The submission kindly made here is a controversial blog post by a blogger who habitually blogs about topics that I actively research for my professional research. First I read the previous comments here, then I read the fine blog post by Peter Frost.<p>It is correct that Charles Spearman originated the current, generally accepted view of "general intelligence" (<i>g</i>) as a common factor for diverse mental abilities tapped by a variety of mental tests. Each kind of mental test, in Spearman's view, also tapped "special abilities" (<i>s</i>) and Spearman, contrary to the brief account here, elaborated his view of those in the years after his landmark 1904 publication on general intelligence. Spearman wrote, in a 1927 writing I'm indebted to John Raven for drawing to my attention, "Every normal man, woman, and child is, then, a genius at something as well as an idiot at something. It remains to discover what—at any rate in respect of the genius."[1]<p>The article continues, "In recent years, however, we’ve begun to identify the actual genes that contribute to intelligence. These genes are very numerous, numbering perhaps in the thousands, with each one exerting only a small effect." The second sentence quoted here is a lot more accurate than the first. We know FOR SURE that genes that influence human intelligence number in the many hundreds, with confusing interactions with one another and with differing environmental conditions, and also know for sure that none of those genes have a large effect acting alone. But we have barely begun to identify any of the individual genes.<p>Blogger Peter Frost then comments on some current primary research publications. As someone who regularly discusses current research with other researchers in the local journal club,[2] I'm always glad to see citations to some new primary research studies, but I've also learned how few of those replicate, and how limited our precision is so far in matching behavior patterns to gene assemblages in Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) in human subjects. The sample sizes are becoming more and more huge in human GWASs, but are still too small to provide reliable data on associations between genes and behaviors of interest.[3]<p>The unreplicated primary research studies he cites (in some cases from very obscure journals) will be worth following up on, but right now I think the blogger's suggested conclusions run ahead of the evidence, particularly about spread of literacy in some regions being associated with particular genes--the sample sizes of the relevant populations are still grossly inadequate for backing up conclusions like that.<p>P.S. Reliable information about the neurological underpinnings of reading ability can be found in the book <i>Reading in the Brain</i>,[4] by a scientist who has done many neuro-imaging studies of reading ability, a very readable and interesting book.<p>[1] <a href="http://assessingpsyche.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/strawman-spearman-vs-charles-spearman/" rel="nofollow">http://assessingpsyche.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/strawman-spe...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.psych.umn.edu/research/areas/pib/" rel="nofollow">http://www.psych.umn.edu/research/areas/pib/</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3778125/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3778125/</a><p>[4] <a href="http://readinginthebrain.pagesperso-orange.fr/intro.htm" rel="nofollow">http://readinginthebrain.pagesperso-orange.fr/intro.htm</a>