The neuroscience of intelligence
This book introduces new and provocative neuroscience research that advances our understanding of intelligence and the brain. Compelling evidence shows that genetics plays a more important role than environment as intelligence develops from childhood, and that intelligence test scores correspond strongly to specific features of the brain assessed with neuroimaging. In understandable language, Richard J. Haier explains cutting-edge techniques based on genetics, DNA, and imaging of brain connectivity and function. He dispels common misconceptions, such as the belief that IQ tests are biased or meaningless, and debunks simple interventions alleged to increase intelligence. Readers will learn about the real possibility of dramatically enhancing intelligence based on neuroscience findings and the positive implications this could have for education and social policy. The text also explores potential controversies surrounding neuro-poverty, neuro-socioeconomic status, and the morality of enhancing intelligence for everyone. Online resources, including additional visuals, animations, questions and links, reinforce the material.
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What Hacker News says
- There are plenty of benefits to studying it, and plenty of downsides to not studying it. I recommend “The Neuroscience of Intelligence” by Richard Haier from Cambridge Fundamentals of Neuroscience in Psychology for a comprehensive, accessible, and modern review.
- The Neuroscience of Intelligence is a comprehensive overview of the state of the art understanding of the field of intelligence research. The paper you linked is, as I understand it, not research on intelligence but rather expertise and/or skill acquisition. I say this because The Neuroscience of Expertise talks about results of exactly this nature in Chapter 1.
The rest of what you say is too poorly defined to be a well reasoned model of how reality works at a fundamental level.
- I like the questions, esp. this one:
> If new cognition is needed, is it possible from the brain scale-up I mentioned before? Or is it like an aleph0 to aleph1 transition? I suspect there is a Turing completeness to cognition - in that there are some base laws which makes access to all math possible.
There is indirect evidence from multiple studies of ML models and animal intelligence pointing in the direction of "scaling up is good for intelligence, if your system isn't limited by global connectivity too much".
If you want to know more, see https://www.gwern.net/Scaling-hypothesis and Haier's The Neuroscience of Intelligence.
- The success of asians disproves a general bias towards whites in the US or any sort of "compounding interest" associated with it.
The consensus amongst neurobiologists is that adult IQ is somewhere between 70-80% based on genetic factors. I invite you to read "The Neuroscience of Intelligence" by Richard Haier, and the many studies cited therein.
Comparing this scientific work with astrology is clownish, on par with young earth creationism.
- Reading through The Neuroscience of Intelligence it seems there's some evidence in support of the efficient brain hypothesis, which from what I took away indicated that there were physiological differences in the amount of energy used by the brain in a given task, and the general principle being that this differential modulates the amount of time individuals are willing to engage in the task and this leads to cumulative differences over time.
- I got that paper from The Neuroscience of Intelligence, it's the study cited in section 3.2, so if you don't think its relevant, Dr. Richard J. Haier seems to disagree.
And if you can't be specific about what I'm saying that's wrong, I might start to suspect you don't know what you're trying to say.
