I would welcome an explanation for:
1) The antipathy here toward a finding that essentially just says that some people have natural abilities others don't--which is common sense, I figure.
2) The visceral rejection of that finding on grounds that are irrelevant to the survey ("Look, these adoptees did well, so this survey is wrong there!"). Anecdotal evidence does not derail scientific evidence, nor does this study make such a blanket statement that 'adoptees are losers!' It merely states that there is such a thing as natural ability. Tossing out the straw man that this survey claims adoptees do not succeed is spurious argument.
It's times like these my mood is darkest about the future of the country, when even a conservative board seems to think that everyone must be considered equal all the time, and logic is automatically replaced with vitriol when that dogma is even tangentially challenged.
You usually see this when these folks are discussing human nature and intelligence in general and not IQ specifically. In the 1920s Terman and others were bitterly attacked in all the major media for being "undemocratic." The thought was because people vary in intelligence and part of this is heritable, then a democracy can never succeed.
The other part of the problem is envy. Envy differs from the other deadly sins in that it has no "normal" counterpart. We all need some level of pride, food, anger, sex, money and rest but we do not need envy. Chaucer in the "Parson's Tale" outline the dynamics of envy in a clear and compelling fashion. People seldom admit to "real envy" but they will admit to "petty envy" such as I envy your--fill the blank in.
What we are facing is a basic human failing not easily remedied by education albeit we should try. It is noteworthy in the consultation room people will discuss their sex life without hesitation: not true for their intelligence or their bank balance.
Did you expect people to react with anything BUT antipathy when a couple of academics tells us something we already know?
2) The visceral rejection of that finding on grounds that are irrelevant to the survey
Studies like this are widely panned by right-thinking people, since A) they don't discover anything we didn't already know and B) the conclusions they jump to beyond the obvious are sketchy and poorly supported. There is natural ability -- sure. Natural ability is 75%, home environment is 25% -- yeah, sure, why don't I read your study and discover exactly what logical leaps you made to arrive at that guess, or maybe I just know by experience that you made a grand claim that doesn't have support or doesn't mean anything and I won't waste time reading your stupid study.