Thread: Debate!= Are people born intelligent or do you aquire it??

Are people born intellint or do they aquire it? that is the topic for my class debate. My team will argue that you need to aquire intelligence. Do you have any smart arguments with examples that i can use to support my argument?

Yes, people acquire knowledge/ ways of living depending on how they grow up/who their parents are etc.

people are born with certain amounts of potential how much of it u fulfill is ur choice

Are we born Intelligent? No. We don't come out citing the Pythagorean Theorem or reading Shakespeare in the nursery in our down time.
You need to acquire it, but that like everything else comes to each of us at different paces.
I cannot do math to save my life, nor have I ever been able to. Aside from the Add, subtract, multiply, and divide I am totally useless.
But as a 4th grader I was reading at Collegiate Freshman level.
I have a friend on the other hand, who is in College level Calculus (The highest math program at my High School) and is a grade below me. He on the other hand cannot quite read well. He reads, just not as good as some of our peers.

Intelligence comes to some easier than others, and it may come in one field more than others. But what truly defines intelligence? Being smart in ALL fields of learning, or being smarter in one over the other?

Sounds like you're about to have an awesome debate.

some people when born have the ability to aquire knowledge and retain it much more easliy than others so in a way i'd say some pple are born TO BE intelligent.

You are born intelligent. (Or not).
You acquire wisdom, experience and knowledge.

People are born with the ability to grasp intelligence at different levels. I believe me are all born without knowledge, but some people pick up on it quicker than others.

i agree with lee, but i think that those who work harder on what they do learn more and become more intelligent. those who spend time studying and working will become smarter in the long run.

intelligence is how fast one can aquire knowledge, not how much one knows
intellegence is problem solving skills, mental adapability
ppl tend to think humans r more intellegent than anything else on the planet
but if u were to put a human in the wild and force him to live there, his actions will start to become more and more reflex based instead of planning since he/she has to worry about survival first
because intellegence isnt a measure of information, it is not something that can be increased, u can say one's intellect's potential is planned out b4 they're even born
and yet at the same time, u can argue that it can be acquired becuase babies' problem solving abilities r much lower than a teen

some people are born that way, have different talents, brain wired differently, like the real life Rain Man inspiration for the movie, they are called savants. Heredity, good memory, and what background later and parents they have teaching them helps to develop it more.