This sounds like a humanist reaction to the increasing amounts of research and evidence that intelligence does in fact have a large genetic component. Nobody says environment and hard work aren't vital factors for success, but it's already understood that intelligence doesn't equal success anyways. Still, that doesn't mean intelligence isn't by and large an innate quality. Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate goes into this in detail, but his point was virtually the opposite of this author. He was instead making the case that much more about a person than most people expect is a direct result of their genotype, and that it's best if we face up to reality and talk about these things in the open rather than pretending that everyone is equal. As for success, it seems there is wide agreement that insane amounts of practice and perseverance are are sure fire recipe. I wonder how much the ability to persevere in the face of difficulty is affected by a persons genes?
The studies most favorable to Shenk's position put the heritability of IQ at around 0.5. That is, parents account for 50% of their descendant's IQ variance. Environmental factors would account for the other half. More recent meta-studies (<a href="http://www18.homepage.villanova.edu/diego.fernandezduque/Teaching/PhysiologicalPsychology/zCurrDir4200/CurrDirGeneticsTraits.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www18.homepage.villanova.edu/diego.fernandezduque/Tea...</a> for instance) put IQ heritability at around 0.8.<p>Even if the studies most favorable to Shenk are correct, the best way to be smart is still to choose your parents. Parents determine genes and a large amount of environment, which together are the largest influences on intelligence.<p>This is a bit off-topic, but I want to point out a distinction that is often overlooked. Heritability is not quite the same as genes. Genes definitely influence intelligence. If you could edit someone's genes, you could quite easily make them very sharp or very dumb. Scientists have identified individual genes and groups of genes that drastically influence intelligence. Down's syndrome is an obvious one. Single genes affecting intelligence include GDI1 (<a href="http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/11/21/2567" rel="nofollow">http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/11/21/2567</a>) and ALDH5A1 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldehyde_dehydrogenase_5_family,_member_A1" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldehyde_dehydrogenase_5_family...</a>). There are others that cause problems such as autism and schizophrenia. (<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7215/full/nature07458.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7215/full/nature0...</a>)<p>I really think the "ignore genetics, work hard to succeed" people are going about their argument the wrong way. Instead of disregarding the evidence, they should acknowledge it while stressing a caveat: Intelligence, to be useful, <i>must be used effectively</i>. The smartest person in the world might not be best-suited to solve a problem; similar to how the strongest person in the world might not be the best fighter.
"Instead, 'one large group of scientists,' a 'vanguard' that Shenk has labeled 'the interactionists,' insists that the old genes-plus-environment model (G+E) must be jettisoned and replaced by a model they call GxE, emphasizing 'the dynamic interaction between genes and the environment.' They don't discount heredity, as the old blank-slate hypothesis of human nature once did. Instead, they assert that "genes powerfully influence the formation of all traits, from eye color to intelligence, but rarely dictate precisely what those traits will be."<p>That's a pretty good summation of current human behavioral genetics research. An earlier comment of mine here on HN<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=842315" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=842315</a><p>cited and linked to a recent publication on this issue,<p>Johnson, Wendy; Turkheimer, Eric; Gottesman, Irving I.; Bouchard Jr., Thomas (2009). Beyond Heritability: Twin Studies in Behavioral Research. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 4, 217-220.<p>with some interesting new ideas from researchers who have been working on human behavioral genetics longer than most HN readers have been alive.
<i>According to Shenk, we are erroneously led to believe that stars like Tiger Woods and cellist Yo-yo Ma were born to climb to the top of their fields, when in fact the environments they grew up in are just as responsible (if not more so) for their spectacular feats.</i><p>I would love to see this Shenk guy raise a Tiger Woods/Yo-yo Ma 2.0. Do that and you have an immensely more powerful argument, otherwise you're just another wave in the ocean.
META: I would just like to point out to all potential commenters that the degree to which IQ is genetic is one of the most controversial unresolved recurring topics on Hacker News. The arguments never really seem to go anywhere.
The 'great man' theory of history is ingrained into most of us in early childhood as we learn about larger than life historical figures such as Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Abraham Linchon, and the like (obviously I'm an American, but I imagine other nationalities have similar figures). A lot of people consider themselves 'normal', and thus not capable of great things. This is of course bullshit... While everyone may not be able to be a 'genius' as the article claims, most people are capable of a whole lot more than they think.
> Instead, they assert that "genes powerfully influence the formation of all traits, from eye color to intelligence, but rarely dictate precisely what those traits will be."<p>Man, eye color is a bad one to pick if you're making the case against genes being predictive of traits. I reckon you could get something like 60-80% of the world's eye color right based on knowing the descendency of their parents.