system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Does having smart parents mean you will smart? Does having dumb parents guarantee you will not be smart? And does being musically gifted mean you could be mathematically gifted, "if you applied yourself"?

I had an interesting conversation with my Uncle last night. We were discussing the ability to pass on "raw intelligence" through your genes. "Whether it be artistic ability or mathematics", he argued, "it makes no difference; they are both the same: exacted potential." He claims, while being completely unmusical, that "he could be great", because he is intelligent according to an IQ test.
I on the other hand, have been reading The Red Queen, by Matt Ridley, and though I haven't been taking notes, I'm sure I read somewhere in there that intelligence it not necessarily passed on to offspring, that in fact the best way to ensure having a bright child, is to have many many children, so that by random chance, one will be exceptional.


I was also under the impression that having dimwitted parents, by no means condemned you to being dimwitted yourself, that the genes that make up intelligence are not simply one gene, but a complexity of genes that don't even necessarily resemble your parents genes, but are simply (recessive) genes they carry from many previous generations.

I didn't mean to make this a long thing. Is there anything wrong with either side?

Responses much appreciated!
gpt
Intelligence is partly hereditary, and partly due to the environment. There are genetic components to how our brains work, but at the same time our brains are responsive to what they're put through, well passed childhood - we have a fairly high degree of neuroplasticity.  

So dumb vs smart parents won't always produce dumb vs smart children, and like you said... the situation is more complex where even if it was wholly genetic, the always smart versus dumb thing wouldn't be true.  

In addition, while there is some basis for believing there is a theoretical "g" or common component to all types of intelligence, there is also a lot of evidence suggesting that there are a variety of different skills/abilities (i.e. you can be "smart" in some ways and "dumb" in others. See Howard Gardner for more info).  

Finally, I'd like to point out that people's beliefs of intelligence influence how hard they try and how much they learn (see psychologist Carol Dweck for more info). Believing that intelligence is fixed often leads to people not trying very hard (because the harder you try, the less smart you must be), and ending up worse off when experiencing learning challenges. Believing that intelligence is malleable usually leads to people trying hard, and engaging in new intellectual challenges. You can see this with your uncle, who is saying that he "could be great" with music, but has apparently not tried to learn a musical instrument. So... while there is merit to both sides of the argument, believing that intelligence is fixed tends to hold you back in some ways.