People don't want to face cold hard truths. IQ is not perfect by any means, but one of the best predictors of overall success in life. Yet when it's overlapped with socioeconomic standing, it suddenly becomes a racist measurement.
What causes low IQ though? Just going to take a guess here and say that < 5% of people actually have "genetic stupidity". Most "low IQ" people are low IQ because they went through traumatizing hardships early in life.
>People don't want to face cold hard truths.
Yeah, no shit. People are too busy trying to survive instead of trying to figure out life's "truths".
>What causes low IQ though? Just going to take a guess here and say that < 5% of people actually have "genetic stupidity". Most "low IQ" people are low IQ because they went through traumatizing hardships early in life.
I think your statement is unlikely to be true. It will, of course, depend on your specific definitions, but from twin studies we've found that intelligence seems to be heritable.[0] It's even a fairly strong effect:
>The heritability of intelligence increases from about 20% in infancy to perhaps 80% in later adulthood.[0]
Other studies have found a similar effect.[1][2] Due to us observing this kind of a heritability effect (one that grows stronger as we age), I think it's unlikely that random events, such as trauma and hardships, are the main cause for lower levels of cognitive development. They certainly play a role in it, because they absolutely do affect cognitive development negatively, but I wouldn't bet money on this being the main reason.
Note that even though [2] favors the maternal womb environment over genetics as a factor in intelligence, it's still a factor that the individual in question had no control over.
>Yeah, no shit. People are too busy trying to survive instead of trying to figure out life's "truths".
I think in this case the parent was referring to people who discuss and solve these kinds of problems, rather than the people actually going through them.
Are you suggesting people who do not pass exams are inherently less intelligent?
I think in both cases the answer is partly, because in both cases some kind of misfortune prevents them from achieving the desired result, and brain not functioning well is one such misfortune. There are many other ways to become poor, so being poor won't tell you much about intelligence, but most of less intelligent people will be poor.
