Excerpt: the high heritability of intelligence stems from a dynamic interplay between genes and environment that takes place throughout the course of development. The interplay results in individual differences in knowledge and skills, and in this way differences in intelligence arise.
My comment: This is another refutation of mutation-initiated natural selection and it helps to clarify the fact that neurogenic niche construction, and thus our socio-cognitive niche construction, is nutrient-dependent and pheromone-controlled. The model for THAT biologically-based cause and effect does not involve mutation-driven evolution, and model organisms link the conserved molecular mechanisms of ecological, social, neurogenic, and socio-cognitive niche construction in nematodes to invertebrates and vertebrates. See Nutrient-dependent/pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution: a model
Please tell evolutionary theorists and human ethologists to see it, too. Most of them still believe random mutations cause adaptations, and they have no idea what I mean when I say that conserved molecular mechanisms and epigenetic effects of olfactory/pheromonal input are causal to brain development and our intelligence.
However, note that one of my antagonists just posted this to the evolutionary psychology yahoo group: Don Zimmerman wrote:
“Surely this line of research should be very much welcomed by evolutionary psychologists. It will lead to a more complete understanding of how traits are passed from the genetic code to behavior and differences in behavior depending on environmental circumstances.
It seems to be going beyond the conventional meaning of “interaction,” as when it is asserted that traits such as “intelligence” depend on genetics and environment “in “interaction.” This newer research is beginning to analyze some concrete implications of that somewhat vague generalization. One most interesting finding is that favorable environmental circumstances increase the heritability of genetically determined traits such as “intelligence.”. Much more such research is needed! Time marches on!”
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I have repeatedly stated in my responses to Zimmerman’s posts that ecological, social, neurogenic and socio-cognitive niche construction are nutrient-dependent and pheromone-controlled. He now states that: “One most interesting finding is that favorable environmental circumstances increase the heritability of genetically determined traits such as “intelligence.”
Favorable environmental circumstance limit stress. How is it that Zimmerman thinks this is a new finding in the context of “…a more complete understanding of how traits are passed from the genetic code to behavior and differences in behavior depending on environmental circumstances. He is pretending to not know about the model I have repeatedly attempted to discuss. For example, see: Nutrient-dependent / pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution (a mammalian model of thermodynamics and organism-level thermoregulation). It’s a mammalian model of how nutrient stress and social stress perturb typical development of the brain and intelligence. The model refutes a book-length revision of a theory: ‘Mutation-driven evolution’
Zimmerman lacks any knowledge of biologically based cause and effect, and is one of the advocates of mutation-driven evolution whose ignorance has been most annoying. What is more annoying is that he pretends not to know that he is now acknowledging exactly what I’ve been saying for several years.
James V. Kohl detailedl how quantized energy-dependent microRNA biogenesis links the pheromone-controlled physiology of reproduction to biophysically constrained viral latency and healthy longevity. Links from what organisms eat to the enzyme-dependent metabolism of food also link metabolic networks to microRNA-mediated genetic networks in the context of RNA interference. Drug therapies alter RNA interference by altering cell type differentiation in all cells of all individuals of all species. For comparison, during the past 26 years, Kohl has detailed how the chemistry of protein folding is biophysically constrained at every level of biological organization by conserved molecular mechanisms.