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 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.

Not at all. There could be a specific suite of traits that includes high intelligence, present in some people but not in most. Those people would have high intelligence, but they wouldn't be the extreme of the natural variation of the rest of the population. They would have gotten there by "cheating".

This is known to occur right now in human height. Men are taller than women. The difference is so pronounced that the human height distribution is not normal. The tallest humans (except Yao Ming) basically are the extreme of normal variation in men. But they aren't the extreme of normal variation in humans.

I hope you'll agree that "men" cannot be characterized as a subpopulation that doesn't breed with the rest of humanity.

Men can't be a sub-population by definition since men can breed with men. In regards intelligence both men and woman share the same mean. Given men have only one X chromosome we might expect that they might show a wider distribution in intelligence than women, but the evidence for this is controversial and airing it has a habit of losing you your job.