What do psychologists mean by the heritability of intelligence?
Intelligence is both a nature and a nurture thing. You inherit a certain amount of intelligence from parents. More intelligent parents tend to produce more intelligent offspring (ie from birth they are high on the Apgar, and perform age appropriate tasks either on or ahead of schedule). However, intelligence can be modified by environment. An intelligent child who receives little or no stimulation will not significantly increase its IQ, while one who is stimulated will do so. This is not set in stone. Because genetics is inherited from a long line of people in ones ancestry, and things can go wrong in utero, very intelligent people can produce average or less than average intelligent children.
