50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True

by Harrison, Guy P.

  Only later did it dawn on me that I had played the coward's card of genetic limitations in order to dodge the key fact that I had never even tried to play quarterback at any level anywhere. If I had participated in Pop Warner, middle school and high school football, attended off-season camps and clinics, obsessed over success, prayed to a Joe Montana shrine in my bedroom, ate my Wheaties®, and actually played the position, then maybe I could make some kind of a judgment about my genetic potential to throw spirals under pressure. If I had tried, I might have clawed my way into the NFL. I doubt it, given the odds, but who knows? The genetic potential to be a pro quarterback may be real, and inherited limitations may indeed exist, but we are not capable of identifying them in childhood except perhaps where severe disabilities are present. Given countless factors that come into play on the road to NFL quarterback stardom, it is impossible to know who could not have made it. We can know with certainty who has the right stuff only after they make it. Far more important than the ability to throw a football well is potential intelligence, and this too is unknowable in the same way.

  Unfortunately, many people believe strongly in the existence of identifiable limits that fence in human minds. The reality, however, is that while one's current intellectual ability can be measured, intellectual potential cannot. Your brain is not cast in stone in the womb, in the first few years of life, and not even in adulthood. It can change dramatically, based on what it does and what is done to it. Neuroplasticity is a fancy word that refers to the brain's ability to rewire or physically restructure itself throughout life. Much, if not most, of our intellectual destiny is what we make of it and what our environment makes of it. When it comes to intelligence, we are not the passive passengers popular opinion often suggests we are.

  A MOST DANGEROUS BELIEF

  One of the most destructive myths of all is the one that tells us intelligence is innate and fixed. It has been widely believed for centuries, and still is, that a person is either born smart or not, that education, opportunity, motivation, and hard work can only carry one so far because most intellectual ability is tightly confined by inherited or genetic restraints. Worse, these limits are believed to be identifiable by a test, a few report cards, or maybe by nothing more than a mere glance at one's physical appearance. Alfred Binet, the French psychologist who developed the intelligence quotient (IQ) test in the early 1900s, would surely be one of its most vocal critics today if he were still alive. He created the test specifically for the purpose of identifying children who suffered from severe mental problems or learning disabilities so that they could receive special attention early on. Binet never intended or imagined that his test, and its descendants such as the SAT and ACT, would be seen as valid ways to measure innate intelligence and grounds for make sweeping assumptions about the innate intelligence of large groups of people. Yes, these types of tests can measure current ability in some forms of intellectual activity, and they may also do a pretty good job of predicting future success with schools or jobs. But this is light-years away from measuring someone's overall intelligence, and it's even farther away from determining the inherent potential of a healthy human brain.

  Attached to racial identity and gender, the myth of knowable and measurable inherited potential intelligence has inspired outrageous crimes of neglect and abuse against countless numbers of people. It places an unjustified cloud of doubt above us all as individuals as well. The myth also provides a handy excuse when things don't go as well as we would like. For example, how many students attempt to explain poor grades in a particular subject by claiming they “just aren't smart enough”? The implication is that their genes are to blame and it can't possibly have anything to do with nutrition, sleep, prior education, the quality of teaching, personal motivation, or study habits. Based on what is now known about mental development and the impact of environmental factors, it is ridiculous for anyone to presume to know the inherent or genetic limits of a person's intellect.

  If everything transpired perfectly for an individual from the moment of conception forward (though in reality it never can, of course), we might then be able to glimpse the upper limit of that person's mental development. But even then we could not be sure where the real limits for that individual lie because intelligence is more of a process than a specific measurable thing. A genius in math might have been an even more brilliant pianist or sculptor—had he or she pursued playing the piano and sculpting. A mediocre musician might have been a great juggler. A dim person might have been a bright person, given a few different opportunities and life choices here and there. Who can say that Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein would not have been even smarter and more productive if their childhood nutrition, social stimulation, opportunities, and academic encouragement had been different? The same applies to every human who has ever lived. School systems all over the world routinely write off children at young ages, consigning them to less demanding and less stimulating educational tracks designed for those students who “just aren't smart enough for higher learning.” How much intellectual potential does our species waste by giving up on the brains of millions of children year after year?

  The brains of infants who are deprived of adequate affection, security, stimulation, and nutrition do not develop as well as babies who have those things. Children who hear fewer words per day from their parents, for example, do not develop in the same way as children who hear more words. Some cultures place more emphasis on education than others. Some parents demand more academic work from their children and help them do it. Some parents do neither. Some children go to terrible schools; some go to great schools. Some groups of people have more or less opportunities and more or less confidence than others due to culturally embedded prejudice and discrimination. Even though all these factors should be obvious by now, many people still believe that nothing overrides genetic destiny when it comes to intelligence.

  Here's a simple thought experiment to illustrate the absurdity of claiming to know an individual's genetic potential based on current appearance or ability. To visualize this, consider a physical example. Imagine a massive, vein-popping bodybuilder standing next to an extraordinarily skinny man. One of them looks like freshly shaved King Kong and the other looks like the slightest gust of wind might knock him over. At first glance, most people probably would assume that the large, muscular man has the genetic advantage for success in competitive bodybuilding over the skinny man. But we can't assume this to be the case. It could easily be the skinny guy who had been born with the superior genes for bodybuilding. But maybe nothing in his environment activated those genes. Maybe he was deprived of something in childhood—good nutrition perhaps—and those genetic gifts were muted. Maybe he grew up in a place that had no gyms and he never had the opportunity to train with weights. Or, maybe he thought bodybuilding was weird or too difficult so he never even tried.

  Now imagine a woman with a doctorate in physics who writes books about cosmology. She is standing next to a woman who dropped out of high school and now cleans bathrooms for a living. Can we look at their résumés and determine which of them was born with the superior genetics for intelligence? We cannot. If we are honest and reasonable, all we can do is make a judgment about their current intellectual abilities.

  While writing this chapter I decided to seek out the champion of smarts from my high school days. Debbie was the classic teen goddess: beautiful, varsity cheerleading captain, and valedictorian of my graduating class. She would have been so easy to hate, but nobody did because her personality matched everything else about her. I remember Debbie as a great person but also as a bit intimidating. To me she seemed like some kind of academic terminator who never stopped, never ate, never slept; she just kept making As. In fact, Debbie never made a single B during four years of high school. But did her brain have classroom success etched into it from birth? Looking back, she doesn't think so.

  “Some As were easy; some I had to work for,” Debbie explained. “Math took more effort. Mostly it was dedi
cation to the goal of being valedictorian. It seemed like once I decided I wanted that, I just found a way. I was not one of those geniuses who could sleep through a class, though, and still get an A. I made a long-term commitment and didn't feel I could let my guard down ever. It was as much about endurance as ability for me.”

  Debbie says family support and expectations were critical to her success in school.

  “Expectations were high. We were always told that it was expected we would make whatever grade was within our reach, and in our parents' mind that meant As. Close family was key for just basic support. Plus, my brothers were so accomplished, I wanted to keep up.”

  Keeping up with her brothers could not have been easy. They were both outstanding students. They also excelled outside the classroom. One was a member of a World Series championship team, and the other was a PGA golf pro for ten years. But don't assume that this all adds up to prove that she merely coasted on the good fortune of being born into a genetically gifted family. Debbie was adopted.

  GROUP INTELLIGENCE?

  Beyond individuals, what about inherited intelligence shared among vast groups of people, such as races? It has long been a common belief that races can be ranked by innate intelligence. Can they? I did a lot of research on racial differences in IQ scores and academic achievement while writing my book Race and Reality: What Everyone Should Know about Our Biological Diversity. Along the way I discovered how glaringly obvious the likely reasons for these much-hyped differences are. While some people focus on average group scores on “intelligence” tests and cite genetic limitations as the cause—something they cannot possibly know—others point to the fact that the groups that score higher on tests and perform better in school simply work harder.1 Yes, doing homework and studying correlates nicely with success in school. Amazing, huh? But belief in genetic destinies leads many to the unwarranted conclusion that all those test scores and grades were predetermined by genes handed out at conception. The reality is that what our genes do and do not do for us is determined by the infinitely complex way they are influenced by our environments. David Shenk describes this in his book The Genius in All of Us:

  [G]enes are not like robot actors who always say the same lines in the exact same way. It turns out that they interact with their surroundings and can say different things depending on whom they are talking to. This obliterates the long-standing metaphor of genes as blueprints with elaborate predesigned instructions for eye color, thumb size, mathematical quickness, musical sensitivity, etc. Now we can come up with a more accurate metaphor. Rather than finished blueprints, genes—all twenty-two thousand of them—are more like volume knobs and switches. Think of a giant control board inside every cell of your body.

  Many of those knobs and switches can be turned up/down/on/off at any time—by another gene or by any miniscule environmental input. This flipping and turning takes place constantly. It begins the moment a child is conceived and doesn't stop until she takes her last breath. Rather than giving us hardwired instructions on how a trait must be expressed, this process of gene-environment interaction drives a unique developmental path for every unique individual.2

  LIMITS LIKELY EXIST, BUT WE SHOULD NOT PRETEND TO KNOW THEM

  It is wrong to imagine ourselves and others as prisoners fenced in by our genes. Science is now showing us more clearly than ever that whatever genetic limitations we may have, the specific boundaries of these limitations are unknown to us. They may be forever unknowable, given the infinitely complex interaction between genes and environment. Therefore, it makes no sense to pretend that we know these prison walls and then navigate our lives accordingly. We know what it takes to develop healthy minds, and this is where our attention and efforts ought to be. Genetic inheritance is a huge factor in intellectual potential, of course. Sure, people really are born with brains that will never produce Nobel Prize-winning achievements no matter how hard they work or how many opportunities they have. I don't think for a second that every brain in every newborn baby is equal or has equal potential. Some people are born with more or less innate potential than others. But how exactly do we know who falls into which category? All we can do is measure current ability. We cannot determine intelligence that might have been or intelligence that could be. Therefore, we must never let the lie of known genetic limits to our intelligence hold us back either as individuals, as groups, or as a species.

  GO DEEPER…

  Fish, Jefferson, ed. Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth. New York: Routledge, 2001.

  Medina, John. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School. Seattle: Pear Press, 2008.

  Murdoch, Stephen. IQ: A Smart History of a Failed Idea. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons, 2007.

  Nisbett, Richard E. Intelligence and How to Get It. New York: W. W. Norton, 2009.

  Shenk, David. The Genius in All of Us. New York: Doubleday, 2010.

  It is easy to be wise after the event.

  —English proverb

  We humans rarely meet a pattern we can resist. As mentioned in chapter 1, our minds have evolved to be very good at detecting things like animal tracks in a thick forest or spotting a camouflaged bird perched on a branch. While this obviously has been an invaluable skill for hungry humans over the millennia, it comes with a price. Sometimes we can be so good at identifying patterns that we “see” things that aren't really there. That's how we end up with people seeing the Virgin Mary on a slice of toast, Allah's name written in clouds, and ghosts in the shadows.

  The Bible code, also known as the Torah code, is the astonishing claim that says the Abrahamic god embedded messages into the text of the Bible. According to believers, the coded words include not just the names of important people and events but also accurate predictions about the future. The interest and excitement that this has generated has been remarkable. I think we are primed not only to look for and recognize patterns, both real and imagined, but also to experience joy or some form of emotional reward when we find one. This may explain some of the popularity of all those word-seek puzzles—and the Bible code. It's like the Where's Waldo? books, but this time with supposed life-and-death implications for all of us. It's not difficult to see why millions of people find it irresistible. But resist they should, because there is nothing to substantiate this claim.

  SEEK LONG ENOUGH AND HARD ENOUGH AND YE SHALL FIND

  It is difficult, if not impossible, to read through the Bible and find numerous disparate words that can be linked together in a semisensible way to make predictions about the future. However, thanks to computers, it is possible to plug in an extraction formula and let it run through the text to produce “hidden messages.” The way it's done is by using something called the “equidistance letter search.” First you choose a letter—let's say B, for example. Next you choose a number—5, for example. Then you plug this sequence into a computer program that will find every fifth letter that falls after every B throughout the text (also before, above, or below the letter, if you wish). Some of the letters generated will spell out words. Some of the words will have meaning. How much meaning is in the eye of the beholder, as we shall see.

  Using this technique, say believers, the Bible accurately predicted historical events such as the Holocaust, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin thousands of years before they happened. Wow, if true, this would appear to be very strong evidence that the Bible really is much more than a mere book written by humans. This code might even be proof for the existence of the Judeo-Christian God. Once again, however, a claim for the miraculous and the supernatural has a rather simple down-to-earth explanation.

  It is not difficult to explain how Bible-code proponents come up with names like “Kennedy” and “Rabin.” The Bible contains many thousands of letters. Given enough chances, the creation of words that can be strung together so that they seem to have meaning is bound to happen. There certainly are plenty of chances, as one can
pick different letters for starting points as well as choose different number sequences to select letters after, before, above, below, and diagonal from the starting-point letters. Dave Thomas, a physicist and mathematician, found “Roswell” and “UFO” in just one verse of Genesis using the same sort of extraction process Bible-code believers rely on.1 Thomas doesn't see anything magical in the Bible code: “The promoters of hidden-message claims say, ‘How could such amazing coincidences be the product of random chance?’ I think the real question should be, ‘How could such coincidences not be the inevitable product of a huge sequence of trials on a large, essentially random database?’”2

  Bible-and Torah-code claims have been around for many years. However, the claim surged in popularity and gained widespread media attention in the 1990s when Michael Drosnin's book The Bible Code hit the New York Times bestseller list. In response, skeptics explained repeatedly that names and “predictions” can be found “encoded” in any book. Drosnin fired back, promising he would believe the critics if they found the assassination of a world leader encrypted in Moby Dick. So some skeptics did just that, multiple times: “Lincoln” and “killed” turned up in one passage of the 1851 novel. “Prepare for death” and “M L King to be killed by them” were also decoded in Moby Dick. So too was “Kennedy,” “shot,” and “head” in close proximity to one another.3 Sadly, the professors responsible for this demonstration had to issue disclaimers because some people took their demonstration as evidence that Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, must have had supernatural powers too.