Kids get intelligence from their MOTHERS, research says
Well, well, what do we have here? SCIENTIFIC research that says intelligence is actually inherited from the mum’s side, rather than both parents?
Interesting, very interesting.
(Hold on, we’ll be back in a second, we just need to climb to the rooftop and loudly shout it to the world.)
Yep, according to US psychologist Jennifer Delgado, studies show that intelligence genes come from the X chromosome (women have two, while men are made up of XY).
“We know that intelligence has a hereditary component, but until a few years ago we thought that much of it depended on the father as well as on the mother,” she wrote in Psychology Spot blog. “However, several studies revealed that children are more likely to inherit intelligence from the mother, because intelligence genes are located on chromosome X.
“At the basis of this idea are ‘conditioned genes’ that behave differently depending on their origin,”. “Some of these affected genes work only if they come from the mother. If that same gene is inherited from the father, it is deactivated.”
Jennifer based her findings on studies carried out by University of Cambridge and the Research Council Social and Public Health Sciences Unit in Glasgow, Scotland.
“They [the Research Council Social and Public Health Sciences Unit] interviewed every year since 1994, 12,686 young people aged between 14 and 22 years. The researchers took into account several factors, from the colour of the skin and education to socio-economic status. This way they found that the best predictor of intelligence was the IQ of the mother. In fact, the ratio of young people's intelligence varied only an average of 15 points from that of their mothers.”
However, of course we have to give dad some credit too. The research also suggests that a dad’s genes contributes to the parts of the brain responsible for mood and instinct, and controls basic functions like sex, hunger and aggression.