Like me, I study so hard on exam and yet I do worse than the guy that never even studied and got a way higher grade
Come on now, that just really shows natural smartness
In: Biology
General intelligence has some heritability, but heritability is not as simple as genetic predetermination of intelligence. The tl;dr is maybe, but it’s really complicated, so functionally impossible to know.
Heritability depends on how stable and resource rich the environment is. If everyone grew up in utopian environments, then there would be a much stronger heritability in intelligence. But most people don’t live in those circumstances. Nutrition and such plays an important role in all development, including intelligence.
That said, it’s also not as simple as two smart people producing a smart offspring. With what I am familiar with, it may actually be more likely that any two smart people having a child would produce an average or below average child. This is because of reversion to the mean (two extraordinary people are extraordinary: it’s unlikely to happen again).
The heritability of intelligence is something that is best understood at population levels, currently (e.g., whole societies). So it’s a lot less easy to say for any one couple what will be of their child.
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