Should Fee-Paying Private(?) Schools be abolished?

[Damocles]

No, because your environment from the first second that you are born determines this. Messi's a better footballer than you because he played football more than you did, and learned how to use his short frame in a beneficial way. Hell, if Messi was English, he'd be SWP.

People are smarter than others because they focus on mentally challenging activities more than others during their development stages, which leads into a mental framework which is used to adapting information. Look up Piaget's theory of Cognitive Development; I actually did my dissertation on this.

one day we'll agree on something.

No we won't ;)

 

[Skashion]

Everything I've ever read indicates there is a fairly substantial link between IQ and genetics. Educate me Damocles. I suppose you could say ultimately that link is unimportant i.e. in the same way that we share 98% DNA with chimps, it's the 2% that matters.

 

[mackenzie]

If you're clever, well done. If you aren't, work harder.

Intelligence isn't a genetic trait, it comes from a focus on education either from the kid or from the parents.

Disagree. Intelligence CAN come from a genetic trait. Not always admittedly, but it still has a part to play.

However, even as I typed that I knew what you were getting at. I was thinking of children who have been proven to be precociously intelligent and thought of the Bronte children as an example.

They were not academically gifted but they were miles ahead in thoughts and ideas, compared to their peers.

Was that from the natural gifts their father gave them (who came from very low Irish stock to Oxbridge?) or was that simply the result of him encouraging them to explore their minds and to express themselves??

That is a tough one.

I'd like to think that their talents were there from the moment they were born.

 

[Skashion]

There's a story about Einstein in Vienna, and how he used to forget where he lived whilst walking home from work.

There's shit loads of stories of the absent-mindedness of geniuses.

 

[Dr.Faustus]

The argument of whether intelligence is derived from nurture or genetic predisposition is currently indeterminate and a bit of a non sequitur as a debate (as the 'evidence' for either could often be advocated for both).
In reality it is unimportant, the real philosophical question should be how one defines intelligence (can a theoretical human concept be objective?).

 

[Joycee Banercheck]

There's a story about Einstein in Vienna, and how he used to forget where he lived whilst walking home from work.

There's shit loads of stories of the absent-mindedness of geniuses.

Words out me mouth.

 

[SWP's back]

Re: Should Fee-Paying Public Schools be abolished?

No but i'd certainly ban religious schools.

This and I enjoyed my grammar school education.

 

[Cheesy]

There's a story about Einstein in Vienna, and how he used to forget where he lived whilst walking home from work.

There's shit loads of stories of the absent-mindedness of geniuses.

Exactly what I was going to say but forgot to.

 

[Damocles]

Everything I've ever read indicates there is a fairly substantial link between IQ and genetics. Educate me Damocles. I suppose you could say ultimately that link is unimportant i.e. in the same way that we share 98% DNA with chimps, it's the 2% that matters.

You're getting into pretty dodgy grounds with IQ tests measuring general intelligence, but if we take that as a true presumption for a minute, it still doesn't bear out with most long term quantitative studies. There was a study that I used which shown that although adoptive children had a slight 'IQ lag' with their siblings, it evened out into their twenties so that they were within standard deviations of their intelligence.

Adoptions studies were on way to go in determining the heritability of intelligence, but they have a few variables that aren't properly adjusted for, including the age of adoption and social class of those families adopted into. The ones that did, shown a universally positive response in children normalising to the same IQ as their siblings.

Anyway, more on the genetics front, it has long been a dream of geneticists to find an 'intelligence gene', but despite many different studies across different ages groups, different IQ groups, different social groups, etc, nothing has ever been found that is shared any more than statistically likely.

There are various genetic disorders to cause retardation, but none that seem to create above average intelligence.

EDIT: Sorry mate, did you want to read the studies or just a general reply?

 

[Cheesy]

There are various genetic disorders to cause retardation, but none that seem to create above average intelligence.

Autism is a genetic condition and there are many cases of those who have it being geniuses in a particular area. It has been suggested that Einstein was autistic. If a genetic illness can cause this it is surely possible (maybe even probable) that less significant alterations in genetic make up (ie, inherited genes) can lead to what we would describe as the more widely understood definition of intelligence?