Born with it or Learned

[jbb1236]

Quick question that has been bugging me for awhile. Is intelligence an inborn trait; just like sexuality, eye color, or hair color; or is it a product of our environment. Or is it a combination of the two.

Personally, I believe people are only as intelligent as they want to be, but others may have to work harder at it than others.

Thought?

[BlakeHarmony]

Intelligence is different than how smart you are, in my opinion. To me, being intelligent means you take advantage of how smart you are, as an example.
To answer what I perceive to be the question, I would say that there are some hereditary things that might lower ones intelligence but I do believe anyone can be as intelligent as they want to be. Basically, I think the same thing as you...

[Wander]

Certain people do seem to have a great capacity for knowledge than others, certainly. A lot of it has to do with your upbringing, your motivation to learn, and the effort you put into it. Motivation isn't something that can be created, but for the people who are born with it, they have the potential to be as intelligent as they can make themselves.

well some people do have to work harder than others and no i dont think there are people like Jessica Simpson in Newlyweds who are that stupid. sure we all have our blonde, senior or hose types of moment but everyone has some level of intelligence of course that is only me opinion

[Vector]

Personally, I think of 'smartness' as acquired knowledge, and 'intelligence' as the ability to not only learn things, but extrapolate ideas to come to your own conclusions.

Some people are more intelligent than others, and have a natural ability to pick up information and draw their own conclusions for related issues, where as others will only be able to act on knowledge that they have learnt specifically, but not apply it to different situations without instruction.

[partietraumatic]

yeah i agree with everyone here about there being a difference between intelligence and 'smartness'. I also think there are different types-someone who is good at maths is good with numbers, but that dosen't neccessarily make them intelligent as they might not have any ability to think constructively about non number related things.

In my experience its alll alot to do with the education you receive and only what youre born with to a ceratin extent. for example when i was younger (upto the age of about 10ish i think) i went to this one school,and i didnt do very well atall-they thought i was pretty dumb. however we moved house and i changed schools. i gradually started to get better at school and now go to a reeeally good school and got pretty damn good results in my gcses and im on course for 3 A grades in my a-levels. so in my expereince its alot down to the teaching you receive. i have discussed this with my parents and we feel the problem with the first school was that i wasnt being stretched so wasnt achieving what i could becuase i was bored!!

[Lexington]

I think we're born with a capacity for learning. Some people will be better at it than others. But also, it needs to be nurtured. If a girl is brought up being told that "book larnin" isn't something to be admired, she probably won't develop this talent.

Lex

[HalfInsane]

Well, you do hear that a small portion of the population is born with higher intelligence. As for the rest, I think it depends on a couple things. One, people learn differently. And some people do seem to take naturally to certain things, and so are more adept in these areas. And then, as Lex said, it also depends on whether or not learning is seen as important in that person's life or not.

[Joey]

[rant]

I have to make a very clear distinction here.... these words mean absolutely nothing to me because my roommate from last year and my roommate now are "smart" or "intelligent" but they are quite stupid. They do well in school, but that's just about it.... they don't really have common sense, nor any particular interest in anything outside of their "comfort zone"
On the other hand, I know people who don't do so hot in school... but are the brightest people I know.
This is why I've lost faith in these words. People often mistake school marks for intelligence.... and that just isn't the case.

[/rant]

Back on topic, I have a personal philosophy that we're all born with pretty much the same thing going on in our brains (bar-ing some sort of mental disease and/or sickness) it's just a matter of how we are nurtured and how we use it. Which also happens to be along the lines of the philosophical idea of tabula rasa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa)

[littledinosaurs]

Its a half and half thing, you are born with a certain ability of intellegence (or whatever) and then the rest is learned by how you are raised and stuff like effort.
(woo for nature and nurture!)

[EmperorNero]

To me, intelligence is the ability to understand and solve problems, to find the weak point in an argument/strategy, to get new ideas and so on. Almost anything that requires some working with the brain. And I think you're born with a part of it and learn the rest from practice (Wich, by the way, is why I'm so fond of math).

[BlueRose]

From what I remember, studies show a fairly strong link between genetics and intelligence. But the application and nurturing of that intelligence would have to do with environment. As to the definition of intelligence, I think there are different kinds. For example, some people are good with cars/other machines. I am not. I'm more of a math/science/lit guy. Does that make one smarter or more intelligent than the other? Not really. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that intelligence is very situational. The "most intelligent" person in a given group could easily change from situation to situation. At least, that's what I think.

[JurrBurr]

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em

I do believe this is from Shakespeare

[EmperorNero]

Originally Posted by JBBB

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em

I do believe this is from Shakespeare

Sounds like Shakespeare. Sounds true, as well, and sounds good. Lot of sound from a written sentence.

[jbb1236]

Originally Posted by Joey

[rant]

I have to make a very clear distinction here.... these words mean absolutely nothing to me because my roommate from last year and my roommate now are "smart" or "intelligent" but they are quite stupid. They do well in school, but that's just about it.... they don't really have common sense, nor any particular interest in anything outside of their "comfort zone"
On the other hand, I know people who don't do so hot in school... but are the brightest people I know.
This is why I've lost faith in these words. People often mistake school marks for intelligence.... and that just isn't the case.

[/rant]

Back on topic, I have a personal philosophy that we're all born with pretty much the same thing going on in our brains (bar-ing some sort of mental disease and/or sickness) it's just a matter of how we are nurtured and how we use it. Which also happens to be along the lines of the philosophical idea of tabula rasa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa)

I think you're confusing "tabula rasa" and plato. Tabula rasa is the belief that we are all "blank slates", the whole Latin meaning of the word, and everything we learn we learn through experience. But Plato and many others believed we have already have innate knowledge, like what is "good" and what it "truth". I could get into specifics if you want, but I don't think anyone else wants me to, it's kind of a mind fk when you study philosophy.

[Daniel]

Um, intelligence is relative. Each person thinks in a different matter and it is through forms of learning that a person becomes "smart." Many teachers know multiple methods for teaching so that students can gain knowledge. Showing a student how to solve a problem with a graph works for one person but another needs to do it algebraically. That sort of deal.