Intelligence genes are multiplying rapidly
Genius falls from the sky
Yuri Medvedev, Rossiyskaya Gazeta – Federal Issue, 24.10.2012
Scientists predict that the number of intelligence genes may be more than a thousand. Why has always rational nature in this case turned out to be so wasteful?
Finding the genes of intelligence is a tougher task than searching for the famous Higgs boson. After all, with these genes in hand, science will be able to unravel the most important mystery of nature – how our brain works. It would seem that over the past 10-15 years, scientists have seriously succeeded. They periodically report that another mind gene has been found. A real world sensation at the time was the work of a group of Britons led by Dr. Skuse, who investigated the relationship between genes and mental abilities. (Recall that in order for a girl to be born, there must be two X chromosomes in a fertilized egg, one from the mother, the other from the father. The boy inherits the X chromosome from his mother, and the Y chromosome from his father).
Scientists have revealed an amazing fact: the genes of the mind are on the X chromosome, but they are not in the male Y chromosome. And since the son receives only one X chromosome, and from the mother, then his mental abilities are determined by her genes. This sensation was followed by new ones, and gradually the bank of intelligence genes exceeded 20 units.
And now a scientific bomb has just exploded, which, frankly speaking, has seriously shaken the scientific world. American scientists Chris Chabris and David Leibson claim that all previous results have not been confirmed, and the collected gene bank is questionable. The statement is very responsible, but the "heretics" backed it up with solid arguments. The Americans have convincingly shown that for complete confidence in the discovery of intelligence genes, there is not enough volume of "evidence" for which genes are actually searched.
– This extremely important result shows once again how important it is to take into account the specifics of genes, – Candidate of Biological Sciences Svetlana Borinskaya told the correspondent of "RG". – After all, some can cause a strong effect, and therefore they are already quite easy to identify. Others have a weak one, and it is very difficult to catch them. For example, there are very strong growth genes, they are already well known, but there are no more than 15 percent of them among the entire family of growth genes. The rest are weak, and have not yet been reliably identified. Intelligence genes are even more difficult. There are no strong ones at all, but there are a lot of weak ones. In order to say with a high probability that the intelligence gene has been discovered, it is necessary to study the genes of 100 thousand people, or even more. Most likely, the number of such genes will not be 20 or even 100, but will exceed a thousand. Maybe even more than one.
What is the reason for this? The reason is that intelligence is the youngest human system. And the most difficult. If she "held on" to several strong genes, then failure 1-2 would put her out of action. Nature cannot afford such extravagance, because she has invested huge efforts in its creation. This is her best creation. Therefore, she dispersed intelligence across a multitude of weak genes. Failure of even a few dozen is unlikely to lead to the failure of the entire system. That is, it has the highest reliability.
So, the work of American scientists brings geneticists back to the beginning of the search. Maybe only now they fully appreciated the complexity of the task. But what a "prize" awaits the winners! Unraveling both the secrets of the brain and the nature of genius. By the way, scientists are unanimous today: in each generation they are born about equally. But for some reason in history there were periods of both "outbursts of geniuses" and their "silence". For example, in ancient Greece, at the end of the 5th century BC, Socrates, Pericles, Zeno, Sophocles, Euripides, Thucydides, Phidias sat at the same table. In Florence, Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci walked along the same street. In the XX century, a whole constellation of outstanding scientists who later became Nobel Prize laureates created new physics: Einstein, Bohr, Dirac, Heisenberg, Landau, Planck, Rutherford, etc.
How can this be explained? Many scientists are convinced: that the "flashes of geniuses" are not an accident at all, not fluctuations of nature, but the possibility of realizing the gift received from her. Diderot said: "A genius falls from the sky, and for every time he gets into the palace, there are a hundred thousand cases when he falls by."
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The smartest person on the planet lives in the USA. This is Marilyn Vos Savant, whose IQ is 228. She set this record at the age of 10 and got into the Guinness Book of Records. Experts have calculated the IQ of great people of the past, for example, Goethe has it equal to 200, Newton and Voltaire – 190, Galileo – 185, Einstein – 180, Leonardo da Vinci – 150, Bach and Darwin – 140, Copernicus – 130.
The highest average national IQ in the world for Japanese is 111. The coefficient 20-36 indicates a lack of intelligence, 69-85 is close to normal, 86-144 is normal, 115-124 is above normal, 125-134 is a high level of intelligence, more than 135 is a very high level.
Judging by the values of the coefficients, we mean the Wexler test – one of the best (if not the best) of this kind of tests, evaluating not only the integral IQ index, but also 11 verbal and nonverbal components of intelligence. Although in general, according to experts, the coefficient of intellectuality (at least in a wide range of norms) is nothing more than something unknown, which IQ tests show :) – VM.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru24.10.2012