Quote:
Originally posted by asaris
But this claim is difficult, if not impossible, to prove, since it is difficult, if not impossible, to sort out the influence of one's environment from the influence of one's nature.
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Not so.
Tests using identical twins seperated at birth allow us to investigate this; or at least allows us to investigate the influence of the
variation of environment, which is all that really matters in this case (but is an important distinction to make).
In tests such as these, we see a strong correlation between the two subjects, despite completely different environments (taking into account things such as personality tests, income, IQ, criminal record, etc.). We can also make tests comparing fraternal twins reared together with identical twins reared together, or adoptive silings versus biological siblings.
Whatever way it is measured, the results are loud and clear:
We are not all born equal. To take a common example, the herratibility of IQ is (approx) 50%. (in other words 50% of the variance of IQ scores is herritable)
Note: To attack IQ tests, and claim that they only measure a small subset of intelligence etc. etc. would be to miss the point entirely.