What the environment can do is stifle ability. It doesn't create it, though I suppose enhance/stifle are two sides of the same coin.
But you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If you take a chimp or low IQ person at birth, you can do all you like, to perfection, and you won't get a 15 year old chanting the Schrodinger equation for fun, and knowing what it means, and then inventing another idea themselves based on it.
Your hazardous guess is wrong: < I'd hazard that their culture is far more likely to be a root cause for higher IQ as a result of early development. If black kids from the 'hood thought it was cool to hang playing chess, and sissy to be caught round the hoop, while Ashkenazi Jews started shooting hoop at 1 year old, you'd see blacks kicking butt in chess, and Jews romping round the NBA courts. >
That's on average. Though you could probably find a really talented individual in the 'hood, going to waste. But you'll find a lot more bright children in the Ashkenazi 'hood. Thomas, despite being a bit of a chess player, so presumably not, as he says, a total idiot, doesn't understand that finding an individual doesn't change the point.
Mqurice |
