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Do children inherit intelligence from their mothers and not their fathers?

Psychology & Neuroscience Asked by user13903 on August 4, 2021

This article, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/children-intelligence-iq-mother-inherit-inheritance-genetics-genes-a7345596.html?cmpid=facebook-post, suggests that children inherit intelligence from mothers, and that fathers have basically no role in that (except emotional and intuitional “intelligence” as they call it).

Since often journalists can misinterpret scientific studies, I am interested, if there are researchers in this field on this site, who can say to what extent is the statement in this article:

“Children inherit intelligence only from their mothers and not their fathers” – true?

3 Answers

The psychology-spot article mostly links to researches done on mice. Only three links are about human genetics. One is philosophical in nature, other two deal with mental retardation. This study says that:

"X chromosome contains a significantly higher number of genes that, when mutated, cause mental impairment".

We know that boys get their X chromosome from their mothers. Therefore, they inherit mental retardation from their mothers. But look at the terminology used in the research paper. They have not found some IQ value stored somewhere in the X chromosome. Therefore, we cannot say that mutations in the X chromosome is responsible for high intelligence as well (the study proposes such a link, but has no data to support it). There is a mystery here: if mothers carry key to mental retardation in sons, it must be a hidden trait in women because they do not exhibit that deviation as much as men.

This study takes mother's IQ into account, but it does not make any attempt to establish a direct link between the IQ of mother and son.

Conclusion: We can assume that boys inherit mental retardation from mothers (because boys get mother's X chromosome). We can not assume anything else yet, not from this study.

The following is pure speculation: Men have higher deviation in their intelligence Bell curve on both sides. If one side of it is linked to their mothers, the other side might as well be, but it probably has nothing to do with the intelligence of the mother. In my personal opinion, that article is just wishful feminist thinking. If such link was present, it would have been highlighted long ago.

Answered by Spero on August 4, 2021

I am adding another answer because the previous one has already been upvoted by others. I am retreating from my previous conclusion, and I think it would be unfair to carry forward the upvotes to my current opinion.

I looked into genetics after having this conversation between me and no comprende:

...........We know that boys get their X chromosome from their mothers........... we cannot say that mutations in the X chromosome is responsible for high intelligence ........... if mothers carry key to mental retardation in sons, it must be a hidden trait........

Response:

......... females get 2 copies, so recessive harmful mutations show up far less in females.............if one copy makes a good version and the other makes a bad version, you are still functional – no comprende

The old Dominant and recessive gene theory to explain why females suffer less genetic anomalies has been challenged. The reason is X inactivation. X inactivation prevents two copies of same allele being active on an offspring and it occurs at a very early stage. The choice of which one to disable is random, but it has been observed that even distribution of inactivation in XX heterozygote is better for health. Skewed inactivation has been associated with genetic diseases like breast cancer and mental retardation.

Unfortunately, we also found this. Basically, X-skewed mothers have only 25% chance of passing on their active (those responsible for retardation) alleles to their sons.

There are two conclusive studies that resolve the puzzle by showing that X chromosome is indeed key to our general intelligence, but it is still a male trait because X chromosome is enriched for male-specific but not female-specific genes. Females do not get to enjoy most of its benefits despite being the bigger carriers of it.

In conclusion I have to agree with Jennifer's theory, but she has not made it clear what "inheriting intelligence from mother" actually means. We should not try to seek validation of our social idealism in genetics because genetics records our past. It does present some hard limits, but not this time. I did not find any ill-effect of choosing an intellectually gifted female as mating partner.

From a scientist's standpoint, it will be interesting to see (sadly we will not live to see it) how our genes cope if our mating choices start changing. There are some inefficiencies in our genes that may pose some problems, but who knows?

Answered by Spero on August 4, 2021

Just heard a Facebook meme about this and it seems to be making another round of online. The population studies seems quite old following a cohort from 1994 to 2004. Rather than a genetic study, it seems to be more a correlational study

https://www.kidspot.com.au/parenting/child/child-development/childs-intelligence-comes-from-their-mums-science-says/news-story/273b4cffce35fb935e576c0afba0cf5e

Answered by Poidah on August 4, 2021

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