Firstborns: we're smarter!

The eldest children in families tend to develop higher I.Q.’s than their siblings, researchers are reporting today, in a large study that could settle more than a half-century of scientific debate about the relationship between I.Q. and birth order.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/science/22sibling.html?hp

I am a second child and my older brother is dumb as a rock.

I'm a second child too and I'm smarter than my older brother. He's more street smart though.

I'm smarter than everybody.

LOL

But seriously, I'm smarter than my younger brother. And MAYBE a shade smarter than my youngest brother. Probably equal though. I'm the oldest.

Interesting study though, and definitely a great debate topic for around the dinner table when Thanksgiving rolls around!

The youngest child (sister) is the smartest person in my family :)

I'm in the middle, and my older sis is definitely more book smart. i got all the looks

My older sister is a complete retard ! I know it's not PC but she really is dumb. I mean the dumbsticity that she displays is utterly amazing to me. I don't know why it is such a shock to me every time she does someting new but it really does because I have to ask myself, why did her sperm have to win the race ? Jeez !

you can tell a big difference between the youngest child and the oldest. My friends and I were just talking about this. I didn't know if one of my friends was the youngest or oldest and guessed youngest and i was right. You can tell by the way they act. Parents treat the oldest much different than those that come after. First they might initially be more protective but then they learned from their mistakes the first time also and do different the second time around. Also it seems they are less strict on younger children. For example, a parent may not be happy with their oldest daughter dating until she is 16 but maybe would feel better about their younger daughter dating at 14. The parents sorta get used to the idea and become less strict. I read that somewhere...

I'm #4 on the list and I'm smarter than #1 & #2, #3 and myself are close in intelligence...that's not saying much, by the way.

I'm the third of five, but the eldest son. My Dad was, shall we say, old school and I was often treated as the eldest. All my siblings are intelligent but I am the only one that went on to an advanced degree.

It would be interesting to me to see what role gender plays in the matter: Will and oldest son be more or less intelligent than an oldest daugther.

At the same time, there are so many variables in the factors that go into intelligence, to isolate just one seems fairly difficult.