Nature vs. Nurture: What's More Impactful 

Brilliant empirical observations, everyone needs to know.🎉

Very good video, I got a "bad" mark for pointing out to sociologists that they need to account for the genetic confounders in their "studies", because in a few years, noone will accept their findings if they don't account for that.

I've been beaten a lot growing up, I never slapped someone once I went past the age of 10. I've been lied to a lot, vowed to myself to never lie, and ended up lying almost never. I've wittnessed strong resistance to self reflect in my parents, and one of my favourite pass times is to think abt my thinking.

YOUR GENOME IS CHANGING CONSTANTLY.

Greate! Please continue to share dear mister Pinker your wisdom with us.

Thanks, our professor

EVOLUTION OR CHANGE IS CONSTANT.

Great stuff, but Pinker you gotta get rid of the intro where it says "the genius steven pinker" it's really bad optics. Please just trust me.

Super inspiring! Thank you Steve!

Excellent presentation, so interesting!

I wonder if there isn't another factor that could contribute to the behavioral or personality differences between identical twins. That is, each other. If one displays certain interests or tendencies, the other might try a different or opposite path motivated by a will to establish himself as a separate character. So, for instance, say they both have tendencies to be considerate, one might decide to be brusquer. The way this difference would affect the feedback they get from other people could establish divergent personality traits. (?) Nice suit, by the way, Steven! Jermyn st collar & the small-patterned tie whose darker colour matches the jacket suits you.

Fascinating!

“Nature, nurture, heaven, and home. Sum of all and by them driven.” -MJK The Humbling River

Interesting. Two things seem left out. 1) How does one so casually discard culture? He expounds repeatedly on how studies of separated twins prove the primacy of genetics. And, versus family, that seems true. But then he off-hand admits that these were all twins who remained in the same cultural context. In other words, we have no reason to believe that genes trump culture. 2) I appreciate acknowledging the huge role of chance in our development. However, there's not a word about the drive to distinguish ourselves from and/or compliment the traits of those around us. It's as teenagers, that I've seen twins make the most effort to distinguish themselves from each other, i.e. at the same time they are individuating from parents. Or, note how, in long-term relationships, nothing clarifies (and often entrenches) the differences in couples--i.e. couples who initially seemed so ideally similar--as simply living together over time. What do you think?

Dear Steven, e-motive intelligence, yes it is chance BUT I believe it is individual experience and more importantly how our psyches interpret that experience which affects our outlooks/personalities. Surely as a psychologist you re-cognise the benefits of therapy's recursive analysis and that REM sleep affects interpretation, coalesces 'wholly' spirit and 'soul' in a psyche; where the Grecian word psyche meant soul, the core 'id' of being and id-entity.

Super happy I came across your channel! You are a world-class science communicator, sir, and the world is better off with you putting a podcast out there. One thing I wanted to comment on about law 3: The data input for twins, despite them being figuratively (or sometimes almost literally) tied-at-the-hip for their formative years, is a massively different set of sensory streams. Every moment each person is taking in data that is hugely different in terms of 3d space, background visuals, where sound comes from, etc. Just being two feet apart on a couch is a wildly different experience between those two people despite the seemingly small spatial distance between them. It is no wonder that even two humans who share the same DNA can be so different - even conjoined twins, who still have separate viewpoints on the world and will always experience everything differently simply because there are two brains and two sets of eyes and two sets of ears that will never experience the world from the other's perspective because it would require their heads to perfectly overlap in 3d physical space, lol.

0:07 "Please Sir, can I have some more?"

NURTURE IS PART OF NATURE.

Many years ago, just by coincidence and geography, I worked at a college where the academic bookstore was managed by the identical twin of the owner of a magazine shop where I shopped. One gay, one straight, twin brothers. I have seen patterns (which might be confirmation bias or just patting myself on the head) more along the line that everyone tries to make a different mistake from their parents - mom was strict, I will not be - but not when it comes to children of smokers taking up smoking. Addictive biology overcomes behavioural mirroring? That is my best guess.

AND FREE WILL IS AN ILLUSION.

My sister has two half-sisters that were raised by their dad. My sister did not meet them until she was in her twenties. Watching the three of them together was like watching triplets. They moved and talked so much alike it was hard to remember which was my sister.

The third law seems to me to be related to the notion of enaction. Our cognition is inactive; it has a history in which it has been dynamically coupled with the world in a unique fashion.

… and Robert Sapolsky perspective that there’s no free will… but if you have experiences, values, preferences, access to options/opportunities, information/education it seems you do have some autonomy to at least decide in a game of would you rather? 🍬🍒🥑🍌

I've bn reading How the Mind Works by U, sir. I'm about to finish Chapter 4 The Mind's Eye. Whaterer u said is there in the book. I'm ur fan, pls share ur decisive thoghts on Synchronicity. Hv u experienced it?

“Empiricism” by philosopher David Hume. What individual twin saw and experienced each day’s which contributed to his personality. Unless, there was a conjoined twins then their personality may be similarly to each other as both shared every moment of experiences in their lives together.

In the development of character (personality, if you like) there's also a role for inward thought and contemplation, of all parts of life the most invisible, least measurable. Imagine the identical twins once again, this time playing chess against the same opponent, one after the other. The opponent may try for the sake of experiment to play the same game twice. But the attempt will fail, because the twins will never think or play identically. Now think of the twins' lives as an endless series of chess matches - stretching the category to include even deciding what to have for dinner - a major factor in each game being each twin's particular thoughts. Even a few minutes' reflection on a single occasion can potentially alter a personality and a life forever.

Reminded me of Sapolsky… no free will.

In sum, what we have always known, that having children is a risky enterprise because you don't know what you will get.

It's hard to see that there's so much that was determined. The universe maybe be deterministic after all

Bad audio. Huge difference between loudness of the jingle and the talk. Cannot understand first words while listening in the night without cranking up the volume so high that it a) wakes sleeping neighbours up b) gives me hearing damage. Also, after the video finishes, if there is another jingle it will blow my speakers out, and if not, the next video will blow my speakers out.

For my artificial neural network if I feed it with 10 times bigger corpus it will become significantly better at language.

Some random personality differences may be a result of differing childhood gut bacterial biomes or virus exposures.

I´m reading Troubled by Rob Henderson. He claims that living in a family is extremely important for almost everything. Is he wrong in blaming living in a family and should he rather blame the genes from the families of kids with bad families?

In my case, I am who I am because of willpower. Years ago I found tools to shape a new brain, a new me, so I got to work. Still a work in progress, but a better man, father, brother, son and friend than I used to be. So, is willpower, or stubbornness if you will, nature or nurture? 🤔 Was I able to keep going when life crushed me, because I was stubborn? Or did the crushing horror of my life life teach me how to never quit? ✌️💚🖖

The real dilemma of the question, is that we can't get past it. As someone who was not nurtured to any large degree, I learned everything by making mistakes along the way. I've never had a role model, a hero to look up to, or stayed with any religion for any length of time. I believe that exercise and healthy dopamine levels was what got me through, and I learned to accept those who refused me from my upbringing to the current day with forgiveness and love. I agree with psychology to the point where it let's you forgive yourself for your own past wrongdoings, and allows for one to go on 'the road less traveled' to quote the book. With forgiveness and understanding, one can build their life from one of turmoil into one of legacy.

Nature vs. Nurture: What's More Impactful? --- Chance.

I don't discount the influence of Genetics and family/culture, but I think every person has the capacity to choose their own way of thinking and beliefs above what is nature. > Thank you Mr Pinker :)

Sincere question: I may well be naive but, how does a code for proteins (DNA) determine our basic personality type? Could there be something else transmitted via the sperm/egg->zygote? Epigenetic?

Maybe a Law of human development is Money and Materialism.... How an individual reacts to Wealth Accrual, i.e., Capitalism or Not is a massive distinguisher.

What I find equal parts interesting and frustrating is that even nowadays psychotherapists and psychiatrists are extremely keen to ignore human nature to rather look back in the person's history and construct narratives that often serve to cast the client as 'the victim' and emphasize their lack of agency. This sort of construction of narratives also often serves -- even in mental health services -- as an entry point to categorizing clients into 'victims' or 'genuine' sets on the one hand, and 'perpetrators' or 'undeserving' of service input on the other -- most of these latter ones are usually clients with what psychiatry regards as 'personality disorders'. Both perpetrator and victim narratives are missed opportunities, where a closer look at enhancing a person's understanding of themselves in terms of their nature is avoided, a clearer awareness of which could at least help modify future behavior.

Thank you for this wonderful presentation. On the other hand, you have forgotten the parameter that is more important than chance in the construction of personality, which is what David Deutsch talks about: the creation of knowledge and explanations. Humans are universal explainers and universal constructors. We can understand the difference between 2 identical twins raised the same. Their ideas, their memes may differ.

What about prescription/over-the-counter/illegal drugs, alcohol, lead and other harmful chemicals? Don't these make a huge difference under the 'randomness' explanation? That means EXPECTING PARENTS NEED to AVOID DRUGS and ALCOHOL. These substances contain a ton of side effects that can potentially be passed down to their kids. I agree with Dr. Pinker. I always believed that genetics is a TOP determining factor regarding many subjects - more so than environmental factors.

Same DNA, same upbringing, but different souls?😮

Love the video's, but I'm sure you get a couple more clichés into the intro if you really tried.

This is such a hard topic. When you think of how people obtain skills, you might think if genetics may give some advantages over other. It could be upbringing, but upbringing is not always guaranteed either. A talkative family might have a talkative young person that chooses to participate in the talkativeness or maybe not. So, the choice the individual makes matter. This might be a choice that is not conscious, like when a baby makes a choice. Still that choice and subsequent habituation, makes it so they continue to be as they are. Personally, I think a lot of what we cknsider to be signs of intelligence and brightness might be overrated. Who says that playing a musical instrument is any better than some tribalpeople learning to knit? The musical instrument is more prestigious, but is it really. And you might say, well, the instruments require reading music, which js true, but really all activities are just made of individual small activities that get places together. Is that truly complex? If I memorize 1,000 processes that add up to 1 super skill, why is that better than someone learning multiple skills with less processes each? Or any other combination. Most of what we consider intelligent people as doing (like reading, playing instruments) are skills that are placed upon young people, but not really something special. They're just another activity. I don't even believe in intelligence as it is clearly defined. Intelligence exists, but it's not necessarily what society says it is. Inventing, speaking original thoughts, writing original thoughts, are all signs of upper level intelligence, in my view, but most humans dont do this. Like less that 3% of people may, are actually intelligent and many are not in positions of power. Most humans might be intelligent, but most choose not to pursue higher levels of creating, so it doesn't happen. Learning to write or speak on demand, requires years of practice and requires the mind to be making mistakes as it learns kore and more and most adults dont want to go through that failure process. As for people being born intelligence, I think about 80% of pepple are within the normal range of intelligence. Genes could encode something that makes someone more likely to be aggressive, but how do we know that thst "aggressive" energy can't be transformed to aggressive kindness? The difference between humans and animals, is that humans can make decisions that affect how they use their feelings inside. So, the temperament might be strongly for one way, but the person themselves can choose go act on it, or transform it, or choose to not take any action, while still feeling the strong emotions. So, yes nature is a starting off point, but but your own choice and the environment might play a role too. Maybe a bit of all three, instead of one or the other. I just think the human mind is malleable and can probably transform to other things, even if it has a propensity for one thing. Anyway, thanks Stephen Pinker

Without nature there is no nurture. They are one and the same. At the root of much of humanity's discontent find false dichotomy as a driver.

there is no vrs its a dance

Pinker and heritability studies make a major mistake in proclaiming differing "families" and differing "environments." Twins are not raised in different families, at least in the ways that will really tease at the genetic differences. Talking about genetic influences on sexuality and gender, an actually different family would be one, for example, that is single sexed. That is, a set of DNA could be raised in a single sex environment with no imagery or knowledge about two sexes of any animal, including humans. That is the kind of family difference that you would need to really begin teasing at genetic differences in behavior. This is true for every behavior and identity marker. We *can* create societies that would create robust selves from the same DNA that would be radically different from each other. Pinker (et al) are poor at imagining the infinite kinds of environments we can create. We choose our own identities, at least we choose for the next line of selves. DNA/proteins are behaviorally cheap. Our social conceptions of sexuality come from linguistic adults, raised in a two-sexed environment. Whatever our genes are doing it will be more like pheromones. It will be cheap. As reflective beings, we need to smile and shrug at cheap manipulations of behavior. We can literally organize that behavior in any way. That is, any trait of meaningfulness to our self models can be undone by radically altering the environment. An environment that we have control over. Our social world has been a haphazard creation. We can radically alter it. Genes are not stopping us. Only our choosing is what stops us. I call for demilitarization and a UBI. Educate everyone deeply. Expansive world models expand our self models. By expanding our knowledge of the world, including biology, we understand our own selves better. Biologists "see" cellular components beneath the bark of the tree. Many of us, just see bark. Complex language is what makes us human.

The genius Steven Pinker did not inherit the modesty gene.

What's my genes say, I'm doomed huh?

I don't think Mr. Pinker really knows what he is talking about. Genes and families are only two criteria. The effects of families are not zero by the time one is an adult, as he states. He is wrong to say that people find his statement "mind-boggling," it's more likely that they find it ridiculous, but it's interesting that he interprets people's response by explaining his rationale behind it. Then he brings up studies of identical and fraternal twins to make his point, which he already has admitted that the studies are somewhat ambiguous. This is not news, that children growing up in the same home develop different personalities. The landscape of human development is much more complicated than he makes it out to be. Law 3 is important and verifiable, but, again, it's naive of him to think that people have trouble wrapping their head around that idea. Huge ego.

Explain why attachment theory is one of the most robust theories in developmental psychology.

Nature vs Nurture reduces everything to biology. Consciousness (the hard problem) Mind, Reason. These belong to philosophy and psychology disciplines, so why is biology alone center stage? Hopefully this will change at some point. It would be good if more is known in relation to consciousness (the hard problem) and mind, before trans humanism appears on the scene. Human life and flourishing from the perspective of consciousness and mind or from the perspective of biology? Either taken alone is a problem. We need a science of the human that combines both as they are combined in reality. Idealism leads to ideologies and biology alone is too reductive, and sociobiology is too reductive. Either one being extrapolated as encompassing the nature of the human is not the way to go. That is why a religious perspective is necessary; humanity in relation to the cosmos. We cannot understand ourselves without understanding our relationship to our home, the cosmos. A worm’s eye view is not enough, we need a bird’s eye view of reality and of our place in it, before technology decides it for us. Tech should remain our tool, we should never become its tool; no embedding of technology in humans as has been proposed with trans humanism.

You and Dawkins are doing these YT channels and they seem (I'm sorry to say) low effort. That's unfortunate because your books are so thoughtful.

Is education then largely meaningless?

Steven Pinker, "Denying Human Nature" An Accusation. Extremely Small Percentage of Humans Don't Believe they are an Animal of Earth's Nature. So a Poor Attempt by Professor Pinker to Isolate Evolution Disbelievers Who Know They are Earth Animals. "Nature verses Nuture" Impossible, No Such Thing as a Pure Nature Human or Pure Nuture Human. Plus Claims "Steven Pinker the Genius". I Need to See More Evidence before I Agree with this.

According to *checks notes* Steven Pinker, education has zero effect on a person, so this video is pointless.