Photo Credit: Café psicologico

We have known for a long time, based on studies of twins, that intelligence is a heritable trait. Recently, in the last few years, we’ve developed the technology that allows us to examine specific genes and we thought we had identified a gene that was linked to human intelligence.

The tests previously had used a “candidate gene” method, which basically said that if all the people who had a high IQ exhibited a particular variant of the gene, then that was seen as evidence of the gene’s role in intelligence.

A new study by a team of scientists at the Union College of Schenectady, New York, has performed tests with a larger data set than could previously be acquired and have found the candidate gene test to give false positives.

They emphasise that they do not wish to say their predecessors were foolish – they simply didn’t have the means to perform tests on a larger scale. Given what they had, they made correct assumptions.

Now, however, it has become evident that the gene that was always thought to be linked to intelligence does not play as large a role as was thought. It is thought that perhaps intelligence is tied to many genes and the way in which they interact.

So it would seem the fog closes in once more around the minds of the intelligent, the source of this talent still remaining somewhat of a mystery to the probes of science…

[Via Science Daily]