Is intelligence a product of heredity, environment or both?

Philippines
July 19, 2009 2:34pm CST
I often hear these notions from parents as well as from people praising children of higher intelligence or IQ: "My kid inherits me and my husbands IQ." or "Intelligence runs in our family." Is this true? What do you think?
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@JoyfulOne (6232)
• United States
19 Jul 09
I believe it's probably a combination of a little bit of both. As far as intelligence running in a family...I would think that is somewhat due to the kids seeing their parents, siblings, etc, and mirroring their interests and inquisitiveness. My children loved to learn, and I feel I passed that down to them through showing my own interest in studying and learning and such. I don't know about the heredity angle. I do know of a family where the parents are both slow, hated school, don't have 'intellectual conversations' at home, and yet their son is an A student with a strong desire for learning. The parents parents were not of high iq either (not meaning to sound disrespectful, for they are still nice people) To my way of thinking, that shows that, in that family at least, genes played no role in IQ, and neither did it seem that environment played much either. I do think though, environment wise, that every kid needs a good mentor to be a good example when they're not getting it otherwise, so maybe that explains that particular kids higher IQ?
• Philippines
20 Jul 09
I do also believe its both. If intelligence will only be from the genetics without application to the environment would be futile and useless. You need both to hone the talent.