Are you born with talent or do you adapt it over time? (Split from TOGS' thread)

[Kozzle]

Oh jesus fucking christ are you just trying to troll now? I didn't say genetics had absolutely no effect. I said the effect was insignificant because I don't think the threshold for success is particularly high. If you want to argue about where the threshold is or why it should be considered "high" then that's a discussion.

It invariably is significant, this is my argument.


I suppose you would have to define what is your idea of success before anything went further. I would define success to be able to live without -any- financial worry. For this to occur you have to be relatively well placed. For this to happen you typically need to have a good education. To have a good education usually (except for certain fields) requires some form of graduate studies. Graduate studies (at least in Canada) require minimum 3.7 average GPA. A 3.7 is significantly higher than the average university student (which already have an average intelligence significantly higher than the average person, I believe it's 1 standard deviation, I may be wrong on this one). Not all university students will ever make it to graduate studies, the vast majority don't actually.

If I were to quantify IQ (whether it is relevant or not is debatable) with success I would say it is roughly 130 (this is the average IQ of university professors, doctors, lawyers etc.) which is 2 standard deviations higher than the average population.

As far as we know intelligence owes itself to a large portion to genetics (and environment, of course). I would hardly consider the average college student who gets out and starts at ~15$ an hour (I'm not sure how this works in the states, but this is what a typical college student will start at) and move up to maybe 25$ an hour by the time they retire, to be very successful, I would consider that to simply be an average standard of living.

I don't know why you get so emotionally involved in these arguments, obviously there needs to be some clarifications on terms such as success, but from my rough view on the term success it is a significantly higher threshold than a 2 year college course or 4 year university degree. I think it has been derailed sufficiently, but if you seriously want to debate these things I would suggest keeping swearing and such out of it (I don't see the point in getting angry over these things unless it is seriously provoked) - anger typically breeds even more anger.

[Atmosfear]

It invariably is significant, this is my argument.


I suppose you would have to define what is your idea of success before anything went further. I would define success to be able to live without -any- financial worry. For this to occur you have to be relatively well placed. For this to happen you typically need to have a good education. To have a good education usually (except for certain fields) requires some form of graduate studies. Graduate studies (at least in Canada) require minimum 3.7 average GPA. A 3.7 is significantly higher than the average university student (which already have an average intelligence significantly higher than the average person, I believe it's 1 standard deviation, I may be wrong on this one). Not all university students will ever make it to graduate studies, the vast majority don't actually.

If I were to quantify IQ (whether it is relevant or not is debatable) with success I would say it is roughly 130 (this is the average IQ of university professors, doctors, lawyers etc.) which is 2 standard deviations higher than the average population.

As far as we know intelligence owes itself to a large portion to genetics (and environment, of course). I would hardly consider the average college student who gets out and starts at ~15$ an hour (I'm not sure how this works in the states, but this is what a typical college student will start at) and move up to maybe 25$ an hour by the time they retire, to be very successful, I would consider that to simply be an average standard of living.

I don't know why you get so emotionally involved in these arguments, obviously there needs to be some clarifications on terms such as success, but from my rough view on the term success it is a significantly higher threshold than a 2 year college course or 4 year university degree. I think it has been derailed sufficiently, but if you seriously want to debate these things I would suggest keeping swearing and such out of it (I don't see the point in getting angry over these things unless it is seriously provoked) - anger typically breeds even more anger.

If that's your argument, then you haven't shown it's invariably significant. You would need to show that even if the bar were exceptionally low (for example, the threshold necessary to breathe), genetics would still be of absolutely critical importance. Yeah, okay, great... you need genes that everyone has. Who gives a flying fuck? Not significant to me.

If the threshold is the ability to get a college degree, then it's set at about 110-115, which includes a little over 16% of the population. 50 million people. Walk onto the subway and you can't throw a stick without hitting someone over the threshold. 1 in 6! The odds are too good, they aren't significant to me; everyone I know has a shot at it. Don't care.