Genetics is not a simple field of research, but recently, there have been numerous articles published that claim that it had been finally discovered that intelligence comes from the mother of the child.

These claims indicate that intelligence is a result of the female X chromosome, which has over 1,000 genes, many of which influence the perception level.

Yet, this makes absolutely no sense, as if it is inherited via the X chromosome, it can pass down from both parents, as the mother always contributes an X chromosome, but the father contributes either a Y chromosome or an X chromosome.

A chromosome is a thread-like formation that has protein and nucleic acids, which transfer and store genetic information. Every single body cell has a pair of chromosomes, and while men carry 1 X and 1 Y chromosome, females carry 2 X chromosomes.

The genetic property of gender-specific genes is either deactivated or activated, depending on the specific selection and genetic characteristics.

Moreover, while the deactivated genes do not influence the genetic development, the activated genes do so. Therefore, in case the mother impacts a characteristic, the paternal genes are deactivated, and vice versa.

The false claims that a child’s intelligence is attributed to the mother only are based on the misapprehension that since women have 2 X chromosomes, the chances are that they will affect the cognitive abilities of the child.

However, the truth is that the two X chromosomes in mothers are not identical, and they got one of them from their fathers. Whatever is on the X can pass from mother to child or father to (usually) daughter, but the two X chromosomes the mother has aren’t the same and do not automatically increase the chances of inheriting a specific variant.

Moreover, the doubled “gene dosage” for people with two or more chromosomes is adjusted in the following way: each cell turns off most of one X or the other, meaning that an X-linked variant is not necessarily used as some cells may shut it down.

Intelligence is complicated, and even if we have inherited half of our intelligence, the other half is fractured into numerous genetic variants scattered across our genomes, that operate together in many different ways.

All contributing heredity fragments are subjected to various environmental factors, both in its immediate molecular world and inputs to the whole organism, that impact function.

This impact continues throughout life, as an ongoing mutual interplay of gene variants and environment, so our intelligence is much more complex, and cannot be simply inherited by our mother, an X chromosome, or even just genes.

Publisher’s Note: 

This article was initially published with a headline: “A study has proven that intelligence comes from the mother ” , which was apparently inaccurate . Yet, even the article we have cited presented facts that contradict the headline, as scientists have never concluded such a thing as the headline suggested.

Therefore, despite the elimination of false data, we also modified the content to clarify things, so this updated version contains corrected and reliable  information.   

Source: www.forbes.com