Is intelligence a dominant or recessive gene in humans. Seems to me it's recessive?

Question

Seems to me that since the 16th or 17th century human intelligence and need to destroy ourselves has grown.

Answer 1

yeah, stoopidity seems to be a dominant characteristic amongst peeple.

Answer 2

First we would have to agree on a definition of intelligence.  Is it a single factor?  Is it adequately measured by standard IQ tests?  Are there five or seven distinct, different types of measurable intelligence?



If so what do we know about Autism?  Downs Syndrome?  Rhett Syndrome?  Very very minor gene or cellular level anomalies can cause catastrophic results in the resulting cytoplasm and the child that develops.



If intelligence was tied to a recessive gene, after hundreds of thousands of years, humans would likely be jello.  So no, I do not think we can posit that intelligence is recessive.



"Need" to destroy ourselves is a theory that was championed by Sigmund Freud, what he called "thanatos", and is not a documented drive, just a theory.   This death instinct, says the theory, compels humans to engage in risky and destructive behaviors that could lead to their own death. Behaviors such as thrill seeking, aggression, and risk taking can be considered actions stemming from thanatos.  If we accept the theory.  Either way, it is not tied to intelligence, or a lack there of.

Answer 3

Intelligence is a "fuzzy" concept.  In studying the relationship between intelligence and genetics, only a study of IQ or the g factor can be made.  Intelligence is embedded in the personality as a whole and its development during the lifespan of an individual.  The underlying genes, many with minor, very few with major, effects appear, in most people, not to be of as much importance as the number of social and biological factors influencing development.  There is no doubt, however, that genes, not sociological or biological factors, are in many cases the cause of an IQ below 100, and the number of such genes already known is in the hundreds.

That said, it is not that humans are more intelligent than they used to be.  It just appears that way because our daily lives have changed so drastically.  The Age of Enlightenment in the 17th century didn't result in smarter humans; it gave rise to ways of thinking that permitted great minds to be unlocked and make great discoveries.  Isaac Newton, if he had lived during the Middle Ages, wouldn't have been any less intelligent but the environment would not have been as encouraging to scientific discovery.

Discovery leads to discovery, so since the Englightenment mankind has been on an upward swing of new thoughts and ideas, in the sciences and the arts.  It's like Pandoras Box; once it is opened it's difficult, but not impossible, to close it again.  

As for aggressivenes, mankind is no more, or less, aggressive than he ever was.  The spot left by the mellowing of Christians has been filled by the fanaticism of Muslims.  The desire of the Soviet to populate the world with communist states has been replaced with the desire of the United States to populate the world with democracies.  And the land grab, I fear, will always be in fashion.  As long as mankind exists there will be conflict.  It only seems worse because our weapons are all that much more powerful.

Answer 4

I would rather say that previous centuries produced more genius than today.Although information and knowledge is much better manage and separated, people of today are have less time to think than people of the times of Darwin, newton, Galileo.

Today kids think only to make money, have the best car and travel.Today in north America busy schedule for work ,organized by American corporate world,make people sick and have less tuime to think about themselves, their role in life and the universe.

Do you think Newton today would had those genius ideas as a student?Probably not, he would had be very anxious to finish his semester to find a job, so he can pay his loan from the government or the banks.

When finish studying he would look frantically for a training job, preparing resume, frustrated because all his friend had a girlfriend but no girls are interested to nerdy boy like him.

Most of the genius of the past came from family that have time to give their kids education at home or spare them a hard busy life.But your genius could pass from impressive nature discovery like it can also make you a dark literature genius,like "The marquis de Sad", father if sadism and other sexual deviance.

Answer 5

This is only a perspective. Todays world, has never been so interconnected and information travel so fast, that it forces a new social dynamics to take place. Your perceptions seems correct, as before we were not able to know what the rest of the world was thinking.

As for the intelligent gene; before being an intelligent being we were a primitive one, and primitive genes are still dominant, as they are the ones that help us survive our world. So not sure intelligence is really making things easier to survived and not even sure that humans have enough survival skills to survived their own so called intelligences...

Answer 6

Obviously there is not one gene for intelligence.

We can't even define intelligence yet.

Our need to destroy is exactly the same, we just have better tools now.

Remember slavery? The crusades? Genghis Khan? Alexander?  All of those involved TONS of destruction.

Answer 7

Neither.  Intelligence isn't attached to any one gene.  I'm sure you've seen the many kinds of intelligence out there, anyway.  Some people are good at math, some at humanities, some at "getting" other people, some at mechanical stuff.  Also, intelligence seems to be more a product of your environment.  A child who grows up in a stable, supportive home, with parents who provide lots of love and stimulation, and who go to excellent schools is going to do much better than a child brought up in poverty, with few opportunities and parents who aren't available for support.

Also, in your day to day life, you rarely hang out with the Michaelangelos and the da Vincis and the Francis Bacons.  There are towering geniuses nowadays, many of whose names we probably wouldn't recognize, but the world is mostly full of normal people.  History books, though, don't usually deal with normal people.  In there, Bacon and his lot get a lot of space.  The numerous illiterate peasants who care only about s*x and food who surrounded him?  Not so much.  I think every age believes that it has gotten corrupt and vile compared to former ages of glory.

Answer 8

It's a popular idea. But it seems that intelligence has little to do with genetics.

I'm quoting from over 100 years effort here...

Plenty of Genius has been found in the most supressive background with no evidence anywhere in the family tree.

.

Answer 9

I would say that individually intelligence is a dominant gene. It just seems that whenever 30 or more individuals get in a group or try to form a commitee that intelligence seems to be recessive.