Rapmoney:
That's the nature-nurture controversy in Psychology! Though, I believe traits like criminal tendencies and the likes are leaning more towards nurture i.e the environment.

tosyne2much:
I am of the opinion that intelligence is sometimes hereditary... It sometimes flow in a family

baby124:

Criminal tendency like any Character trait exists genetically and is passed on. Trust me I have been able to observe behaviors of grandkids in my family and they each behave quite similarly to how their older relatives were at childhood. If those traits can be passed on, I don't think criminal tendency is impossible. For example I have a niece that behaves exactly like me. We do not live in the same house or the same country.lmao.

MMotimo:
I once read somewhere that the Dad's genes determines a child's intelligence so if you're super smart, be grateful to your Dad

sisisioge:

It was discovered that pregnant women who listen more to a certain kind of music have more intelligent babies! Isn't that just lovely?

DarkRebel101:


Classical music precisely. It's called the Mozart effect.

sisisioge:


You too know book,darkie

DarkRebel101:
Intelligence is inherited, could be acquired, and is also highly influenced by enviromental factors. But genes do not always underlie intelligence judging from the numerous cases of outliers i.e cases of unintelligent parents birthing a genius and vice versa.

...

Intelligence is 50% hereditary and 50% determined by the environmental circumstances in which one finds him-herself.

Your parents could both be Einsteins, but if you grew up in a third world country, was deprived of quality education, balanced diet, clean water and healthy living in general, you would most likely not be more practically intelligent than the person who was born with a borderline average intelligence but who was priviledged to receive the best education that money can buy, who was born into wealth and enjoyed a healthy living, who can afford the luxury of travelling, who can easily access books to read etc.

..

All in all, one should not let his-her intelligence be the slave of his-her genes or environmental circumstances for that matter.

If you want to be smart then you have to work hard towards it -- the peregrination toward a transcendental intellect is attained by blood and sweat.

Mindfulness:


I agree with everything but would like to modify the last sentence - if you allow me. If you do not, I will do it anyway.

All this hard work gibberish.
My father is a walking encyclopedia and a man who I consider to be intellectual and with a foresight like no other. He has predicted the situation as we know it in the Middle East today a long time ago and the precision with which he has done so is astonishing. However, trust me when I say he has not acquired his knowledge and understanding by blood and sweat. He is far too comfortable to do it in this way. He loves reading. I do not know anyone who has read more books and newspapers than he has. He has enjoyed reading and learning and it has proven to be a very successful method.

Vorpal:


And he did not predict anything for Nigeria?

And what did he say will become of the middle east?

By the way i think we are mistaking innovative/creativity with being knowledgeable.

Like Einstein said, imagination supersedes knowledge.

A man who formulated the theory of relativity that eventual led to nuclear energy never knew how to drive.

Mindfulness:

He has.

What you see has become of it today.

Vorpal:



And what were his predictions?



and what will become of the major player in the field at the moment?

Mindfulness:

I agree with everything but would like to modify the last sentence - if you allow me. If you do not, I will do it anyway.
All this hard work gibberish.

My father is a walking encyclopedia

and a man who I consider to be intellectual and with a foresight like no other. He has predicted the situation as we know it in the Middle East today a long time ago and the precision with which he has done so is astonishing. However, trust me when I say he has not acquired his knowledge and understanding by blood and sweat. He is far too comfortable to do it in this way. He loves reading. I do not know anyone who has read more books and newspapers than he has. He has enjoyed reading and learning and it has proven to be a very successful method.

DarkRebel101:


Nativism has always been a major aversion of mine.
I prefer hardwork and effort rather than latching tenuously to some suspicious belief that one is divinely gifted or innately intelligent.

I'm surw you know the story of the two men who went to the oracle in order to know what the future has in store for them. One was told that it's been foreordained that he would be rich, and so he slumbered all day and never worked. At the end he died poor and miserable.


While the other man who was told that he was destined to be poor set out to confound expectations by working hard, and eventually became very wealthy.

Make tinkerings to the last part of my post all you want. I remain unmoved like the great Iroko tree.

Walking encyclopedia sounds more like knowledgeable.

Like I said, intelligence is inherited as well as influenced by the environmental circumstances in which one finds himself.
Let's say your dad is naturally intelligent but didn't build on himself by studying, by reading books and newspapers as you said, do you not think that it would have caused his intellect to shrink both in size and potency?

...

Sweat and blood are metaphors for effort and I'm sure your dad put in lots of effort to be the repository of knowledge that he is. That you can't deny.

Mindfulness:

Obviously, I have not expressed myself clearly enough. I am not a nativist although I believe that people who are innately intelligent exist.

What I was saying is that too much emphasis is put on hard work and effort - possibly because people feel the urge to prove their worth by doing it the hard way? Or is it just part of the social conditioning which we have all gone through? Or both?

I believe that intellectual work and expansion can be done and achieved - even if not always - with ease and joy and not sweat and blood It can a very fulfilling enterprise, not only in the result but also the process.

As above. You got me wrong. My bad.
And I do not even believe in destiny.

Then continue sweating and bleeding. I will continue to seek more knowledge and understanding and enjoy it.

He is a walking encyclopedia and - as I have already implied - has outstanding analytical skills.

I have never questioned the fact that a human being is influenced by both - nature / genes and the environment.

Do you want to tell me that you know my father better than I do? LOL

DarkRebel101:


I do too.
How do you become ultra-smart if you do not put in effort or do not work hard toward it? Are you even listening to yourself?

Sweat and blood prefigures ease and joy.
Highbrow readers for example who can read any material with relative ease today had to worm through a complication of words, and had to make several road trips to the dictionary until they overtime developed a fail-proof instinct in deducing the meaning of words just by its contextual usage.

I'm way past the stage of sweating and bleeding.
Well, unless I'm making incursions into fields outside my area of expertise.

Are you trying to say that he put absolutely no effort in becoming what he is today?

Mindfulness:


I do not remember my brother, who used to play football professionally and very successfully, ever say 'I have been efforting to be better' but I do know that he was passionate about playing and enjoying it with every fibre of his body and soul.

It is passion, fulfillment and eagerness that make people successful. There may be effort involved but it is not what makes people exceptional 'cause almost everyone is efforting but a lot less are enjoying tremendous success.

Einstein did not struggle to be a better student but he followed his calling passionately and was focused.

Are you sure they all efforted, sweated and bled and did not enjoy the process and the development?
Are you sure all of them were having a hard time and none of them was actually playing with it with great motivation?

I do not make incursions into fields outside my area of expertise until I enjoy it. School days are over.

Minimal effort. He is my role model.

DarkRebel101:


You are talking like a mad woman, Mindy.
Passion without hardwork, passion without training, is like running a car on water rather than on fuel.

I don't know if your brother is half as good as you claim he is, but I do know that Lionel Messi, who is a paragon of footballing talent, observes a strict training regimen to remain at top echelon. If Leo Messi does that, then what does that tell you?

...

Do you know how much work Bruce Lee put into being the best martial artist and stuntman?

Why not cast a screening look at his training regiment, you can easily find it online.
You would be a-bubble with disbelief once you realize how overly austere and Spartan his workout regiment was. And yet this was someone who was profoundly talented from nascence.

Wrong. Passion and eagerness are what keeps you interested, not what makes you stand out.
Hardwork on the other hand is the supervitamin for exceptionality.

Being focused is also an integral part of hardwork. It takes mental toughness, immense discipline, and strength of character to not lose sight of goal.

...

Did Einstein become a household name in the scientific firmament simply because he was passionate about his work? The answer is no, and that's because hardwork was the key ingredient in the recipe that brought about his success.

You said it yourself that he had to fully understand mathematical formulas et al. That sounds like something you work hard to come to grips with.

I never said they did not enjoy the process.

One sweats profusely and one's body is usually in awkward folds and contortions when one is having sex, does that mean because one sweated to attain climax, that the ‘sweating process’ was grunt work and pointblank unenjoyable?

Same here. But some situations warrant getting out of your comfort zone.



You can keep deceiving yourself.

I would love to meet your dad, though -- the much touted reservoir of knowledge and timeless wisdom. Does he play chess?

...

All I see here is a lazy woman who is too afraid to sweat and work hard, and who is trying to dream up tenous excuses to make a case for her laziness.

Apparently, we are two continents of opinion as regards what constitutes the life-straw of every success story – whether it is the twofold of ‘passion and enthusiasm’, or whether it is the virtues of hardwork and effort. But, we can always agree to disagree, right?

Mindfulness:


And I am sure most of the time they enjoy the training.

You talk like everyone else.

Bla bla bla.

Passion and focus. And passion is what made him focus.

He had a natural inclination toward these sciences. This is where nature comes into play.

But you have omitted the most important aspect of it all because hard work is so virtuous. Social conditioning, social conditioning. So un-Rebel like.

Perfect example of what I mean. Just because Messi is sweating, does not mean he is killing himself to achieve a result but rather enjoys the process and the result is a natural outcome of his talent, passion and focus couple with the time he invests because he do what he does.

You wouldn't want to meet him. He is not nice to people other than his family.

YES, I AM LAZY AND I LOVE IT.

I am a success story.

I don't know about you.

ElsonMorali:
Intelligence is inherited from the mother.

A man should be careful who he marries.

Rapmoney:
There's no monopoly. It can come from either parent

Rapmoney:
There's no monopoly. It can come from either parent

cococandy:

I'm sure I read it's the mom.