Genetics and Intelligence Robert Plomin 

based on my ability to understand this video, I have a low IQ.

This guy has inherited a lot of intelligence

professor plomin is a great example of eloquence and dedication, listening to him is always a joy

When I was 11 and took an IQ test I scored 113. I also had a lot of difficult things I was going through: I grew up poor, in Foster homes and violent environments. When I turned 19 and my life was a little bit calmer I scored 143. It was very surprising so I had to take the test again. I got a 144! I hate telling people this cause I am a little embarrassed and don't like the silly associations that come along with such a result. Furthermore, I am in constant debate about the validity of these types of tests and what that really mean. I think the disparity was due to my environmental factors changing: my life had gotten better, I was in college and I didn't have to worry or stress as much about immediate threats. My mother is not very smart. I don't know what her intelligence is and it is hard to ascertain if her cognitive ability is diminished due to the stresses she grew up with (because she also grew up I'm Foster homes and had a tough upbringing , and it has really affected her mentally) or some genetic factors. But hey I made it out of my predicament. Was able to travel and live all over the world and have great success up to this point. And I often wonder if that is due to my supposedly high I.Q., some resilience I gained from my harsh environment or was it a combination of convoluted luck and support from outsiders. Maybe a fusion of all those things. But through my experience I do believe that our measure of success is due to how we react to each situation and the steps we take forward. Intelligence would help us parse out the paths that have higher possibilities for success. But also a myriad of other factors are in play; such as ones beyond our control, our ability to deal with stressors, etc.

Genetics are everything. Life is about having the best genes and competing for the mate with the best genes. If intelligence is an evolutionary adaptation that allowed us to thrive, why wouldn't intelligence be inheritable?

So right. I'm your basic poor Hispanic kid that was born with a high IQ. 138 and I did not get told about how smart o was just how good of an artist I was. Got older took on the piano then got older became a physics need. And now all i do is seek knowledge and understand emotions, people, art, philosophy, science all of it is now in my hands because of the internet. Peopld like us now have everything we need to learn. I thought I was weird all my life because I saw the world differently and felt others did not see it. Now I am a IT administrator all self taught from online. I make great money and have a girl that matches me. The jobs and knowledge are out there. We just have to fight for it.

Fascinating. The most interesting part is how highly intelligent people create environments that propel further increases in inherited intelligence. (5:20)

Stands to reason. Practically everything else about us is influenced in some way by genetics, so it would be strange if intelligence wasn't. And: Intelligence testing is contentious "for some people" - a nice way of putting it.

I just finished his book entitled, , "blueprint: how DNA makes us who we are". It was very interesting. It helps to understand a bit about statistics because he makes countless references to certain statistical outcomes in the book. He is a proponent of using genetic data to begin to identify the heritable propensity for certain mental illnesses in order to improve upon historical psychiatric methods of diagnosis. The book makes a lot of sense. But it also seems to show that even genetic testing can only go so far in explaining ALL of the variances in human behavior. But it can explain enough to make it worth doing.

Thanks a lot ! We appreciate the effort from all of you. We are grateful for bringing most knowledgeable people to explain and share information.

A lot of the anger in this thread comes from an inability to handle nuance. Plomin says "intelligence has a genetic basis" and people assume that he is racist because one time someone that black people had inferior genetics. Under no circumstances does that mean Plomin is racist. He's a scientist that is reporting some of the most robust statistics in psychology, which has been confirmed repeatedly through twin and adoption studies. The variance observed in intelligence between the races is widely believed by psychologists to be mostly accounted for by environmental factors, and I'm sure Plomin would be agree with their opinion. Please actually think for yourself instead of becoming emotional and blindly reacting.

Yes. This is a real scientist talking.

Genetics are one the biggest role to success, that's my personal opinion.

I kept telling my 4th grade teacher that I could never learn to do long division. She got mad and forced me to stay in class during recess. Then she forced me to learn long division. It took about 10 minutes.

One of the reasons all people never have been nor ever will be 'equal'.

1. Genetic potential is a factor in outcome 2. Genetic expression is what we do with the potential. This is easier to see and accept when we look at machines. I have a very powerful computer on my desk, i7 processor, maxed out RAM, etc. When working with large databases this helps me greatly. The programming or "code" determines the outcome to a larger extent in the quality of raw power. Most humans do not question and examine the code they are running. 3. Quality of outcome on a long time line comes down to examination of beliefs and actions and results. 30 years ago I was in a computer class, the hardware at that time was very slow... We had to turn off the calculations in the program and then run the program later when we wanted to see the outcome. (go get a coffee : ) MOST PEOPLE QUIT prior to hitting enter. Fat people can become thin, poor people can become wealthy, etc. It requires more effort. The exception is below the threshold of minimum level to play. 4. If the machine "crashes" before we get the answer due to a shortage of computing resources you never can get the answer... YES, some folks have a shortage of resources. 5. Have fun with what you have been given. Hack the program enjoy your life. Explore, Create, Grow. 6. The impossible just takes a little time longer : )

Good video Dr. Plomin!!! I love videos on IQ.

Every single sociologist: "Intelligence has nothing to do with genetics. IQ differences are down to social differences and environment. It's not inheritable." An actual geneticist: "Intelligence is inheritable."

Genetics is a very important issue for people worldwide..

There is a 100% overlap between people who argue against this and people who associate being “smart” with being “good.” They want to think “dumb people” are “bad people.” So they must CHOOSE to be “dumb.” Meanwhile, I have a kid with a (clearly inherited) reading disability. She’s sweet and loving, loyal and good at her job at a bakery. She didn’t CHOOSE to have a hard time reading. Her sister is a straight-A, honours student. Stop associating intelligence with “moral value” and it becomes much easier to understand that genes really do determine school success.

I remember this kid in class. Both his mother and father were doctors. I was constantly amazed how fast he picked up anything. One might think well he had resources, his parents made good money. But there was more to it. We were presented something new, no way even he heard or knew about it. He picked up faster than any of us. -- And of course, he became a doctor too, just like his parents lol....

Some Environments are better for some persons... This why family is So important!

To end world poverty we have to understand human prosperity which means we need to understand human differences which means we need to end society's taboo. Debate on human differences isn't hate! It's an important part of science!

The teacher could identify the intelligent student from low and middle income parents, remove the student from the classroom, and place the student in a high quality independent study program. This works because it worked for me. Individualized education with independent study for intelligent students works, and can democratize education.

A very good point that intelligent people will tend to seek other intelligent people/environments. This will again further their collective intelligence. If we find that our environment lack the stimulus that we seek, we will change it. However i do believe that we have different kinds of intelligence e.g Math, Social etc. Meaning that the intelligent problem solvers will tend to seek more difficult math/problems to solve, while emotional intelligent people will tend to seek out more complex, and interesting people, perhaps challenging their point of view.

Actually the average IQ seems to be going down nowadays; and different groups definitely have different IQs.

Surely this guy has been blessed by his ancestor's genetics, in body and mind.

At 11:00 - if you remove all the environmental differences you're left with genetic differences....makes sense. That's exactly what Jordan Peterson maintains with regard to gender difference.

Actually it could go either way. He predicted that if we got rid of family advantages then heritability (as a percentage of variation) would increase because environmental factors would decrease. But if iq is genetic then smart families can give advantages, maybe such large advantages(to people who are on average smarter) that they overshadow luck and chance and magnify outcomes by iq.

First we have to accept that genetics are the very reason that we are intelligent. Otherwise you could bring our cousins like chimpanzees or gorillas to our level by education which obviously fails. So our intelligence is the result of evolution and that requires a genetic component. Secondly the Flynn effect is most likely the result of the liberlization of education and career opportunities to the masses after hunderds of years in which you basically were stuck with the occupation of your ancestors. So there were very intelligent shoemakers who had no opportunity for education or career. This changed after WW2. Then we had a peak of people now freed and to search their place in live and to choose partners which were on their level. This produced more of intelligent offspring who themselves chose their opportunities. But this is obviously not meeting the rates from the first years.

I am thinking that people are less intelligent now when I see social media posts- haha. I don’t have a high intelligence according to genetic markers yet I was able to achieve many of those things associated with high intelligence. Some markers on the DNA sequence seem to suggest that some people with higher brain volume are able to learn and analyze things differently. While in school I remember being put in average classes and thought for some reason I might be smarter than the people around me- haha. When it came to a class in geometry - I recall failing my first test and thought wait a minute - I think I’m smarter than this. I took the book home kept rereading and taking the practice tests in the back of the book (this is before the computer age) and voila next test I received an A. I had to ignore the situations at home that were pressing on me as a teenager- i.e. difficult bipolar mom. I am a senior and I am still interested in learning - I am learning a new language and it’s been very rewarding. This man is very intelligent.

After a long time some dense information. Thanks.

Very pleasant voice

Genetics determines how you start, not how you finish. You may learn quickly but with the wrong attitude you will not go far. You may learn slowly, but with the right mindset your compound knowledge will take you far. This has been proven by neuroscientists. The brain may not physically grow, its connections does, improving your intellectual capacity.

I may need to watch this several times..

9:08 I have heard-tell that bad halogens like bromine have been added to table salt as a replacement for iodine. I would like more information on this because apparently not only did adding iodine to table salt in 1925 reduce iodine deficiency, it apparently increased general IQs as well. If iodine levels in table salt have been removed or significantly reduced, would this have caused the recent tapering of general IQs?

Well done explanation! I wish other people would who think intelligence is not inheritable would listen to this.

I have a hypothesis. A common theme is that human DNA is highly regulated; a lot of non-coding DNA is regulatory DNA. As we age, we experience increasing amount of environmental influences that increasingly favorably regulate inherited intelligence DNA leading to an increasing contribution of genetics to our intelligence. This could explain the increasing influence of genetics on intelligence as we age.

Awesome video. New to this subject matter and this video taught me a lot

incredibly insightful

This man is purposely speaking in a way to not get this video censored. You know if he was to speak plainly this video would be removed.

Interesting. So at the end, this guy is saying that in a perfectly fair world with no discrimination, the measured heritability of iq would be extremely high

It seems to me that if the heritability of (g) increases with the age of the person, intelligence not likely to be related to environment. This would make sense, of course, as there's a mechanism (alleles) for the formation of the brain, but no known environmental influence on its formation _in utero._

Being smart is a curse You see all the shortcomings of the world and the people and you cant really do anything about it except lose your mind

Thank you for supporting G. The multiple intelligence theory is bogus.

Could motivation to learn be a factor? Some people don't really care about learning, some are insatiable learners. But is there a limit to what someone is able to learn, even if they really want to learn it?

interesting and expected that at least some of our intelligence is inherited. While some is from our environment. So, what do you do with that between maximizing human potential and freedom to parent as you see fit?

I believe that we cannot control where we come from, by this I mean the genes that we inherit, even so we can improve our intelligence depending on the environment, people and information that we take in.

So it's similar to our job interest as Jordan Peterson points out that in society with more equal opportunity those genetic tendencies related to choosing job path are more visible and man tend to choose more masculine jobs and women more feminine jobs.

Very intriguing topic. However, I am cautious when I hear the phrase "we find ......" without knowing how they found it. Always necessary to know.

Very interesting.

"INTELLIGENCE IS DEFINITELY GENETICAL!, AND BIOLOGICAL!"

And yet scholars such as Charles Murray and Dr. James Watson get shamed and canceled for pointing out the exact same thing, well, about a certain group of people.

Note the general intelligence is most closely tied to verbal intelligence, particularly the ability to perform well on analogy questions. Next down the line are the following verbal elements: vocabulary, reading comprehension and then grammar and syntax (to which sentence completion questions relate).

The wild thing about doing two dna tests and getting high depression and bipolar, my sons autistic but comes up gifted with circleDNA and intelligent is 95% with nebula DNA , but he’s limited in life. I think even though I suffered some of the same I used my intelligence to fight through. None of this is created equal

The research isnt racist.....those shouting racism are biased.

I wonder how good are any types of IQ tests mentioned here, if the outcome can be effected with small things like what person ate for breakfast, his financial situation, how much sleep he/she had, etc... So many biological factors.

It would be nice if it was possible to know Professor’s thoughts about the involvement of the individual brain construction matters as well as the action of the inherited microbiota regulating as well our conducts and behavior. (Dr Knight’s idea of the microbiota role and Dr Saveliev’s ideas on the individual brain construction as the basis of personal geniality). Thank you.

It should have been named C.A. (cognitive ability) because the word intelligence has such a strong colloquial meaning.

How about attention deficit disorder or learning slow or memory problems

IQ is like height. It's genetic with a smaller environmental factor. A person whose genetics says 6'4" can grow up to be 6'2" with poor nutrition. But they will never grow up to be 5'6" and vice versa. Genetics sets a small window for what you are. Environment can only help you maximize within that small range.

I knew it,🤨it all makes sense now, 10 years in college to get an associate degree in math and science 😩 2.3 GPA😭... it’s my parents fault 😡

Wish he would've gone into the hypothesis that heritability correlates higher over time because the brain is more fluid when you're younger and genetics have a higher impact than we'd like to admit.

The reason why science is not intensely studying genetics and intelligence is that it would have considered racism. Just imagine Harvard reports why Jewish people have better SAT scores than black people...

I read a lot - nearly a book a day. Plomin's book was the best book I read last year.

being born with a low iq is a curse. Especially when the fields you like require a high iq. Being doomed to work a shitty job because the happenstance of an egg and sperm fusing is torture. It should be illigal to have kids without being 100% sure that their genes wont make them dumb, unmotivated or neurotic. If it ever were to become possible id love to gene edit myself out of this living hell.

The g-factor relied in an overlap but a 2018 Mathematical paper by Ingwer Borg entitled "A note on the positive manifold hypothesis" in the Journal "Personality and Individual Differences" questions the basis for the g factor. I think I will send Plomin the paper to see if this alters his strong belief in the g-factor.

I am suspicious about what we know about environmental vs genetic heritability. One thing I never see addressed is that individuals can get very different IQ scores taking the test at different times in the same few years, and whole groups can get wildly lower scores when they are under stress. This has been shown with seasonal workers. We also know that simply being in a lower social caste or class affects the brain by being either a long time lower ranked member of society. It's possible that many of our ancestors didn't experience that, because much social stratification in pre-history was cyclical or temporary.

What does he mean when he says heritability increases or changes? Is he defining heritability as something different than inherited traits? Also, I noticed his comment about stopping people from passing their wealth onto their children. That one will go over quite well.

Ashkenazim have the genetics and IQ that surpasses others on average

This is why Forrest Gump was worried about his son inheriting his genes. :P

People's backgrounds, educations and experiences are different across the board. Is there a study that shows IQ test results of people of different races of the same age who all had the same educational background and got the same grades in school?

Does this mean that if someone is extremely verbally intelligent, they could’ve been equally spatially intelligent if they had developed that ability as much? Are there any genes that are just good for one intelligence but not the other?

Both nature and nurture would help a lot in learning.

Ive always had a facility of learning stuff, I never knew why, I'm just a sponge, I tend to understand stuff quickly, just as much as one who is naturally good in sports, I am good in solving problems creatively and I derive an immense joy from it as well. That being that said, I absoluty suck at social stuff, I mean I understand it fairly well, buf actually saying and listening is way more if struggld then to watch others do it

Fascinating

Attractive people date other attractive people, picking people based on wittiness, humor indicating intelligence... and then there's still people who think intelligence doesn't have genetic components?

Just to clarify he states that the environment we choose is based on genetics, correct?

"Heritability increases with equal environments" (11:20) I never actually thought about the gene x environment theory in this way - but it does make you wonder.... the whole equality of opportunity debate is centered around the fact that we will become more equal regarding socioeconomic measures but what if we instead actually cause a greater divide between people? Say that we construct an environment in which we think we best cultivate intelligence based on previous observations (how does the environment look in families where brilliant kids are raised? how does the school environment look? etc). That environment would not be the best environment for everyone - it would be a highly specialised environment where people with high cognitive ability excel, leaving people of average or low cognitive ability even further behind. Maybe what we call "equality of opportunity" isn't equality of opportunity at all, but indeed a highly specialised environment where we put even more emphasis on heritage than before, giving a certain group of the population an enormous advantage?

I saw somewhere that you can reach between 5'10 and 6'1 with the same genes, by diet. e.g. eat foods when you are still growing that stimulate growth hormones.

RU-vid Stazi thought police censorship incoming in 3..2..1..

What i heard by education not taking science into account is they dont want to use their political and personal beliefs ground

Fun fact: Heritability is different in each environment its studied. For example, the Heritability of high IQ in Japan is very different than the Heritability of high iq on the US.

In school genetics play a big role,the holy grail of genetics is people being able to improve their intelligence through genetic modification,academic performance and creativity will improve drastically

Excellent talk - RP is so damn smart. Its disturbing that our society requires/rewards inherited intel more and more over the decades. Like gender race or baldness or weight - its something we can't help. See Yuval N Hariri's "useless class" problem and it is our biggest challenge as a society/planet.

His last point is very interesting. If we were to maximize the environmental effects for each person; that is, give each person all of the education, social benefits, etc. that he/she could benefit from, we would still have intellectual differences, but now those differences would be based entirely upon people's genetics. Heritability would then be very high. There is no way to homogenize the population's intellectual abilities. As it stands now, we can rationalize away intellectual differences by attributing those to differences in experiences and opportunity. How would people feel about themselves and others if they were forced to recognize that those differences where based entirely upon their genetic endowments? There would be nowhere to hide from that reality.

But wait, how do we know what kind of early mental stimulation one child benefited from over another child? Which child's house was full of books? Which child had a full time mother/father? Which had parents who took an active interest in their education? How do we know which child's diet was nutritionally rich, and which child was malnourished? I could go on and on with this. There are so many hidden factors involved in a person's development that it seems somewhat foolish to put it down to genetics.

I'm verry clever and have a hih IQ. My mum is super proud with me.

I think that increased inheritability with age is mostly due to the fact that only by age of (roughly) 25 the brain developes fully. So measuring intelligence of not yet developed brain is like measuring the speed of car that is not finished. And it is not surprising that adults of the age 25+ show more than 80% heritability of IQ.

id be nice if people put the scientific sources in the description.. /:

Certain dog breeds are more intelligent than others.

I like this. What's greatly been interesting me, a bit more categorically though, is the similarities & differences with respect to the intelligence of black folks & white folks. I think I might really enjoy delving into what those are but I'd prefer to start with some great source material, comparable to the intelligence this man brings to light.

so what does this mean if theres a 15 point gap between racial groups? could it be that wealth gaps have little to do with racism and in large part are genetic?

This makes complete sense and I have realized this a long time ago. I am not a scientist.

Equal environment will not create equal intelligence inheritablitity. People will move toward the environments that correlate with their intelligence not the other way around.

Heritable coefficient of intelligence is more than 50% ie in fact 75% if one avoids the well known 10% of illegitimacy and other statistically abnormal factors. Brasil geneticist

Flynn effect? What I have noticed is a drop in ability to read , write, do math and complete in society. Due to reduced education and loss of interest.

4:40 Hmm, when I was 10, my IQ from a school test was 85: I was mostly a C student. 10 yrs ago, I took a full length timed IQ test, and I tested 139. I have a degree in biology, did grad work in biochemistry; obviously fluent in English which is my second language (scored 97 percentile on GRE verbal; the monitor came to me and said that I scored the highest to date at that testing center), still fluent in Korean (left Korea to US when I was 12): I am able to read French newspapers(took up French, self study, 8 years ago), and able to read some German(4 years in H.S.). I have a first author paper in Cancer Research journal. I enjoy pushing myself mentally. This is the main thing more than anything. I don't doubt intelligence has a genetic component. But in biology, the neurons, which your brain cells are composed of, are most like your muscle cells, and muscle fibers in the muscle cells can change A LOT. If you have ever seen pre-Superman picture of George Reeves, he looked very skinny. He was cast as Superman for the movie because they liked his facial features. They found no problem buffing him up with a trainer. Some time ago, a newspaper reporter, an avg American with an average math skills, pretty poor, turned himself into a math calculation champion in a couple years of math training following a program.

Thank you. Confirms the brain has a collective faculty. “The intellect is good but until it has become the servant of the heart, it is of little avail.” ~ Abdu’l-Baha, Baha'i Faith

2:50 True statement.