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  • Reviews the book, Intelligence and giftedness: The contributions of heredity and early environment by Miles D. Storfer (see record 1990-97741-000). For at least the past 70 years our IQ scores apparently have risen by the equivalent of approximately 1/5 to 1/4 of a point per year. If we accept the idea of what Flynn (1987) himself refers to as "Massive IQ gains" (and the supporting evidence that Flynn has amassed appears solid) our next step should clearly be an attempt to identify the factors responsible for these gains. Have our educational systems improved dramatically? What about our nutrition and general levels of health? Have home environments and parent-child interactions undergone radical changes? Besides environmental factors, is it possible that some sorts of hereditary mechanisms might be implicated? In Intelligence and giftedness: The contributions of heredity and early environment, Storfer addresses these and related issues. The result of his extensive review of the literature in areas as diverse as behavioural genetics, infant intelligence tests, white-black IQ differences, educational enrichment programs, and neurophysiology is a 500-plus-page book which is sometimes informative, often disappointing, and, in the end, too speculative to live up to its promotional claim of advancing "one of the most exciting and controversial evolutionary theories since Darwin". Parts of this book are good. Storfer is to be commended for the wide range of material that he surveys, and his attempts to integrate this diverse material have generally been successful. Another positive feature is the inclusion of numerous notes at the end of all but one chapter, plus one appendix, which provide additional information and/or technical details for readers interested in learning more about specific studies or issues mentioned briefly in the text. Unfortunately, Storfer does not seem to appreciate the varying quality of the research studies that he reviews, and some of the conclusions that he draws are highly speculative. Intelligence and giftedness was an ambitious project that would have benefitted considerably from a more cautious interpretation of the results and the implications of the research that it surveys. The issues that this book addresses and the questions that it raises are undoubtedly important and deserving of study. For the most part, however, the answers will have to be found elsewhere. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Última actualización de la base de datos: 4/10/26, 6:08 (CEST)

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