It's not about the punnet square.
Sep. 13th, 2009 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serynOne of the things I find that differs for me compared to other people is a relatively high disbelief in the power of genetics. Oh, sure, there are traits in appearance and physiology, but I think there is a much much larger component to the environment in which the individual grows.
I think people are much more like bonsai trees, they can be trained and restricted and shaped over time into almost anything. Obviously there are some who are not bonsai or even bamboo, they're azalea or marigold or honeysuckle or whatever. When you get someone like that, no matter how much trimming or shaping is done, they will never be an austere bonsai, though they might resemble the intention for a brief period.
I watched (while knitting and with a heavy hand on the fast forward) Idiocracy last night. The basic premise is that smart people don't really have children compared to idiots and centuries later, the world's gotten butt-stupid.
But there's a reason smart people don't have children. It's completely unrewarding, expensive, and causes lifelong medical issues for many women. Not to mention that the world is vastly overpopulated and millions are starving, the air isn't fit to breathe, there isn't enough potable water, and most of the world's people live in over-crowded conditions rife with disease and violence. It takes a special kind of delusion to be able to see all that and damn someone else to a lifetime of suffering through it. The only people who have lots of children are too stupid to look at the bigger picture.
However. My own parents are not very smart. They're sort of average plus lucky. They did have a lot more hands-on training in life skills than most people get today, which meant fewer things had to be professionally done. But my mother got dumber and dumber as time went on. Some of that is my own expanding world-view, but a lot of it was that she didn't do anything intellectual. I'm not sure how conscious of this she was, but she knew she was unhappy and alcohol numbed it. I got as far as I did in my education because of that situation. I was required to come straight home from school, but I only made noise once before getting the premise of "Don't annoy a sleeping dragon." There are not a lot of quiet activities. I could read, I could do my homework, or I could do my outside chores. If when my mother awoke, something wasn't done, there were penalty tasks assigned. So I quickly learned to focus on getting my schoolwork done. There is a lot of public school education that seeps in just by doing the assigned work.
I doubt I was all that much smarter than anyone else, but I was organized and quiet and did what I needed to do in order to get unnoticably good grades. (A bad grade would mean a term of, "Since you are clearly wasting your time doing homework, you will make dinner and clean the kitchen every day." The only way to have that stop was to improve but with less available time in which to study.) I do thoroughly believe that people who having music on while they're studying retain less information, but regardless, I don't think most children had the same incentives.
I consider myself fairly average in genetic smartness. I didn't come from some phenomenal stock. But I did astonishingly well in school and made it into grad school while that still meant something largely based on continual effort. It makes me rather intolerant of the stupid.
I don't believe it can possibly be all genetics. Or really even mostly genetics. I just had the right incentives and an environment conducive to learning. I never failed a test. There was a fractional likelihood that failure could cause my actual death. There is a lot a body can do to focus with that kind of incentive. But I absolutely believe it was wrong for my parents to have children since they intended to torture them.
So I think it wouldn't matter what genetic stock people have as far as intelligence if there is a need they can internalize which drives them to study hard, work towards a goal, and learn. It's not about the genetics, it's about expectations. From what I've seen, even smart parents have relatively low expectations and the children certainly live down to them.
I think people are much more like bonsai trees, they can be trained and restricted and shaped over time into almost anything. Obviously there are some who are not bonsai or even bamboo, they're azalea or marigold or honeysuckle or whatever. When you get someone like that, no matter how much trimming or shaping is done, they will never be an austere bonsai, though they might resemble the intention for a brief period.
I watched (while knitting and with a heavy hand on the fast forward) Idiocracy last night. The basic premise is that smart people don't really have children compared to idiots and centuries later, the world's gotten butt-stupid.
But there's a reason smart people don't have children. It's completely unrewarding, expensive, and causes lifelong medical issues for many women. Not to mention that the world is vastly overpopulated and millions are starving, the air isn't fit to breathe, there isn't enough potable water, and most of the world's people live in over-crowded conditions rife with disease and violence. It takes a special kind of delusion to be able to see all that and damn someone else to a lifetime of suffering through it. The only people who have lots of children are too stupid to look at the bigger picture.
However. My own parents are not very smart. They're sort of average plus lucky. They did have a lot more hands-on training in life skills than most people get today, which meant fewer things had to be professionally done. But my mother got dumber and dumber as time went on. Some of that is my own expanding world-view, but a lot of it was that she didn't do anything intellectual. I'm not sure how conscious of this she was, but she knew she was unhappy and alcohol numbed it. I got as far as I did in my education because of that situation. I was required to come straight home from school, but I only made noise once before getting the premise of "Don't annoy a sleeping dragon." There are not a lot of quiet activities. I could read, I could do my homework, or I could do my outside chores. If when my mother awoke, something wasn't done, there were penalty tasks assigned. So I quickly learned to focus on getting my schoolwork done. There is a lot of public school education that seeps in just by doing the assigned work.
I doubt I was all that much smarter than anyone else, but I was organized and quiet and did what I needed to do in order to get unnoticably good grades. (A bad grade would mean a term of, "Since you are clearly wasting your time doing homework, you will make dinner and clean the kitchen every day." The only way to have that stop was to improve but with less available time in which to study.) I do thoroughly believe that people who having music on while they're studying retain less information, but regardless, I don't think most children had the same incentives.
I consider myself fairly average in genetic smartness. I didn't come from some phenomenal stock. But I did astonishingly well in school and made it into grad school while that still meant something largely based on continual effort. It makes me rather intolerant of the stupid.
I don't believe it can possibly be all genetics. Or really even mostly genetics. I just had the right incentives and an environment conducive to learning. I never failed a test. There was a fractional likelihood that failure could cause my actual death. There is a lot a body can do to focus with that kind of incentive. But I absolutely believe it was wrong for my parents to have children since they intended to torture them.
So I think it wouldn't matter what genetic stock people have as far as intelligence if there is a need they can internalize which drives them to study hard, work towards a goal, and learn. It's not about the genetics, it's about expectations. From what I've seen, even smart parents have relatively low expectations and the children certainly live down to them.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 05:24 am (UTC)Most people are somewhere in the middle: some amount of talent for some things, and some amount of hard work, not always in conjunction with where their talents lie.
I do think it matters a little what genetic stock an individual has--partly because nurture's effects begin before an individual has conscious recollection or reasoning. Also, there's more to it than parents: grandparents, traits that show up not in one's parent but in the parent's sibling, etc. My father was dead average at the usual school subjects (good only at art and athletics), and he discouraged me from reading--I was grounded from it as my usual punishment (wasn't much else he could take, anyway). OTOH, his brother's bright, if not always motivated when he was a student.
Arrogant though it be, FWIW, I was always considered precociously bright, before there were school-based metrics--but it wouldn't have mattered, as you say, if I hadn't wanted to learn. From the other side, however, I've taught enough (and worked with younger kids on music and drawing) to be sure that most kids I knew growing up, no matter how hard they worked, couldn't have grown up to be interested in (and keep track of) the different knowledge areas I have....
Also, sorry, "never failed a test" is a pretty low bar.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 05:56 am (UTC)I know there are some people who really struggle with certain academic subjects, people who aren't athletic, people who aren't creative, or are lacking in certain sensory perceptions. Some of that has to be genetic.
Perhaps what was unclear is that this was an argument against the premise of the movie. The implied part where smart people should be encouraged to have more children. (No one ever suggests that non-smart people should have fewer children, which would be a better solution in the long-term.) I don't want children. On paper I look like one of the smart people, so I felt somewhat targeted by the movie's implied premise.
I figured arguing against "smart" being purely genetic would be a lot more acceptable than slurs against pregnancy making women stupid.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-14 03:57 pm (UTC)I get the innocuous event -- violent reaction thing.
Thanks for clarifying re: film premise; that wasn't clear at first, yes! The thing is, smart people who are child-compatible seem always to be encouraging *other* smart people to have kids; they rarely declare proudly that they themselves have had five, or whatever, because liking certain intellectual pursuits means being a bit selfish about one's time: things and abstract concepts valued over people.
All this without going into different kinds of intelligence--people who're really exceptional with fiber pattern design, e.g., are bright, too.