<p>One troubling aspect of research on intelligence is related to the nature vs nurture debate. If you accept that intelligence is 50% genetic and 50% environmental, as many do, then you are left with another conundrum. What if we reduce, or even eliminate, the environmental factors that influence intelligence? Then intelligence becomes 100% an inherited trait. That certainly doesn’t seem fair – in the end, the problem is that many people (including me) are uncomfortable that some people have more of whatever it takes to succeed intellectually, and some have less. </p>
<p>Life is inherently unfair. It seems to me, then, that as a society, we should educate everyone to the best of their ability, but also provide meaningful work (and commensurate reward) for those who are less intelligent. (It even makes me uncomfortable to say that, but the fact remains that people have unequal levels of intelligence.) And those who are particularly “gifted” should be challenged and possibly pushed to achieve as much as they can, in order to benefit society as a whole. But at the same time, let’s make sure that they don’t become arrogant and unfeeling toward others. I think that’s the point of Murray’s article.</p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind: most students who aren’t “gifted” don’t even want to work hard or learn about challenging topics, only a few hardworkers do.</p>
<p>My experience has been that gifted classes are much better for all students as the more intelligent students can do what they enjoy, while the less intelligent students can do what they enjoy - everyone is happy!</p>
<p>The theory that placing smart students in normal classes allows them to learn better social skills, or that the normal students obtain a love for learning, is simply ridiculous; smart students don’t necessarily have worse social skills, and normal students might love learning (about motorcycles and baseball). </p>
<p>It’s not as if the other 90% of students at a high school are envious of the IB or AP students (except when scholarships start coming in), everyone has their own special qualities and only insecure people will actually believe they have less worth simply because they don’t excel in academic situations.</p>
<p>Lastly, hardworking does not equate to gifted. Gifted students have the potential to excel beyond that which hardworkers can hope to obtain, but that potential is often unfulfilled as many gifted students dislike school or wish to pursue other areas moreso. Neither is better than the other, the only category that beats them both is the gifted and hardworking student. </p>
<p>The Bell Curve is not advancing the discussion as both sides are simply introducing more and more evidence that has no bearing on the issue, race and eugenics are better left alone here.</p>
<p>Tarhunt: I don’t think we can guess at the IQ of dead people. I can’t even figure my S’s IQ and don’t even want to try to do so.<br>
One of the most intelligent persons I’ve ever met, a polyglot who worked as a decoder in WWII, used to infuriate undergraduates with his inability to come to hard conclusions they could repeat on their exams. Fortunately, I met him as a graduate student and appreciated his willingness to entertain different alternatives. We used to joke that his middle name was “on the other hand.” But he would never had made it as a decision-maker. He was indeed processing too much data. When he was invited to conferences, it was known that his wife must be invited along as well. </p>
<p>I love the name Ethelred the Unready. Nowadays, we would call him Ethelred the Pacifist. Not a quality to be admired in an age where all disputes were settled in combat.</p>
<p>As for gifted education, I do think that gifted students should be given the change to test their limits, without their being pushed beyond those limites or made to feel that their intelligence is what we parents value in them.</p>
<p>Just so you’ll know, I pronounce the name “marite” in my head as “MER-ee-tay” with the French “r,” and it just sounds so darn GOOD!!! ;-)</p>
<p>As for the IQs of dead people, Julius Caesar is one of history’s universal geniuses. I doubt he had an IQ of 70. I think I made the same point as you about indecision (the Hamlet factor), but you’d have to prove to me, with research, that this is higher among high IQ people than average ones. The President we have now makes lots of decisions and is quite certain about the ones he makes. I’m not entirely sure that’s always a good trait.</p>
<p>I don’t know if poor Ethelred was so much a pacifist as he was … well … unready. He was a bit young and probably a pawn of those who killed his brother, Edward the Saint or Martyr.</p>
<p>Ethelred doesn’t have the worst sobriquet in the English Monarchy, however. I’d give that honor to Edmund the ****er (it’s so cruel to hold a baptismal font accident against a guy for life).</p>
<p>I’m not sure that I’d say that indecision is a general trait of very bright people. I’ve known the type you describe above, but I’ve also known very bright people who process information and then arrive at a conclusion very quickly. My husband is like that – I’m one who has difficulty with decisions, but once he has all of the available data at hand, he quickly formulates an opinion. It may be due to the nature of his work, where he basically makes decisions all day long, but I also think that he’s more decisive. One son is like H and one is more like me – they are very similar in their intellectual profile, but have very different personalities.</p>
<p>A couple of quibbles (of many with this thread, but I will refrain from addressing all of them…like racism and eugenics)…</p>
<p>Not all highly gifted people have social trouble. Yes, some do, but that is painting with a broad brush. Nor is slow processing the hallmark of the highly gifted people that <em>I</em> know! </p>
<p>Also, without appropriately leveled instruction, highly gifted students never have to take an academic risk, never have to flex their intellectual muscles, and become, potentially, people who can fail in life later because everything has always come so easily to them that they have no idea whatsoever how to meet a real challenge.</p>
<p>Finally, being in heterogeneous groups in no way provides any challenge at all. Most of the time, these kids end up tutoring or mentoring others, which is hardly a good use of their intellectual talents.</p>
<p>I don’t think my prof suffered from indecision or slowness in processing information, as a matter of fact; what he had was an ability to see many sides to the same issue. I’m not talking about whether to take this route or that route, but intellectual and political judgments. In fact, he used to say that there are more than two sides to an issue, when we students joked about his habit of saying “on the other hand.” For an intellectual, this is a wonderful trait. For someone who has to make decisions, not so much so. But he could hold forth on the principal concerns of the ancient Greeks and ancient Chinese, on the differences between the mensheviks and bolsheviks, and switch from Hebrew to German or French at the drop of a hat.</p>
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