The Why of Differences

From a genetics point of view, we are all pretty similar (about 99.9% the same, if you believe some estimates). Yet, there are many observed differences in people. For, well, 99.9% of these, we pretty easily attribute it genes (oh, she's tall because her parents/aunt/uncle are). We know from high school biology that one of the things our genes do is tell our body how to grow and give our eyes and hair color. But, do our genes make us smart?

We all know people who are more/less intelligent that we are (however you want to define intelligence). As a culture, we are eager to say that someone got ahead on his smarts, but reluctant to say he's got a shitty job because he's stupid. We also tend to believe that smarts is something you get by working at it (studying hard, getting good experiences, etc.). Put another way, we don't look at high school kids' SAT scores and throw the low scorers in shop or home ec. And most people will not start a conversation about which group of people are smarter than another one.

What our reluctance to speak about intelligence masks is that any cognitive process (e.g., problem solving, learning and memory) must be physiological events. And if they are physiological they must be subjected to the same principles of genetics that other physiological processes are, right? Well, here's the science to back it up.

Basically, the researchers found that there are physiological properties of neurons (brain cells) that allow some to transmit faster (quicker thinking) than others, and these properties are inherited. Of course, if they isolate the gene that increases these properties, then drugs to make us smarter could be created. But that's a ways off.

It's important to note that genes, in some respects, are templates for our potential. Environment and behavior certainly determine how much of our potential (whether it be intelligence or height) that we can obtain. But this, and other research, do show that we get more than our eye color from our parents. Now, if I could only develop the easy to administer test of the quality of brain myelin...