RohanBraga

Thanks for your reply. But I can show you this article: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2163484-found-more-than-500-genes-that-are-linked-to-intelligence/ How can brother and sister have different IQs when all environmental factors are the same?

Pardon for my ignorance. Does the new field of epigenetics show that all humans have the same intelligence?? That is, all humans have same genes related to intelligence (hence all humans are exactly equal in intelligence) but those genes are switched on and off by epigenetic processes. So, the the IQ genes were switched on by epigenetics for people who migrated to cold climates increasing their IQs, but were switched off by epigenetic processes for people in the tropics thus making it low. Has this been shown in epigenetics research??

Is there any other test that was done to show that kinship (i.e. blood/gene relationship) is what makes parents love their children more than other children??

But doesn't RD say (I think he says) that genes do this. I.e. genes create chemicals or some other mechanism in the brain to make you think that the child is their own?? He gives the examples of how the ability for a human to catch a ball thrown at him is actually mediated by genes. We calculate the trajectory of the ball and timing all without any awareness and he says. That is, we don't do mathematical calculations in our brain consciously. We just catch the ball. That these are handled by genes.

I am a layman who recently read Selfish Gene. In it RD says that we animals (including humans) like/love take care of their offspring because offspring have 50% of the their genes, since the purpose of life is to propagate your genes. I am proposing a thought experiment to challenge this. So, if parents love their children because children have 50% of their genes, what if we secretly switch babies at birth. Parents don't know that the baby was switched. But won't they love, take care of the baby anyway. So, the baby now will not have any genes of the parents but still parents will love the kid because they THINK that the kid is theirs. So, doesn't this show that RD is wrong?? Parents like their children not because they share 50% of their genes but simply because of a psychological reason of THINKING (not knowing) that the kid is theirs. Same for animals. If we secretly switch an egg of a bird with an egg of another bird of the same species, the bird will not know it was switched and regard the hatchling as one of it's own and show the same care and love as she would for other hatchlings. Is my analysis correct or is there something we layman don't know which makes my thought experiment flawed???