Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation

Re:Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by convers... by ZeroGravitas on Wednesday October 02, 2013 @07:32AM (#6481810)

Haven't you just excluded nurture ("can't come up with a single environmental influence that explains this") and nature ("I'm definitely the only one like this from my family, a clear outlier")?

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.

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Re:Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by convers... by mattmcknight on Wednesday October 02, 2013 @08:06AM (#6481916)

Genetics is complicated- it is possible for offspring to develop traits that were not present in either parent.

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Re:Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by convers... by ZeroGravitas on Wednesday October 02, 2013 @09:15AM (#6482167)

So is nurture, people go to school in different years from their siblings (and parents) etc. and so on.

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.

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Re:Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by convers... by Filligree on Wednesday October 02, 2013 @04:03PM (#6484913)

Chance.

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.

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