No, they fail at math because they have never learned how to use their brainpower effectively. The difference between geniuses and everyone else, from my experiences, are not any fundamental difference in their brain wiring, but that they learned how to better focus what brainpower they do have,
Its like the difference between a guy who gives 120% every day but his work, taken individually, is mediocre vs a guy who gives his 1% but his 1% is the Nobel prize winning work of his field... the guy who gives his 120% day in and day out is a smarter man.
Ironically, an IQ test will not say much about either of them. The 120% guy might score lower than the 1% man by 10 or 15 points, but the 120% guy, if he were, say, a researcher or inventor, would be spending day in and day out finding thousands of ways that don't work just so he can find one that does. The 120% man learned how to focus the skills he does have and learned how to apply them well; of the two, I'd hire him over the 1% man, Nobel or not.
The few super geniuses that history remembers (such as Tesla) had both: 120% work ethic combined with a brilliant mind. These people are rare, but every single person no matter their racial or religious background has the ability to become that kind of person to.... they just never learn how to.
"but every single person no matter their racial or religious background has the ability to become that kind of person to..."
Seriously? I don't know, but even if i had a 120% work ethic, i consider that i would never reach the level of genius of someone like Tesla, he is simply a genetic freak. Also, almost all the traits of humans seem to be unevenly undistributed in the population, not everyone has the capability to be a top athlete or top dancer, or top X. Why intelligence could be the exception?, when even common sense and observation tells us that some people are more intelligent than others.
Chess is an interesting proxy for intelligence. I've seen homeless people with no real training other then playing games become relatively strong players. And then there are prodigies. Most decent players realize they will never be prodigies. But then you look at the Polgar sisters, well I'll just quote wikipedia for Laszlo Polgar:
He is interested in the proper method of rearing children, believing that "geniuses are made, not born". Before he had any children, he wrote a book entitled Bring Up Genius!, and sought a wife to help him carry out his experiment. He found one in Klara, a schoolteacher, who lived in a Hungarian-speaking enclave in Ukraine. He married her in the USSR and brought her to Hungary. He home-schooled their three daughters, primarily in chess, and all three went on to become strong players.
> common sense and observation tells us that some people are more intelligent than others.
Yes, true, but the present discussion concerns why that is so. It was traditionally held that IQ was inherited and immutable, but this was before studies that show creation of new brain cells in animals placed in stimulating environments. And the brain's ability to repair itself after injury is only beginning to be appreciated.
So it seems that IQ is not immutable, and "some people are smarter than others" can be placed alongside "some people run faster than others" as an example of something that is to some extent under our control.
I'm leaning against (but not convinced against) "intelligence genes" existing, at least to the point where some people have them and some don't, because evolution would likely have spread them to everyone.
But the science is much better for behaviors and temperaments being heritable. Some people are more comfortable sitting around only reading; some people are more likely to be comfortable fighting with abstract ideas; some people are more likely to be stubborn when they don't understand something and go at it until they figure it out. These things will affect what we measure as your IQ. My suspicion is that this is the source of the data for genetic differences in intelligence.
There's pretty robust evidence for intelligence (at least as measured by IQ) being heritable. There've been a bunch of identical-twin studies showing heritability factors as high as 0.8, which is roughly as heritable as height and among the highest of personality traits:
As for why these intelligence genes wouldn't spread throughout the population: it could be because they have other effects with a negative survival/reproductive value as well. Intelligence is often inversely correlated with confidence, for example, since people's expectations of themselves rise faster than their abilities. Confidence is heavily correlated with social skill and the ability to attract a mate, so highly intelligent people often face severe deficits in the mating game (I'm sure we all know someone who is brilliant but completely socially inept, and many of us have been that person).
Also, remember that the ancestral environment that humans evolved in significantly less favorable to intelligence than the modern one. 15,000 years ago, intelligence might be nice, but the ability to outrun a lion or take down a buffalo was far more important. It's only within the last 3-5 generations that intelligence has become essential to surviving in modern society (that's the whole point of Flynn's thesis), and evolution doesn't work so well on a timescale of 3-5 generations.
I'm leaning against (but not convinced against) "intelligence genes" existing, at least to the point where some people have them and some don't, because evolution would likely have spread them to everyone.
Why? What survivability/reproduction benefits does intelligence provide beyond a certain level, particularly in pre-modern society? If you were the daughter of serfs a thousand years ago, what good would a 150 IQ do you? Especially if there's some tradeoff involved, such as a correspondingly lower ability to socialize with your peers.
Especially if there's some tradeoff involved, such as a correspondingly lower ability to socialize with your peers
If there's any reason for an "intelligence gene" not being completely wide-spread, it would be this. Intelligence would have to have some very significant drawbacks. Some people have theorized that autism is when you get "overloaded" on those intelligence genes. It strikes me as unlikely this would really provide significant pushback against the intelligence genes completely dominating the gene pool, but I agree it's possible.
But why? Even if there's no tradeoff, what advantage would Albert Einstein have had over an average intelligence competitor for mates had he lived even a mere 200 years ago? Slim, I'd think. And who's to say he would have used that narrow advantage to win a mate of above average intelligence, vs. some other desirable characteristic?
Exceptional intelligence as a strong determinant of economic and social success (and thus presumably reproductive success) seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon in the human species.
Also, we need to take a larger view of what "intelligence" is. Take the longer view of human history, and we all are probably geniuses. Those intelligence genes have indeed spread across the gene pool. It's just new ones (or new combinations of existing genes) are now showing themselves and need time to prove their fitness.
The downvotes are unfortunate, because you're absolutely right. Intelligence has an associated cost. Natural selection will only spread "intelligence genes" if the benefit outweighs the cost. In pre-modern societies, this was likely not the case. "Social intelligence" was likely much more useful than abstract reasoning ability.
Even today, the Einsteins and Teslas don't do better in the mating game than the Brad Pitts and Kobe Bryants (likely much worse).
Edit: it would be interesting if HN handles were attached to downvotes. People would likely think twice before knee-jerk downvoting if they couldn't do it anonymously.
>because evolution would likely have spread them to everyone.
This is just your bias in what you think is more beneficial informing your belief that more intelligence = better survival. If this is the case, why aren't all apes just as intelligent as us? Has no ape simply ever had the luck to have a mutation that improved the carrier's intelligence? This is implausible. The answer is that one's environment determines what is selected for, and it is not the case that more intelligence is necessarily more fit for survival. Not even in modern times.
Its like the difference between a guy who gives 120% every day but his work, taken individually, is mediocre vs a guy who gives his 1% but his 1% is the Nobel prize winning work of his field... the guy who gives his 120% day in and day out is a smarter man.
Ironically, an IQ test will not say much about either of them. The 120% guy might score lower than the 1% man by 10 or 15 points, but the 120% guy, if he were, say, a researcher or inventor, would be spending day in and day out finding thousands of ways that don't work just so he can find one that does. The 120% man learned how to focus the skills he does have and learned how to apply them well; of the two, I'd hire him over the 1% man, Nobel or not.
The few super geniuses that history remembers (such as Tesla) had both: 120% work ethic combined with a brilliant mind. These people are rare, but every single person no matter their racial or religious background has the ability to become that kind of person to.... they just never learn how to.