Goodspeed wrote:Yes that is what defines a prodigy, and that is exactly what all 3 of his daughters were. Judit Polgar is undisputably the strongest female chess player of all time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polgár
I know Judith Polgar (didnt know the story about her sisters) but she's clearly not an average iq person.
Do you think a high iq is something you are born with? A brain can be trained, and I would say playing chess from an early age is an excellent way to train it. In other words, I think you have cause and effect the wrong way around there.
It can definetely be trained but only to a certain extent just like the body. You can be successful in many games/sports just by working hard but to be "the one" you need to born with something special. Also playing chess from a young age isn't really about increasing intelligence (it probably does) but getting the expertise you will need for later (and perhaps more importantly nurturing the passion for the game).
Again nature vs nurture, it's not black and white but you can tell the difference.
Messi vs CR7, Federer vs Nadal, Carlsen/Kasparov/Fischer vs the other ones. There are many examples.