How intelligent are you? How intelligent are your parents? Do these two things have any correlation? According to this article, they do. Intelligence is hereditary, but only to a certain extent. We all share about 99.5% of our three billion DNA base pairs. So if we share so much, how can we all be so different? Well, we have about fifteen million differences that separate all of us genetically, as well.
Therefore, genes account for about half of the differences in genetics. So where does the other half come from? The difference comes from the environment in which we grow up in. They were able to study this and record their findings by studying twins, and adopted children. They found that adopted children later on life would, for the most part, grow to be similar to their biological parents, just as a child who had not been adopted would be. The article stated that adoptive parents and their adoptive children do not usually resemble each other in intelligence.
Researchers thus far have only found about 5% of the differences in intelligence among people. This means that there is still a lot of discovering to do. Another interesting find is that genetic influence on our intelligence slowly increases throughout our lives. For instance, in infancy, we have roughly a 20% genetic influence on our intelligence. By childhood, we have a 40% genetic influence, and by adulthood, 60%.
In conclusion, intelligence is based partially on our genetics, and partially on our environments. Scientists have discovered a lot, but there is so much more waiting to be uncovered. Do you think you have the intelligence level of your parents?
No comments:
Post a Comment