The Narrative Response .

[Simon Hickie]

We could get some Bonobo genes incorporated

Well as long as they are not Bono genes, otherwise we'll all be singing in irritating whiny voices and trying to outdo each other by supporting worthy causes in as self-promoting way as possible.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Nurture is just the small amount of freedom of choice that is programmed into us genetically. So we are 100% genetically controlled.

[Lurcher300b]

I hope you have all noticed that the agrarian revolution arrived just when we needed it to continue to develop. Ditto the industrial revolution. Ditto the information revolution. AND ditto, still to come just starting, the genetic revolution. All when we needed them, so *who* is this bloke called God

I think you may be confusing correlation and causality there. It also sounds like a variant of The self-sampling assumption.

[Daniel Quinn]

Intelligence is purely socially defined . Buggered how it can be natural.

[Lurcher300b]

Intelligence is purely socially defined . Buggered how it can be natural.

Well, we can see signs of it in a few other species, so no reason for it not to be IMHO.

[Simon Hickie]

Buggered how it can be natural.

It has quite a bit to do with neural pathways. People are born with differently configured wiring which leads to aptitude in certain tasks and not in others. All the education / nurture etc. etc. in the world will not magically turn somebody into a rocket scientist if the wiring isn't suitably configured in the first place. Now if you are saying that say a scientist with PhD and a shedload of postdoctoral publications has the same innate capabilities as the person who finds basic arithmetic a challenge, that is clearly nonsense. However that person may be a gifted musician - different capabilities due to different wiring. Whether this is what we mean by intelligence is indeed something of a moot point.

[ArseHats]

The kind of intelligence measured in this type of research is usually the kind assessed by IQ tests or by school test / exam results.
There is an informative and well presented Norweigian documentary on the subject (English subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41ryusHlrgw
Robert Plomin, the guy linked to previously in this thread is a major contributor the the programme.

Personality is usually measured according to the "Big 5" OCEAN model.

Also, important to clarify that "nurture" should not be viewed as being synonymous with "parenting" or "home environment".
The kinds of twin and adoption studies (personality and IQ tests carried out on adult siblings) that allow researchers to control for genetic and environmental effects respectively produce a number of results:
1. Birth siblings are more alike than adopted siblings.
2. Fraternal twins are more alike than non-twin siblings.
3. Identical twins are more alike than fraternal twins.
No surprises there.
But the studies also show that:
4. Identical twins raised together are no more similar than identical twins raised apart.
5. Adopted siblings are no more similar to each other than they are to complete strangers.

So, if a portion of personality development and IQ are reacting to something in the environment it doesn't appear to have very much to do with the home or with parenting style. Or at the very least, that home or parenting style has no consistent or predictable effects.

Edit - typo shambles

[Simon Hickie]

Well, we can see signs of it in a few other species

Indeed. Anybody who has had more than one dog as a pet will tell you that some are more intelligent than others and that each has a different character. One measure used is the speed with which a task can be learned based on the number of repetitions needed. One could argue that this is training, but it still requires learning: quite simply some are better at it than others.

[Lurcher300b]

Well, we can see signs of it in a few other species

Indeed. Anybody who has had more than one dog as a pet will tell you that some are more intelligent than others and that each has a different character. One measure used is the speed with which a task can be learned based on the number of repetitions needed. One could argue that this is training, but it still requires learning: quite simply some are better at it than others.

Yep, compare for example a Greyhound and Border Collie. The Collie has been bread for intelligence for centuries, and stupidity is a advantage to a working greyhound.

Though it seems they are outclassed by Crows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVaITA7eBZE

[Simon Hickie]

Though it seems they are outclassed by Crows.

And parakeets.