Moms and dads often debate about who is accountable for their kid's intelligence. This is one of the most common scenes when it comes to seeing both good grades and bad. Today, this debate may finally come to a stop as scientist concluded the mother is generally responsible for the child's smarts.
This is because a human being's intelligence is carried from the X chromosome - females carry two of them while males only have one. Plus, scientists now also believe that genes for advanced cognitive function, reasoning, intelligence and language, that are of the father could be entirely incorrect.
There is a category for genes that only works when they come from the mother; this is called "conditioned genes." Intelligence is believed to be under conditioned genes making it even more convincing that moms are responsible for their kid's intelligence.
Is There Any Proof?
There is a research on genetically engineered mice that shows no paternal cells in the brain when they removed all of the maternal genes. This also caused the mice to have a smaller head in ratio to its body, according to a report published in The Veterans Site.
Although it did prove something on mice, it cannot be for humans as humans are not mice after all. This is why another research was done to work on this theory. According to Independent, the study started from 1979 to 1994 in Glasgow by interviewing 12,686 people within the age range of 14 and 22.
The interviewees' IQ was predicted based on their mother's. The results only varied about 15 points. The study did also take into account other factors such as their socioeconomic status and ethnicity, but the mother's IQ was still the best predictor.
Nonetheless, it should still be clear that genetics is not the only basis for a person's intellect - about 40 to 60 percent of one's intelligence is hereditary. This gives a huge space for environmental factor to kick in and determine an individual's smartness.
