10 ms·

So is it nature not nurture after all?

91 points by uxhacker 8y ago

vanderZwan 8y ago
> As Plomin writes: “We now know that DNA differences are the major systematic source of psychological differences between us. Environmental effects are important but what we have learned in recent years is that they are mostly random – unsystematic and unstable – which means that we cannot do much about them.” I'm not sure what to read in the implied statement that we can do something about genes
- dash2 8y ago
  The famous example is myopia. Myopia is very, very genetic (something like 70-80% heritable IIRC). But you can do something about it: wear spectacles. Genetic cause does not imply genetic cure.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    At the same time, just because one thing which is caused by genetics is easily remedied, doesn’t mean others will be.
  - jaggederest 8y ago
    Also, significant amounts of daytime sunlight exposure during childhood is a huge factor. https://www.aao.org/editors-choice/sunlight-exposure-reduces-myopia-in-children https://www.aao.org/editors-choice/sunlight-exposure-reduces...
  - RealityVoid 8y ago
    Can you give a source for that? I remember reading something contradicting this statement and my own research into possible myopia causes seems to indicate environmental factors as the cause (but not conclusively). As a myopic person that has no one in my extended family suffering from it, I am very confused as to the possible causes.
    - dash2 8y ago
      Wikipedia seems to give the relevant cites.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  > I'm not sure what to read in the implied statement that we can do something about genes Gene therapies are a known quantity, as is genetic awareness (in mating). It is evident that, at least generationally, something ethically-sound an be done to change our genetic character. Of course, some people's minds will shift immediately to eugenic killing and sterilization, but I'm not sure why anyone would get the impression that the Guardian is (currently at least, though they do have an authoritarian bent at times so who knows) much for those things. I, for one, want to see the day when we edit out the "recurrent" nature of the recurrent laryngeal nerve.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
slantedview 8y ago
Re: autism, there are examples of identical twins where one has/develops autism and the other does not. Clearly nurture still plays a role.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  I would be very happy if such scientific inquiries were freed from the depredations of the culture war, and our culture accepted the nuanced and moderate truth: both nature and nurture play a role.
  - anothergoogler 8y ago
    My lizard brain demands a winner and a loser though.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      My lizard brain demands a winner and a loser though. So those of us who strive to do better than the lizard brain should be taking up the nuanced, moderate view.
- zaarn 8y ago
  It's not that simple. Genes can be activated by the environment, as early as the womb. So in the case of the twins, a brief shortage of nutrients or oversupply of nutrients, may cause certain genes to not active, active late, activate differently, etc. From what I gathered on the studies around it all, most of the outset is defined by genes, the environment then can play on the existing genes. Ie, if you don't have the genes to be smart, you won't be smart and there isn't much you can do about it past a certain point, if you do have them, you can be smart or you can still be dumb without being able to do anything about it. Or height. If you have genes to be 2m tall it won't help you much if a nutrient deficiency in early childhood stunts growth and leaves you at 1.6m. So in the case of the identical twins, they likely have both a potential to develop autism or at least tendencies towards the spectrum but only in one the specific genes activated for whatever reason.
- 8y ago
awkward 8y ago
The obvious pull quote, already in this thread, seems to say that this is a case of looking where we have the tools to look rather than where it makes a difference. Because you can get DNA with a swab and a MiSeq, you should try to determine the causes there rather than do the hard work of determining confounding environmental factors. The end argument works out to laziness if the goal is to determine causes. If the goal is engineering change, the article makes it's own countercase - improvements to society-wide resources make for society-wide changes in behavior.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  The end argument works out to laziness if the goal is to determine causes. If your argument is that it must be so for reasons of ideological aesthetics, then you're in the company of Lysenko. If the goal is engineering change, the article makes it's own countercase - improvements to society-wide resources make for society-wide changes in behavior. If the culture would broadly accept that both nature and nurture contribute something, we'd be much better able to deal with a ground truth which is complex and nuanced. Biology is one of those areas where ground truth tends to be complex and nuanced. Psychology is another field like this. The practice of good governance is yet another.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    It would help if would-be popularizers of the "nature" factor could get basic concepts straight, like (in Plomin's case) the difference between correlation and causation, or (in Plomin's pop-sci advocates' case) the meaning of "heritability".
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      These are general problems in the interpretation of science, and their presence isn't exclusive to the political left or right. (The one exception I can make out being Climate Change.)
      - tptacek 8y ago
forapurpose 8y ago
AFAIK, the consequences of DNA depend as much or more on the processing of them by RNA and otherwise than on the original genes. I wonder how the theory accounts for that (I'm not pointing out flaw as an armchair cynic, but asking a question.) Also, obviously environment plays a major role in our lives and I'm certain Plomin would agree: Abusive parents (or no parents), childhood experiences (think of rape survivors), education, the opportunities around us, access to resources, etc. etc. I would guess he's talking about an essential psychological nature that may determine how we respond to those things. My question is, where does he draw the line between that 'essential nature' (accepting for sake of argument that it exists) and environmental influence? EDIT: "Plomin’s argument is that, in a society with universal education, the greatest part of the variation in learning abilities is accounted for by genetics, not home environment or quality of school– these factors, he says, do have an effect but it’s much smaller than is popularly believed." Calling it "universal education" (the Guardian's paraphrase, not necessarily Plomin's words) is a big stretch - it's so different in different places, including in the same country, that it doesn't all fit under one term. Without more specific claims, it's hard to address that quote but I was reading in the last year about one poor school district which had accomplished a milestone: Half the third graders could read. Half those kids are in deep trouble, and I don't think that's due to genetics.
- iguy 8y ago
  Re processing of DNA etc, this isn't the level these studies are typically working at. There's no biochemistry knowledge involved. They are just looking at DNA sequences, and what data they have about outcomes. Whether a piece of DNA makes something critical for some muscle, or is 10 steps away in part of some complicated switching apparatus, of indeed just influences something else which causes the growing animal to enjoy behaviour which happen to exercise this muscle -- all of this detail is a black box, all of these would contribute to genetic effect. Re universal education, etc: in adoption studies this translates to "among parents who will be approved to adopt", and this indeed cuts the very bottom off the distribution of some factors. I don't think it's a huge issue, but not an expert. But my understanding of the point Plomin is making there is a bit different. Regardless of the current state of (say) schooling, he's pointing out that moving from a system with large schooling inequalities, to a system of absolute schooling equality, would almost certainly increase the heritability of education. In the unequal system, some bright kids are stunted etc, weakening the correlation between input and output; but in the equal one, all the variation in the output will be driven by the input. At least I think that's what he's saying. Haven't read the book, and not really my field at all...
camdenlock 8y ago
Whoa, this is encouraging. A thoughtfully-written piece on an extremely important (and, lamentably, controversial) subject devoid of hyperbole and rancorous partisanship. ... published by The Guardian, no less. I am shocked and very pleased.
forapurpose 8y ago
An essential concept for this discussion: Another problem that Plomin encounters with explaining his findings is that people often confuse group and individual differences – or, to put it another way, the distinction between means and variances. Thus, the average height of northern European males has increased by more than 15cm in the past two centuries. That is obviously due to changes in environment. However, the variation in height between northern European males is down to genetics. The same applies to psychological traits. “The causes of average differences,” he says, “aren’t necessarily related to causes of individual differences. So that’s why you can say heritability can be very high for a trait, but the average differences between groups – ethnic groups, gender – could be entirely environmental; for example, as a result of discrimination. The confusion between means and variances is a fundamental misunderstanding.”
- noobermin 8y ago
  How does this work? How can one thing that causes the motion of the average not also affect the variation? How wouldn't the one which inherited the worst genes not benefit from environment?
  - raincom 8y ago
    It is like how rising tides lift all boats. A good environment helps people without the right genetics; but this does not mean that this group can beat another set with right genetics in the same good environment.
    - noobermin 8y ago
      What you just said sounds like a misunderstanding of the words "average" and "variance". Usually when things like intelligence is modeled, it is modeled as a normal distribution. Moving the average for a normal distribution moves the majority of people in the distribution. Variance just expresses how wide the distribution is, or how far you can expect people to deviate from the average. What you're saying seems to suggest the distribution is multimodal. I'm not sure that's what they said.
    - 8y ago
go_away_nsa 8y ago
Not sure why this is so hard to accept, why would evolution stop at the neck? Nobody has a problem with saying height is mostly genetic, yet say the same of intelligence and it's controversial.
- corporateslaver 8y ago
  I think a lot of our political ideologies are incompatable with biological determinism.
- hydrox24 8y ago
  > height is mostly genetic And yet until the industrial revolution, environmental factors were the dominant effect. Anyone could have been taller with enough nutrition. Genes are only ever expressed under certain environmntal conditions. The minimal condition for all of them is being alive. Malnourishment, or perhaps too much caffeine, amongst a hundred other things, all determine how our genes for height express themselves. Which is all to say, people are wrong when they say height is mostly genetic. It may be true enough under current social conditions though. I think the same problem applies to calling intelligence "largely" genetic.
  - mysterypie 8y ago
    > Malnourishment, or perhaps too much caffeine, amongst a hundred other things, all determine how our genes for height express themselves. Not arguing your idea in general, but the caffeine example is probably a myth[1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/health/the-claim-drinking-coffee-can-stunt-a-childs-growth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/health/the-claim-drinking...
  - iguy 8y ago
    "when they say height is mostly genetic ... under current social conditions" This is always what's meant. Perhaps it should be said more often... but nobody doubts that we can grow a bonsai. The interesting question is how much do different factors matter in our present environment (and again ideally one should specify, e.g. rich-country & above-poverty-line, not just 201X) and in environments we might reasonably hope to create.
lumberjack 8y ago
When people try to be positive by saying: "it's not all natural talent, you must also work hard and persevere!", I wonder, aren't those also shaped by our genes? Is the ability to work hard and the mental fortitude not to give up not also something dictated by our genetics?
- teddyh 8y ago
  You can take that one step further. Couldn’t the willingness to believe in the foreordaining nature of genetics also be determined by genetics? Maybe those people, who believe that genetics does not determine everything, cannot believe otherwise, because of their own genes? In that case, isn’t there no point in you trying to argue about this? Those who believe in genetics and determinism will do so and leave everything to fall as it may, and those who believe in personal hard work and perseverence will try to work as hard as they can, because that is their nature.
  - Jmcdd 8y ago
    Reminds me of this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8kX62n6yNXA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8kX62n6yNXA
    - teddyh 8y ago
      I prefer this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 (Video is “You Are Two” by CGP Grey, 2016-05-31)
  - rectang 8y ago
    To fully generalize the concept, take Samuel Butler's formulation from Erewhon: If it were possible to know everything about the past, it would be possible to know everything about the future. Zoom out far enough and nature and nurture are unified into a deterministic historical timeline. Freewill is an illusion and the universe is a static four-dimensional entity.
    - 8y ago
adynatos 8y ago
steven pinker convinced me some time ago.
l0b0 8y ago
If you want a very good summary of recent genetics research results, have a look at Adam Rutherford's A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes. Basically, even the most careful and underwhelming claims from the popular press overstate how much we actually understand about the connection between genes and real world attributes of people.
jaggederest 8y ago
Anecdotally, anyone who has ever recontacted an adopted-out sibling will be able to tell you how much this is true. We got back into contact with my older sister who had been adopted when I was about 12. She's absolutely the spitting image of her parents, both in looks and behavior, despite being raised in about as different a household as is possible.
- morgtheborg 8y ago
  Yea, we reconnected with a half-brother on our Dad's side. Jeezum. It's just so clear, it's weird.
throwawaydna123 8y ago
Regarding socio-economic status: I have more than 2 university degrees. My dad attained the lowest higher educational attainment there is. My mom did not even finish high school. My mom and dad have all kinds of addiction issues regarding alcohol and drugs. I don't. I have more patience than both of them and am more level-headed. And I'm also pretty sure I'd be a better parent than them, since they set such a low bar that I had to be adopted and raised by my grandparents after 1 year. Sometimes I wonder how I am a product of both my mom and my dad, because there are quite a bit of things in which I don't recognize myself in. If it was all nature, then it'd have been easier to spot and I'd also be addicted to a lot more things. My upbringing was similar with regards to my mom (same people). But the situation was different, my grandpa didn't work much when I was around but was a workaholic during my moms time. My dad was beaten as a kid. I wasn't. If it really is al genetics then how do you explain such a difference in socio-economic status? I think for them it's part drug abuse, a fucked up childhood and no nudge to do your best at school (in my dad's case, I don't know about my mom). I know that my dad had a propensity for learning but he never got to utilize it. I'm pretty sure that if my dad had been in a better upbringing that he'd have fared better. I'm also pretty sure that if my momd would've been born around 1995 that she'd have fared better.
- henriquemaia 8y ago
  One interesting thing about genetics, and a very conspicuous one, is that randomness plays a not so little part in the process. Otherwise you wouldn’t even have evolution. How could a species adapt to a changing environment if heritability was the only determining factor? In that case, it could be justified to think of you as one of those wildcards that nature continuously throws into the mix to sharpen the species adaptability. That is, if you spread your genes around and those also prove more adapted. And so on.
21 8y ago
It's not controversial that the large intelligence differences between cats, dogs and chimpanzees are genetic. Nobody says that in the right environment and nurture a cat will become as smart as a chimpanzee. But somehow it's very controversial that the small intelligence differences between humans might be genetic, as if a species has a fixed IQ number, and the only IQ jumps are strictly between species, but not between individuals.
- MaxBarraclough 8y ago
  It's not controversial at all in the scientific community, is it? If people are talking about political ideology and wishful thinking, rather than science, then that's another matter. As the article says: > those on the left have tended to see the environment as the critical factor because it ties in with notions of egalitarianism
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - tptacek 8y ago
    That depends on what you mean. If you mean "there is a genetic component to intelligence", that is not controversial. If you mean "there are intrinsic differences in the genetic backgrounds of particular races that lead to differences in intellectual ability", that is extraordinarily controversial.
    - MaxBarraclough 8y ago
      We weren't talking about race differences, we were talking about variations between individuals of a population, due to differing genetics.
    - idlewords 8y ago
      Sorry, what is the evidence that there is a genetic component to intelligence?
      - 8y ago
dev_dull 8y ago
On its face this study doesn’t seem controversial, but it’s easy to see how people can find confirmations of their own biases in it. For example when discussing race and gender.
rectang 8y ago
Biological determinism flatters the current elite -- "You're on top because you're inherently superior!" -- so it will always find an eager audience regardless of whether it is true. All the excess cheerleading makes it incredibly hard to assess.
- wizu 8y ago
  I would have thought the exact opposite. Wouldn't the current elite rather believe that they are on top because they worked hard and earned their place? That way they can look down on the rest in good conscience while gutting welfare systems that only benefit those who "didn't" earn their own way.
  - morgtheborg 8y ago
    Totes. You actually hear this exact argument from quite a few people who escaped poverty and become successful. They did it, so anyone can do it!
  - rectang 8y ago
    Arguments that the successful are morally superior will also find an eager audience. In contrast, arguments that successful are inherently inferior in any way are a hard sell.
whatdayistoday 8y ago
The article mentions that much of this research is based on twin studies. I have a question about how these studies work - perhaps someone here has done this sort of research and can answer. Here's my understanding of twin studies: you have some identical and fraternal twins. Each pair of twins are raised in the same household, and presumably experience the same environmental "nurture" effects. So, if we see stronger intellectual similarities between identical twins than fraternal twins, then we conclude that this difference is genetic. But how valid is the assumption that the environments that fraternal twins face are as similar as those of identical twins? Let's assume for instance that: 1) women and men have the same innate potential for mathematical skill 2) our education system does a better job fostering mathematical ability in men than women 3) over time, this discrepancy causes women to score lower on tests of mathematical skill than men While our identical twin pairs will all be of the same gender, the fraternal twin pairs may not. Two identical twin boys might receive the same environmental effects on their mathematical ability, but a girl and her twin brother will not, even if they have equal mathematical potential. Given these assumptions, if we conducted a twin study on mathematical ability, we would see a stronger correlation between the scores of identical twins than those of fraternal twins, due to gender difference, and we would conclude that mathematical ability has a genetic component. And our conclusion wouldn't be wrong! If gender impacts mathematical ability, and gender is genetic, then mathematical ability does arguably have a genetic component. But this gender difference comes about not because of an innate intellectual difference between women and men, but because of how a child's environment "nurture" changes depending on an arbitrary genetic trait "nature". In a world where these assumptions are true, a child's genes influence their future mathematical abilities - but in another world without gender-based educational discrepancies, the same genetic difference might not have any effect. How do twin studies account for these more nuanced situations, where society causes nature and nurture to coincide in roundabout ways? Does it make sense to simply call these "second-order" socio-genetic effects "nature"?
- HALtheWise 8y ago
  The best twin studies look at pairs of identical twins who were separated at birth and raised in different households. If they still end up more similar to each other than to their adopted siblings on some trait, we conclude that trait has a significant genetic component, and more sophisticated analysis can measure how significant it is. Note that the technique I described is not strictly able to determine whether the effect is from genetics or some other pre-birth shared environment, like maternal alcohol consumption. For many practical purposes, that distinction doesn't really matter.
guy98238710 8y ago
Human performance depends on a number of factors. These factors form a chain and this chain is as strong as its weakest link. So yes, some genetic diseases are severe enough to undermine cognitive performance. But no, genes are not the weakest link for most people. We are still wasting most of the human potential we already have. There is no need to seek genetic improvements at this stage.
stkdump 8y ago
I don't like the way he seems to connect the science to the political spectrum. I think it would be the thinking of the left that we need to improve the environment especially for the disadvantaged (including those disadvantaged for genetic reasons) in order to improve society as a whole. Then he mentions how it was "dangerous" to publish his research, feeding the victim complex of those whose thinking doesn't line up with what he considers to be the left apparantly. Whoever claims that raw, uncivilized human nature bolsters equality can't be thinking straight. I think it was a good point, that we have come a long way to equalizing the environment and that leaves a big part of the differences to genetics. I would say that is very high praise to the achievements we already made and shows that we are on the right way. I would guess that the same study made in a more unequal society would have different results.
kpil 8y ago
It's seems to be an uphill battle. The Swedish researcher Amir Sariaslan has given up due to a uninterested or even hostile reception. The Economist called his paper disturbing (but interesting). One would imagine that bringing facts to the table is a good thing, but apparently not. https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/42/4/1057/656274 https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/42/4/1057/656274 https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2014/08/21/to-have-and-have-not https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2014/08/21/...
cfmcdonald 8y ago
Plomin's central argument seems to be that once you control for environment, genetics explains the remaining differences: "Plomin’s argument is that, in a society with universal education, the greatest part of the variation in learning abilities is accounted for by genetics... ...Thus, the average height of northern European males has increased by more than 15cm in the past two centuries. That is obviously due to changes in environment. However, the variation in height between northern European males is down to genetics" To conclude that it is "nature not nurture after all" based on this argument, seems quite backwards.

91 points by uxhacker 8y ago

> As Plomin writes: “We now know that DNA differences are the major systematic source of psychological differences between us. Environmental effects are important but what we have learned in recent years is that they are mostly random – unsystematic and unstable – which means that we cannot do much about them.” I'm not sure what to read in the implied statement that we can do something about genes

dash2 8y ago
The famous example is myopia. Myopia is very, very genetic (something like 70-80% heritable IIRC). But you can do something about it: wear spectacles. Genetic cause does not imply genetic cure.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  At the same time, just because one thing which is caused by genetics is easily remedied, doesn’t mean others will be.
- jaggederest 8y ago
  Also, significant amounts of daytime sunlight exposure during childhood is a huge factor. https://www.aao.org/editors-choice/sunlight-exposure-reduces-myopia-in-children https://www.aao.org/editors-choice/sunlight-exposure-reduces...
- RealityVoid 8y ago
  Can you give a source for that? I remember reading something contradicting this statement and my own research into possible myopia causes seems to indicate environmental factors as the cause (but not conclusively). As a myopic person that has no one in my extended family suffering from it, I am very confused as to the possible causes.
  - dash2 8y ago
    Wikipedia seems to give the relevant cites.
microcolonel 8y ago
> I'm not sure what to read in the implied statement that we can do something about genes Gene therapies are a known quantity, as is genetic awareness (in mating). It is evident that, at least generationally, something ethically-sound an be done to change our genetic character. Of course, some people's minds will shift immediately to eugenic killing and sterilization, but I'm not sure why anyone would get the impression that the Guardian is (currently at least, though they do have an authoritarian bent at times so who knows) much for those things. I, for one, want to see the day when we edit out the "recurrent" nature of the recurrent laryngeal nerve.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

slantedview 8y ago

Re: autism, there are examples of identical twins where one has/develops autism and the other does not. Clearly nurture still plays a role.

stcredzero 8y ago
I would be very happy if such scientific inquiries were freed from the depredations of the culture war, and our culture accepted the nuanced and moderate truth: both nature and nurture play a role.
- anothergoogler 8y ago
  My lizard brain demands a winner and a loser though.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    My lizard brain demands a winner and a loser though. So those of us who strive to do better than the lizard brain should be taking up the nuanced, moderate view.
zaarn 8y ago
It's not that simple. Genes can be activated by the environment, as early as the womb. So in the case of the twins, a brief shortage of nutrients or oversupply of nutrients, may cause certain genes to not active, active late, activate differently, etc. From what I gathered on the studies around it all, most of the outset is defined by genes, the environment then can play on the existing genes. Ie, if you don't have the genes to be smart, you won't be smart and there isn't much you can do about it past a certain point, if you do have them, you can be smart or you can still be dumb without being able to do anything about it. Or height. If you have genes to be 2m tall it won't help you much if a nutrient deficiency in early childhood stunts growth and leaves you at 1.6m. So in the case of the identical twins, they likely have both a potential to develop autism or at least tendencies towards the spectrum but only in one the specific genes activated for whatever reason.
8y ago

awkward 8y ago

The obvious pull quote, already in this thread, seems to say that this is a case of looking where we have the tools to look rather than where it makes a difference. Because you can get DNA with a swab and a MiSeq, you should try to determine the causes there rather than do the hard work of determining confounding environmental factors. The end argument works out to laziness if the goal is to determine causes. If the goal is engineering change, the article makes it's own countercase - improvements to society-wide resources make for society-wide changes in behavior.

stcredzero 8y ago
The end argument works out to laziness if the goal is to determine causes. If your argument is that it must be so for reasons of ideological aesthetics, then you're in the company of Lysenko. If the goal is engineering change, the article makes it's own countercase - improvements to society-wide resources make for society-wide changes in behavior. If the culture would broadly accept that both nature and nurture contribute something, we'd be much better able to deal with a ground truth which is complex and nuanced. Biology is one of those areas where ground truth tends to be complex and nuanced. Psychology is another field like this. The practice of good governance is yet another.
- tptacek 8y ago
  It would help if would-be popularizers of the "nature" factor could get basic concepts straight, like (in Plomin's case) the difference between correlation and causation, or (in Plomin's pop-sci advocates' case) the meaning of "heritability".
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    These are general problems in the interpretation of science, and their presence isn't exclusive to the political left or right. (The one exception I can make out being Climate Change.)
    - tptacek 8y ago

forapurpose 8y ago

AFAIK, the consequences of DNA depend as much or more on the processing of them by RNA and otherwise than on the original genes. I wonder how the theory accounts for that (I'm not pointing out flaw as an armchair cynic, but asking a question.) Also, obviously environment plays a major role in our lives and I'm certain Plomin would agree: Abusive parents (or no parents), childhood experiences (think of rape survivors), education, the opportunities around us, access to resources, etc. etc. I would guess he's talking about an essential psychological nature that may determine how we respond to those things. My question is, where does he draw the line between that 'essential nature' (accepting for sake of argument that it exists) and environmental influence? EDIT: "Plomin’s argument is that, in a society with universal education, the greatest part of the variation in learning abilities is accounted for by genetics, not home environment or quality of school– these factors, he says, do have an effect but it’s much smaller than is popularly believed." Calling it "universal education" (the Guardian's paraphrase, not necessarily Plomin's words) is a big stretch - it's so different in different places, including in the same country, that it doesn't all fit under one term. Without more specific claims, it's hard to address that quote but I was reading in the last year about one poor school district which had accomplished a milestone: Half the third graders could read. Half those kids are in deep trouble, and I don't think that's due to genetics.

iguy 8y ago
Re processing of DNA etc, this isn't the level these studies are typically working at. There's no biochemistry knowledge involved. They are just looking at DNA sequences, and what data they have about outcomes. Whether a piece of DNA makes something critical for some muscle, or is 10 steps away in part of some complicated switching apparatus, of indeed just influences something else which causes the growing animal to enjoy behaviour which happen to exercise this muscle -- all of this detail is a black box, all of these would contribute to genetic effect. Re universal education, etc: in adoption studies this translates to "among parents who will be approved to adopt", and this indeed cuts the very bottom off the distribution of some factors. I don't think it's a huge issue, but not an expert. But my understanding of the point Plomin is making there is a bit different. Regardless of the current state of (say) schooling, he's pointing out that moving from a system with large schooling inequalities, to a system of absolute schooling equality, would almost certainly increase the heritability of education. In the unequal system, some bright kids are stunted etc, weakening the correlation between input and output; but in the equal one, all the variation in the output will be driven by the input. At least I think that's what he's saying. Haven't read the book, and not really my field at all...

camdenlock 8y ago

Whoa, this is encouraging. A thoughtfully-written piece on an extremely important (and, lamentably, controversial) subject devoid of hyperbole and rancorous partisanship. ... published by The Guardian, no less. I am shocked and very pleased.

forapurpose 8y ago

An essential concept for this discussion: Another problem that Plomin encounters with explaining his findings is that people often confuse group and individual differences – or, to put it another way, the distinction between means and variances. Thus, the average height of northern European males has increased by more than 15cm in the past two centuries. That is obviously due to changes in environment. However, the variation in height between northern European males is down to genetics. The same applies to psychological traits. “The causes of average differences,” he says, “aren’t necessarily related to causes of individual differences. So that’s why you can say heritability can be very high for a trait, but the average differences between groups – ethnic groups, gender – could be entirely environmental; for example, as a result of discrimination. The confusion between means and variances is a fundamental misunderstanding.”

noobermin 8y ago
How does this work? How can one thing that causes the motion of the average not also affect the variation? How wouldn't the one which inherited the worst genes not benefit from environment?
- raincom 8y ago
  It is like how rising tides lift all boats. A good environment helps people without the right genetics; but this does not mean that this group can beat another set with right genetics in the same good environment.
  - noobermin 8y ago
    What you just said sounds like a misunderstanding of the words "average" and "variance". Usually when things like intelligence is modeled, it is modeled as a normal distribution. Moving the average for a normal distribution moves the majority of people in the distribution. Variance just expresses how wide the distribution is, or how far you can expect people to deviate from the average. What you're saying seems to suggest the distribution is multimodal. I'm not sure that's what they said.
  - 8y ago

go_away_nsa 8y ago

Not sure why this is so hard to accept, why would evolution stop at the neck? Nobody has a problem with saying height is mostly genetic, yet say the same of intelligence and it's controversial.

corporateslaver 8y ago
I think a lot of our political ideologies are incompatable with biological determinism.
hydrox24 8y ago
> height is mostly genetic And yet until the industrial revolution, environmental factors were the dominant effect. Anyone could have been taller with enough nutrition. Genes are only ever expressed under certain environmntal conditions. The minimal condition for all of them is being alive. Malnourishment, or perhaps too much caffeine, amongst a hundred other things, all determine how our genes for height express themselves. Which is all to say, people are wrong when they say height is mostly genetic. It may be true enough under current social conditions though. I think the same problem applies to calling intelligence "largely" genetic.
- mysterypie 8y ago
  > Malnourishment, or perhaps too much caffeine, amongst a hundred other things, all determine how our genes for height express themselves. Not arguing your idea in general, but the caffeine example is probably a myth[1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/health/the-claim-drinking-coffee-can-stunt-a-childs-growth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/health/the-claim-drinking...
- iguy 8y ago
  "when they say height is mostly genetic ... under current social conditions" This is always what's meant. Perhaps it should be said more often... but nobody doubts that we can grow a bonsai. The interesting question is how much do different factors matter in our present environment (and again ideally one should specify, e.g. rich-country & above-poverty-line, not just 201X) and in environments we might reasonably hope to create.

lumberjack 8y ago

When people try to be positive by saying: "it's not all natural talent, you must also work hard and persevere!", I wonder, aren't those also shaped by our genes? Is the ability to work hard and the mental fortitude not to give up not also something dictated by our genetics?

teddyh 8y ago
You can take that one step further. Couldn’t the willingness to believe in the foreordaining nature of genetics also be determined by genetics? Maybe those people, who believe that genetics does not determine everything, cannot believe otherwise, because of their own genes? In that case, isn’t there no point in you trying to argue about this? Those who believe in genetics and determinism will do so and leave everything to fall as it may, and those who believe in personal hard work and perseverence will try to work as hard as they can, because that is their nature.
- Jmcdd 8y ago
  Reminds me of this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8kX62n6yNXA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8kX62n6yNXA
  - teddyh 8y ago
    I prefer this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 (Video is “You Are Two” by CGP Grey, 2016-05-31)
- rectang 8y ago
  To fully generalize the concept, take Samuel Butler's formulation from Erewhon: If it were possible to know everything about the past, it would be possible to know everything about the future. Zoom out far enough and nature and nurture are unified into a deterministic historical timeline. Freewill is an illusion and the universe is a static four-dimensional entity.
  - 8y ago

adynatos 8y ago

steven pinker convinced me some time ago.

l0b0 8y ago

If you want a very good summary of recent genetics research results, have a look at Adam Rutherford's A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes. Basically, even the most careful and underwhelming claims from the popular press overstate how much we actually understand about the connection between genes and real world attributes of people.

jaggederest 8y ago

Anecdotally, anyone who has ever recontacted an adopted-out sibling will be able to tell you how much this is true. We got back into contact with my older sister who had been adopted when I was about 12. She's absolutely the spitting image of her parents, both in looks and behavior, despite being raised in about as different a household as is possible.

morgtheborg 8y ago
Yea, we reconnected with a half-brother on our Dad's side. Jeezum. It's just so clear, it's weird.

throwawaydna123 8y ago

Regarding socio-economic status: I have more than 2 university degrees. My dad attained the lowest higher educational attainment there is. My mom did not even finish high school. My mom and dad have all kinds of addiction issues regarding alcohol and drugs. I don't. I have more patience than both of them and am more level-headed. And I'm also pretty sure I'd be a better parent than them, since they set such a low bar that I had to be adopted and raised by my grandparents after 1 year. Sometimes I wonder how I am a product of both my mom and my dad, because there are quite a bit of things in which I don't recognize myself in. If it was all nature, then it'd have been easier to spot and I'd also be addicted to a lot more things. My upbringing was similar with regards to my mom (same people). But the situation was different, my grandpa didn't work much when I was around but was a workaholic during my moms time. My dad was beaten as a kid. I wasn't. If it really is al genetics then how do you explain such a difference in socio-economic status? I think for them it's part drug abuse, a fucked up childhood and no nudge to do your best at school (in my dad's case, I don't know about my mom). I know that my dad had a propensity for learning but he never got to utilize it. I'm pretty sure that if my dad had been in a better upbringing that he'd have fared better. I'm also pretty sure that if my momd would've been born around 1995 that she'd have fared better.

henriquemaia 8y ago
One interesting thing about genetics, and a very conspicuous one, is that randomness plays a not so little part in the process. Otherwise you wouldn’t even have evolution. How could a species adapt to a changing environment if heritability was the only determining factor? In that case, it could be justified to think of you as one of those wildcards that nature continuously throws into the mix to sharpen the species adaptability. That is, if you spread your genes around and those also prove more adapted. And so on.

21 8y ago

It's not controversial that the large intelligence differences between cats, dogs and chimpanzees are genetic. Nobody says that in the right environment and nurture a cat will become as smart as a chimpanzee. But somehow it's very controversial that the small intelligence differences between humans might be genetic, as if a species has a fixed IQ number, and the only IQ jumps are strictly between species, but not between individuals.

MaxBarraclough 8y ago
It's not controversial at all in the scientific community, is it? If people are talking about political ideology and wishful thinking, rather than science, then that's another matter. As the article says: > those on the left have tended to see the environment as the critical factor because it ties in with notions of egalitarianism
- deleted 8y ago
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- tptacek 8y ago
  That depends on what you mean. If you mean "there is a genetic component to intelligence", that is not controversial. If you mean "there are intrinsic differences in the genetic backgrounds of particular races that lead to differences in intellectual ability", that is extraordinarily controversial.
  - MaxBarraclough 8y ago
    We weren't talking about race differences, we were talking about variations between individuals of a population, due to differing genetics.
  - idlewords 8y ago
    Sorry, what is the evidence that there is a genetic component to intelligence?
    - 8y ago

dev_dull 8y ago

On its face this study doesn’t seem controversial, but it’s easy to see how people can find confirmations of their own biases in it. For example when discussing race and gender.

rectang 8y ago

Biological determinism flatters the current elite -- "You're on top because you're inherently superior!" -- so it will always find an eager audience regardless of whether it is true. All the excess cheerleading makes it incredibly hard to assess.

wizu 8y ago
I would have thought the exact opposite. Wouldn't the current elite rather believe that they are on top because they worked hard and earned their place? That way they can look down on the rest in good conscience while gutting welfare systems that only benefit those who "didn't" earn their own way.
- morgtheborg 8y ago
  Totes. You actually hear this exact argument from quite a few people who escaped poverty and become successful. They did it, so anyone can do it!
- rectang 8y ago
  Arguments that the successful are morally superior will also find an eager audience. In contrast, arguments that successful are inherently inferior in any way are a hard sell.

whatdayistoday 8y ago

The article mentions that much of this research is based on twin studies. I have a question about how these studies work - perhaps someone here has done this sort of research and can answer. Here's my understanding of twin studies: you have some identical and fraternal twins. Each pair of twins are raised in the same household, and presumably experience the same environmental "nurture" effects. So, if we see stronger intellectual similarities between identical twins than fraternal twins, then we conclude that this difference is genetic. But how valid is the assumption that the environments that fraternal twins face are as similar as those of identical twins? Let's assume for instance that: 1) women and men have the same innate potential for mathematical skill 2) our education system does a better job fostering mathematical ability in men than women 3) over time, this discrepancy causes women to score lower on tests of mathematical skill than men While our identical twin pairs will all be of the same gender, the fraternal twin pairs may not. Two identical twin boys might receive the same environmental effects on their mathematical ability, but a girl and her twin brother will not, even if they have equal mathematical potential. Given these assumptions, if we conducted a twin study on mathematical ability, we would see a stronger correlation between the scores of identical twins than those of fraternal twins, due to gender difference, and we would conclude that mathematical ability has a genetic component. And our conclusion wouldn't be wrong! If gender impacts mathematical ability, and gender is genetic, then mathematical ability does arguably have a genetic component. But this gender difference comes about not because of an innate intellectual difference between women and men, but because of how a child's environment "nurture" changes depending on an arbitrary genetic trait "nature". In a world where these assumptions are true, a child's genes influence their future mathematical abilities - but in another world without gender-based educational discrepancies, the same genetic difference might not have any effect. How do twin studies account for these more nuanced situations, where society causes nature and nurture to coincide in roundabout ways? Does it make sense to simply call these "second-order" socio-genetic effects "nature"?

HALtheWise 8y ago
The best twin studies look at pairs of identical twins who were separated at birth and raised in different households. If they still end up more similar to each other than to their adopted siblings on some trait, we conclude that trait has a significant genetic component, and more sophisticated analysis can measure how significant it is. Note that the technique I described is not strictly able to determine whether the effect is from genetics or some other pre-birth shared environment, like maternal alcohol consumption. For many practical purposes, that distinction doesn't really matter.

guy98238710 8y ago

Human performance depends on a number of factors. These factors form a chain and this chain is as strong as its weakest link. So yes, some genetic diseases are severe enough to undermine cognitive performance. But no, genes are not the weakest link for most people. We are still wasting most of the human potential we already have. There is no need to seek genetic improvements at this stage.

stkdump 8y ago

I don't like the way he seems to connect the science to the political spectrum. I think it would be the thinking of the left that we need to improve the environment especially for the disadvantaged (including those disadvantaged for genetic reasons) in order to improve society as a whole. Then he mentions how it was "dangerous" to publish his research, feeding the victim complex of those whose thinking doesn't line up with what he considers to be the left apparantly. Whoever claims that raw, uncivilized human nature bolsters equality can't be thinking straight. I think it was a good point, that we have come a long way to equalizing the environment and that leaves a big part of the differences to genetics. I would say that is very high praise to the achievements we already made and shows that we are on the right way. I would guess that the same study made in a more unequal society would have different results.

kpil 8y ago

It's seems to be an uphill battle. The Swedish researcher Amir Sariaslan has given up due to a uninterested or even hostile reception. The Economist called his paper disturbing (but interesting). One would imagine that bringing facts to the table is a good thing, but apparently not. https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/42/4/1057/656274 https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/42/4/1057/656274 https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2014/08/21/to-have-and-have-not https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2014/08/21/...

cfmcdonald 8y ago

Plomin's central argument seems to be that once you control for environment, genetics explains the remaining differences: "Plomin’s argument is that, in a society with universal education, the greatest part of the variation in learning abilities is accounted for by genetics... ...Thus, the average height of northern European males has increased by more than 15cm in the past two centuries. That is obviously due to changes in environment. However, the variation in height between northern European males is down to genetics" To conclude that it is "nature not nurture after all" based on this argument, seems quite backwards.