My razor towards changes in personality, intelligence (modestly), weight, etc has been “conditionally possible, but rare, not random, domain specific, and attenuates without ongoing intervention.” Think of your teeth. If you are born with crooked teeth, they will remain that way until a strong enough intervention (braces) is in place, but once the intervention is gone without a way to maintain the results (retainers) your teeth will just revert back to their crooked baseline.
Personality changes, IQ increases in low IQ children that then attenuated (e.g. preschool studies), weight loss and subsequent wait gain, muscle gain followed by muscle loss, braces for crooked teeth, etc, all follow this pattern in my view.
Good point and a great analogy. One thing I’d want to add, though: I think it mainly applies to personality and intelligence in adulthood. In the early years, genes and environment both contribute to establishing baseline levels of these traits.
My razor towards changes in personality, intelligence (modestly), weight, etc has been “conditionally possible, but rare, not random, domain specific, and attenuates without ongoing intervention.” Think of your teeth. If you are born with crooked teeth, they will remain that way until a strong enough intervention (braces) is in place, but once the intervention is gone without a way to maintain the results (retainers) your teeth will just revert back to their crooked baseline.
Personality changes, IQ increases in low IQ children that then attenuated (e.g. preschool studies), weight loss and subsequent wait gain, muscle gain followed by muscle loss, braces for crooked teeth, etc, all follow this pattern in my view.
Good point and a great analogy. One thing I’d want to add, though: I think it mainly applies to personality and intelligence in adulthood. In the early years, genes and environment both contribute to establishing baseline levels of these traits.