It seems that I disagree with the guest and most people in this comment section. I think that, a priori, my assumptions are, barring a significant defect in the brain, such as Down syndrome, or “mental retardation”, any “~normal person” is capable of building the ability to become proficient at doing pretty much anything within the domain of things that require only mental ability. That includes becoming “intelligent” or having a high score on an IQ test. <br><br>It seems to me that a person that arrives at a conclusion that says that peoples’ “mental ability potential” is partially due to or completely determined by their inherent genetics is doing that based off of the a priori belief that inherent genetics determine they’re “mental ability potential”. It’s like they want it to be true.<br><br>I was just thinking about what would convince me to change my belief to the opposite and currently idk. For me the really hard thing about this problem is trying to disentangle the environment from the results and that’s one of the main criticisms for people that have the opposite belief as me. It seems damn near impossible to disentangle the environment from the results but I think it would have to be done in order to reach the opposite conclusion as me. AND, I think THATS ONLY ONE of the problems you would need to solve to reach the opposite conclusion as me. That’s why I find it really odd that people would feel so assured in the inherent genetic mental potential ability hypothesis. <br><br>Another problem I see is people who point to IQ thing as an explanation for everything. That seems epistemically short sided to me.<br><br>Anyone wanna discuss this with me?<br><br>Edit: I just though about it a little more. The thing that would make me the most confident in my belief (either change my mind or make me more “bearish” on my current belief) would be for maximize the amount of data that I’ve seen that relates to this topic and go on from there. Just thought I’d add that.