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IQ and what it means in adulthood



 
 
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  #61  
Old November 15th 07, 03:18 PM posted to misc.kids
Beliavsky
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Posts: 453
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

On Nov 10, 7:02 pm, Sarah Vaughan wrote:
Banty wrote:
I've always thought that being smart to the degree of ignoring social
conventions had more to do with that. Like the math whiz who works as a school
custodian, submitting papers to mathematical journals (may be apocryphal story
though ...).


Heh - I thought that was the plot of 'Good Will Hunting'? ;-)

Anyway, it would probably help if I gave the context here - the debate
was about the studies showing a correlation between breastfeeding and
increased IQ, and - if that association is real and not due to a
confounder - what it means in practice. I must say I was never terribly
impressed by the kind of numbers I was hearing - in the studies being
discussed, the average difference was seven IQ points, which just didn't
really sound like that much in practice to me. But the question came
up, and it got me wondering whether I was right about that or not.


Here is a report on a study saying that breastfeeding does not boost
IQ.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5398738.stm
Breast milk 'does not boost IQ'

Breastfed babies are smarter because their mothers are clever in the
first place, not because of any advantage of breastfeeding itself, a
study suggests. Researchers found breastfeeding mothers tended to be
more intelligent, more highly educated, and likely to provide a more
stimulating home environment.

However, they stressed that there were still many advantages to
breastfeeding.

The British Medical Journal study was carried out by the Medical
Research Council and University of Edinburgh.

Lead researcher Geoff Der said: "This question has been debated ever
since a link between the two [high IQ and breastfeeding] was first
discovered in 1929.

"Breastfed children do tend to score higher on intelligence tests, but
they also tend to come from more advantaged backgrounds."

The researchers analysed data from more than 5,000 children and 3,000
mothers in the US.

They found that mothers who breastfed tended to be more intelligent,
and when this fact was taken into account, most of the relationship
between breastfeeding and the child's intelligence disappeared.

The rest was accounted for by other aspects of the family background.

Sibling comparison

The researchers also looked at families where one child was breastfed
and another was not.

This confirmed the earlier results - the breastfed child was no more
intelligent than his or her sibling.

Putting the results together with other studies that measured the
mother's IQ confirmed this pattern.

Mr Der said: "This research shows that intelligence is determined by
factors other than breastfeeding.

"But breastfeeding has many benefits for both mother and child. It's
definitely the smart thing to do."

Breastfeeding has been linked to a range of health benefits.

Just one day of breastfeeding is thought to be enough to stabilise a
baby's blood sugar levels, and provide natural antibodies against
disease.

Breastfed babies have been shown to be less prone to diarrhoea,
vomiting, and respiratory infections. Breastfeeding may also have a
long impact on reducing blood pressure and obesity.

The World Health Organization recommends that babies should be
breastfed for at least the first two years.

The UK has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in Europe - almost a
third of women in England and Wales never try to breastfeed, compared
with just 2% in Sweden.

Low rates

Rosie Dodds, of the National Childbirth Trust, said the study was not
conclusive.

She said a study in the Philippines - where, unlike the West, poorer
women are more likely to breastfeed - showed that breastfed children
were likely to be more intelligent.

However, she added: "Women do not breastfeed because of any benefit to
their baby, they do it because it feels like the natural thing to do.

"It is important that women make a decision that is right for them,
and their family, and they should not be pressurised either way, but
we would like to see more support for women who do decide they want to
breastfeed."

The Department of Health said breastfeeding was the best form of
nutrition for infants.

"We know that the composition of breast milk meets the individual
needs of each baby and that, as a result, breastfeeding can make a
major contribution to public health."

  #62  
Old November 15th 07, 04:07 PM posted to misc.kids
toto
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Posts: 784
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 06:18:20 -0800 (PST), Beliavsky
wrote:

Researchers found breastfeeding mothers tended to be
more intelligent, more highly educated, and likely to provide a more
stimulating home environment.


And this study was conducted by looking at only those in Western
cultures who breastfed? Would the same be true in developing
countries?


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits
  #63  
Old November 15th 07, 04:27 PM posted to misc.kids
Ericka Kammerer
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Posts: 2,293
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

Beliavsky wrote:

Here is a report on a study saying that breastfeeding does not boost
IQ.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5398738.stm
Breast milk 'does not boost IQ'

Breastfed babies are smarter because their mothers are clever in the
first place, not because of any advantage of breastfeeding itself, a
study suggests. Researchers found breastfeeding mothers tended to be
more intelligent, more highly educated, and likely to provide a more
stimulating home environment.


This is the same study posted before (easily
found with a little googling). Again, while it is an
interesting study, there are other studies that have
controlled for maternal intelligence that have come
up with different results. I think the jury is still
out on this one.

Best wishes,
Ericka
  #64  
Old November 16th 07, 12:18 PM posted to misc.kids
Sarah Vaughan
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Posts: 443
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

enigma wrote:

ya know, i don't give a rat's ass about the economy, since
that's a societal construct, but actual *resources* are
finite. just because more people makes procuring resources
easier & therefore cheaper still doesn't address the issue of
what we do when they run out... and they WILL run out.


The ones that we have now will run out if that's all we keep on using,
but what will also happen during that time is that we'll discover new
ways to use things that we wouldn't necessarily think of as resources at
the moment (for example, if we were having this debate a hundred years
ago, petrol wouldn't even be included as a resource on the list). So
looking at the things we can use as resources now only tells us part of
the story - we will, effectively, have increasing amounts of resources
to draw on as the years go by.

I still agree that it's not a good idea to increase population
willy-nilly, but going to the opposite extreme can also cause major
problems - if the population growth in a given country drops too
drastically below replacement levels, then a generation or so down the
line you end up with a population that's top-heavy with dependent
elderly and not enough people of working age to support them. When I've
seen figures (and the ones I saw were some years out of date, so this
may have changed), that seemed far more likely to be a risk in Western
countries, where population growth rates were consistently at or below
replacement levels (almost always below, on the figures I saw). Now, as
I say, the details of these may be out of date. But there did seem to
me to be a very consistent pattern that, in societies where women are
given the option of controlling their fertility safely and of living
productive lives of status in ways other than having children, the
population replacement levels have dropped to the point where the
country is more likely to run into future problems with replacement
levels being too low than with them being too high.

(None of which is to say that I think it's a great idea to encourage a
woman to have more children without taking into account that she might
have some preference of her own in the matter, because I don't. I just
hold that belief for different reasons.)


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell

  #65  
Old November 16th 07, 12:22 PM posted to misc.kids
Sarah Vaughan
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 443
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

Chookie wrote:
In article .com,
Beliavsky wrote:

It's not a matter of status, and it would not be mostly for my sake.
Since I think more intelligent people create benefits for society,
based on the research I have cited, I will try to encourage my kids to
marry smart and good people and have lots of kids. I'm not sure how to
accomplish that, but I have plenty of time to think about it.

On average, less intelligent and responsible people have more kids
than their opposites, and that's a bad thing for society. Some people
worry about global warming. I worry about this.


If you want to get into eugenics, I suggest you try a breed less complex than
humans. Budgies, maybe.


snort Love that line... ;-)

It depends how simplistic Beliavsky wants to be about it. "If my
daughter marries a smart man then she'll have smarter children" has
holes in the logic that you could drive a truck through. "Marrying a
smart man is one of many ways in which my granddaughter can maximise her
chances of having smarter children" is a lot more realistic, and I
suspect it's a much more accurate statement of his beliefs.

Whether marrying a smart man in a calculated attempt to get smarter
children is a *desirable* thing to be aiming to get your daughter to do
is a completely different matter, of course.


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell

  #66  
Old November 16th 07, 02:02 PM posted to misc.kids
Donna Metler
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 309
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood


"Sarah Vaughan" wrote in message
...
Chookie wrote:
In article .com,
Beliavsky wrote:

It's not a matter of status, and it would not be mostly for my sake.
Since I think more intelligent people create benefits for society,
based on the research I have cited, I will try to encourage my kids to
marry smart and good people and have lots of kids. I'm not sure how to
accomplish that, but I have plenty of time to think about it.

On average, less intelligent and responsible people have more kids
than their opposites, and that's a bad thing for society. Some people
worry about global warming. I worry about this.


If you want to get into eugenics, I suggest you try a breed less complex
than humans. Budgies, maybe.


snort Love that line... ;-)

It depends how simplistic Beliavsky wants to be about it. "If my daughter
marries a smart man then she'll have smarter children" has holes in the
logic that you could drive a truck through. "Marrying a smart man is one
of many ways in which my granddaughter can maximise her chances of having
smarter children" is a lot more realistic, and I suspect it's a much more
accurate statement of his beliefs.

Whether marrying a smart man in a calculated attempt to get smarter
children is a *desirable* thing to be aiming to get your daughter to do is
a completely different matter, of course.

And then there's the little thing that not all smart women may be
biologically equipped to have children. I'm certainly a child-oriented
person, and have made my profession largely working with children while
being told on every side that I'm too smart to "waste myself" (how is
teaching young children at the time of their lives when they're most primed
for learning wasting yourself?)-but it took four years of trying to get
pregnant the first time, which ended in a pregnancy loss, three more years
to get pregnant again (one of which was recovery), which finally had a
healthy child, and after 3 more years, well, no sign of another baby yet!

Given my reproductive history, it's a darned good thing that I HAD a career
and life goals apart from being a mother and raising children-had I decided
that my role in life was to pass on my IQ and genes, it would have been
pretty frustrating!

I admit that had I the chance to do it over again, and had I known that it
would take years to get pregnant, I wouldn't have been so set on getting
tenure with the school system, since I probably would have had the 3 years
of good evaluations before I got pregnant anyway!



  #67  
Old November 16th 07, 02:33 PM posted to misc.kids
Ericka Kammerer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,293
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

Donna Metler wrote:

Given my reproductive history, it's a darned good thing that I HAD a career
and life goals apart from being a mother and raising children-had I decided
that my role in life was to pass on my IQ and genes, it would have been
pretty frustrating!


And how much more frustrating it would have been if your
own father's opinion was that your primary value lay in your
ability to procreate! If your family can't stand behind you
for who you are rather than whom you can produce, who will?

Best wishes,
Ericka
  #68  
Old November 16th 07, 03:10 PM posted to misc.kids
Beliavsky
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 453
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

On Nov 16, 6:22 am, Sarah Vaughan wrote:

If you want to get into eugenics, I suggest you try a breed less complex than
humans. Budgies, maybe.


snort Love that line... ;-)

It depends how simplistic Beliavsky wants to be about it. "If my
daughter marries a smart man then she'll have smarter children" has
holes in the logic that you could drive a truck through. "Marrying a
smart man is one of many ways in which my granddaughter can maximise her
chances of having smarter children" is a lot more realistic, and I
suspect it's a much more accurate statement of his beliefs.


It is, although I would replace "one of many" with "the primary". From
what I have read, there is little one can do to boost a child's
intelligence beyond its natural limits, but bad enough parenting can
certainly stunt or even kill a child.

Whether marrying a smart man in a calculated attempt to get smarter
children is a *desirable* thing to be aiming to get your daughter to do
is a completely different matter, of course.


What's undesirable about it? It would apply to sons too, since AFAIK
the IQs of the two parents matter equally Of course, there are other
characteristics, such as looks, character, athletic ability etc. that
also have some heritability and that someone would consider. Of course
you would want a spouse that is smart, good-looking and kind for your
own sake, too.

When looking for a spouse, I was not looking for someone whose
interests were very similar to mine. I'd probably still be single if I
had held out for a right-wing, stock-market-following, chess-playing,
computer programming, atheist Asian Indian woman. In fact my wife is
uninterested in politics, is not an avid chess player, does not
program, and is Hindu. She likes to paint and garden. I did not give
her an IQ test, but dummies don't become physicians, and she seemed
smart in general. To sum up, I don't believe in the "soul-mate" or "I
want someone just like me" approaches to mate selection but rather in
looking for qualities that are more objectively desirable (and likely
to be passed on).
  #69  
Old November 16th 07, 03:35 PM posted to misc.kids
Beliavsky
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 453
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

On Nov 16, 6:18 am, Sarah Vaughan wrote:

I still agree that it's not a good idea to increase population
willy-nilly, but going to the opposite extreme can also cause major
problems - if the population growth in a given country drops too
drastically below replacement levels, then a generation or so down the
line you end up with a population that's top-heavy with dependent
elderly and not enough people of working age to support them. When I've
seen figures (and the ones I saw were some years out of date, so this
may have changed), that seemed far more likely to be a risk in Western
countries, where population growth rates were consistently at or below
replacement levels (almost always below, on the figures I saw).


Yes, especially in continental Europe -- there are statistics at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...rtility_rat e
.. European whites are largely secular and socially liberal, two
qualities negatively correlated with fertility. One can debate the
intellectual merits of socially liberal atheism, but demographically
it is a failure. Europe will become Muslim and more socially
conservative because Muslims have higher birth rates.
  #70  
Old November 17th 07, 07:13 AM posted to misc.kids
Beliavsky
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 453
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

On Nov 15, 3:14 am, Chookie wrote:

On average, less intelligent and responsible people have more kids
than their opposites, and that's a bad thing for society. Some people
worry about global warming. I worry about this.


If you want to get into eugenics, I suggest you try a breed less complex than
humans. Budgies, maybe.


I suggest you read the newspaper. We are learning what genes are
responsible for various individual differences, as discussed in a New
York Times article

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/us/17dna.html
My Genome, Myself: Seeking Clues in DNA
by Amy Harmon
November 17, 2007

and

'Nonscientists are already beginning to stitch together highly
speculative conclusions about the historically charged subject of race
and intelligence from the new biological data. Last month, a blogger
in Manhattan described a recently published study that linked several
snippets of DNA to high I.Q. An online genetic database used by
medical researchers, he told readers, showed that two of the snippets
were found more often in Europeans and Asians than in Africans.

No matter that the link between I.Q. and those particular bits of DNA
was unconfirmed, or that other high I.Q. snippets are more common in
Africans, or that hundreds or thousands of others may also affect
intelligence, or that their combined influence might be dwarfed by
environmental factors. Just the existence of such genetic differences
between races, proclaimed the author of the Half Sigma blog, a 40-year-
old software developer, means "the egalitarian theory," that all races
are equal, "is proven false."'

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/11dna.html
The DNA Age: In DNA Era, New Worries About Prejudice
By Amy Harmon
November 11, 2007

I would change the title to "Egalitarian dogmatists worry the truth is
coming out".


 




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