Human Intelligence

No. (if you mean genetically, with drugs, etc.)

Yes. (if its done through education, etc.)

There was this pretty good movie called The Lawnmower Man maybe 10 years ago, that addressed this issue. About some retarded guy who was given drugs so that he eventually became a genius. But of course it all went too far, and he sort of became a mad genius.

Agreed. But I believe the states do. They require schooling.

I don't have any evidentiary studies to support it, but I believe that there is no guarantee that the offspring of two geniuses can expect any advantage in intelligence. Therefore there must be more involved than genes.

It is a fact that on average the well educated will generally score higher on I.Q. tests than will the under educated which means little other than all known I.Q. tests involve some learned skills.

For many years I have dabbled in Jungian theories of individual temperament (Myers Briggs; Kiersey etc.) and have come to believe that except for some of the most severely brain damaged, all humans are gifted with their own God-given (or natural if you're a non-theist) intelligence that affords us superior ability in one or more areas of human endeavor.

While practice/education/observation/intuition etc. will improve our skills in many things, I don't believe there is any genetic engineering or any magic bullets available to change the inate gifts we are born with.

Re: Human Intelligence


Come to think of it, wasn't this one of the Nazi's goals, with their "SuperRace," etc.?

What the Nazi's did (or might have done) is of no relevance to this thread I believe.

It can torpedo a lot of arguments by just saying 'well the Nazi's did it as well, so it can't be good'. And that would be sad.

Alfred Benet devised the original test to separate the educable from the uneducable. Stanford University refined the measurement to mental age over chronological age times 100 as the identifying factor. Frankly, I don't believe that a test can quantify or qualify intelligence. Just as there is no valid test for creativity, there is really no valid nor reliable test for brain power. At best, tests are probability correlations. If one examines the life of John Forbes Nash, we understand the nature of brain cells a little better, I think.

One IQ-test did change the rest of my life. When I was young, I wasn't developing very fast, so the shrinks thought I had to go to a sort of special education for the 'less developed' (in normal words: the children THEY believed were...well...plain dumb). My mother though insisted on an IQ-test, which showed that I wasn't as 'less developed' as the shrinks thought - not at all. When I finally learned to read in two weeks, they had to confess I wasn't the 'stupid child' they believed I was. In spite of this all, I didn't get any apology from them though.

LOL, Rick. Shrinks never apologize nor ever retract.

I don't want to include genetic engineering or eugenics in this discussion ('extant' individuals)...

But I would include things like pre-natal care, nutritional supplements or perhaps even drugs (proven safe, of course) given to mothers.

Also, high-quality infant formulas, pre-school programs, etc.

Again, ~assuming intelligence can be measured~

<Marked for life>

You're not marked for life, Rick. They're afraid that they will be. Heh! Heh!

I don't mean this as an insult, but are you .... a shrink?

Good grief, no, Rick. I do have a couple of friends that are, and I would no more recommend them for folks with problems, than I would recommend a podiatrist to a person with a migraine.

Not to worry, my young friend. When you begin work in college/university, all notions of your reading problems will be dispelled.

What is funny is that one of my teachers really believed I had to be 'removed' from elementary school to join this special education. Last week I showed my diploma - I had successfully got my A-levels. From the look in her eyes, I saw pure shock. It was like

Sometimes life can be sooooo good!

Yes.... but since intelligence can't be quantified, it's a non-issue.

Well, just put this in the category of, if you won the lottery what would you do with the money, then - a hypothetical question.

~~~

Now, if you could & did raise human intelligence, what would be the consequences?

But the lottery question has a chance of being true. This doesn't.

Is it impossible to quantify intelligence, then? Or we just haven't come up with a way to do it *yet*?