I was reading some Yahoo news today, complete with links to the New York Times, and I was surprised to see that "A new study says it's possible to boost the amount of mental ability you were born with."

I understand what they're going for, and I get their point.

BUT! The wording just sounds like you can do something in the here and now that would retroactively impact how smart you were at the moment of birth. If you could "boost the amount of mental ability you were born with" by 100%, you'd effectively double how smart you were however many years ago you were born. But that would cause ripples throughout the past 20-60 years…

Let's see if the article (from the Times) can shed some light on the matter. Surely it will be much clearer than the short Yahoo headline.

The first sentence of the article reads, "A new study has found that it may be possible to train people to be more intelligent, increasing the brainpower they had at birth."

Wow, this is serious. This is great! So long, SAT score of 200! I'm gonna change everything.

First I'll go back and double how smart I was at age 0. Then I'll live my life up to April 30, 2008, and go back and double my intelligence again! And again and again and again…