I am pretty suspicious that we have anything like the level of understanding of how genes translate into behavior to make hard numerical statemnts about how much of intelligence or personality are genetic and how much environmental. We of all people, as skeptics, should recognize what statistical studies can and cannot tell us. If there is a strong correlation in IQ test results between identical twins raised separately, that tells us that there is a strong correlation in IQ test results between identical twins raised separately. It may also suggest that the test results have a significant gentic component. But that’s a far cry from saying “52.7% of intelligence is genetic” or some such. Take one of the twins and sell them as a sex slave to a drug lord soemwhere or just let them get encephalitis at age 2 and then you get a very different outcome. Obviously, these are extreme examples, but I think non-scientists, and even many scientists, think that once you attach a number or a statistical measure to something you’ve established a level of understanding so solid as to make a more general assessment of the relationships between variables and their plausability irrelevant.
I haven’t yet gotten to Blank Slate, though it’s on my list. As I’ve argued here before, though, I think there is little value in deciding that what we do in raising our kids is meaningles since they’ll be whoever they are regardless, which is the version of the idea that George seems to offer. As he himself points out, this is so counter to our intuition and natural drives, that it’s not likely to affect our desire to work at being good parents and providing our kids with experiences we hope will benefit them anyway. And if it does lead us to parent differently, then we’re taking a bit of a chance. Whatever effect environment has, and to whatever extent Pinker (as represented here, anyway) is wrong, we will be throwing away an unretrievable opportunity to benefit our kids. Are we so confident in our theory that we want to do this? I’m not.
Now if the point is just to wipe out the extreme Freudian nonsense that says everything we do wrong scars our kids, and give parents a little bit of a break, well I’m all for that. But swinging from one extreme to another doesn’t really seem justified by what data I’ve seen yet.
Right, I’d read his book though—it’s a bit more complicated. When he talks about percentages it’s always explicitly percentages of the recorded variance. And of course to measure that, you have to begin with properties that are themselves measurable, and then run statistical analyses of the data between identical and fraternal twins, etc.
I am not claiming that Pinker has all the answers here, but he does have a lot of intriguing and surprising data from diverse sources.
As far as the second language is concerned you’re right. Doug said it right (I didn’t) that “parents have virtually no influence on the basic personality traits of their children.” But the point is that your parents won’t be able to make it any easier for the child to learn the language. Plying Mozart to your child will not help her to be able to compose a symphony in the future. One day when hearing Eine kleine Nachtmusik on a radio, she might be able to recognize her mother used to play the music to her when she was a baby, but that’s about it.
To prove that children who are read to will develop larger vocabularies, you would have to test a biological child of the parents and an adopted one, and find the same results. You could compare it with a study that would show that one identical twin who was read to had larger vocabularies than his brother (the other identical twin) who was not read to. According to Pinker, the studies show this is not the case. What is probably happening here is the fact, that parents who do read to their children have larger vocabularies to begin with and their children inherit this characteristic through the genes.
Think of immigrant families: the parents may often never end up speaking the local language, but the children will speak it as well as a native, and often actually lose the language of their parents in the first or second generation.
I just want to add a personal observation regarding an accent. My wife and I speak Spanish (mixed with English: “saca el garbage") to each other and before my first son started school, his accent, when speaking English, sounded very much like my wife’s and mine. After only a few weeks of school his English accent was about the same as the one of his new friends. My second son never developed my wife’s and my accent as he learned the sound of English from his brother.
So is your son’s accent genetic or learned? You keep saying that genes determine everything, including the size of one’s vocabulary, but then you present a great example of a complex behavior, and one often associated in people’s minds with intelligence (don’t we assume “really smart” people could learn to speak “properly” if they tried?) that is predominantly environmentally determined. I don’t think you can extend the role of genes so far as to control the actual content of thought or the skills one develops. Perhaps one may be born able or unable to compose a decent symphony, but if able and never exposed to them or taught how it’s done one will not learn regardless of genetic ability. Skills can be learned, and while the general level of ability may be influenced strongly by genetics, the actual level of competence eventualy attained has a lot to do with environment.
For my own personal example, I was raised by my mother, who has a poor sense of pitch, poor grasp of rhythm, and hates to sing or dance because she’s always been embarrased and, as a child at least, mocked for being lousy at doing so. I grew up convinced that while my relative pitch was decent, and better than my mother’s, I had a terrible sense of rhythm. I assumed it was genetic and lived with the embarrasment of it until my early 40s. Then my daughter got into Irish dance, and I was curious how to differentiate the different kinds of dance tunes (jigs, reels, hornpipes, etc). I got some recordings, a book of music theory for dummies, a set of bones and a drum, and now a year later I not only can hear the difference, and even jump in with the band on the bones decently, but I can pick out and keep rhythms from a wide variety of musical genres. Everyone who knows me is stunned. So, there must have been some fundamental ability there, but it was suppressed by my experiences and expectations. Wonder if Mom has the ability too and just never got the right encouragement?
It is really dangerous, it seems to me, to use what we currently understand about genetics to make broad statements about what is or is not possible to modify by experience, because the predictions can be self-fulfilling.
Doug,
I’m sure you (and Pinker) understand the limitations of statements like “X percentage variance is due to genetics,” but as usual with science I fear a lot of people don’t. And I think even people who do may exaggerate the applicability of the data to general principles, parenting techniques, the utility of social welfare and education programs, etc, etc, if it serves their agenda. All I’m cautioning against is the leap I see people here taking between some interesting and suggestive twin studies and the idea that parenting is largely without influence in the face of the dominance of genetic over behavior.
I never said everything is genetic. Pinker says in his book that our behaviour is determined by our genes, our peers, and chance also has a lot to do with it. My son mimics his friends’ accent (not his parents’), but he has some speech problems just like I did when I was his age (that’s genetic).
As far as your sense of rhythm is concerned, if we assume you do have it and your mother doesn’t, you might have gotten it from your father, or you could be a mutant.
I understand, Brennen, that when you say a lot of people don’t understand science, or exaggerate it, you are referring to my distorted opinions. I am aware of my limitations and I accept it. I can only hope that you’ll one day get to read Pinker’s book and be able to address his claims first hand. I would be very interested to hear what you think of it.
Yes, a second or even a third language gives one a broader perspective in a way than one who speaks only one language but that does not make them smarter. As far as parents’ nurturing is concerned, I think it is very important in the developement of a child. As a child that is less loved grows to be withrawn, hesitant, doubtful, etc. and that most definitly inhibits his/her faculites in general. A kid who is loved, nurtured has a better self-esteem, open blossoming individuality and with that comes the natural stimulation of his/her mental faculties.
ETA: I am sorry I didn’t see the second page b4 I posted the above. I also disgree that genetics permanently define one’s IQ. I know people who are illeterate and very basic yet with kids that successfully graduated from college with scientific majors and vis-versa.
As far as parents’ nurturing is concerned, I think it is very important in the developement of a child. As a child that is less loved grows to be withrawn, hesitant, doubtful, etc. and that most definitly inhibits his/her faculites in general. A kid who is loved, nurtured has a better self-esteem, open blossoming individuality and with that comes the natural stimulation of his/her mental faculties.
Again, according to Pinker orphans grow up to be emotionally on the same level as kids with loving parents. As long as they have a role model, an older sibling or a friend, they will do fine.
Daisy - 13 March 2008 01:19 PM
I also disgree that genetics permanently define one’s IQ.
Nobody is saying that. It’ anywhere between 50 and 70 percent.
Well, George, I’m not just referring to you! We all see the parade of media reports that take the findings of a study or two and extrapolate them to big genralities that they really don’t support. I do think you are at one end of the spectrum as far as the old nature/nurture argument, but perhaps Pinker will convince me too eventually! Anyway, I certainly didn’t mean to imply anything personal about you, just to point out that I dind’t think the numbers you referred to meant what you suggested (and I gather Pinker claims) they mean.
I think learning second and third languages is more of an early learned skill than a genetic characteristic. As I believe I said before, my first language was French, learned from my French-Canadian grandmother. When I was three I was moved to my Einglish grandmothers (A world-class bitch) for a few months. She said, “No grandson if mine is going to speak a foreign language” and she beat it out of me. I quickly switched to English. My mother spoke English, French, and quickly learned Spanish and Italian. My father, who wasn’t the target of my grandmother, also learned French, Gaelic for fun, and a modicum of Spanish. I’ve taken Latin, Spanish, French, and German courses in high school and college. I still can’t speak or understand anything but English. Since both my parents seemed to have an easy time learning languages, if it were genetic, one could guess that I would have a high probability of inheriting that skill. This is only anecdotal, but it’s certainly one case where genetics didn’t seem to be able to overcome early training.
Again, according to Pinker orphans grow up to be emotionally on the same level as kids with loving parents. As long as they have a role model, an older sibling or a friend, they will do fine.
The emphasis was on “loved and nurtured” George not on “loved and nurtured by a biological parent.”, I agree so long that the kid is emotionally well taken care of, they should develop fine.
Nobody is saying that. It’ anywhere between 50 and 70 percent.
didn’t you mention to our friend early on that she basically seals things in the minute she is having dinner with whoever that is and that she should think b4 she goes that far (maybe I am pushing things a bit, forgive me if that’s the case)??
I think learning second and third languages is more of an early learned skill than a genetic characteristic. As I believe I said before, my first language was French, learned from my French-Canadian grandmother. When I was three I was moved to my Einglish grandmothers (A world-class bitch) for a few months. She said, “No grandson if mine is going to speak a foreign language” and she beat it out of me.
I am sorry about your grandmother’s approach . You could always take a 6 months trip to France and beat French right back into you, that’s all it takes, a 6 mos to be at least somewhat fluent. I honestly don’t think that being able to speak a second language has any thing to do with one having a high IQ, I think it’s only a matter of the person having to adapt to a specific environment and communicate within it, and in order to do that, the brain does what it needs to learn the language, so it could communicate and socialize. Once the first language is learned, it opens the way to learn a second and maybe a 3rd. They all have common areas. I know that french, spanish, english and german all have common area, that means if one knows one, it is easy for him/her to learn any of the other 3. This has nothing to do with IQ.
I could also come up with many personal anecdotes from my life to show that “it’s not all in the genes.” Again, I am not (nor is Pinker) saying it’s all in the genes; it’s supposed to be 50%, remember? I could try to guess why you couldn’t (didn’t? ) learn any languages, but I don’t know you and my guess wouldn’t be of any value.
We all see the parade of media reports that take the findings of a study or two and extrapolate them to big genralities that they really don’t support. I do think you are at one end of the spectrum as far as the old nature/nurture argument, but perhaps Pinker will convince me too eventually! Anyway, I certainly didn’t mean to imply anything personal about you, just to point out that I dind’t think the numbers you referred to meant what you suggested (and I gather Pinker claims) they mean.
and that she should think b4 she goes that far (maybe I am pushing things a bit, forgive me if that’s the case)??
. You could always take a 6 months trip to France and beat French right back into you, that’s all it takes, a 6 mos to be at least somewhat fluent. I honestly don’t think that being able to speak a second language has any thing to do with one having a high IQ, I think it’s only a matter of the person having to adapt to a specific environment and communicate within it, and in order to do that, the brain does what it needs to learn the language, so it could communicate and socialize. Once the first language is learned, it opens the way to learn a second and maybe a 3rd. They all have common areas. I know that french, spanish, english and german all have common area, that means if one knows one, it is easy for him/her to learn any of the other 3. This has nothing to do with IQ.
) learn any languages, but I don’t know you and my guess wouldn’t be of any value.
