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Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation

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Re: Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation

#181

Post by electrograv »

xenophanes wrote: post #116
electrograv wrote: post #30

Saying "Children aren't born smart" is equivalent to saying "Intelligence is determined entirely by one's environment", if I understand the claim correctly. While I'm sure talking to ones children contributes in a massively positive way to their IQ, I think it's extremely inaccurate and ignorant to the existence of real-world outliers to claim that it's the only factor. To provide just one example (out of many, I'm s…

You claim to "demonstrate that it's a lot more complex than just environmental factors". But the correct conclusion from what you said is that you demonstrated that it's a lot more complex than just the environmental factors that you thought of. You seem to be concluding genetic factors ("always had an intrinsic motivation"). But "not all environment" does not imply "some genetics", that is a false alternative. There…

Are you claiming people are solely the product of their environment? There is substantial scientific evidence to the contrary.

Keep in mind I'm not saying it's a deterministic inherited thing (it's clearly not). However I believe there is strong evidence that everyone is born with a unique personality and potential. An "environmental chaos theory" does not do justice to unexplained outliers, those with recognized mind-affecting genetic conditions, and many other real-world scenarios.

My situation is even more unusual than you realize. I didn't even meet many people while growing up; throughout my childhood I was almost entirely separated from the outside world (lived secluded in the mountains). Almost no neighbors near by. I never went to public school. Extremely protective parents did not allow us to ever talk to strangers. All this is the same case for my siblings, yet they have no desire to pursue technology, while I do.

Note that by no means am I trying to downplay the importance of environment. I'm simply trying to illustrate that the claim "environment determines 100% of someone's mental and personality development" is empirically wrong.

Re: Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation

#182

Post by mattmcknight »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #178
electrograv wrote: post #30

Saying "Children aren't born smart" is equivalent to saying "Intelligence is determined entirely by one's environment", if I understand the claim correctly. While I'm sure talking to ones children contributes in a massively positive way to their IQ, I think it's extremely inaccurate and ignorant to the existence of real-world outliers to claim that it's the only factor. To provide just one example (out of many, I'm s…

Haven't you just excluded nurture ("can't come up with a single environmental influence that explains this") and nature ("I'm definitely the only one like this from my family, a clear outlier")? If you didn't get if from your family via genes, and you didn't get it from the environment, where else is left? Everyone else seems to be reading your comment as pro-genetics, but given the quote above, I can't see that.

Genetics is complicated- it is possible for offspring to develop traits that were not present in either parent.

Re: Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation

#183

Post by im3w1l »

eulerphi wrote: post #56
malandrew wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW language gives children a tool with which they can discuss and more importantly reason about abstract concepts. The sooner you acquire a rich and varied vocabulary the sooner you can form a rich understanding about the phenomena in the world around you. Since kids learn fastest when they are young and that slows with age, a strong grasp of language means that they can absorb and understand more abstractions soon…

Edges between abstractions? You lost me with your abstraction.

Graph edges

Re: Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation

#184

Post by david927 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #151
Kudzu_Bob wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't want to address a question posed in bad faith.

This is a reasonable perspective. But people other than the parent sometimes read comments! I'll do my best at a level-zero explanation of "intelligence" in the literature: Let's start by modestly noting that I routinely got the top score on Latin tests in high school (this was worth a small box of chocolates!). Someone applying the concept of "intelligence" might predict that I would also do well in math class. The…

The question isn't, "Is there intelligence?" The question is "What is intelligence in terms of a definition?"

You're saying that if many people find you beautiful, there's a quality driving that, and it's "beauty". That's fine. Beauty exists. But aren't you almost admitting that it is a quality and therefore subject to what evaluates it? In other words, if 5 people call someone beautiful or ugly, are they beautiful? If someone is good at Latin and languages, does that mean they are intelligent? And if someone is not good at Latin, does that mean they are not?

Further, how many people do you have to find to say you are beautiful to be you are "defined" as beautiful? That's not a definition, that's just further confidence-building; the more you have the more confident you can be. But that still doesn't mean there's a point where you can say it is definitively so, and therefore you don't have a true definition.

Re: Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation

#185

Post by personlurking »

r0h1n wrote: post #64

Father of a 3.5 year old brought up using tons of "targeted talking" here: our son has a vocabulary and logical comprehension skills that are significantly beyond his peer group. As a result I'd noticed in the past that he prefers engaging with other adults in conversation over kids his age. Yesterday was his first PTA meeting and the feedback from his teacher seemed to confirm it too. She narrated an incident when t…

The barrier is something I noticed in people who like to learn for learning's sake. The more I learn, the more I set myself apart from the crowd. I find that seeking out others who like to learn is the only solution (aside from becoming a teacher of some sort, which I'd guess is a bit more lonely yet at the same time self-gratifying).

Knowledge is like money, the more you have the less you have in common with the gen. pop.

Re: Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation

#186

Post by heyitsnick »

DanBC wrote: post #135
jamesaguilar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it really qualifies as a nitpick to directly contradict the article's title.

I think we need to ignore titles. HN doesn't allow changes to the title. People writing articles will chose a click-baity title. All titles suck.

Minor nitpick: Very often editors pick the click-baity titles, not those writing the articles.

Re: Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation

#187

Post by rsheridan6 »

lutusp wrote: post #69
Kudzu_Bob wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 100 to 115 IQ maxed out on potential will get you very far in life, but not as far as a 130 to 145 IQ maxed out on potential will.

Not really. There's an upper limit to the survival value of intelligence. Not to oversimplify, but that limit is reached when the person says, "What? I should add to the world's problems by having children?" In all seriousness, the fact that the average I.Q. is located where it is, tells us that's the outcome natural selection blindly chose. And natural selection is always right.

Sure, if you define success strictly in terms of reproductive fitness. By that standard, two of the heroes of hners, pg and Steve jobs, are abject failures, while a crack whore who has eight kids who were taken away by cps is a paragon of success.

Re: Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation

#188

Post by rsheridan6 »

I would think little kids today don't get talked to as much as they did in the past because many or most have single mothers with jobs and few or no siblings, whereas the baby boomers had a dad and a stay at home mom and lots of siblings. And they had nothing to do but talk to each other, since you couldn't spend all day staring at screens then.

If this is correct, developments in the last several decades should have been a cognitive disaster. Afaik they weren't.

Re: Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation

#189

Post by BSousa »

ttcbj wrote: post #160
clarkm wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better analogy is height. Given some minimal level of nutrition, a child's adult height can be extrapolated quite accurately from their parents' genomes. However, if a child grows up in abject poverty, all bets are off. See Judith Rich Harris' The Nurture Assumption [1] for details. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption

I also found the book 'Selfish reasons to have more kids' interesting on this topic. It uses twin studies to suggest that although parenting does have an effect in the short term, in the long term genetic factors are dominant as long as the child is raised outside abject poverty. The conclusion of the book is: provide a healthy environment, but don't agonize over violin lessons and other 'enriching' activities. That…

I have the exact same concern. While my kid is only 1.5 years old and as such I don't consider him smart, dumb or anything in between, the thing in the next years I would like to teach him most is exactly what you mention, grit and conscientiousness. This has been on my mind since he was born.

If you want to talk about or discuss some ideas, you can reach me at my email (on profile)

Re: Children aren't born smart. They're made smart by conversation

#190

Post by 6d0debc071 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #57

Solid parenting advice, #1 talk to your children even when they cannot talk, #2 read new books to your children every week. You can always re-read favorites but just keep the new books coming. And then combine #1 and #2 and talk to your children about the books you read. There is an excellent Radiolab podcast on "Colors" [1] which has (for me) the fairly stunning revelation that you can't see a color you can't name.…

> which has (for me) the fairly stunning revelation that you can't see a color you can't name.

Then how did they get named in the first place?

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