RE: I Used To Be A Fan But I Am Now Shocked, Disgusted And Appalled With Sam Harris
July 19, 2017 at 6:04 pm
Indeed. That's not even mentioning brain plasticity, which simply means that exposure to stimulating ideas stimulates the creation of further neural connections in the brain, which aren't preprogrammed genetically.
The learning environment of a child, and even of adults, can and does physically modify the brain, and it is not genetically programmed.
I've no doubt that factors like brain size, or the differing proportions of different processing areas of the brain, have large genetic components. Equally, I have no doubt that exposure to different stimuli can and does stimulate growth in differing areas of the brain. You and I are musicians. We spend a lot of time learning things like how to keep our guitars in tune, how to play with meter and tempo, and so on. No doubt in those areas our brains have neural connections that non-musicians lack.
Picking either one or the other -- genetics or environment -- strikes me as far too simplistic to have any explanatory power on a phenomenon so complex as general intelligence.
The learning environment of a child, and even of adults, can and does physically modify the brain, and it is not genetically programmed.
I've no doubt that factors like brain size, or the differing proportions of different processing areas of the brain, have large genetic components. Equally, I have no doubt that exposure to different stimuli can and does stimulate growth in differing areas of the brain. You and I are musicians. We spend a lot of time learning things like how to keep our guitars in tune, how to play with meter and tempo, and so on. No doubt in those areas our brains have neural connections that non-musicians lack.
Picking either one or the other -- genetics or environment -- strikes me as far too simplistic to have any explanatory power on a phenomenon so complex as general intelligence.
