However, there are some glitches in this post. Firstly, Dr. Bouchard’s work was referred to as a ‘recent study.’ However, the date that is posted on the NY Times article concerning Dr. Bouchard was 1990. Thus Dr. Bouchard’s data, according to the references given in the post, was 17 years old (date of results-date of student blog publishing.) I do not believe it is accurate to center an argument around data that is 17 years old because scientific methods of testing have grown more sophisticated (ie the advent of computers, advanced brain scanning tools, etc).

In that article, it is also unclear how Bouchard concluded that IQ scores were attributed to genes. How did he make this conclusion? The actual thought process of how he reached that conclusion is not outlined in the article. Conversely, Bouchard could have easily concluded that IQ scores were attributed to the environment (ie different schools). But how does he determine this with personality and intelligence tests? What is this enormous amount of evidence he speaks of?

It is also questionable how accurate his tests were in measuring personality and intelligence. A major flaw was this:

“He found more than 100 separated pairs and subjected them to a battery of personality tests and intelligence tests, ASKING HOW MUCH OF THEIR SIMILARITIES IN INTELLIGENCE AND PERSONALITY TRAITS WAS DUE TO INHERITANCE AND HOW MUCH WAS DUE TO THE ENVIRONMENT.”

This was unclear as well. Was he asking the test subjects to determine how much they thought their personality and intelligence contributed to inheritance or the environment? If so, then how would Dr. Bouchard verify his results? repeat his experiment? How old were these twins? Were they old enough to understand the questions or cognitively developped enough to articulate or even understand why they do the things they do?

Bouchard also did not use a large testing sample in the experiment.

In the post, it says that Bouchard followed up with a study in 2001. However, Bouchard did not conduct a study then. The scientist referred in that 2001 study link is Dr. Thompson.

I thought the MRI experiment was fascinating. I especially thought the evidence showing that language areas of the brain are heritable was interesting. Language helps us communicate, articulate our ideas and understand material. Following this line of thought, it makes sense to me that language areas and frontal regions play a huge role in cognition. If you have a heightened ability to understand and learn language, then your method of coding, storing and processing information will be unique and different from others.

I found it surprising that the study stated that the environment (ie personal experiences) played a neglibeale role in shaping the frontal structure. One would assume that that wouldn’t be the case because sometimes, he or she feels like they would not be the same person without having been influenced by a special person or role model. Perhaps the twins in this study were not exposed to drastically different types of people and environments?

Also, what were the two different environments in both experiments? Different schools? Different cities? States? Neighborhoods?

Needless to say, I think this question ignites curiousity. I believe that intelligence is a combination of genes and environment. I think that to be ‘intelligent’, one has to nurture what nature endows.

The comments from other bloggers about a combination of hard work and inborn intelligence also makes me think of another question: is a hard work ethic inherited?