2010 National DNA Day Online Chatroom Transcript
This is just one question from an archive of the National DNA Day Moderated Chat held in April 2010. The NHGRI Director and many genomics experts from across NHGRI took questions from students, teachers and the general public on topics ranging from basic genomic research, to the genetic basis of disease, to ethical questions about genetic privacy.
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Can DNA affect how smart someone is?
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Jean McEwen, J.D., Ph.D.:
I currently manage a portfolio of grants regarding the ethical, legal, and social implications of genomics research, focusing on law, genetic variation, and social policy. I also oversee the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) component of the 1000 Genomes Project, the Human Microbiome Project, and various other large genomics research projects.
Yes, but intelligence is much more complicated than just being a matter of what genes you inherit from your parents. For one thing, there's not even a consensus about what "intelligence" really is - we claim to be able to measure it by how well someone performs on standardized intelligence tests, but there is a lot of debate about what those tests are actually measuring. We also know that performance on intelligence tests is influenced by lots of factors that have nothing to do with genes, such as the social or cultural environment of the person taking the test. In the end, as with all complex human traits, how smart someone is is undoubtedly influenced by lots of different genes interacting with each other and with the environment. We have lots more research to do in order to fully understand how all of these interactions work. |
| Brownsville Area High School in PA (9th grade student) |
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