r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 20d ago

Neuroscience Twin study suggests rationality and intelligence share the same genetic roots - the study suggests that being irrational, or making illogical choices, might simply be another way of measuring lower intelligence.

https://www.psypost.org/twin-study-suggests-rationality-and-intelligence-share-the-same-genetic-roots/
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u/New-Regular-9423 19d ago

The definition of irrationality can be culturally specific. People do things that seem irrational to me but makes sense in their specific contexts. I am taking parts of this with a grain of salt.

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u/TurboGranny 19d ago edited 18d ago

You build your tests to control for that by not having religious/cultural symbols in them. For example: "If all cats are mammals, and all dogs are mammals, does that mean all cats are dogs?" Answering this incorrectly doesn't mean you are from a different culture. It means you are stupid.

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u/BonJovicus 19d ago

Except the above still raises a good point. There are certain situations where rationality and intelligence would be directly correlated, but for almost anything more complicated than the question you posed, it would be influenced by other factors. Not all decisions in real life are based on questions like the one you posed neither do all individuals have perfect knowledge in every decision. A caveat of any study is that lab conditions don't perfectly model the real world.

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u/False_Ad3429 19d ago

Your conclusion is faulty for a few reasons. 

First you are assuming that someone recieved formal education. Someone who is uneducated but has a high IQ is more likely recognize that they don't actually know the strict definitions of certain words, which could lead them to "overthinking" and not giving the expected answer.

Your conclusion that it means a person is stupid doesn't account for conditions such as dyslexia, which can also involve flipping meanings in addition to flipping words or letters. (Such as flipping "are" and "are not"). It can also involve flipping words and parts of sentences, including those that are near but not directly next to each other. 

So to state that missing one question indicates someone is "stupid" is itself kind of a stupid conclusion, which reveals the person saying that is either unaware of other possibilities or is dismissing them without cause.