<p>Sounds like she raised multiple kids, some adopted, use the same nurturing techniques and wound up with different results.</p>
<p>sunnyflorida, now that your children are 3 years older, do you still believe that nurture cannot overcome nature?</p>
<p>They’re actually six years older–this thread is 3 years old. :)</p>
<p>IQ is nature (high or low) and how it gets developed is nurture (good or not so good).</p>
<p>Why do people insist on resurrecting old threads?</p>
<p>Who cares about IQ?</p>
<p>With all due respect to my fellow 99.9%er, Mr. zyzzbrahs, if you bother to read the article it actually doesn’t say what most posters here seem to think it says, and their confident refutations are inapposite. What the article says is
but that kids raised in poverty will see a significant increase in their tested IQ if they are exposed to a different environment:
It’s also interesting that the average IQ in the nation has increased significantly over the years. What the study actually says is worth thinking about, for those so inclined.</p>
<p>Who actually measures their IQs, and how do these studies come to such conclusions?</p>
<p>ThereseR, try this: [Let</a> me google that for you](<a href=“http://lmgtfy.com/]Let”>http://lmgtfy.com/).</p>
<p>So the assumption in this “study” is that being middle class makes kids receptive to the positive influence of good nurturing. </p>
<p>Now how about this question – why do middle class families generally nurture in a more positive manner? Could it be that the behavior patterns that lend themselves to positive nurturing parenting behavior derive from the same behavior patterns that tend to lift folks or help them sustain middle class or higher economic status? </p>
<p>The study and some posters here are concluding that more money = better nurturing = higher IQ. </p>
<p>Simply throwing money at low-income families with low-IQ families will make those kids have high IQs. Got it.</p>
<p>Sure, nurture can help a child take full advantage of whatever natural gifts they have. But there’s a limit. My husband and I are huge readers. We like to discuss current events, we are interested in a variety of topics, we like learning for learning’s sake. We read to our daughter from day one, try to keep her aware of the world outside her neighborhood, took her to the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone (we love National Parks), etc. </p>
<p>She is 15. She rarely reads voluntarily. She will never do more than the minimum required for a good grade. She likes traveling but hates nature. She has no intellectual curiosity at all. I don’t think this is teenage rebellion, because there are times we’ll like the same thing and she’ll gladly go along with us on those occasions.</p>
<p>This is who she is. Some things may change with maturity. But her environment growing up surely has only done so much to influence her. The rest, apparently, is genetic.</p>
<p>SansSeriff, does her lack of intellectual curiosity really signal less intellectual endowment?</p>
<p>How would you respond to those who’d argue that anyone–even those with supposedly less intellectual endowment–can become intellectually curious?</p>
<p>If one becomes intellectually curious after a lifetime of apathy, does that mean that she is suddenly now more intelligent?</p>
<p>Has anyone seen this recent article by Amy Wax?</p>
<p>[The</a> Dead End of “Disparate Impact” > Publications > National Affairs](<a href=“http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-dead-end-of-disparate-impact]The”>The Dead End of "Disparate Impact" | National Affairs)</p>
<p>Here are two interesting quotes:</p>
<p>““A strong consensus has emerged, based on hundreds of studies performed over decades, that general cognitive ability known alternatively as IQ or g is the best predictor of work performance for all types of positions, from least to most skilled… Such measures are also “unbiased,” in that the correlation of cognitive ability with job outcomes is independent of a candidate’s race, background, or identity.””</p>
<p>““Meritocracy and diversity are almost always inversely related. The screening devices with the strongest or most “valid” links to job success will tend to generate the least diverse work forces. This reality is well understood by industrial psychologists, who even have a name for it: the diversity-validity tradeoff.””</p>
<p>As far as the best write-up on the topic of IQ, I still find this reprint the best available:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1994WSJmainstream.pdf[/url]”>http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1994WSJmainstream.pdf</a></p>
<p>Very sobering indeed.</p>
<p>I’m not saying of lack of intellectual curiosity definitely means a lack of intelligence. What I meant in my daughter’s case is that she’s very different than us in many ways, despite being brought up within an environment that encourages and values intellectual curiosity. She speaks disdainfully of classmates who voluntarily read Jane Austen, for example. She has no interest in tv that isn’t Jersey Shore or Teen Mom. I’m not being a snob. Lots of people watch reality tv. But it isn’t ALL they watch.</p>