Is It Nature Instead of Nurture That Makes You, You? - with Robert Plomin 

My son's friend at high school came from a very deprived background. His mother was a single parent who was barely literate and unemployed. He gained a first in Mathematics from Cambridge. It turned out his father was a post-doctoral particle physicist from a one night stand.

Please post the question and answer session as well!

I have watched/read a lot of Adam‘s work and actually find him a good science communicator. Therefor, this interview was a let down. It seemed he was constantly comparing himself with the host, which I thought talked very well about a tough subject. I also agree that scientists should present data and not policy.

This interviewer is so disjointed... stop interrupting Plomin just as he's wrapping up a well articulated thought then changing direction. Try to achieve some flow instead of just chirping in with your opinion or clarifying something the audience doesn't need clarifying.

He's(Plomin) absolutely right, he's very calm in the way he talks, very easy to listen to.

I don't know who either of these men are, but the dynamic between them is quite odd. The speaker (Robert Plomin) seems to be entirely motivated by intellectual inquisitiveness and just wants to talk about his work. The host (Adam Rutherford) seems to be under some stress and is motivated by a covert agenda. The way Adam keeps interjecting to reframe or minimize what Robert is saying it rather annoying.

This video was cut off before the end. It would be great if the rest of it were uploaded, too.

I find it interesting that the video cut off as soon it started to get non PC...

Too little time devoted to such an important subject.

This is simply brilliant! : )

A slightly older release to round up 2020. Psychologist Robert Plomin is in conversation with Adam Rutherford to discuss his controversial book "Blueprint" where he argues that it's nature rather than nurture that plays the predominant role in what makes you, you.

So interesting! 👏

Robert Plomin is good here, but the interviewer is underestimating the audience.

Interesting perspectives

Good work

Whoa I've long suspected that there had to be a link between genetics and phycological traits. But I've not looking into current science into the area. This book sounds essential to understanding just how much that is true.

Plomin was involved in this debate decades ago when it concerned IQ. The definitve work on this is a book out of print : The Science and Politics of IQ by Leon J Kamin. But what he asks is a mistake that those in Medicine Biology and Psychology make which is they are asking the wrong question . The real solution is grounded in Stochastics which they clearly do not understand. While Kamin shows how investigators were guided by their politics instead of the data he came up with a 60% enviornment and 40% genetics. Again this is asking the wrong question when the complexity of the interaction grounded in time series data provides us with a first look at complex evolutionary processes and can lead to an ultimate understanding and control of Aging, Cancer and the behaviors that govern how we adapt to our enviornment.

Biologist here: I think a big problem that a lot of these behavioural studies have, is that scientists often take whatever metric society uses to evaluate success and what is normal, and assume that these metrics are a valid proxy for whatever they are looking at. Educational attainment correlates with success, but seeing as it is also required for success within our society, I would say that it is an absolutely horrendous proxy for biological phenotype. Moreover, many societies are structured in such a way that there will be plenty of genetic correlates for educational attainment (and other similar variables like IQ) that are more a reflection of geography or history. For example, the north of England is poorer than the south, there are definitely genetic correlations with regions within the UK - just ask the team at 23&me. Many of these variants are intergenic and likely functionally meaningless, yet I would be completely unsurprised if they correlate with education due to the economic structure of the country. The fact that genetics are a stronger predictor than ofsted is both unsurprising and somewhat meaningless. I would argue that the Ofsted ratings philosophy is also flawed, by assuming that differences in school performance arise from the quality of administration and instruction, and not from the home environments of the students attending the schools. Plomin also conveniently ignores the biggest correlation for educational attainment in just about every society, which is parental income. I have no doubt that there are genetic factors that are strongly correlated with behaviour, and with traits that are helpful for individual success, but if we assume the "phenotypes" provided to us by a complex society are devoid of any biologically arbitrary biases, we don't have any hope of figuring out what's actually important. Larger sample sizes will tease out smaller effects and more predictive associations, but they'll never correct for flawed assumptions. It's telling that psychiatric diagnoses like bipolar, depression, and schizophrenia, often show weak or confusing GWAS results. In someways this is likely because these conditions are complex and multi factorial, but it could also be because these categories aren't useful as biological phenotypes. Running a GWAS for conditions defined by pseudo scientists like schizophrenia and bipolar might be as silly as running a GWAS on everybody in a wheel chair - many unrelated causes leading to the same result.

Not trying to be annoyingly pedantic here (deeply respect Dr. Plomin!) but at 25:20 Dr. Plomin says about "chance" that it is just something we don't know how to measure yet. This may be true but quantum mechanics appears random inherently (again maybe it isn't, but maybe it is). This normally isnt very important but since dna molecules are so small it may be that they, or some other biologically relevant molecule (atom?), are effected by quantum processes enough to render "chance" as he is using it an immutable part of biological development and through that life outcomes. Here I admit I love finding a reason to be needfully pedantic. It is one of life's great joy's :)

Woooo that ending statement!!! 👍 First class

Biology is my major and I plan on studying cancer and what causes diseases in certain populations

We create behavior outcome in animals especially dogs Through selective breeding that's why it's good to get to know your partner before you make a child illness an alcoholism can be genetic why can't it be behavior I think it doesn't matter about your upbringing bad behaviors in you some people may act bad just to fit in as teenagers we all have choices we could all run red lights when no one's around or jaywalk some people don't have that behavior myself I think it's inherited through your parents

Where's the audience q&a

"educational achievement is the business end of learning ability" Well, I'd say business success is the business end of learning ability.

Aren't mutations still random? How often are they considered to happen within humans?

Adam Rutherford is rude...

interesting

The interplay of nature and nurture is more complex than most people make it out to be. Especially when you begin to take into account epigenetics. We just filmed a podcast about this the other day, interesting stuff.

Less easy to follow as each speaker wants to push a view, rather than the typical RI which is a monologue by one expert.

05:25 long term systematic originates in our DNA

Darwinian Theory is true put it to the test. From plants to animals to humans.

Adam is supposed to be a meticulous scientist dealing with nutty gritty of DNA and miss quotes Robert: “The systematic, stable and long-lasting source of who we are is DNA.” At 05:21. There is no “only” in that sentence in the book. There reason could be his activism as his book “How to Argue With a Racist” starts with the sentence “This book is a weapon.” He is weaponising science. But if you ask him his sentence echoes Muslims’ use of Quran as a weapon and what he thinks about it, he cancels you from Twitter! Fascinating Adam!

I have both Blueprints- Plomin’s and Christakis’s. I think Christakis is closer to the truth, but Plomin is the superior author of the two. I would recommend reading Plomin’s first, just to get really smart about DNA and how it impacts people and society. Then read Christakis’s, who argues that the environment does have more of a systematic affect than Plomin argues here.

Please arrange for automatic foreign language translation.

Yes, IQ is inherited , this is like striking a lottery. Which is why smart men prefer to father kids with smart women. I know a family tree of doctors: father, two sons, father's cousin , 2 grandkids are doctors.

Host should look for another job

Steven Pinker's Blank Slate had similar takeaways about 20 years ago.

I'm diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia (among other things) and yet nobody in my biological family has any kind of diagnosed mental illness, my "mother" says that my youngest brother is Autistic but there's no diagnosis whatsoever, they never even looked into it at all, just decided one day that he was Autistic and slapped on the label, personally I don't see it in him at all, he's definitely a momma's boy but that's about it 🤣

I believe nurture cultivates aspects of personality made available to us by nature

28:00 is a bombshell for all school policies. The whole thing would have been better without the political tiptoeing..

Change the interviewer please.

The interviewer needs to get over himself

2:51 ""we reject the nature VERSUS nurture [versus meaning fighting each other, against each other, we are made of 50%-50% each]... nature being DNA and nurture being, well, everything else...those two things are not in conflict they work in CONCERT [depend on each other?? not always for the best?] with each other(?).... environment makes a difference, but we don't KNOW what it is. It seems to be idiosyncratic, random, stochastic... then the DNA revolution came along and we can predict some important psychological TRAITS..."" 6:08 ""...evolution is a genetic process, but it makes us who we are as humans... we're talking about DNA DIFFERENCE that makes us different, our individuality [1%] ...DNA is the systematic source, environment is important but it doesn't seem to work systematically... so if you were adopted and raised in a different family you would be essentially the same person" 17:00 ""It's a matter of perspectives and perspectives aren't right or wrong, they're more or less useful... we do know how genes work at some level...but the hard thing is the biggest differences are so small, we're talking about 0.02% of DNA ... how much of the differences in the population can be explained by DNA differences, and that's 50% " 23:38 ""...we know for centuries that there's resemblance in families... parents and children resemble each other in body weight, ENVIRONMENTALISTS have no problem with that, sure parents give the food they give you the lifestyle... but it turns out nurture has nothing to do with it, the environment is important... but what runs in families is DNA, not these nurture effects, and and the adoption studies make that clear... It doesn't have NOTHING to do with it, that's an extreme? NO it isn't. NURTURE has nothing to do with the differences in bodyweight... you study kids that were adopted and raised with these adopted parents, so those parents also give those kids the food and lifestyle, there is ZERO resemblance between adopted children's weight and parents weight... the adopted kids' weight correlate as much with there biological parents weight [that did not give them food and environment]..."" 26:23 ""we don't need more studies showing heritability, we need to find the genes...that's where DNA revolution is gonna hit psychology, It's doing it now " So ALL traits ARE heritable... mmmmm. And we got 99% of DNA being the same for all humans, and that 50% difference in humans is explained by the 1% DNA difference [actually it is less than 1 percent], 50-50 means that there is a limit to how much the environment can do for you.

xx:xx the helix of DNA can be seen as staircase. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) is like taking out a step and putting another in that doesn't belong there (metaphor) 32:29: I like how he says that when something is not accepted in the community, it sets the bar very high to convince them of the latter. Imagine how this appears in COVID-19 research, regarding its nature, for example. You need a bomb paper to claim that it is not from animal origin... (perspective)

Evolution

👍

Give that guy some water. His lip sounds are inside my ears. Hard to listen the words.

Is lockdown is open in London??

if you don't know the answer to that by now, why are you talking in front of an audience?

Plomin's notion that we can now talk about genetics is bananas. Just bringing it up can get you cancelled.Plomin in a bubble. He certanly not in a school of ed, a humanities dept or even a social sciences dept.

This video has less likes than it should

We are all Earthlingz Try Earthing

My man here loves adoption

I believe that medicine has much to benefit from genetic studies, they need to be encouraged. But I’m much more than a collection of my genes. PCOS runs in my family and has caused most women affected to die young. But by golly I’m determined to prevent such fate! I keep it under control, and even tho it’s primary cause of infertility in women, I’m expecting my 2nd child! Boom! It Will be a lifetime struggle, but my PCOS prone genetics won’t cut short my lifespan! Not if I can work to prevent it!

Ancients say: "you have only the right to work not for its Fruits! You cannot not work as well. Nor can you own the cause of your work!!!" That's a tall & certainly impractical one! But, a lot of studies and these type of understanding is indirectly indicating a high level of Destiny but with flexibility choice to free (but cannot totally own the flexibility). So, it's like Author, don't be Owner!!! Interesting more is that Ancients knew! So DNA itself is Environment in a different configuration!!! There is that majority of 96 or 98 % which sounds like the aspirational Reality!!!

The usual story... things simple people know, takes 50 years research for scientists to discover.

hello sir pls help and sunrise dis pasaj

Rutherford is jealous of Plomin.

Didn’t we learn this Fable from Margaret Mead & Samoa,the tribe strikes again

The moderator comes across as full of himself, often sign of underlying ineptitude

Guy on the right is ideologically possessed.

Horrible interviewer cutting him off at crucial points

Most probably the truth is in the middle. If we go by that school of thought, why didn't Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's children haven't become genius as well? 🙂

Nature is nurture

I came with a pat on the back! I will win, because my will can not be contained in this world

Facts VS Feelings...

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There are political policy ramifications to this.

Autism is genetic if I have a child due to me having this condition I could pass this down to my child.

If 20th century european history taught us anything, it's perhaps that there are some dirty little truths that are best swept under the carpet and ignored for the greater good. Researchers in this field cannot divorce themselves from the social consequences of their publications even if those consequences arise solely from misunderstandings and misrepresentations.

I wonder why somebody would like to find genetical reasons for individuality or psychological determinism. Why put everything in a box? In definitions. Frames. I simply adore that we all are psychologically different and not predisposed by genes. And lastly, we live in quantum world - possibilities are endless. Many psychotherapists find connection of quantum reality and psyche to be core of our diversity and psychological differences.

Hi

I'm alarmed and disturbed at the enablement of eugenics that arises from the whole line of research. How long before laboratories of dubious morals start offering genetic screening for IQ in the early stages of gestation, and choosing to only have kids who are smart? I think te whole subject should be closed, as it is building a weapon against people with differences that society doesn't like. As an autistic, should I in self-defence disable these lines of research? I believe I have that right. And I'm disgusted that the RI would host such an obscene event.

It's both, but mostly nature for some things like intelligence and mostly nurture for some things like weight. Edit: Ha, I wrote that before the videos loaded, and low and behold the guy being questioned wrote the book I'm misquoting from 😊

This chat is absolutely terrifying!!! Genetic determinism is a formidable tool of oppression!!!! I’m not against the studies being done or even them talking about them. But they must acknowledge the risk of falling into the genetic determinism trap! We’ve already seen how destructive it can be in kids that are labeled in Pre-K who are seldom able to shake that label off as they grow. Like bright bilingual kids labeled as “slow” because their English vocabulary at 4 or 5 is not as wide as the other language dominant at home. Most times the vocab is the same but the accent throws teacher off so they slap the label regardless... Or a lively happy 4/5 yo kid who has a hard time sitting still in class is labeled as adhd and encouraged by teachers to get medicated! This needs to be acknowledged and prevented!!!

ri at its worst, again :(

This was unintelligible

This is absolute rubbish. What a way to end this difficult year with. Robert Plomin and what now looks to be his newest enabler, Adam Rutherford, have lowered the integrity bar of the Royal Institution. What is happening with the world's most esteemed enlightening spaces. I do hope that whichever community of people granted Robert his Fellowship of the British Academy revaluate their questionable decision. Absolute rubbish claims and, possibly, harmful rhetoric. Sigh.