psi After decades of dominance, the most recent studies on neural pathways, genetic analysis and images the brain have returned to study cognitive abilities in the field of biology
By Alejandra Folgarait
The Nation, April 11, 2010
Intelligence is one of those topics in which science and ideology are confused, they wipe out or ignored. As if their own merit and not random in nature, we all feel deep satisfaction to be encompassed by the caste of brilliant. Clearly define what is being smart is much more complicated than is assumed to successfully complete a crossword puzzle, and that the definition combines biological and psychological analysis issues political, social and economic.
last month when the psychologist Satoshi Kanasawa, the prestigious London School of Economics and Political Science, dared to raise publicly the findings of recent studies, that the smartest people are those who support the values \u200b\u200bof political liberalism atheism and male monogamy, reopened the controversy over the issue.
Kanasawa The study, published in the journal Social Psychology Quarterly, takes intelligence as an adaptation of Homo sapiens to the novel challenges presented to them throughout evolution. Most intelligent men join the exclusive rather sexual practice polygamy and other species is an expression of adaptive intelligence of our ancestors to the changing environment, according to this self-styled "scientific fundamentalist."
The psychologist explained that "the more intelligent individuals are better at solving problems that are novel in an evolutionary sense, but they are better at solving problems evolutionary relatives, such as mating, breeding and caring interpersonal relationships."
Yes, indeed, at times, the clarifications obscure ... But most important of the study may not be Kanasawa its controversial conclusions, but his perspective. A psychologist using categories biology, such as the natural evolution of species, to examine a phenomenon that belonged to ten years ago the world of traditional psychology is a provocation to the susceptible debate on cognitive abilities.
But the truth is that, admittedly, the biological approach is an increasingly strong trend at the time to explain what makes some people smarter than others.
Kanasawa notes that criminals are less intelligent than the rest of the population because they are turning to more ancestral preference when competing for resources to survive (food and sexual partners). This statement, which had sparked accusations discrimination a few years ago, is now an accepted view in the neo-Darwinian science.
In matters of intelligence, brain biology seems to have won the last round to the psychology of the mind and the sociology of the practices, which excelled and won from the peak positions from the 70 psi and had a new formulation, 80, with the multiple intelligences theory of Howard Gardner, the inspiration of the applications developed by Daniel Goleman on the best seller that brought him to worldwide fame in 1995, Emotional intelligence.
The truth is that intelligence was always in the middle of the controversy between what is given by nature and what is acquired by education, culture and even will. Although it is said that to be smart enough to solve equations or be Argentina, the debate is reborn again and again throughout the history of featherless bipeds. New, in any case, this resurgence of biological look of intelligence after decades of dominance psi.
The boom of neuroscience
In recent times, the search for the neurobiological roots of cognitive abilities became a scientific fashion. A flood of brain research and nurtured intelligent neural connections that show the genius flooded scientific journals. Hand in hand with brain imaging and genetic analysis, biology, recently took over control of the intelligence field, which had been on land donated by psychologists and social commentators. Even now there is specialization in "neuropsychology".
Many researchers took up the basic idea behind the IQ tests: the "g" factor. Discovered in 1904 by Charles Spearman to explain British intelligence from a measurable point of view, the factor "g" was later crushed by the rise of psychoanalysis and social psychology. Now get back on track.
For example, Psychologist Linda Gottfredson, a professor of Education at the University of Delaware, argues that the scores obtained on tests of intelligence quotient (IQ) show the factor "g" and that this general intelligence factor is marked by biology.
Assuming that intelligence is determined by nature, Gottfredson insists that IQ scores correctly predict success, both academically and professionally and in life. Get a high score on a test and ensure the future. However, it is precisely the mix of intelligence to social success that built so much controversy on human intellectual capacities of yesterday, today and forever.
That no mistake was never Woody Allen, who used to say that the brain was his second favorite organ.
Anyway, the "g factor" has also been captured in recent studies in brain imaging of people while doing arithmetic, memorizing something or verbalized a situation. The lateral cortex of the frontal lobe, neuroscientists say, is crucial for general intelligence.
rise in line with the intelligence to analyze biological, new studies find a close relationship between genetics and brilliance. Contrary to popular belief, as children get older, the influence of genes over notorious in their ability to solve problems, reason and learn new things.
The psychiatrist Robert Plomin of King's College London, studied 11,000 pairs of twins (half of them genetically identical, ie, twins). It came to the conclusion that, in infancy, variations in intelligence are given by the genes at 44 percent. When they reach the adulez, genetics accounts for 66% of general intelligence showing people. According to Plomin, children who have a high intelligence using the environment around them to increase their cognitive abilities are innate.
It seems that nature knows no social injustices cultural. For unpleasant as it sounds, experts conclude, some people are born smarter than others. What is education then? "For those who come to school with lower IQs, Plomin claims.
On the sidewalk in front of the biologists, which are located argue that training can improve memory and with it, certain aspects of intelligence. "While some would argue that intelligence and ability may be altered at present there is no doubt that performance on various intellectual and cognitive activities can be modified," said Facundo Manes, director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute (INEC) which is reference higher in the specialty.
For its part, the psychologist and educator Carla Sacchi, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Mathematics and Experimental Psychology, emphasizes that intelligence is a product of interaction between biological and opportunities in a culture. "Learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes, able to operate only when the child is interacting with people around them and in cooperation with other children," emphasizes CONICET researcher. A malnourished child may be affected intellectual development during early childhood, but can reach then a normal or superior intelligence stimuli appropriate environment.
biologist trend, however, continues at full speed. Not only led some scientists to identify genes linked to cognitive abilities but also to associate a variant of a gene linked to cholesterol with the advanced intelligence of some people. Is not it a lot? Not for those who use genetic testing or MRI in order to "read" the intelligence.
Recent brain imaging of very smart show that their neural connections, even without performing any cognitive activity, are more robust than the rest of the population. Exactly the same thing that was deduced from the large lobe parietal Albert Einstein: the key lies in connectivity rather than the "chip" biological computer geniuses. Furor
to measure IQ measurement flourished from the first decade of the twentieth century, when tests were developed Binet and Weschler, which give a score on the visual tasks, verbal and numerical in relation to age.
The application of intelligence tests to children and adults became the sine qua non for admission to private schools, prestigious universities and companies that wanted to be leaders. At the same time, these tests were used to discriminate people of different races and communities, which were compared statistically with white, well-nourished populations.
eugenics as a movement trying to prevent mixing of the class intellectually advanced people "inferior" was born in England in the hands of statistical Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin who twisted the ideas of the great naturalist to apply to social. Following this idea, sterilized immigrants, people of lower class and uneducated. Nazism was the most extreme expression of eugenic policy. But only when Freud's ideas permeated the Western world began to question the exclusive use of tests to evaluate intelligence human.
From the 70's, intelligence tests were the subject of derision by neglecting the emotional skills and talents of individuals. The American psychologist Howard Gardner came to fame in the late 80's, when he published his theory of multiple intelligences. After working with musicians and artists who had suffered strokes, Gardner postulated that human intelligence has nine different components, including the understanding of body movement, interpersonal and intrapersonal.
But it was the psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman who became a millionaire by explaining the ideas of Gardner in his book Emotional Intelligence .
course, paradoxically, the insight to handle the emotional relationships have not gone much beyond the bestseller lists and the new age wave if it were not for the fervor of neurobiologists.
The discovery of the neural basis of emotional intelligence turned this concept into something measurable in the brain. The study, conducted with Vietnam veterans, found that analytics can conserve but have damaged the ability to judge the emotions of others or to plan appropriate responses to a situation. Emotional intelligence, U.S. scientists concluded, is a place different from the general or abstract intelligence in the brain.
"It is important to note that the brain works in a network," says neurologist Manes, also director of the Institute of Neurosciences, Favaloro Foundation. "When you perform a cognitive activity, and make an intelligent decision, several brain areas are activated, never one."
important thing, the researcher points Carla Sacchi, is that "affectivity promotes the development and organization of brain functions from an early age, regulating cognitive and emotional processes." Neither
stricter
scientists now dare to say that intelligence depends only on the inherited biology. "The tests that measure intelligence have been developed by a practical need and have proven useful in some cases but not all. The humor, sensitivity, creativity are characteristics that classical tests do not measure. Moreover, the environment, the acquired and learned during the development of each individual, are key. That is why definitions and intelligence tests are always kids at the time to relate the actions and decisions in real life, "says Manes.
Perhaps the liberal values \u200b\u200bthat prevail today in modern societies are related, as claimed by the controversial study Kanasawa with human evolution. But nothing is forever. Who preferences or choices knows what will be needed to survive better in future worlds.
Anyway, see the brain as it processes thoughts and feelings, present and future, so impressive as looking at the stars. There is so much mystery out there like that makes someone smart.
Animals "smart?
language, technology and the symbolic capacity of human beings always has differentiated them from other animals. However, there are chimps who use sticks to extract honey, monogamous birds that cheat on their partners, talking parrots and monkeys that look in the mirror, to socialize and show some empathy for congeners.
Beyond the intelligence that the owners are attributed to pets, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a feature unique to the human species. "We are beginning to understand that the extraordinary intelligence of the human brain could be caused by a combination of properties that are already in the most basic forms in nonhuman primates, rather than a consequence of individual properties," says neurologist Dr. Facundo Manes, director of Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. Through "jumps" of evolution, the human brain would have provided more neural connections and greater intelligence than other primates.
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By Alejandra Folgarait
The Nation, April 11, 2010
Intelligence is one of those topics in which science and ideology are confused, they wipe out or ignored. As if their own merit and not random in nature, we all feel deep satisfaction to be encompassed by the caste of brilliant. Clearly define what is being smart is much more complicated than is assumed to successfully complete a crossword puzzle, and that the definition combines biological and psychological analysis issues political, social and economic.
last month when the psychologist Satoshi Kanasawa, the prestigious London School of Economics and Political Science, dared to raise publicly the findings of recent studies, that the smartest people are those who support the values \u200b\u200bof political liberalism atheism and male monogamy, reopened the controversy over the issue.
Kanasawa The study, published in the journal Social Psychology Quarterly, takes intelligence as an adaptation of Homo sapiens to the novel challenges presented to them throughout evolution. Most intelligent men join the exclusive rather sexual practice polygamy and other species is an expression of adaptive intelligence of our ancestors to the changing environment, according to this self-styled "scientific fundamentalist."
The psychologist explained that "the more intelligent individuals are better at solving problems that are novel in an evolutionary sense, but they are better at solving problems evolutionary relatives, such as mating, breeding and caring interpersonal relationships."
Yes, indeed, at times, the clarifications obscure ... But most important of the study may not be Kanasawa its controversial conclusions, but his perspective. A psychologist using categories biology, such as the natural evolution of species, to examine a phenomenon that belonged to ten years ago the world of traditional psychology is a provocation to the susceptible debate on cognitive abilities.
But the truth is that, admittedly, the biological approach is an increasingly strong trend at the time to explain what makes some people smarter than others.
Kanasawa notes that criminals are less intelligent than the rest of the population because they are turning to more ancestral preference when competing for resources to survive (food and sexual partners). This statement, which had sparked accusations discrimination a few years ago, is now an accepted view in the neo-Darwinian science.
In matters of intelligence, brain biology seems to have won the last round to the psychology of the mind and the sociology of the practices, which excelled and won from the peak positions from the 70 psi and had a new formulation, 80, with the multiple intelligences theory of Howard Gardner, the inspiration of the applications developed by Daniel Goleman on the best seller that brought him to worldwide fame in 1995, Emotional intelligence.
The truth is that intelligence was always in the middle of the controversy between what is given by nature and what is acquired by education, culture and even will. Although it is said that to be smart enough to solve equations or be Argentina, the debate is reborn again and again throughout the history of featherless bipeds. New, in any case, this resurgence of biological look of intelligence after decades of dominance psi.
The boom of neuroscience
In recent times, the search for the neurobiological roots of cognitive abilities became a scientific fashion. A flood of brain research and nurtured intelligent neural connections that show the genius flooded scientific journals. Hand in hand with brain imaging and genetic analysis, biology, recently took over control of the intelligence field, which had been on land donated by psychologists and social commentators. Even now there is specialization in "neuropsychology".
Many researchers took up the basic idea behind the IQ tests: the "g" factor. Discovered in 1904 by Charles Spearman to explain British intelligence from a measurable point of view, the factor "g" was later crushed by the rise of psychoanalysis and social psychology. Now get back on track.
For example, Psychologist Linda Gottfredson, a professor of Education at the University of Delaware, argues that the scores obtained on tests of intelligence quotient (IQ) show the factor "g" and that this general intelligence factor is marked by biology.
Assuming that intelligence is determined by nature, Gottfredson insists that IQ scores correctly predict success, both academically and professionally and in life. Get a high score on a test and ensure the future. However, it is precisely the mix of intelligence to social success that built so much controversy on human intellectual capacities of yesterday, today and forever.
That no mistake was never Woody Allen, who used to say that the brain was his second favorite organ.
Anyway, the "g factor" has also been captured in recent studies in brain imaging of people while doing arithmetic, memorizing something or verbalized a situation. The lateral cortex of the frontal lobe, neuroscientists say, is crucial for general intelligence.
rise in line with the intelligence to analyze biological, new studies find a close relationship between genetics and brilliance. Contrary to popular belief, as children get older, the influence of genes over notorious in their ability to solve problems, reason and learn new things.
The psychiatrist Robert Plomin of King's College London, studied 11,000 pairs of twins (half of them genetically identical, ie, twins). It came to the conclusion that, in infancy, variations in intelligence are given by the genes at 44 percent. When they reach the adulez, genetics accounts for 66% of general intelligence showing people. According to Plomin, children who have a high intelligence using the environment around them to increase their cognitive abilities are innate.
It seems that nature knows no social injustices cultural. For unpleasant as it sounds, experts conclude, some people are born smarter than others. What is education then? "For those who come to school with lower IQs, Plomin claims.
On the sidewalk in front of the biologists, which are located argue that training can improve memory and with it, certain aspects of intelligence. "While some would argue that intelligence and ability may be altered at present there is no doubt that performance on various intellectual and cognitive activities can be modified," said Facundo Manes, director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute (INEC) which is reference higher in the specialty.
For its part, the psychologist and educator Carla Sacchi, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Mathematics and Experimental Psychology, emphasizes that intelligence is a product of interaction between biological and opportunities in a culture. "Learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes, able to operate only when the child is interacting with people around them and in cooperation with other children," emphasizes CONICET researcher. A malnourished child may be affected intellectual development during early childhood, but can reach then a normal or superior intelligence stimuli appropriate environment.
biologist trend, however, continues at full speed. Not only led some scientists to identify genes linked to cognitive abilities but also to associate a variant of a gene linked to cholesterol with the advanced intelligence of some people. Is not it a lot? Not for those who use genetic testing or MRI in order to "read" the intelligence.
Recent brain imaging of very smart show that their neural connections, even without performing any cognitive activity, are more robust than the rest of the population. Exactly the same thing that was deduced from the large lobe parietal Albert Einstein: the key lies in connectivity rather than the "chip" biological computer geniuses. Furor
to measure IQ measurement flourished from the first decade of the twentieth century, when tests were developed Binet and Weschler, which give a score on the visual tasks, verbal and numerical in relation to age.
The application of intelligence tests to children and adults became the sine qua non for admission to private schools, prestigious universities and companies that wanted to be leaders. At the same time, these tests were used to discriminate people of different races and communities, which were compared statistically with white, well-nourished populations.
eugenics as a movement trying to prevent mixing of the class intellectually advanced people "inferior" was born in England in the hands of statistical Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin who twisted the ideas of the great naturalist to apply to social. Following this idea, sterilized immigrants, people of lower class and uneducated. Nazism was the most extreme expression of eugenic policy. But only when Freud's ideas permeated the Western world began to question the exclusive use of tests to evaluate intelligence human.
From the 70's, intelligence tests were the subject of derision by neglecting the emotional skills and talents of individuals. The American psychologist Howard Gardner came to fame in the late 80's, when he published his theory of multiple intelligences. After working with musicians and artists who had suffered strokes, Gardner postulated that human intelligence has nine different components, including the understanding of body movement, interpersonal and intrapersonal.
But it was the psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman who became a millionaire by explaining the ideas of Gardner in his book Emotional Intelligence .
course, paradoxically, the insight to handle the emotional relationships have not gone much beyond the bestseller lists and the new age wave if it were not for the fervor of neurobiologists.
The discovery of the neural basis of emotional intelligence turned this concept into something measurable in the brain. The study, conducted with Vietnam veterans, found that analytics can conserve but have damaged the ability to judge the emotions of others or to plan appropriate responses to a situation. Emotional intelligence, U.S. scientists concluded, is a place different from the general or abstract intelligence in the brain.
"It is important to note that the brain works in a network," says neurologist Manes, also director of the Institute of Neurosciences, Favaloro Foundation. "When you perform a cognitive activity, and make an intelligent decision, several brain areas are activated, never one."
important thing, the researcher points Carla Sacchi, is that "affectivity promotes the development and organization of brain functions from an early age, regulating cognitive and emotional processes." Neither
stricter
scientists now dare to say that intelligence depends only on the inherited biology. "The tests that measure intelligence have been developed by a practical need and have proven useful in some cases but not all. The humor, sensitivity, creativity are characteristics that classical tests do not measure. Moreover, the environment, the acquired and learned during the development of each individual, are key. That is why definitions and intelligence tests are always kids at the time to relate the actions and decisions in real life, "says Manes.
Perhaps the liberal values \u200b\u200bthat prevail today in modern societies are related, as claimed by the controversial study Kanasawa with human evolution. But nothing is forever. Who preferences or choices knows what will be needed to survive better in future worlds.
Anyway, see the brain as it processes thoughts and feelings, present and future, so impressive as looking at the stars. There is so much mystery out there like that makes someone smart.
Animals "smart?
language, technology and the symbolic capacity of human beings always has differentiated them from other animals. However, there are chimps who use sticks to extract honey, monogamous birds that cheat on their partners, talking parrots and monkeys that look in the mirror, to socialize and show some empathy for congeners.
Beyond the intelligence that the owners are attributed to pets, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a feature unique to the human species. "We are beginning to understand that the extraordinary intelligence of the human brain could be caused by a combination of properties that are already in the most basic forms in nonhuman primates, rather than a consequence of individual properties," says neurologist Dr. Facundo Manes, director of Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. Through "jumps" of evolution, the human brain would have provided more neural connections and greater intelligence than other primates.
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