02 March 2006
Judith Rich Harris
As I alternate between reading Dennett and Dawkins, getting the evolutionary full press, I see that Judith Rich Harris has a new book coming: No Two Alike
. I found The Nuture Assumption via a review in The Wilson Quarterly. It was a book I read with my jaw dropped in amazement from front to back. Ms. Harris pointed out that nearly every parenting and educating study did not control for heredity. That is, the so-called educational and and psychological experts assigned 'nuture' 100% of human behavior and 'nature' 0%, by default, for decades. Most still do. A quote from the new book in a review in the New York Sun puts the point nicely:
The developmentalists found that the children's behavior was correlated with the parent's behavior and attributed the correlation to the effects of the home environment. Though they realized that heredity might account for some of the correlation, they never considered the possibility that heredity might account for all of it. But that is exactly how it turned out. Once the effects of genetic similarities were estimated and skimmed off, the correlation declined to zero. The putative effects of the home environment disappeared.
The new book looks at the obvious test case, identical twins. Identical twins raised in the same household have the same nuture and nature inputs. Do they have identical personalities? Of course not, but why? Ms. Harris answers decisively: peers. We find a role amongst our friends, and assume it.
Fascinating stuff, I can't wait to read the book.
. I found The Nuture Assumption via a review in The Wilson Quarterly. It was a book I read with my jaw dropped in amazement from front to back. Ms. Harris pointed out that nearly every parenting and educating study did not control for heredity. That is, the so-called educational and and psychological experts assigned 'nuture' 100% of human behavior and 'nature' 0%, by default, for decades. Most still do. A quote from the new book in a review in the New York Sun puts the point nicely:The developmentalists found that the children's behavior was correlated with the parent's behavior and attributed the correlation to the effects of the home environment. Though they realized that heredity might account for some of the correlation, they never considered the possibility that heredity might account for all of it. But that is exactly how it turned out. Once the effects of genetic similarities were estimated and skimmed off, the correlation declined to zero. The putative effects of the home environment disappeared.
The new book looks at the obvious test case, identical twins. Identical twins raised in the same household have the same nuture and nature inputs. Do they have identical personalities? Of course not, but why? Ms. Harris answers decisively: peers. We find a role amongst our friends, and assume it.
Fascinating stuff, I can't wait to read the book.
