News that the IQs of first-born children end up an average of three points higher than the IQs of their siblings has caused quite a stir since the New York Times front-paged it last Friday. The Times even did a follow-up today, delving into family structure, parental pressures and the psychology of sibling relationships.
Quite frankly, it's much ado about nothing.
Okay, maybe not nothing. The relevant studies, published in Science and Intelligence, involved military records from 240,000 Norwegian men born between 1967 and 1976, and were solid. But the researchers point to non-biological explanations for the difference -- i.e., parenting and family dynamics rather than pre-natal environment.
It does't take a genius to see that broadly applying the findings to women and to people outside Norway makes no sense at all.
Study Says Eldest Children Have Higher I.Q.s [New York Times]
Study on I.Q. Prompts Debate on Family Dynamics [New York Times]
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Image: Dave Ortiz*
