Source of Intelligence, Nature or Nurture

By: Vania J.K

Intelligence is known to be one of the most emphasized things in

life. Your knowledge, talent and skills define whom you today and
your position in this world so therefore, intelligence is nonetheless
important. Media is everywhere as an effect of todays great
technology growth and media voices issues, opinions and even
gender role stereotypes. Such stereotypes of gender affect
teenagers point of view since teenagers are freely exposed to the
media from such a young age, as an example, television.

Females are mostly exposed as the smarter, selective character

while the males are exposed as the unintelligent but physically
strong character instead. This grows a solid perception from a young
age that only females are intelligent and only males are strong. This
type of gender based stereotyping is shown in one of the most
popular cartoon-superhero show, Ben 10. The lead male character
Ben has the ability of turning himself as 10 different types of aliens.
Bens sister Gwen, a supporting character is very intelligent, she has
the ability to create strategies of letting them free from the capture
of evil aliens for instance. Ben on the other hand, dislikes to bath, is
addicted to video games and is only counting on his alien powers to
eliminate evil powers. This type of characterization in such cartoons
may affect childrens perspective and self-esteem in many ways that
may be disadvantageous. Therefore, it is important to for the media
to know its content and its impacts to the kids building mind
whether is it important to create a fair-minded, non-stereotypical
generation or the importance of creating an entertaining cartoon
through gender-based stereotyping. As for example, Scooby Doo,
also a popular children cartoon exposed a wide range of intelligent
men and women. The main characters are detectives and both
female and male characters take part in solving the mystery,
displaying their knowledge and skills.

From the Merriam Webster dictionary, it is explained that the

definition of intelligence is the ability to learn or understand things
or to deal with new or difficult situations. Another definition of
intelligence is the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate ones
environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria.
Intelligence is also related and composed of many different things
such as linguistic, logical, verbal, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal
and intrapersonal abilities.
 Intelligence is mostly debated on whether its a sense of nurture or
is it nature meaning genetically inherited. Some say its nature
because a humans capability in mind can be measured through IQ
or also known as Intelligence Quotient.
To find an individuals IQ, a standardized test is required which is
designed to assess intelligence. 95% of the worlds population has
an IQ score of between 70-130 while the genius rate of IQ is 145-
159. But some do say intelligence is nurture, how a child is raised,
what environment is a child raised in and what type of education
and teachings are planted in a child, how strong is a childs will to
learn and that intelligence can be thought not only received.
According to my opinion, intelligence is received from nurture even
though nature does play a part. Your starting intelligence is given
by your parents through genetic inheritance and I personally think
that intelligence is something you can develop overtime; you
expand your knowledge and interests too. If a great intelligence is
given to an individual for example, but not used and developed
properly, would it still be a great intelligence? Meanwhile, an
individual with less intelligence but is willing learn, has great
interests in strong and difficult subjects and advantaged their
intelligence up to their limit, Im positively sure theyre smarter. As I
believe it is not how you start that matters, its how it ends, the final
result. So it is the environment, teaching and values that affect
intelligence therefore I believe it is important to have these applied
to all children in order to create a better generation.

I conclude that intelligence is an important aspect of peoples lives

and it is frequently emphasized in such ways such as gender roles
and whether intelligence is earned through genetic inheritance or
the environment and teachings planted in someone. Intelligence is
not based on either gender roles or genetic inheritance, intelligence
comes from an individuals strength of will to constantly expanding
ones knowledge yet try to advantage in every situation possible. As
an individuals strength of will is built since ones a child, it is
important for various medias to be aware of its content, not to
maximize the part of gender roles in intelligence just for
entertainment.