Nature or Nurture
As a doctor, I have always been curious about what makes us intelligent and most importantly what or who is responsible for one’s mental abilities. There are two ground theories, the first one dictates that intelligence is inherited or in other words it runs in your genes. The second one considers intelligent to be something that can be nurtured - the environment that surrounds you, your education, family and friends, matter the most. I have seen a couple of documentaries on the subject but neither one of them was able to give a single answer to my question. So I’ve started reading not just academic articles and books but also different stories from across the world. Stories that reveal the lives of different people, who have one thing in common, they are highly intelligent.
As a matter of fact I’ve even started analysing my close friends, my parents and even myself. I was so curious to find out what is it that makes a person intelligent. But what is intelligence? There is a huge difference between being able to memorise a large amount of information and to be able to make links between this information, be analytical and have the ability to draw conclusions and find a solution to a particular problem. So after several months, I finally have an answer, which is probably not universally true, but at least it satisfies my curiosity. My conclusion is that intelligence is affected by both nature and nurture, or in other words most intelligent people have smart ancestors but they also spend a lot of time studying, developing their minds and most importantly staying away from stupid people who can easily distract them. Intelligent people can be found everywhere, and they are not necessarily rich. For example, there are many Green Peace activists who are highly intelligent but don’t care about the money. On the other hand there are many truly smart footballers, who by presumption are imprudent and stupid and people think that all they do after a match is to sit on the locker room benches and play cards or talk about women. So make sure that you never judge someone solely by his appearance. And one last thing, please, train your brain every day.
Similar Posts:
Working through lower-back pain : Lower-back pain is one of the…
Positive Thinking : Positive thinking can be defined as…
What is Feldenkrais? : Feldenkrais, for those who have heard…
Comments are closed!