cthia wrote:@JohnRoth. Addressing the subject and link regarding IQ, John. First off, thanks for the link.
The group wrangled with that one for a long time. Lots of grey matter was expended on the subject. As I said, there's a neurosurgeon in the group. Who has a neuroscientist in her family.
She agrees with the absurdity of the idea of genetic intelligence, which they quickly pointed out would fit with many extremists' views if it were so. Like, well, Hitler's master race.
As it was explained to this layman...
You have to watch out for ideology dictating "reality." There were a lot of beliefs that came out of a distaste for the excesses of WW II. Many of those are being overturned today. One example is from historical anthropology: the "pots, not people," dictum says that, when you see cultural artifacts (pots, etc.) moving, it's cultural diffusion or cultural appropriation rather than the movement of people. Modern genetic analysis of old skeletons and so forth is showing that, yes, it's people. Cultural diffusion indeed works occasionally, but most of the time it's a convenient myth to cover up the reality of exactly how bloody-minded our ancestors were in moving into new territories and killing or brutalizing the existing inhabitants.
And that kind of cover-up is characteristic of what happens after a "crisis war" to "insure that this never happens again." It doesn't work long-term, of course.
cthia wrote:
She, they, pointed out that the human brain is an unmolded lump of clay that becomes molded through experiences, interactions and the environment which affects the forming of neural connections. Proper stimulation is very important to ensure intelligence, all else being equal. The brain has to be exercised from infancy, with the proper stimulation. This fact sits center stage why blocks, Legos and toys are important to cognitive development. Absent this set of criteria could result in lower intelligences. IOW, we very well may be a product of our environment.
There are a lot of very qualified people who would dispute that. The "undifferentiated lump of clay" is very similar to Rousseau's "blank slate." It's an influential viewpoint, but it doesn't work. The human brain has a very intricate structure that's there in the fetus long before there's any experience to shape it; various parts come online at different times during childhood. There is a very great amount of experience programming going on, but you could not, for example, learn language unless there were pre-existing brain structures that could be programmed by experience.
That experience does have effects on the small-scale structure of various areas, but the large-scale structure is there first.
Chimpanzees, for example, cannot be taught language in any realistic sense. They can't learn any form of tool-making more intricate than stripping the twigs off a branch so they can stick it into a termite mound, and their throwing skills are pitiful. The brain structures needed for those activities simply aren't there.
cthia wrote:
I'd like to know what she'd have to say about defective genes producing lower intelligence since she shared her study of autism which yields some very intelligent people, although within certain parameters. In autistic kids, a certain section of the brain is more active.
"Autism" is an umbrella diagnosis: there are a lot of different forms of it, and they have little in common other than extreme difficulty in handling social situations. What used to be called Asperger's Syndrome has little in common with the form of autism that Eric Flint outlines with Francisca Simöes. That form exists, although he moved it from around age 2 or 3 to much later.
cthia wrote:In a nutshell, experiences encourage or hinder the road to intelligence by releasing endorphins. Happiness releases endorphins. They discussed the possibility that the lack of endorphins could be responsible for mental illness. A child growing up in an intensely abusive family completely devoid of proper simulation may experience a lack of endorphins. Endorphins are addicting, and exposed to them early on as an infant and nourished can open the road to intelligence.
Child abuse is certainly one of the ways of limiting a child's potential.
cthia wrote:
However, they did discuss ways that the MAlign could have found to genetically influence intelligence, as a side effect. They could have found ways to increase synaptic plasticity. Axonal coupling. Synaptogenesis, focus, etc., etc., and much much more. They could even have found a way to encourage use of more of the brain. Which involved discussions way outside of my brain.
See this post
The hyper-intelligent person or race is a common trope in SF. I don't usually worry about the amount of arm-waving required. The question I ask is how it fits into the author's intent in writing the story. RFC has discussed that intent a number of times.
