Heritability Of Intelligence Essay

It seems as though humans have always been fascinated with how the brain works and how well we are able to process information and for good reason too. Higher intelligence has been found to be associated with greater success in both academia and work, and may even have links to health and longevity. One particular area of interest within this subject is the heritability of intelligence. This is essentially an estimation of how much genetic variance can account for the variations of cognition that are observed in the human population (Plomin et al, 2013). Over the years, we have in some ways learned an immense amount about intelligence, yet when reading even the most recent reports it appears that we know hardly anything at all. One thing that most scientists can agree upon, is that fact that intelligence is a polygenic …show more content…
Once we know this, we will be one step closer to discovering just how big of a role genetic variance plays in the heritability of intelligence. Many sources suggest that the heritability ranges from about 40% in childhood to about 80% in adults (Gosso et al. 2006; Dick et al. 2007; Posthuma and E.J.C Geus, 2006). Although this phenomenon is not yet fully understood, it is believed that this increase over a person’s lifetime is due to both the development of the brain (and thus the expression of new genes) as well as a correlation between genotype and environment (Haworth et al. 2010). Currently research has shown that the heritability of intelligence appears to have connections to specific DNA markers, as well as associations and links to certain genes. There are various methods and studies that have been used in order gather these findings which will be discussed in detail. They include genome-wide association studies, multivariate genetic analyses, and family, adoption, and twin