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With irresistibly persuasive vigor, David Shenk debunks the long-standing notion of genetic giftedness, and presents dazzling new scientific research showing how greatness is in the reach of every individual.
DNA does not make us who we are. Forget everything you think you know about genes, talent, and intelligence, he writes. In recent years, a mountain of scientific evidence has emerged suggesting a completely new paradigm: not talent scarcity, but latent talent abundance.
Integrating cutting-edge research from a wide swath of disciplines, cognitive science, genetics, biology, child development, Shenk offers a highly optimistic new view of human potential. The problem isn't our inadequate genetic assets, but our inability, so far, to tap into what we already have. IQ testing and widespread acceptance of innate abilities have created an unnecessarily pessimistic view of humanity and fostered much misdirected public policy, especially in education.
The truth is much more exciting. Genes are not a blueprint that bless some with greatness and doom most of us to mediocrity or worse. Rather our individual destinies are a product of the complex interplay between genes and outside stimuli-a dynamic that we, as people and as parents, can influence.
This is a revolutionary and optimistic message. We are not prisoners of our DNA. We all have the potential for greatness.
Direct download links available for Free The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told about Genetics, Talent and IQ is Wrong [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition]
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- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 5 hours and 14 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Random House Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: March 9, 2010
- Language: English
- ASIN: B003BLGD9C
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"This book is not a dispassionate presentation of all scientific points of view. Instead it embraces the arguments of the Interactionists, whose views I came to trust most after much reading, conversation and consideration."(p. 148)
So writes David Shenk in The Genius in All of Us, and true to his word he is. Shenk's book is not a strictly scientific investigation of intelligence or giftedness, but a personal presentation for the case that intelligence is highly malleable, and that it emerges from the interaction of genes and environment. His case differs from many mainstream representations of intelligence in that he finds environment plays a far greater role than many intelligence theorists acknowledge. Intelligence, states Shenk, is a process, more so than a discrete entity which sits in the physical structure of the brain. He writes:
"...intelligence isn't fixed. Intelligence isn't general. Intelligence is not a thing. Intelligence is a dynamic, diffuse and ongoing process." (p.42)
So, David Shenk does not even attempt to be even-handed, and barely addresses the criticisms to the interactionist position. Some readers won't like the book for that reason.
I had no problem with reading the book. There is no law which says that a non-fiction book has to take a critical approach to its own thesis. If you are looking for a look at the arguments from multiple perspectives, this is not the book for you. You might instead try Howard Gardner's Intelligence: Multiple Perspectives, or Ken Richardson's brilliant little book, The Making of Intelligence (though both books largely comply with Shenk's position). These are very readable and concise volumes.
It is easy to like or dislike this book from a casual reading based on how you feel about the premise: that everyone has the potential for genius, and that heredity is not destiny in any sense.
This sounds at first like a liberal political statement, but Shenk's treatment is far more nuanced than that characterization would imply.
In brief, Shenk's book is a very good deconstruction of hereditary talent, a competent but one-sided (or upon reflection I'll say very selectively focused) review of supporting research in several fields, and an interesting but abbreviated practical introduction to the interactionist (gene X environment) paradigm of development.
Just to be clear, this book is not about the psychometric definition of genius in terms of how far down the bell curve one is on Raven's Progressive Matrices or standardized tests of any sort. Nor is it about clever calculating tricks or precocious abilities, although it does do a very nice job putting those into a larger perspective. This book is more centrally about the expansive and inclusive sense of genius meaning people that accomplish something truly special and significant, and the potential that any given person may be able to get to that point. Somehow. And that's where the nuance is needed and appropriate.
Ok, I didn't like this book all that much when I first read it, and I at first gave it a mediocre 3 star rating on Amazon. I felt it did a great job deconstructing the concept of hereditary talent, but I strongly criticized it for leaving a gap where we need a better theory of where talent comes from and what it is, since obviously we don't all become true geniuses.