David Shenk - The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything Youve Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong

For my parents

Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources Stating the thing broadly, the human individual lives far within his limits.

William James

Part One:

CHAPTER ONE

Contrary to what weve been taught, genes do not determine physical and character traits on their own. Rather, they interact with the environment in a dynamic, ongoing process that produces and continually refines an individual.

CHAPTER TWO

Intelligence is not an innate aptitude, hardwired at conception or in the womb, but a collection of developing skills driven by the interaction between genes and environment. No one is born with a predetermined amount of intelligence. Intelligence (and IQ scores) can be improved. Few adults come close to their true intellectual potential.

CHAPTER THREE

Like intelligence, talents are not innate gifts, but the result of a slow, invisible accretion of skills developed from the moment of conception. Everyone is born with differences, and some with unique advantages for certain tasks. But no one is genetically designed into greatness and few are biologically restricted from attaining it.

CHAPTER FOUR

Identical twins often do have striking similarities, but for reasons far beyond their genetic profiles. They can also have surprising (and often overlooked) differences. Twins are fascinating products of the interaction between genes and environment; this has been missed as heritability studies have been wildly misinterpreted. In reality, twin studies do not reveal any percentage of direct genetic influence and tell us absolutely nothing about individual potential.

CHAPTER FIVE

Child prodigies and superlative adult achievers are often not the same people. Understanding what makes remarkable abilities appear at different phases of a persons life provides an important insight into what talent really is.

CHAPTER SIX

Clusters of ethnic and geographical athletic success prompt suspicions of hidden genetic advantages. The real advantages are far more nuancedand less hidden.

Part Two:

CHAPTER SEVEN

The old nature/nurture paradigm suggests that control over our lives is divided between genes (nature) and our own decisions (nurture). In fact, we have far more control over our genesand far less control over our environmentthan we think.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Parenting does matter. There is much parents can do to encourage their kids to become achievers, and there are some important mistakes to avoid.

CHAPTER NINE

It must not be left to genes and parents to foster greatness; spurring individual achievement is also the duty of society. Every culture must strive to foster values that bring out the best in its people.

CHAPTER TEN

We have long understood that lifestyle cannot alter heredity. But it turns out that it can