Thinking positively: The genetics of high intelligence

I would be very surprised if high intelligence was anything other than the extreme edge of a normal distribution of the human population. For it to be anything other than this it would require people of high intelligence to be a sub-population that did not breed with the rest of humanity.

I don't think there's such a thing as general intelligence. You can be good at some cognitive tasks and poor at other cognitive tasks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligenc...

I also don't think you can separate genetic influences from environmental influences, i.e. one allele might make you do well in one environment and poorly in a different environment. This appears to the case for the 7R allele of the DRD4 gene: http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2008/06/ariaa...

I also don't think any genes actually code for intelligence as it's commonly understood. Intelligence is, basically, knowledge (including knowledge about how to acquire knowledge). Genes affect brain chemistry, which influences intelligence in different ways, within a given environment.

The theory of multiple intelligence you link to is in strong disagreement with the mainstream position of academia.

> Intelligence tests and psychometrics have generally found high correlations between different aspects of intelligence, rather than the low correlations which Gardner's theory predicts, supporting the prevailing theory of general intelligence rather than multiple intelligences (MI).[19] The theory has been widely criticized by mainstream psychology for its lack of empirical evidence, and its dependence on subjective judgement.[20]

Has anyone looked at how these studies correlate with the Big Five personality traits? It seems to me that intelligent people are more conscientious but that could just be my bias.