trying to foster grit and conscientiousness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_gratification

It seems what is really being shown is the rational basis in children to discount promises made by adults for future rewards, when in their experience adults had been unable or unwilling to deliver on promises made.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/02/19/just-let-th...

http://priceonomics.com/what-marshmallows-tell-us-about-sili...

From The Daily Beast article: "Eigsti does not feel her data disproves Mischel—he was actually a co-author on her paper, and she thinks her work is consistent."

The Priconomics article says: "The original marshmallow experiment concluded that the children's ability to wait for a second treat indicated an innate ability to exhibit self control". But nothing I've read indicates that Mischel believed the ability to delay gratification was innate. In fact, most of his previous research indicated that such an ability was strongly influenced by environmental factors.

If you want to talk about or discuss some ideas, you can reach me at my email (on profile)

Have you heard of GWAS? They've had some major breakthroughs over the past few years, and have recently had some interesting results with regard to educational attainment. From Science:

https://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6139/1467.abstract

If you want some more information, here's a good article from early 2012 summarizing the previous five years of findings:

http://www.cell.com/AJHG/retrieve/pii/S0002929711005337

You seem to be concluding genetic factors ("always had an intrinsic motivation"). But "not all environment" does not imply "some genetics", that is a false alternative.

There are more possible factors than just environment and genetics. One is human choice (sometimes called "free will", but that term has a lot of baggage). I do not agree with the perspective of attributing everything to factors, rather than a person's own choices.

Genetics certainly have a role in some sense. If you had different genes, you would have been a cat instead of human, and would not have the brain to be a software engineer.

But the general idea that life is very complicated, and the results of people in similar situations vary -- true so far -- simply does not imply (partial) genetic determinism. "Environment", or more generally alternatives to genetic determinism, is/are very subtle and complex. The world is vastly complicated, "environment" refers to a million factors most of which no one documents.

You had, in many respects, a different life and environment than anyone else had. Everyone has a unique environment at high precision. So whatever result you get, what would that prove?

You wonder how a person with several factors against them could be intelligent and successful? You can't think of any ways, besides genetics? There are a million ways. Poverty, non-wonderful discouraging parents, poor teachers, and whatever else are not one's whole life. You met many people, some more helpful than that. You read some books. Even just an ordered list of what books you read up to age 20 might be unique.

People don't start the same, but even if they did, things would quickly branch, again and again. 30 identical students sit in a classroom. The teacher explains something. By sheer randomness, if nothing else, some students understand it today, and some do not understand it yet. Then the next day the teacher gives a second lecture. Everyone hears "the same" lecture, but they have different situations (having understood or not understood yesterday's lesson), so different students experience "the same lecture" in different ways due to their different situations and perspectives. Similarly, in general, people in "the same environment" are not actually having the same experiences.

Keep in mind I'm not saying it's a deterministic inherited thing (it's clearly not). However I believe there is strong evidence that everyone is born with a unique personality and potential. An "environmental chaos theory" does not do justice to unexplained outliers, those with recognized mind-affecting genetic conditions, and many other real-world scenarios.

My situation is even more unusual than you realize. I didn't even meet many people while growing up; throughout my childhood I was almost entirely separated from the outside world (lived secluded in the mountains). Almost no neighbors near by. I never went to public school. Extremely protective parents did not allow us to ever talk to strangers. All this is the same case for my siblings, yet they have no desire to pursue technology, while I do.

Note that by no means am I trying to downplay the importance of environment. I'm simply trying to illustrate that the claim "environment determines 100% of someone's mental and personality development" is empirically wrong.

I'm genuinely interested in what/where this is, any links / searches?

https://www.google.com/search?q=intelligenc+nature+vs+nurtur...

It's a vigorous and deep debate. Happy reading!

As a pathologist and father, I'm 100% confident there are very good reasons for electing to abort in a variety of circumstances, not all related to the fetus or mother, though there is little reason to rejoice in any of them.

Similarly, I am 100% certain that human development is part genetics, and part environment. But we can't control our genetics. So I don't worry about that much. Maybe there's some fascinating biology discovered every few years, but I can learn good lessons from observing other parents every day.

Maybe that's a good way to frame the environment issue: if you really don't believe environment matters, then ask yourself, should you have kids so you have someone to take your frustrations out on?

The metaphor that comes to mind is this: imagine yourself as a spring, standing upright. In childhood, this spring was held down by a heavy boot. Now that the boot has lifted, what has happened to the spring? Is it back to the original height, or has it stretched even higher?

Apples vs Oranges = Looking at Millions vs Individual.

I am a teacher in a city. My students are 100% below poverty line. My student under perform dramatically for their age when they walk through our doors. BUT there are exceptions. You are possibly one exception. BUT when you look at millions of poor vs millions of upper class there is a HUGE difference.

In your line of thought: Poor people are poor due mainly to genetics. I can't believe that for a second due to how many million of poor in US. My children when they leave the school after one or two years are ahead of their peers who do not come to our school.

My two cents.

While I don't discount the whole of your argument, this is possibly the dumbest thing you could have said.

We're probably a generation or two away before we can accurately look at these issues without activist groups and other political groups declaring them invalid because of misplaced idealism.

Somewhere there's a modern day Galileo saying "but some children are born smart!"

Could it, perhaps, be that those causal elements in your environment do not work precisely in the way you presume to work? That it's not simply a 'good' upbringing that raises good people? Do you not -- for instance -- have a drive to succeed because of your prior disadvantages in life? Is not the lack of early-life support a driver of your own ambitions?

This article should make you rethink your example: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/29/chimp-intelli...

It doesn't have to be. But it does vary from person to person (even if non linearly). What would you say affects the intelligence of people with mental retardation?

Second, is there any evidence that the evolutionary history of intelligence was linear? How do we know that there wasn't a binary-like change where one generation didn't have our level of intelligence and the next did, and all humans today are descended from that single change, as opposed to it happening gradually?

The only reason we consider humans to be descended from rather than being apes, is that we don't look at the evolutionary tree from the outside. Biologically it makes no sense.

This question seems kind of confused. But we can say with complete certainty that it's not the case that "one generation didn't have our level of intelligence and the next did" because generations don't happen at any particular time. Imagine your ancestor through the paternal line 30 generations back from you (that is, your father's father's father's... father). If you call him generation 1, then you're generation 31. But other people born in the same year as you, also descended from him, will not all be generation 31. And if you married one of them who was, for the sake of argument, only 28 generations removed from him, your children would be, in this labeling scheme, simultaneously generation 32 and generation 29.

The reason I say your question is confused is that the model where there was a "single change", and all humans today descend from it, requires several generations to take hold (as it gradually increases its population share), but you appear to posit only one.

I'm incredibly not an expert on evolution (it shows I'm sure!), but from a logical point of view that seems like it's feasible at least - whether it's incredibly likely or incredibly unlikely I've no idea.

Because it's very, very rare for evolution to actually work that way.

In a sample size of one, statistics is useless.

There is zero doubting that 'nature vs. nurture' is a complicated question (and a false dichotomy) and I don't think this article is making any claims outside of it's pretty narrow (and pretty interesting) focus.

You don't understand the claim correctly. The claim is that environmental factors (particularly being talked to) are essential to development of intelligence, not that environmental factors determine intelligence entirely.

The distinction between necessary conditions and necessary and sufficient conditions is pretty critical.

Besides, humans tend to do things they are forbidden to. Your parents didn't stop you from studying "tech-related things" did they? Well, maybe they did but they must have stopped it once they knew it was futile. Otherwise you wouldn't be what you are now.

If your parents tied you up, beat you up etc. to forbid you from studying tech, then that's an environmental factor. Them not doing so is also an environmental factor.

Believing something is predestined is bullshit. Genetics might give you a better memory, but it doesn't make you a hard worker. Your success depends on your values, priorities and motivation to do so.

All I am saying is that a particular environment can affect someone in unexpected ways.

I am from a family of 3 children. Two adopted and one "unexpected" natural birth.

One of the three of us has been in prison many times (and we have no other relatives that I know of that have ever been in trouble beyond the occasional speeding/parking ticket).

The other of the three of us is a carbon copy of their biological mother (dress sense, social sense, taste in music/books/films, mannerisms, extreme anti-social behaviour, etc) - they hadn't spoken until my sibling was 25 - so that was 25 years without contact, visibility, etc - and they still turned out to be a near carbon copy.

I followed in my parents footsteps in many ways, more than I realised at the time.

All three of us agree that we got the same toys, the same lollies, same schooling, same opportunities, etc... so we can only put the differences down to nature - and I can tell you that I'm a big believer that nature plays a BIG role in defining what we are...

I've often said "we don't just LOOK like our parents, it's also the nuances in the structure and wiring of our brains".

I have a few kids of my own, and while they are quite different (nerd v/s jock, introvert v/s extrovert, etc) - there are many similarities, unlike my siblings and I.

Regarding your brother who has been in prison many times: adopted boys I know of are often in trouble. I think it's really hard to adopt and raise a child born from someone else. Some things don't seem to click.

I wonder what the statistics are telling about adopted children's success in life and how it is linked to biological parents and the adopting family education.

You can all go to the same school with the same teachers but if one of you have a teacher on a Monday morning and the other has the same teacher Friday afternoon after teaching a stressful ill-disciplined class, then the second child may have a different view of that subject forever.

But, as a parent, I have experienced that children are born with a ton of individual personality that is highly noticeable within days. It would be pretty much defy logic (as well as genetics) if some sort of predisposition for intelligence weren't part of this.

If you didn't get if from your family via genes, and you didn't get it from the environment, where else is left? Everyone else seems to be reading your comment as pro-genetics, but given the quote above, I can't see that.

So it would be a lot stronger case for genetics (assuming it's supposed to be one, and not just a tangential anecdote) if they'd said "No one ever spoke to us but all 7 of my brothers and sisters became top engineers, just like our parents, uncles and cousins (that we'd never met)".

As it stands it seems to recommending having some kind of fortitude (which isn't taught via nurture, or inherited via genetics) as the key element.

Not saying that's it, but when you have someone self-reporting on a forum like this, claiming to be an outlier, there's probably a good bit of luck involved.

I don't think it is equivalent. Saying "Children aren't born smart" means no more than that; they don't come out of the womb smart. The degree to which the smartness they develop will depend on an innate potential to be smart and the degree to which it will depend on environmental factors is not addressed by the statement.

No it isn't. Think of a young mind as putty. When born, it's just a blob of putty. Children aren't born intelligent. As the child grows, the environment shapes the putty. Some children have different putty than other kids- maybe a little more, a little less, a little firmer, a little more plastic.

Thus, intelligence is determined both by what you have to start with, and your environment. You don't have to be born with intelligence, to be born possessing the raw materials to create great intelligence.

It's not like Usain Bolt was born the fastest runner in the world. He became fast, partly thanks to what he had to work with, and partly thanks to his environment. That's the point here.

Kids are different and are individuals. Genetics, nutrition, interaction, and care all count.

This article is merely a less extreme example of how taking an active interest in your child's education can help them develop, which is 100% true. For me, personally, I could read/write/speak 2 languages at 4 years of age, in large part thanks to my early childhood environment.

>He is interested in the proper method of rearing children, believing that "geniuses are made, not born".

>He home-schooled their three daughters, primarily in chess, and all three went on to become strong players. An early result was Susan's winning the Budapest Chess Championship for girls under 11 at the age of four. Also his daughter, Judit, could defeat him at chess when she was just five.

Judit became the best female chess player ever and was the youngest GM back then when she was 15.

So the question is, did your parents talk to you? (not where your parents astrophysicists?)

>> “Now I know I can just have a regular conversation with her,” Adams said. “Just ask her about her day, even if I can’t understand half of it.”

If your parents mostly ignored you, plugged you in the TV, didn't ask you open questions and left you to yourself since a very early age then you may be an exception. (of course your memories from 1 - 5 may not be all that accurate either. What do your parents say about talking to you and making you talk?)

Given that, I'm curious to know what kinds of friends you had growing up and whether they might account for some of your 'intrinsic motivation'.

[1] http://www.livescience.com/25431-gene-regulation-homosexuali...

I ask as a Software Engineer who came from a family of techno-phobic Pipefitters. Don't we just have a particular kind of intelligence, and they may have theirs?

If the stunted growth of the pre-lingual deaf that are denied access to a sign language community are any indication, it's probably the most important factor of all, and I think that was the point of the article. I will quote a section of Oliver Sacks' great book "Seeing Voices" that further illustrates this:

The origin of questioning, of an active and questing disposition in the mind, is not something that arises spontaneously, de novo, or directly from the impact of experience; it stems, it is stimulated, by communicative exchange - it requires dialogue, in particular the complex dialogue of mother and child. It is here, [Hilde] Schlesinger finds, that the dichotomies start:

'Mothers talk with their children, do so very differently, and tend to be more often at one side or the other of a series of dichotomies. Some talk with their youngsters and participate primarily in dialogue; some primarily talk at their children. Some mainly support the actions of their offspring, and if not, provide reasons why not; others primarily control the actions of their children, and do not explain why. Some ask genuine questions ... others constraint questions ... Some are prompted by what the child says or does; others by their own inner needs and interests ... Some describe a large world in which events happened in the past and will happen in the future; others comment only about the here and now ... Some mothers mediate the environment by endowing stimuli with meaning [and others do not].'

A terrible power, it would seem, lies with the mother to communicate with her child properly or not; to introduce probing questions such as "How?" "Why?" and "What if?" or replace them with a mindless monologue of "What's this?" "Do that"; to communicate a sense of logic and causality, or to leave everything at the dumb level of unaccountability; to introduce a vivid sense of place and time, or to refer only to the here and now; to introduce a "generalized reflection of reality," a conceptual world that will give coherence and meaning to life, and challenge the mind and emotions of the child, or to leave everything at the level of the ungeneralized, the unquestioned, at something almost below the animal level of the perceptual. Children, it would seem, cannot choose the world they will live in - the mental and emotional, any more than the physical world; they are dependent, in the beginning, on what they are introduced to by their mothers.

Truth of the matter is, we are born with an unfinished brain that requires nurturing interaction with other humans and with language to truly develop. What's saddening is that Hilde Schlesinger's research is already decades old; this book is from 1989. We have known this for ages and society still has to catch up.

;)