If you find something hard to grasp, do you immediately conclude that you have reached the limit of your cognitive ability and give up? Do you usually associate successful outcomes with smartness and failures with lack of intelligence? Do you consider intellectual ability an indispensable component of every accomplishment, or it is the effort-plain, sweaty hard work-that brings about the desired outcome?

The above questions tackle the dilemma of effort versus ability. Although it can be relevant to more than one topic and domain, this article will elaborate on the dimension of intelligence. Is intelligence a fixed, innate talent bestowed by heredity? Is it an accumulated, cognitive reservoir constructed through such personal factors as effort and motivation, and such environmental factors as held in common by family and community members?

A Historical View

The effort/ability dilemma has been very controversial in the West. It has not been a mere academic debate, but one with political and social implications and a very eager public interest. The publication of Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859) had a major impact on biology and other fields.

Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin, advocated applying Darwinian principles to human society and coined the term eugenics, from the Greek words of “good in birth.” In his Hereditary Genius (1869),(1) he argued that mental features are as hereditary as physical features, and that a selective breeding of human beings (similar to horse breeding) could raise the proportion of people with a better-than-average genetic endowment. This new approach helped Darwin extend his evolution theory in The Descent of Man (1871).(2)

Galton believed that intelligence and ability are fixed, innate, and determined by heredity. This idea is proven by accomplishments in competitive careers.(3) He proposed the encouragement of good marriages as a way to create a superior human race, not so much as a way of “unwanted” ones. Gregor Mendel’s work on genetically transmitted dominant and recessive traits increased interest in eugenics.

The first half of the twentieth century witnessed an overwhelming belief in eugenics in academia and among intellectuals, politicians, and businessmen.(4) It became “an established fact” that single-unit genes determined such traits as alcoholism and mental incompetence.

Such conclusions naturally had political and social implications. For example, beginning in 1911, the United States tested arriving immigrants to assess their “worthiness.” Since many of those tested did not speak English and had just endured a long and difficult sea voyage, scores were low, and particularly lower for certain ethnic groups.(5) As a result, the US Congress passed the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, which enforced quotas for unfit ethnic groups. Many American states also passed laws mandating sterilization of inmates judged to be genetically inferior.(6)

The fiercest implementation of eugenics happened in Nazi Germany. The 1933 Eugenic Sterilization Law required compulsory sterilization of all German citizens deemed to be suffering from presumably hereditary defects, including offensive physical deformities. Sterilization of the unfit was later transformed into many of the war crimes committed during World War II.

Eugenics’ association with World War II era war crimes and genocide ruined its popularity and reputation. However, some parts of its principles are still considered valid by some scientists in various fields. Two examples are the nature and causes of difference in human intelligence, and whether intelligence is hereditary or not. In other words, people are not identical to each other in the areas of comprehending complicated material, reasoning, learning, and solving problems. Researchers do not agree on the sources of these differences, and hence ask: “Is there a general mental ability called ‘intelligence’ that causes these differences, or is the underlying cause something else?”

Theories about Intelligence

Presented below are some contemporary theories about intelligence and its determinants.

The Psychometric View: This view claims that individual differences in human cognition or mental ability can be measured adequately by intelligence tests.(7) Many widely used tests seek to measure some closely related criteria, such as scholastic aptitude and academic success-not intelligence itself. Examples of such tests in the Unites States are the SAT or ACT (college admission), GRE (graduate school), and GMAT (graduate business school) exams. Although test administrators try to distance themselves from testing one’s actual intelligence (namely, one’s I.Q.), it is generally accepted by the research community that one’s IQ and the above tests are closely related.(8)

IQ tests are offered in many verbal and non-verbal forms. The general practice for IQ scores is to scale them around 100 in such a way that 95 percent of the population falls between 70 and 130.

Psychometricians assert that people are born with unequal intellectual potentials, just as they are born with different physical potentials, such as height and eye color. They also state that no amount of social engineering can make individuals with different mental competences into intellectual equals.(9)

One American social engineering program is Affirmative Action. This program encourages underrepresented minority groups in society to pursue education and business through required quotas. For example, state universities are required to accept a certain percentage of minority freshmen. If the psychometric view is true, these programs will fail and amount to discrimination against the capable. In their controversial book, Hernstein and Murray maintained this view together with the heredity of intelligence and genetic IQ differences between races.(10)

In short, this view states that a single factor known as “intelligence” can be measured with IQ tests and predict success in life.

The Cognitive-Psychology View: Adherents of this theory view intelligence as a process, not an innate ability. The process consists of creating a mental representation of problems encountered, retrieving apparently related information, and devising a solution. In short, it emphasizes experience for success in life, but does not completely eliminate the relation between general intelligence and experience.

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory: In his Frames of Mind, Gardner argues that psychometric tests ignore several aspects of intelligence. He also claims that the tests’ paper-and-pencil format rule out many kinds of intelligence performances that are important for success in life.

Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory: This view asserts three dimensions of intelligence: Analytic intelligence (similar to the psychometric, IQ-based view); creative intelligence (involves insight, synthesis, and intuition); and practical intelligence (the ability to grasp, understand, and solve real-life problems).(11) Although Sternberg does not reject some heredity in intelligence, he strongly believes that all three aspects of intelligence can be developed.

Problems with the Psychometric View

The psychometric view claims that intelligence is the single best predictor for individual performance at school and on the job, as well as for chances of divorce, dropping out of school, unemployment, or having illegitimate children.(12) However, the interactions and correlations of various factors in social studies make it very difficult to draw such conclusions. One cannot know for sure if intelligence is the cause or the result of the above-mentioned factors. It may very well be the case that some other criteria contribute to both the outcomes outlined above, and to the high scores as measured by IQ tests. Here are some remarks on the psychometric view of intelligence and its relation to success in life:

• Many people with high IQ scores fail to become successful due to a lack of motivation, personality, laziness, or short attention span. In contrast, some people with low IQ results succeed due to personal dedication, vision, systematic effort, and motivation. A low IQ score can be changed through conscious choice and effort. As an analogy, consider a gifted athlete. Some athletes have special talents for a particular sport. However, they fail to perform as well as those without those talents, for the latter depend on systematic effort. Readers familiar with sports can name several specific examples of this phenomenon. • An IQ test may be a speed issue. That is, it may measure only how quickly people learn or solve complex problems. It is a well-known fact that once something is learned, the performance of a person with a lower IQ is not significantly different from that of a person with a higher IQ.

• A certain amount of intelligence seems to be needed to gain entry into an intellectually demanding field. However, beyond that point, success is determined by the effort put into the job, social support, and experience.

• Average IQ test scores have been increasing in the West for several decades. However, school performance has remained almost constant, if they did not actually decrease. This clearly indicates that success in life is not directly related to IQ scores.

• People can improve their test scores by becoming familiar with the test. This implies that expending the necessary effort can affect the outcome.

• Cultural and family environments (e.g., beliefs, oppression, poverty, fear, and lack of health care) together with such biological factors as nutrition and exposure to toxic substances (e.g., alcohol), affect IQ scores. Flynn analyzed Asian Americans’ IQ test scores and found that they were always around 97 or 98. However, their academic and professional achievements were remarkable; equivalent in achievement to people with IQ scores of over 120! This can be attributed to a cultural belief in learning, as summarized in Gorner.(13) According to Claxton, Western cultures focus on ability as the major determinant of success. If you fail, it is probably because you were not smart enough. Asian cultures, however, emphasize effort and generally consider failure the result of a lack of effort.

• A common error is to assume that something heritable is unchangeable. Infants adopted into advantaged families tend to have higher IQs in childhood than would have been expected, had they been raised by their birth parents.(14) This is further proof that how a child is raised and what he or she is exposed to have very long-lasting effects. Further, and individual’s personal choice has considerably more impact on one’s life than usually thought. A recent initiative at the University of Chicago, the RealAge Program led by Michael F. Roizen, stresses the importance of an individual’s choice on how long and how well they will live. He claims that 70 percent of this is determined by one’s personal choice.(15) So even if heritability is high, intervention is possible.

• Some claim that IQ tests measure nothing more than cultural conditioning, education, and language fluency. As these are not inherited in the same way as eye color and other physical factors, they can be modified.

Conclusion

Considering the above remarks, it is very difficult to conclude that intelligence can in any way be a fixed, innate ability that determines success in life. If the very few exceptionally gifted and mentally retarded people are left out, most people have an almost equal potential for success in life. Men and women were created for the purpose of learning. This lifelong learning process and its outcome are closely tied with the effort expended. Anybody can become better at anything, provided that they strive for it with the means available to them. Encountering difficulties should not prevent people from trying harder. Learning to learn is possible, and depends upon the willingness to stay engaged when faced with uncertainty. Without rejecting the effect of genetic factors, we can have a significant effect on our own well-being and success in life through conscious choice and effort.

Footnotes

1. Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius, reprint (Peter Smith Pub., 1990).
2. Encyclopedia Britannica, “Sir Galton Francis.”
3. Leslie Jones, “Social Darwinism Revisited,” History Today (August 1998).
4. Paul Gray, “Cursed by Eugenics,” Time, 11 January 1999.
5. Rawat Rajiv, “The Return of Determinism,” Cornell Science and Technology Magazine (summer 1995).
6. Sterilization is defined by American Heritage dictionary as follows: “To deprive (a person or an animal) of the ability to produce offspring, as by removing the reproductive organs.”
7. Earl Hunt “The Role of Intelligence in Modern Society,”American Scientist (July-August 1995); Report of a Task Force established by the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association (APA), 7 August 1995.
8. For historical reasons, intelligence tests are termed IQ, which stands for “Intelligence Quotient.”
9. Linda S Gottfredson, “The General Intelligence Factor,” Scientific American, (November 1998).
10. Richard Hernstein, and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (Simon & Schuster, 1995).
11. Frank Miele, “Interview with Robert Sternberg on The-Bell Curve book”, Skeptic Magazine, 3, no. 3 (1995).
12. Guy Claxton, “Wise Up,” Bloomsbury (September 1999), 26.
13. Peter Gorner, “Interview with Dr. Richard F. Roizen,” Chicago Tribune (Perspective section), 28 November 1999.
14. Report of a Task Force established by the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association (APA), 7 August 1995.
15. Gorner, “Interview.”

Genetic counselling is the process whereby an individual or family obtain advice and information about a genetic condition that may affect the individual and family, their children and the wider community. The aim of such counselling is to enable appropriate decisions to be taken regarding marriage, reproduction, abortion, and health management.

Islamic teachings encourage counselling. The Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, said: The religion (i.e. Islam) is sincere counselling and good advice (Bukhari, Muslim). He also said: The counsellor should be trustworthy. Genetic counselling is a new field of medical practice that demands extensive knowledge of genetics, the management of genetic disease and how it impacts on the individual, the family and the community at large. The counsellor must therefore be knowledgeable in the field, otherwise he will be answerable. The Prophet said: If a person practises medicine without appropriate knowledge, then he is liable (Abu Dawud). Experts in Islamic law explain that the person must be proficient in the particular field of medicine he is practising; it is not sufficient to know general medicine, the person must have obtained the appropriate specialist training. The Prophet said: No man is wise except through experience (Bukhari, Muslim).

In addition to knowledge and proficiency, the counsellor needs also to be considerate, compassionate and able to guard the confidentiality of the information he is given. The Prophet said: Whoever guards the secrets of a Muslim, God will guard his secret in this life and on the Day of Resurrection (Muslim). And: God will show mercy to those who are merciful to people (Bukhari, Tirmidhi, Ahmad, and others). Being considerate and kind, and giving good advice to those who seek it, is the basis of Islamic ethics in general and medical ethics in particular. The worst thing of all is doing harm intentionally or even unintentionally, the former being a crime and the latter an offence. This rule is derived from the explicit injunction of the Prophet: Do no harm nor return harm with harm (Abu Dawud).

The genetic counsellor may not impose his views on his clients. Rather, he must let them reach their own decisions. The counsellor’s responsibility is to enable his clients’ responsibility by providing them with the necessary facts and information in plain language that they can understand easily and fully.

The Islamic creed places the highest value on personal freedom and hence upon personal responsibility for one’s actions. The genetic counsellor should therefore provide the best available information, and then give the most sincere advice without trying to impose it: the clients must reach any decision themselves.

Genetic diseases

Monogenic diseases, i.e. diseases inherited through one gene, constitute only 10-15% per cent of congenital diseases and malformations in the population as a whole, but account for a much larger percentage of childhood diseases: in many Western countries, for example, some 50% of all deaths of children up to age 15 are attributed to hereditary factors.

Many of the most common diseases world-wide, e.g. diabetes mellitus, hypertension, ischaemic heart disease and cancer, have a hereditary component. Many neurological and psychiatric ailments are either monogenic hereditary diseases or heredity is a major causative factor. Similarly, diseases of the blood are either directly caused by a monogenic hereditary factor, or other hereditary factors have a major causative role. Thalassemia and sickle cell anaemias are examples of autosomal diseases that cause malady and high morbidity in many countries, notably in the Mediterranean and Arab world.

Close-cousin marriages and their consequences

Consanguine or close-cousin marriages are commonplace in most Arab countries. The incidence of genetic diseases is correspondingly high; for example, 5-10% of the population as a whole carry the gene for thalassemia. Islamic teachings do not forbid but do discourage first cousin marriages – i.e. insofar as they are permitted at all, such marriages are only allowable exceptionally, not encouraged as the norm. It is narrated that when it was brought to the attention of ‘Umar ibn al Khattab, the second Caliph, that the children of the Bani Assayib were often weak and sickly, he advised this tribe to avoid close-cousin marriages and to seek spouses for their children from remote tribes; he said: ‘Marry from remote tribes, otherwise you will be weak and unhealthy.’

Responses in the Arab world

In the first half of this century, many Arab governments (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco and others) made a premarital medical examination mandatory. However, this had little effect on the incidence of consanguineous marriages or hereditary diseases as there were no means for searching out carriers of genetic diseases. In any case-as we are bound to note with deep regret-a medical certificate was often provided without even a routine medical examination.

Several recent symposia (for example, in Amman, Jordan, 10th August 1994) have discussed the implementation of a law making it obligatory to test for the thalassemia gene as a precondition for granting a marriage license. However, there are immense difficulties with this policy. The cost of such a test would be huge. Who would bear the cost? Most governments could not do so, and if they could, it would be by diverting funds from other more urgent medical needs. Individual citizens might decline the test or evade it on the grounds of poverty. If made compulsory, it is possible that medical certificates might be forged or false certificates sold for money. More serious is the question of personal autonomy: even if such tests could be funded and carried out with integrity, who could compel a couple, either or both of whom showed positive, not to marry? Attempting to do so would surely be, if at all practicable, wholly unethical.

In the case of such a couple, a number of alternatives might be put to them:

1. contraception or sterilization to avoid pregnancy;
2. adoption;
3. donation of a sperm or ovum or pre-embryo;
4. pre-implantation diagnosis;
5. diagnosis during pregnancy (e.g. chorion villus sampling, amniocentesis, blood tests from the expectant mother and the foetus, ultra sonography, etc.)

Each of these procedures needs to be scrutinized from an Islamic perspective:

1. Contraception and sterilization

Contraception is allowable under Islamic law as a temporary measure if the couple decide upon it and if there is no harm from the particular method used. Sterilization, however, is not acceptable unless there is danger to the mother’s health from pregnancy. Most couples long to have children and will not choose sterilization unless there is a serious impediment preventing safe procreation in their case. As infertile couples are willing to pay out huge sums of money and go to great lengths to have a child, it is impractical to expect couples carrying a recessive gene such as for thalassemia to opt for sterilization. Everyone of us carries some recessive genes and no-one will choose celibacy or sterilization for that reason alone.

We may note that there is support for sterilization from at least some of our jurists in the situation where a couple have already had some congenitally affected children and some not so affected, in which case they might accept this option.

2. Adoption

Adoption was abrogated by the Qur’an, and in Islamic law adoptive parents are not recognized as parents in the way that natural parents are. The child must be attached in lineage to his or her natural parents, and legitimate pregnancy is, according to the law, only within wedlock. The Qur’an says:

He did not make your adopted ones your sons. That is only a saying from your mouths which has no reality. Call them by [the names of] their [true] fathers. That is just in the sight of God. But if you do not know their fathers, call them your brothers in faith or your mawlas. There is no blame on you if you are mistaken. What counts is the intention of your hearts, and Allah is oft- forgiving and most merciful. (33, 4-5)

Bringing up orphans is a highly commended act of charity, encouraged by Islamic teachings, but even then the lineage of the child must remain to his or her natural father. Therefore, while a couple who are carriers of a lethal gene or a gene that carries a risk of great malady and morbidity for their offspring cannot become natural parents, they can nevertheless adopt one or more orphans in the sense that they can look after and care for them and have all the rewards of bringing them up.

3. Donation of a sperm, ovum or pre-embryo

In the West, a new technology of procreation is being made available to infertile couples. This technology, making use of semen banks and in vitro fertilization techniques, may involve donated sperm or ova, a donated pre-embryo (blastula or morulla), or, in the case of surrogate motherhood, a None of this technology is acceptable in the view of Islamic teachings which recognize procreation only within the bounds of wedlock excluding any third party from the process. Therefore, a Muslim couple who are carrying a lethal gene or serious disease gene cannot make use of either donated sperm or ova or pre-embryos or surrogate motherhood. These methods are refuted by all Islamic jurists on the grounds that procreation must be limited to the spouses alone, without the intervention of third parties.

4. Pre-implantation diagnosis

Advances in medical technology over the last decade or so have made it possible, at least in some specialist clinics, to remove one or more cells from donated womb, the blastula (pre-embryo) prior to its implantation in the womb. A husband’s semen is allowed to fertilize in vitro the ovum taken from his wife; when fertilization occurs, the zygote is allowed to grow to the blastula or morulla stage – this happens a few days after fertilization. If genetic disease or chromosomal abnormality (e.g. triosomy 13, 18 or 21) is suspected, one or more cells are taken from the blastula for appropriate testing. If the blastula is shown to have the defective gene or chromosome, it is discarded and another one tested. Only the unblemished blastula is reimplanted.

The main disadvantage of this technology is the low rate of success after reimplantation (pregnancy rate 30% in the best centres; while take-home-baby rate is around 15%). The merit of the method is that it avoids abortion. The technique is also paving the way for gene therapy and manipulation at an early stage: as yet unfeasible, this will surely be possible in the near future. However, along with the technical problems facing gene therapy, there are also a number of ethical problems (see below).

5. Diagnosis during pregnancy

Better and more accurate diagnoses of congenital malformations, genetic diseases and chromosomal abnormalities are becoming available with the tremendous advances in medical technology.

Simple blood tests from the expectant mother can help the diagnosis of, for example, alpha feto proteins in cases of neural tube defects, viz. anencephaly and spina bifida. Ultrasound can detect many dysmorphic abnormalities as well as congenital defects of the heart, brain and kidneys. CVS or chorion villus sampling, which can be done during the 8th week of pregnancy, can detect genetic and chromosomal defects when suspected. So too can amniocentesis but at a much later stage of pregnancy, between the 14th and 16th weeks. The advantage of early diagnosis by CVS is offset by higher percentage of abortions and complications (2-3%), compared to amniocentesis which is safer albeit giving a much later diagnosis. The couple are offered the choice of abortion when a serious congenital or hereditary disease is discovered.

The Islamic Jurisprudence Council of the Islamic World League in its 12th session (Makka, 10- 17 February 1990) agreed a fatwa by majority vote which allows the option of abortion to the parents on the condition that the pregnancy is less than 120 days old (computed from fertilization and not last menstrual cycle); that a committee of specialist experts have decided that the foetus is grossly malformed and that its life would be a calamity for the foetus and for the family; and that the malformation is very serious and neither treatable nor manageable. On the basis of this fatwa, abortions of foetuses with serious congenital diseases are carried out in the hospitals in Saudi Arabia.

Unanswered ethical questions and dilemmas

There are many dilemmas. Is it allowable to abort a foetus showing Downs syndrome although even with this condition it is possible to live a quiet, peaceful life? If the Huntington’s disease gene is detected, is an abortion justified, although the disease will not appear until age forty or even sixty? Is it permissible to abort those who are homozygous for sickle cell disease or thassalemia or phenyl ketonuria or homocystinuria? For the last two diseases mentioned there is a treatment, namely to avoid foods that contain phenyl alanine or methionme. There is some treatment possible also for the haemolytic anaemias, namely blood transfusion and iron chelation therapy (desferrio-xamine injections).

It is greatly to be hoped that in the not too distant future advances in gene therapy will remove the need to consider abortion in such cases. In the meantime, the best policy is to encourage couples considering marriage to have pre-marital medical examinations for the infectious and hereditary diseases common in their community. It is also important to educate people more effectively and actively about the dangers of consanguineous marriages which, as noted earlier, are very common in most Arab countries.