INTELLIGENT DEVELOPMENT 167All this further suggests that the popu lar conceptual model of IQ and
its heritability have far more to do with social ideology than with physi-
ology. Like the intelligence of the single cell, described in chapter 4, phys-
iology is an intelligent system that can buff er large ranges of defi ciencies
and, in the vast majority of cases, can create compensatory pathways to
adequate function.
A preoccupation with ranking variations, assuming normal distribu-
tions, and estimating their heritabilities simply does not fi gure in the fi eld
of physiology in the way that it does in the fi eld of human intelligence.
Th is is in stark contrast with the intensity of the nature- nurture debate
in the human cognitive domain. But perhaps ideology has not infi ltrated
the subject of physiology as much as it has that of human intelligence.
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