Debate: Is intelligence fixed or malleable?

     The debate yesterday in class was very interesting. Malleability of intelligence is another hard topic to debate but both teams did a good job. I liked the examples that the malleable team gave. I had never heard of ABA Therapy before but it was good support for their argument. They also incorporated other items we had learned in class such as the Flynn Effect. The Flynn Effect shows that over time intelligence increases. This shows that we are able to influence the way we think. The Carolina Abecedarian Project showed that taking high risk children and putting them into an early intervention pre-school increased their IQ scores and as adults they were more likely to have achieved higher education and had lower rates of drug usage. However you do not know if this was all because of the person's intelligence or because they were motivated in school. Motivation is an important part in a child's success. Children who fail at something but think they can improve do better than children who just give up because they think they are failures.
     The team that supported intelligence was fixed used genetics and evolution to support their argument. I thought Phineas Gage was a good example to bring up. He was a man that lost part of his brain due to an iron rod. After the accident Gage was a different man. His intelligence could not increase and he could not change the man that he had become.