Is intelligence due to nature or nurture?

Question

I've been wondering, are people born with intelligence or is it something they learn? What does everybody else think?

Answer 1

In general, you might say that you are born with a certain amount of potential (intelligence) and that this can be hindered or helped depending not only on how much education you get and who gives it to you but the quality of education and the support (or if pushed too far, the pressure). Intelligence also comes in different forms. In Western society, intelligence is mostly recognised verbally and mathematically i.e. analytically and do not take into account artistical intelligence etc. IQ tests which supposedly test intelligence also depend on the amount of education you have because without education you would even understand that questions so these cannot be trusted. Furthermore, most of the questions in IQ tests that test maths and english test things that you learnt methods of doing in school but this doesn't necessarily mean you truely understand why the answer it was it is.

Answer 2

well i think its nature coz if ur not intrested in learning u wont.

Answer 3

its a bit of both

Answer 4

Its nurture.If you take a child from a so called uncivilised tribe in the Amazon and rear him as a westerner he will be exactly the same.

Ask Madonna.

Answer 5

This is a great link that gives NATURE vs. NURTURE details......then you can make a better educated decision for yourself.

Good Luck!

http://wilderdom.com/personality/L4-1Int...

Answer 6

I think it's mostly down to learning and even upbringing. Although an aspect of it is inherited.

Answer 7

There is a saying that "you cannot separate the brain from the mind, or the mind from the brain." Meaning not only is it both but the mind is effected by physiology just as brain is affected physically by what the mind is thinking. Once we understand that there is no doubt that intelligence is both nature and nurture. In fact we are getting conditioning down to a physiological path developed through past experiences. That would be under nurture, but obviously nature also comes with certain predispositions to electrochemical pathways, that would be the nature side. Hence it is both.

Answer 8

I think that there are too many variables involved to make sweeping statements. Firstly, we would need to define inteligence. It could be argued that inteligence is the ability to demonstrate a higher than normal ability in a given situation, therefore, within the sphere of building a "gifted" builder could be described as inteligent; whilst a mathematician, regarded as a genius within his/her area, could, possibly, have little ability with regard to building/DIY.

Personally I believe that you can be born with a certain level of verifiable (or "testable") intelligence and or an aptitude or "gift" for a particular subject. Furthermore, I feel that whether or not you get to use or demonstrate these aptitudes/abilities depends to some extent on "nurture", in that you may grow up in a poor area/environment with few role models or exposure to people from certain professional classes; you may not have the necessary opportunities to follow your interests into higher education and you may not be encouraged/nurtured to the extent you require. Alternatively those coming from more privelidged backgrounds may have their levels of inteligence overestimated because they speak with better accents and have spent years at fee paying schools being taught to pass exams.

Answer 9

hmmm i guess its a bit of both really i mean you need to be born intelligent in order to be able to learn things but then you don't automatically no everything .

personally i think that anybody can be intelligent given the chance so I'm more for the nurture :)

Answer 10

you can improve how well your brain operates so that's nurture

but you are also born with some intelligence that's nature

it's a bit of both

Answer 11

Very hard one to answer. I used to run a bar and so met loads of society's lowest and most of their children were little thugs. They were products of their parents but then you cannot just blame it on nurture.

Answer 12

Intelligence is something you are born with.  Absolutely!!!

You can work hard to improve what you have, but you need to have it in the first place.  

Answer 13

both

some people have stupid parents bu they r smart

some people r stupid but have good parents

Answer 14

I think it's a combination of both:

But it must have something do to with genetics; lazy kids doing well in exams?

Also, amount of effort in studing etcc would ofcourse effect "intelligence"

Answer 15

id say nature

but its what you do with your inherited level of intelligence that matters

Answer 16

Both, but cultural capital is important

Cultural capital: forms of knowledge, skills, education,and advantages that a person has, which give them a higher status in society. Parents provide their children with cultural capital by transmitting the attitudes and knowledge needed to succeed in the current educational system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_ca...

Answer 17

Both.

Consider intelligence like the operating system and hardware of a computer. You may not be able to change the maximum processing speed, the amount of storage or the basis parameters of the operating system.

But the software bit has some flexibility. With each new experience, you can "write" programs that make better use of one's abilities. If you were a computer, that would be like defragmenting the disk drive to access stored files faster, or running a program to free up more disk space. In human terms, this could be like learning multiplication tables so you can do math faster, or learning a culture so you can express emotions better.

There is even some evidence that your environment controls how some genes are expressed. That is why some identical twins may develop a disease that their twin does not.

And since our operating systems are alive and changing, we can even change a tiny bit of our physical structure by altering our behavior. For instance, someone who does a lot of challenging puzzles or learns a new language may develop new pathways in the brain to accommodate the changes, just like a person might lift weights to build new muscles. It is still limited by nature, though.

So while you can do nothing about the "computer / hardware / platform" aspect of intelligence, you do have some freeway with how that intelligence is expressed.