btbg1194@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Bradley T Banko) (08/07/90)
Work on this question must be fairly common knowledge to some people in genetics. Is intelligence linked to the sex genes at all? In other words, is an intelligent mother more likely to have an intelligent daughter than an intelligent son, and vica versa for an intelligent father? Please don't bother me too much about specific genetics definitions of the meaning of "linked", etc. Also, I realize that some people will want some defintion of what I mean by "intelligence". I guess I could mean any of several things: 1) the usual definition by IQ scores or scores on "objective" academic tests such as SAT's, GRE's, etc., 2) a more general definition perhaps used by a researcher in terms of measures of survival and reproductive success, or 3) some other reasonable and interesting definition and measure. Likely there have been many relevant breeding experiments with animals? (PS: I hope that matters of nature versus nurture are not too distracting.) -- Bradley T. Banko Dept of Physics, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign btbg1194@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
werner@aecom.yu.edu (Craig Werner) (08/07/90)
In article <1990Aug6.202506.4159@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, btbg1194@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Bradley T Banko) writes: > Work on this question must be fairly common knowledge to some people in > genetics. Is intelligence linked to the sex genes at all? In other words, > is an intelligent mother more likely to have an intelligent daughter than First of all, remember that a mother randomly donates one of her two X chromosomes to her progeny. So if there is an X-linked gene related to intelligence (and in a matter of speaking, there is, there are several X-linkied disease that have as one symptom quite drastically reduced intelligence, but that of course is not the same thing) there is a 50% of a daughter getting it, and a 50% chance of a son getting it. You're not going to any boy-girl differences on the the segregation ratio from mother to children. As for the larger question. It is hard enough to get some people to admit that there is any genetic component to intelligence at all, much less any effort to pin down certain genes. This argument is of course, ideological rubbish. Any gene that is involved in brain function is potentially capable of affecting intelligence. There are dozens of these, and it is essentially impossible to pin down traits that can be attributable to three genes (two is difficult, but sometimes possible), so 10, 20, or 50 is essentially beyond the realm of observational genetics. -- Craig Werner (future MD/PhD, 5.5 years down, 2.5 to go) werner@aecom.YU.EDU -- Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1935-14E Eastchester Rd., Bronx NY 10461, 212-931-2517) "I just won't sleep, that's all."