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Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are
One of the world's top behavioural geneticists argues that we need a radical rethink about what makes us who we are
The blueprint for our individuality lies in the 1% of DNA that differs between people. Our intellectual capacity, our introversion or extraversion, our vulnerability to mental illness, even whether we are a morning person - all of these aspects of our personality are profoundly shaped by our inherited DNA differences.
In Blueprint, Robert Plomin, a pioneer in the field of behavioural genetics, draws on a lifetime's worth of research to make the case that DNA is the most important factor shaping who we are. Our families, schools and the environment around us are important, but they are not as influential as our genes. This is why, he argues, teachers and parents should accept children for who they are, rather than trying to mould them in certain directions. Even the environments we choose and the signal events that impact our lives, from divorce to addiction, are influenced by our genetic predispositions. Now, thanks to the DNA revolution, it is becoming possible to predict who we will become, at birth, from our DNA alone. As Plomin shows us, these developments have sweeping implications for how we think about parenting, education, and social mobility.
A game-changing book by a leader in the field, Blueprint shows how the DNA present in the single cell with which we all begin our lives can impact our behaviour as adults.
The blueprint for our individuality lies in the 1% of DNA that differs between people. Our intellectual capacity, our introversion or extraversion, our vulnerability to mental illness, even whether we are a morning person - all of these aspects of our personality are profoundly shaped by our inherited DNA differences.
In Blueprint, Robert Plomin, a pioneer in the field of behavioural genetics, draws on a lifetime's worth of research to make the case that DNA is the most important factor shaping who we are. Our families, schools and the environment around us are important, but they are not as influential as our genes. This is why, he argues, teachers and parents should accept children for who they are, rather than trying to mould them in certain directions. Even the environments we choose and the signal events that impact our lives, from divorce to addiction, are influenced by our genetic predispositions. Now, thanks to the DNA revolution, it is becoming possible to predict who we will become, at birth, from our DNA alone. As Plomin shows us, these developments have sweeping implications for how we think about parenting, education, and social mobility.
A game-changing book by a leader in the field, Blueprint shows how the DNA present in the single cell with which we all begin our lives can impact our behaviour as adults.
289 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2018
About the author
Robert Plomin
29 books118 followersRobert J. Plomin (born 1948 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American psychologist best known for his work in twin studies and behavior genetics.
Plomin earned a B.A. in psychology from DePaul University in 1970 and a Ph.D. in psychology in 1974 from the University of Texas, Austin under personality psychologist Arnold Buss. He then worked at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. From 1986 until 1994 he worked at Pennsylvania State University, studying elderly twins reared apart and twins reared together to study aging and is currently at the Institute of Psychiatry (King's College London). He has been president of the Behavior Genetics Association, which in 2002 awarded him the Dobzhansky Memorial Award for a Lifetime of Outstanding Scholarship in Behavior Genetics. He was awarded the William James Fellow Award by the Association for Psychological Science in 2004 and the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Society for Intelligence Research. Plomin was ranked among the 100 most eminent psychologists in the history of science (in Review of General Psychology, 2002).
Plomin earned a B.A. in psychology from DePaul University in 1970 and a Ph.D. in psychology in 1974 from the University of Texas, Austin under personality psychologist Arnold Buss. He then worked at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. From 1986 until 1994 he worked at Pennsylvania State University, studying elderly twins reared apart and twins reared together to study aging and is currently at the Institute of Psychiatry (King's College London). He has been president of the Behavior Genetics Association, which in 2002 awarded him the Dobzhansky Memorial Award for a Lifetime of Outstanding Scholarship in Behavior Genetics. He was awarded the William James Fellow Award by the Association for Psychological Science in 2004 and the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Society for Intelligence Research. Plomin was ranked among the 100 most eminent psychologists in the history of science (in Review of General Psychology, 2002).
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October 9, 2018
Psychology doesn't have a good name in the science world when it comes to quality of experiments and data. All too often, practitioners have been guilty of misunderstanding statistics, data mining, cherry picking and worse. So it's refreshing to come across a book that is primarily about psychology but is driven by good quality data and where the author goes out of his way to show what the numbers really mean. The twist in the tail, though, is that although Blueprint is indeed about why we are the way we are psychologically, it is driven throughout by genetics. Which is just as well, as according to Robert Plomin, a leading researcher in behavioural genetics, we are driven far more by our genes than most of us realise.
The 'nature versus nurture' debate goes back a long way. Plomin doesn't generally go into history of science in this book, which is probably just as well as one of his few mentions of history is to say 'These environmental factors were called nurture because, from Freud onwards, their origins were thought to lie in the family environment.' But Francis Galton came up with 'nature versus nurture' in 1874 when Freud was only 18, and the term nurture in this context wasn't new then. In his career, Plomin has run and captured data from, large-scale twin studies that make it very clear that the debate is over. On average, about 50 per cent of our behaviour is directly genetic, and some traits are even more strongly heritable. Our genes are by far the biggest single influence on our personalities and behaviour.
More remarkably still, Plomin goes on to show that parts of the remainder that apparently isn't genetic can still have a genetic source. The problem is, when there is an environmental situation and there is an outcome in someone's behaviour, we tend to assume that the environment causes the behaviour. However, taking this as read is the old problem of confusing correlation with causality. The behaviour could equally change the environment. It turns out that shared environmental influences - such as those experienced by siblings - have very little impact on behaviour. Most environmental influences are random and relatively small.
Even fellow psychologists (perhaps especially fellow psychologists) have trouble getting their heads around the degree to which nature, rather than nurture, dominates. In his recent book The Genius Checklist, psychologist Dean Keith Simonton tells us that roughly half of who you become depends on genes and half on 'choosing your home and school environments.' But Plomin makes it clear that neither of these have much impact at all, unless the environment is dire. He emphasises that good parenting will support children to achieve more easily and happily - a loving environment makes their life better, which surely as parents we want - but that it makes very little difference to their behaviour, except in religious and political beliefs.
There are some powerful take-away messages here. One is about psychological disorders, the entire basis of current psychiatry. Plomin makes it clear that they simply do not exist. A physical disease is typically caused by, say, a single bacterium or virus. But what are labelled psychological disorders are the combined effects of a large number of genetic variations. As a result they are all spectra. I must admit, I'd always thought the idea of referring to 'the autistic spectrum' rather than 'autism' was classic academic 'why use one word when we can use three' - but now it makes a lot of sense. It's clear we need to tear up the approach taken by psychiatry and start again, based on scientific evidence. One really interesting point that Plomin makes is that in getting away from the 'disorder' mentality we have to dismiss the idea that being at the 'none at all' end of a psychological spectrum currently described as a disorder is ideal - it's entirely possible that it's better to be further up the spectrum.
Another example of the impact of understanding this work is the fuss that is made about, for example, proportionately more privately educated children going to university than those who go to normal schools. Plomin points out that academic achievement is one of the more heritable factors (around 60% at school age and rising to 80% in later life). If you control for the fact that most private schools and grammar schools select, there is no real improvement in academic achievement from going to a private school. Of course, this doesn't mean there isn't bias in giving people jobs and so on, based on background, gender, race. But in terms of academic outcome, the genes win over the money.
The last part of the book takes everything a step further. Plomin's earlier work was primarily based on studies of twins and adoption, which give a window on nature versus nurture. For a long time he failed to get anywhere with attempts to fully pin down the science and link outcomes to specific genetic differences. This proved to be because there are almost always vast number of tiny factors, rather than single genes causing a behaviour. However, in just the last couple of years, the technology has finally made it possible to do large scale studies at the genetic level, and it is increasingly possible to predict our nature from genetic testing.
As Plomin makes clear, this is statistical - nothing about our behaviour is set in concrete, and those with a high genetic proclivity for, say, academic achievement could still be low achievers, because whatever the genetic markers there is a normal distribution of outcomes. He also notes that there are ethical issues that need to be carefully addressed, but it is still a remarkable development.
This is an important book. Parts of it could have done with a bit of help with improving the writing - it can be quite repetitious, with one section that hammers the reader with statistics for too long. There are also some situations where it would have been nice to answer a few 'Yes, but why?' questions. For example, Plomin remarks that eye colour is 95% due to genetic influence and immediately I'm wondering what happened to the other 5%... however, we don't get told.
The blurb tells us that this book will 'revolutionize how we think about how we parent, the choices we make and who we are.' For once, I don't think the marketing claim is an exaggeration. The findings here should be shaping everything from psychiatry to education. Welcome to the brave new world.
The 'nature versus nurture' debate goes back a long way. Plomin doesn't generally go into history of science in this book, which is probably just as well as one of his few mentions of history is to say 'These environmental factors were called nurture because, from Freud onwards, their origins were thought to lie in the family environment.' But Francis Galton came up with 'nature versus nurture' in 1874 when Freud was only 18, and the term nurture in this context wasn't new then. In his career, Plomin has run and captured data from, large-scale twin studies that make it very clear that the debate is over. On average, about 50 per cent of our behaviour is directly genetic, and some traits are even more strongly heritable. Our genes are by far the biggest single influence on our personalities and behaviour.
More remarkably still, Plomin goes on to show that parts of the remainder that apparently isn't genetic can still have a genetic source. The problem is, when there is an environmental situation and there is an outcome in someone's behaviour, we tend to assume that the environment causes the behaviour. However, taking this as read is the old problem of confusing correlation with causality. The behaviour could equally change the environment. It turns out that shared environmental influences - such as those experienced by siblings - have very little impact on behaviour. Most environmental influences are random and relatively small.
Even fellow psychologists (perhaps especially fellow psychologists) have trouble getting their heads around the degree to which nature, rather than nurture, dominates. In his recent book The Genius Checklist, psychologist Dean Keith Simonton tells us that roughly half of who you become depends on genes and half on 'choosing your home and school environments.' But Plomin makes it clear that neither of these have much impact at all, unless the environment is dire. He emphasises that good parenting will support children to achieve more easily and happily - a loving environment makes their life better, which surely as parents we want - but that it makes very little difference to their behaviour, except in religious and political beliefs.
There are some powerful take-away messages here. One is about psychological disorders, the entire basis of current psychiatry. Plomin makes it clear that they simply do not exist. A physical disease is typically caused by, say, a single bacterium or virus. But what are labelled psychological disorders are the combined effects of a large number of genetic variations. As a result they are all spectra. I must admit, I'd always thought the idea of referring to 'the autistic spectrum' rather than 'autism' was classic academic 'why use one word when we can use three' - but now it makes a lot of sense. It's clear we need to tear up the approach taken by psychiatry and start again, based on scientific evidence. One really interesting point that Plomin makes is that in getting away from the 'disorder' mentality we have to dismiss the idea that being at the 'none at all' end of a psychological spectrum currently described as a disorder is ideal - it's entirely possible that it's better to be further up the spectrum.
Another example of the impact of understanding this work is the fuss that is made about, for example, proportionately more privately educated children going to university than those who go to normal schools. Plomin points out that academic achievement is one of the more heritable factors (around 60% at school age and rising to 80% in later life). If you control for the fact that most private schools and grammar schools select, there is no real improvement in academic achievement from going to a private school. Of course, this doesn't mean there isn't bias in giving people jobs and so on, based on background, gender, race. But in terms of academic outcome, the genes win over the money.
The last part of the book takes everything a step further. Plomin's earlier work was primarily based on studies of twins and adoption, which give a window on nature versus nurture. For a long time he failed to get anywhere with attempts to fully pin down the science and link outcomes to specific genetic differences. This proved to be because there are almost always vast number of tiny factors, rather than single genes causing a behaviour. However, in just the last couple of years, the technology has finally made it possible to do large scale studies at the genetic level, and it is increasingly possible to predict our nature from genetic testing.
As Plomin makes clear, this is statistical - nothing about our behaviour is set in concrete, and those with a high genetic proclivity for, say, academic achievement could still be low achievers, because whatever the genetic markers there is a normal distribution of outcomes. He also notes that there are ethical issues that need to be carefully addressed, but it is still a remarkable development.
This is an important book. Parts of it could have done with a bit of help with improving the writing - it can be quite repetitious, with one section that hammers the reader with statistics for too long. There are also some situations where it would have been nice to answer a few 'Yes, but why?' questions. For example, Plomin remarks that eye colour is 95% due to genetic influence and immediately I'm wondering what happened to the other 5%... however, we don't get told.
The blurb tells us that this book will 'revolutionize how we think about how we parent, the choices we make and who we are.' For once, I don't think the marketing claim is an exaggeration. The findings here should be shaping everything from psychiatry to education. Welcome to the brave new world.
December 20, 2018
Very good overview of the modern science of DNA, but I had a few issues. I see this book as a bit more polemic than science. He is understandably defensive about the public's continued insistence on nurture as opposed to nature. But he goes too far the other way and I think doesn't fairly cover the science on environmental factors. I loved the Gene book by siddhartha mukherjee and in that one, he's much more nuanced. Plomin wants to chalk up everything to genetics. And this gets a bit hairy when we're talking about traits that are difficult to measure--like intelligence or happiness. We have to admit that though the DNA science has advanced, our skills at measuring objective traits have not.
December 27, 2020
Genes are not destiny.
Heritability describes what is not what could be.
Both genes and environment matter.
But genes matter more.
Much more.
Good parenting matters.
But it doesn’t make a difference.
These are some of the evocative catch phrases psychologist Robert Plomin utilizes to communicate the philosophical dilemmas and counter intuitive findings emerging from the field of behavioral genetics.
In Blueprint, Plomin details how the DNA revolution and personal genomics are transforming our understanding of psychology, and changing psychiatric diagnosis.
For decades, Robert Plomin struggled in obscurity to identify a genetic bases for psychological traits and psychiatric diagnosis.
Along the way Plomin and his colleagues wandered down multiple research blind alleys due to primitive technology, small effect sizes and underpowered tests.
As computer technology advanced, specialized chip arrays called SNiP CHIPS, dedicated to identifying single nucleotide polymorphisms i.e. SNiP’s were developed that greatly accelerated the previously grindingly slow and labor intensive research process.
As personal genomics e.g. 23andMe etc. become popular, HUGE data sets became available for genome wide analysis studies.
The aggregate product are polygenic scores, also called a polygenic risk scores that indicate likelihood or risk for a specific trait or disease.
When applied to psychology, polygenic scores can already predict academic performance better than IQ, and is on the precipice of being able to predict risk levels for other psychiatric issues like addiction, depression, anxiety and psychotic disorders.
If this comes to full fruition, Plomin asserts that psychotherapy will become primarily preventative.
That would be GREAT.
If you could for instance, target someone at high risk for alcoholism for preventative therapy, it may save them time, money, suffering and maybe even their life.
Lastly.
Plomin asserts that psychiatric diagnostic categories may ultimately boil down to permutations of: 1. internalization features, 2. externalization features, and 3. psychotic features, with each occurring in spectra ranging from low to high risk.
That sure would make things a lot more simple and easily treatable (or preventable as it were).
Admittedly, these advances are a ways off. And predictions regarding gene therapies and genetic medicine have been WAY optimistic and highly disappointing to date.
But according to Plomin, we’re already there with some of it, and really close with the rest.
If this pans out.
It will revolutionize the field.
GREAT BOOK!!!!
Heritability describes what is not what could be.
Both genes and environment matter.
But genes matter more.
Much more.
Good parenting matters.
But it doesn’t make a difference.
These are some of the evocative catch phrases psychologist Robert Plomin utilizes to communicate the philosophical dilemmas and counter intuitive findings emerging from the field of behavioral genetics.
In Blueprint, Plomin details how the DNA revolution and personal genomics are transforming our understanding of psychology, and changing psychiatric diagnosis.
For decades, Robert Plomin struggled in obscurity to identify a genetic bases for psychological traits and psychiatric diagnosis.
Along the way Plomin and his colleagues wandered down multiple research blind alleys due to primitive technology, small effect sizes and underpowered tests.
As computer technology advanced, specialized chip arrays called SNiP CHIPS, dedicated to identifying single nucleotide polymorphisms i.e. SNiP’s were developed that greatly accelerated the previously grindingly slow and labor intensive research process.
As personal genomics e.g. 23andMe etc. become popular, HUGE data sets became available for genome wide analysis studies.
The aggregate product are polygenic scores, also called a polygenic risk scores that indicate likelihood or risk for a specific trait or disease.
When applied to psychology, polygenic scores can already predict academic performance better than IQ, and is on the precipice of being able to predict risk levels for other psychiatric issues like addiction, depression, anxiety and psychotic disorders.
If this comes to full fruition, Plomin asserts that psychotherapy will become primarily preventative.
That would be GREAT.
If you could for instance, target someone at high risk for alcoholism for preventative therapy, it may save them time, money, suffering and maybe even their life.
Lastly.
Plomin asserts that psychiatric diagnostic categories may ultimately boil down to permutations of: 1. internalization features, 2. externalization features, and 3. psychotic features, with each occurring in spectra ranging from low to high risk.
That sure would make things a lot more simple and easily treatable (or preventable as it were).
Admittedly, these advances are a ways off. And predictions regarding gene therapies and genetic medicine have been WAY optimistic and highly disappointing to date.
But according to Plomin, we’re already there with some of it, and really close with the rest.
If this pans out.
It will revolutionize the field.
GREAT BOOK!!!!
August 14, 2021
insanely well-written book. well explained and i LOVED the writing style. no silly stories to fluff out the pages. and, all the important bits are gently repeated to help you remember them.
and fuck... this book dealt some hammer blows to my worldview.
i spent the first half of the book wondering how i'm going to assimilate all of it. i *felt* like he was smashing my entire life's mission into pieces.
but if i read a little more deeply and think more about heritability estimates, his interpretations just don't make any sense.
the environment is still extremely important, more than plomin lets on. and i think plomin wrote this book assuming that the reader already thinks that the environment is way more important than genetics, so his arguments are quite one-sided to "correct" for this assumed bias in the reader.
Really interesting ideas:
1. "nurture" is massively influenced by nature: plomin argues that even the environment is genetically determined.
the things that happen to someone that, on face value, seem like accidents or random, are actually systematically influenced by that person's genes.
for example, stressful life events like divorce or serious injury/illness are (very) often influenced by personality and other heritable aspects of life. so the heritability of divorce is actually 40%.
it's super common to think that someone divorced because they SAW their parents divorce and were negatively affected by that. But this environmental explanation is not as likely as a genetic one: that person more likely divorced because they inherited the same traits that caused their parents to divorce.
2. "abnormal" (in the psychopathological sense) is just semi-arbitrarily assigned and is basically vacuous.
it isn't helpful, it doesn't add anything to encourage identification with your damaging traits, and mimicking the medical model of illness has only stifled progress in clinical psychology.
he supports his criticisms by saying that the same genes that predispose someone towards depression will contribute to negative emotional states in general, and the more of these genes you have, the more likely to are to be slapped with the "depressed" label. in other words, it's a sliding scale, a spectrum, a dimension. And this does NOT mean it should be titled an "autism spectrum" or a "depressive spectrum", because that is still requires a binary categorisation of whether someone is on the spectrum or not. a divide between abnormal and normal. Plomin is suggesting that there is no divide.
as a result, you cannot "cure" abnormality. instead, there are quantifiable shifts along the spectrums of depressiveness, autism, schizophenia, etc. really cool, and i largely agree with his views here because i think identification with mental illness does more harm than good.
in a very real sense, everyone is mentally ill. we're all autistic to some degree, or schizophrenic to some degree, or depressed/anxious/borderline etc etc.
3. You shouldn't always try to fight your genetics, go with the genetic flow. okay this is where the book started to rub me the wrong way. I was grinding my teeth reading his conclusions about heritability research here. He basically says that more people (if their genetics aren't cut out for success) should reject maxims like "If you don't succeed, try, try, try, again".
this blows my mind. he repeatedly says throughout the book that heritability estimates describe what IS, not what COULD be. in other words, they say how much variation (e.g. in IQ) in a population IS due to genetics. but they don't say how much variation in a population COULD be due to genetics.
as an example, heritability of alcoholism is like 50%. you might think that if you have all the genes that predispose you to become a raging alcoholic, it's basically a coin toss as to whether you become one. buuuuuuuuuut - if the same population was measured on an island with no alcohol, heritiability of alcoholism would be ZERO.
it wouldn't matter if you were predisposed or not - you're not becoming an alcoholic! simply put, changing the environment can absolutely steamroll any fatalistic interpretations of heritability. You can ALWAYS be better. Regardless of your genes.
And because the beliefs you're exposed to are a PART of your environment, Plomin's insistence that you should lay down and rot is a TERRIBLE one. I seriously cannot understand how he interprets the literature this way given that he understands it so well.
4. schooling/parents/life experiences don't make a difference to who you are.
THIS is the chapter where I felt on the edge of having an aneurysm while reading. idk why i had such a visceral response to it. maybe because he was contradicting all of my closely-held beliefs. i just find it so hard to believe.
he literally claims that you'd likely be the same person if you went to a different school and were raised by different parents etc.
how can this possibly be true....?
plomin supports his arguments with statements like "environmental influence [...] accounts for only 10% of academic performance at university". i mean idk, maybe it's because he underestimates what a massive affect 10% is. it could be the difference between getting into harvard and not. anyway, i need time to process this section more.
sorry if you took the time to read this unlettered review
and fuck... this book dealt some hammer blows to my worldview.
i spent the first half of the book wondering how i'm going to assimilate all of it. i *felt* like he was smashing my entire life's mission into pieces.
but if i read a little more deeply and think more about heritability estimates, his interpretations just don't make any sense.
the environment is still extremely important, more than plomin lets on. and i think plomin wrote this book assuming that the reader already thinks that the environment is way more important than genetics, so his arguments are quite one-sided to "correct" for this assumed bias in the reader.
Really interesting ideas:
1. "nurture" is massively influenced by nature: plomin argues that even the environment is genetically determined.
the things that happen to someone that, on face value, seem like accidents or random, are actually systematically influenced by that person's genes.
for example, stressful life events like divorce or serious injury/illness are (very) often influenced by personality and other heritable aspects of life. so the heritability of divorce is actually 40%.
it's super common to think that someone divorced because they SAW their parents divorce and were negatively affected by that. But this environmental explanation is not as likely as a genetic one: that person more likely divorced because they inherited the same traits that caused their parents to divorce.
2. "abnormal" (in the psychopathological sense) is just semi-arbitrarily assigned and is basically vacuous.
it isn't helpful, it doesn't add anything to encourage identification with your damaging traits, and mimicking the medical model of illness has only stifled progress in clinical psychology.
he supports his criticisms by saying that the same genes that predispose someone towards depression will contribute to negative emotional states in general, and the more of these genes you have, the more likely to are to be slapped with the "depressed" label. in other words, it's a sliding scale, a spectrum, a dimension. And this does NOT mean it should be titled an "autism spectrum" or a "depressive spectrum", because that is still requires a binary categorisation of whether someone is on the spectrum or not. a divide between abnormal and normal. Plomin is suggesting that there is no divide.
as a result, you cannot "cure" abnormality. instead, there are quantifiable shifts along the spectrums of depressiveness, autism, schizophenia, etc. really cool, and i largely agree with his views here because i think identification with mental illness does more harm than good.
in a very real sense, everyone is mentally ill. we're all autistic to some degree, or schizophrenic to some degree, or depressed/anxious/borderline etc etc.
3. You shouldn't always try to fight your genetics, go with the genetic flow. okay this is where the book started to rub me the wrong way. I was grinding my teeth reading his conclusions about heritability research here. He basically says that more people (if their genetics aren't cut out for success) should reject maxims like "If you don't succeed, try, try, try, again".
this blows my mind. he repeatedly says throughout the book that heritability estimates describe what IS, not what COULD be. in other words, they say how much variation (e.g. in IQ) in a population IS due to genetics. but they don't say how much variation in a population COULD be due to genetics.
as an example, heritability of alcoholism is like 50%. you might think that if you have all the genes that predispose you to become a raging alcoholic, it's basically a coin toss as to whether you become one. buuuuuuuuuut - if the same population was measured on an island with no alcohol, heritiability of alcoholism would be ZERO.
it wouldn't matter if you were predisposed or not - you're not becoming an alcoholic! simply put, changing the environment can absolutely steamroll any fatalistic interpretations of heritability. You can ALWAYS be better. Regardless of your genes.
And because the beliefs you're exposed to are a PART of your environment, Plomin's insistence that you should lay down and rot is a TERRIBLE one. I seriously cannot understand how he interprets the literature this way given that he understands it so well.
4. schooling/parents/life experiences don't make a difference to who you are.
THIS is the chapter where I felt on the edge of having an aneurysm while reading. idk why i had such a visceral response to it. maybe because he was contradicting all of my closely-held beliefs. i just find it so hard to believe.
he literally claims that you'd likely be the same person if you went to a different school and were raised by different parents etc.
how can this possibly be true....?
plomin supports his arguments with statements like "environmental influence [...] accounts for only 10% of academic performance at university". i mean idk, maybe it's because he underestimates what a massive affect 10% is. it could be the difference between getting into harvard and not. anyway, i need time to process this section more.
sorry if you took the time to read this unlettered review
January 25, 2024
I've read this book many times over the years, a rarity for me, because I rarely re-read books. I have found myself continually reviewing and talking about the concepts presented within this book. This book has had a profound effect on the trajectory of my life. It changed the way I think about human behavior and powerfully influenced my choice of profession.
It's not a particularly well-written book, but the information within is mind bending in its implications.
The mapping of the human genome has created amazing breakthroughs in medicine but what a lot of people don’t realize is that it is also revolutionizing the field of psychology. Using a variety of methods, researchers have made amazing progress in deciphering the “nature vs nurture” quandary that has plagued the field since its founding days.
The past 30 years have been heavily influenced by the believers in “nurture.” An avalanche of self-help and parenting books have set the trajectory. The message is that if you toughen up, buckle down and condition the correct behavior, anything is possible. Human beings are lumps of clay and those who fail to overcome their shortcomings simply lack discipline.
Robert Plomin is a psychology researcher who specializes in studies on twins. Plomin and an army of other researchers have conducted thousands of causality studies for everything from personality traits to major psychological maladies like depression and schizophrenia.
The result is that the answer to the “nature vs nurture” question is becoming clearer. The pendulum is swinging back to the “nature” camp. Solid science shows that our personalities are far more genetically driven than we ever realized. While outside forces such as parenting, peers and self-discipline can bring about real change, it’s becoming increasingly clear that genetic predisposition is the most powerful driver of our feelings and behavior.
Some people are just happy by nature. Others have a more grumpy disposition. Some are achievers, couch potatoes, worriers or happy-go-lucky. For good or for bad, the research is now showing that your ability to pick yourself up by your bootstraps has daunting limitations.
This has profound implications for the field of psychology, education and most importantly, parenting. Today’s helicopter parents will not be nearly as successful as they think. The good news is that kids tend to be a lot like their parents, but this is primarily driven by parents passing down their DNA, not by child-rearing prowess. Good or bad parenting can have a powerful impact, but we are learning that all of us have a mighty inclination to ascend or regress to the behavior that is genetically programmed in our DNA.
The research reveals that genetic predisposition is the dominant determining factor in education success. It’s more of an influence than where a child goes to school, the skill of teachers, or involvement of parents. Don’t get me wrong, all these latter components can make a difference, but they appear to have less impact than was previously thought.
The research is revealing that a systematic change is required in the way we look at the field of psychology. The field still follows a medical model. People in the mental health system are classified as “sick” and in need of a “cure.” They are “healthy” or “normal.” Plomin argues this black and white thinking is the wrong approach.
There is no single gene for depression. This feeling is endemic to human existence. The research is showing that ALL OF US suffer from depression. Some of us have very little, and some of us have a lot. The level of severity can be predictably graphed on a standard bell curve. The daunting conclusion this book reveals is that all of us will still be powerfully compelled to return to a set point coded in our chromosomes.
We will not be able to “cure” something that is hard coded throughout the human genome. This would be like curing someone of the malady of having brown eyes or being tall. What we want to do is to help those in the most distress move up the bell curve to a place where their suffering is lessened.
I also appreciated Plomin’s explanation of how cells divide and pass along their DNA coding. He took a very complicated topic and made it understandable.
I really enjoyed this book. Unfortunately, the writing is cumbersome but it still has so many genuinely new insights. A warning - the first chapters are abysmal, filled with methodology and biography. Stick with it and muscle through. It gets better.
It's not a particularly well-written book, but the information within is mind bending in its implications.
The mapping of the human genome has created amazing breakthroughs in medicine but what a lot of people don’t realize is that it is also revolutionizing the field of psychology. Using a variety of methods, researchers have made amazing progress in deciphering the “nature vs nurture” quandary that has plagued the field since its founding days.
The past 30 years have been heavily influenced by the believers in “nurture.” An avalanche of self-help and parenting books have set the trajectory. The message is that if you toughen up, buckle down and condition the correct behavior, anything is possible. Human beings are lumps of clay and those who fail to overcome their shortcomings simply lack discipline.
Robert Plomin is a psychology researcher who specializes in studies on twins. Plomin and an army of other researchers have conducted thousands of causality studies for everything from personality traits to major psychological maladies like depression and schizophrenia.
The result is that the answer to the “nature vs nurture” question is becoming clearer. The pendulum is swinging back to the “nature” camp. Solid science shows that our personalities are far more genetically driven than we ever realized. While outside forces such as parenting, peers and self-discipline can bring about real change, it’s becoming increasingly clear that genetic predisposition is the most powerful driver of our feelings and behavior.
Some people are just happy by nature. Others have a more grumpy disposition. Some are achievers, couch potatoes, worriers or happy-go-lucky. For good or for bad, the research is now showing that your ability to pick yourself up by your bootstraps has daunting limitations.
This has profound implications for the field of psychology, education and most importantly, parenting. Today’s helicopter parents will not be nearly as successful as they think. The good news is that kids tend to be a lot like their parents, but this is primarily driven by parents passing down their DNA, not by child-rearing prowess. Good or bad parenting can have a powerful impact, but we are learning that all of us have a mighty inclination to ascend or regress to the behavior that is genetically programmed in our DNA.
The research reveals that genetic predisposition is the dominant determining factor in education success. It’s more of an influence than where a child goes to school, the skill of teachers, or involvement of parents. Don’t get me wrong, all these latter components can make a difference, but they appear to have less impact than was previously thought.
The research is revealing that a systematic change is required in the way we look at the field of psychology. The field still follows a medical model. People in the mental health system are classified as “sick” and in need of a “cure.” They are “healthy” or “normal.” Plomin argues this black and white thinking is the wrong approach.
There is no single gene for depression. This feeling is endemic to human existence. The research is showing that ALL OF US suffer from depression. Some of us have very little, and some of us have a lot. The level of severity can be predictably graphed on a standard bell curve. The daunting conclusion this book reveals is that all of us will still be powerfully compelled to return to a set point coded in our chromosomes.
We will not be able to “cure” something that is hard coded throughout the human genome. This would be like curing someone of the malady of having brown eyes or being tall. What we want to do is to help those in the most distress move up the bell curve to a place where their suffering is lessened.
I also appreciated Plomin’s explanation of how cells divide and pass along their DNA coding. He took a very complicated topic and made it understandable.
I really enjoyed this book. Unfortunately, the writing is cumbersome but it still has so many genuinely new insights. A warning - the first chapters are abysmal, filled with methodology and biography. Stick with it and muscle through. It gets better.
August 2, 2019
O prólogo de "Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are" de Robert Plomin diz várias coisas de entre as quais, a seguinte afirmação que se vai repetir ao longo de todo o livro, ainda que com ligeiras variações, mas apontando baterias sempre ao mesmo objeto:
“Genetics is the most important factor shaping who we are. It explains more of the psychological differences between us than everything else put together. For example, the most important environmental factors, such as our families and schools, account for less than 5 per cent of the differences between us in our mental health or how well we did at school – once we control for the impact of genetics. Genetics accounts for 50 per cent of psychological differences, not just for mental health and school achievement, but for all psychological traits, from personality to mental abilities. I am not aware of a single psychological trait that shows no genetic influence.”
...
Continua no blog:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
“Genetics is the most important factor shaping who we are. It explains more of the psychological differences between us than everything else put together. For example, the most important environmental factors, such as our families and schools, account for less than 5 per cent of the differences between us in our mental health or how well we did at school – once we control for the impact of genetics. Genetics accounts for 50 per cent of psychological differences, not just for mental health and school achievement, but for all psychological traits, from personality to mental abilities. I am not aware of a single psychological trait that shows no genetic influence.”
...
Continua no blog:
https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
July 6, 2021
líbilo: spousta srozumitelných a přesvědčivých vysvětlení, že neexistuje "gen pro …", že psychický abnormality jsou obvykle spíš škála než binární kategorie, že proti sobě nejde jednoduše postavit vliv prostředí a vliv genů nebo jak bezvadnej studijní materiál jsou i ta dvojčata, která neoddělili při narození
nelíbilo: "když v ruce máš kladivo, všechny problémy připomínají hřebík" – Plomin není společenskej vědec a pasáže týkající se společnosti jsou podnětný asi jako genetika vysvětlovaná sociálním antropologem, akorát tak stokrát nebezpečnější
nelíbilo: "když v ruce máš kladivo, všechny problémy připomínají hřebík" – Plomin není společenskej vědec a pasáže týkající se společnosti jsou podnětný asi jako genetika vysvětlovaná sociálním antropologem, akorát tak stokrát nebezpečnější
April 28, 2020
A fascinating overview on genetics and genomics based on decades of research, and its importance in understanding psychological disorders, learning disabilities and understanding our limitations as well as our strengths. The author suggests that rather than imagine that parents and teachers can or should mold children into people they imagine they should be in order to lead successful lives, one should take stock about what a person is naturally inclined to be interested in and develop with passion and hence more dedication. Home and school are places where learning is taught as an activity to enjoy and embrace for individual fulfillment. Ultimately, if not respected the person's nature will always come biting back anyway. This alone provides much food for thought and offers new ways to include rather than exclude on the basis of meritocracy and intelligence alone.
This would be a great book club read and if the author's prediction of a DNA Revolution does come off, it would be crucial to discuss the implications ... now!
This would be a great book club read and if the author's prediction of a DNA Revolution does come off, it would be crucial to discuss the implications ... now!
May 10, 2021
Гени впливають на вашу особистість, успішність і поведінку більше ніж батьки і школа разом узяті. Здивовані? Я - так!
October 5, 2022
المضمون المختصر للكتاب أن قديما كان الاعتقاد بأن البيئة والتنشئة لها اليد الطولي في خصائص الإنسان وصفاته كلها سواء كانت الصفات الجسمية كالوزن والطول، أو الصفات المعر��ية والقدرات العقلية كما تتبدي في الأداء الدراسي من خلال صفات كالذكاء والقدرات العقلية المختلفة والتحصيل الدراسي، كل هذه الصفات ثبت أن اليد الطولي فيها للوراثة وليس للبيئة والتنشئة.
من خلال تجارب طويلة وبحوث مستفيضة تم فيها الاعتماد علي التوائم المتطابقة غالبا، منهم من نشأ لنفس الأبوين ومنهم من تم تبنيه فنشأ التوأمان في بيئتين مختلفتين، ثبت أن أغلب صفاتنا تتحكم فيها الجينات.
التعليم الذي يهتم بالمتفوقين، أو التعليم الذي يقسم الطلبة في فصول متفوقين وغير متفوقين تعتبر عملية عزل علي أساس جيني بحذافيرها
كذلك التوظيف علي أساس نوع التعليم ومستوي التفوق فيه هي عملية تمييز علي أساس جيني
هاتان نتيجتان أوليتان لهذه الكشوف الجديدة
من خلال تجارب طويلة وبحوث مستفيضة تم فيها الاعتماد علي التوائم المتطابقة غالبا، منهم من نشأ لنفس الأبوين ومنهم من تم تبنيه فنشأ التوأمان في بيئتين مختلفتين، ثبت أن أغلب صفاتنا تتحكم فيها الجينات.
التعليم الذي يهتم بالمتفوقين، أو التعليم الذي يقسم الطلبة في فصول متفوقين وغير متفوقين تعتبر عملية عزل علي أساس جيني بحذافيرها
كذلك التوظيف علي أساس نوع التعليم ومستوي التفوق فيه هي عملية تمييز علي أساس جيني
هاتان نتيجتان أوليتان لهذه الكشوف الجديدة
December 20, 2018
definitely a book for the layman.
as someone with some basic understanding of evolution and genetics + genetic techniques, this was largely common sense. i liked how it was emphasised that genetic research describes what is rather than predicting what could be. it's nice that the author takes comfort in knowing that his polygenic score for bmi is at the 94th percentile while his actual weight is at the 70th percentile, and that it's a source of motivation for him. but let it be said that others not so hardworking or optimistic would rather blame their genes for who they are (considering heritability for weight in developed countries is likely around 70%). not to mention how traits like aggression and violence have been shown to have genetic basis too - are we going to start excusing people or holding everyone to different standards because some have greater genetic propensity for certain traits and it's harder for them to overcome them? also the part about how we already test for some genetic diseases/conditions on birth so why not go all out and get thousands of known single-gene disorders including psychological problems tested? some questions to think about.
little sceptical about the focus on polygenic-score research since GWAS using SNPs can only predict 7% of variance in liability to schizophrenia and 11% of variance in school achievement right now. just a thought: considering schizophrenia is around 50% heritable, maybe we shouldn't just be looking at gene sequences but epigenetics as well? the possibility of dna modification is not mentioned at all though imo it might account for a substantial percentage of heritability too.
as someone with some basic understanding of evolution and genetics + genetic techniques, this was largely common sense. i liked how it was emphasised that genetic research describes what is rather than predicting what could be. it's nice that the author takes comfort in knowing that his polygenic score for bmi is at the 94th percentile while his actual weight is at the 70th percentile, and that it's a source of motivation for him. but let it be said that others not so hardworking or optimistic would rather blame their genes for who they are (considering heritability for weight in developed countries is likely around 70%). not to mention how traits like aggression and violence have been shown to have genetic basis too - are we going to start excusing people or holding everyone to different standards because some have greater genetic propensity for certain traits and it's harder for them to overcome them? also the part about how we already test for some genetic diseases/conditions on birth so why not go all out and get thousands of known single-gene disorders including psychological problems tested? some questions to think about.
little sceptical about the focus on polygenic-score research since GWAS using SNPs can only predict 7% of variance in liability to schizophrenia and 11% of variance in school achievement right now. just a thought: considering schizophrenia is around 50% heritable, maybe we shouldn't just be looking at gene sequences but epigenetics as well? the possibility of dna modification is not mentioned at all though imo it might account for a substantial percentage of heritability too.
November 13, 2018
This is an important book, 30 years in the making, on the discoveries of gene science and DNA. It summarises the research on behavioural genetics and what that means for us. I never realised just how influential genes were before reading this book. Genetic factors rather than environmental factors play the overwhelming role on how we turn out. All the effort parents spend getting their kids into the best schools doesn’t really make a difference in overall outcome. A problem with this book is that it can be a bit repetitive, restating points that were already made. Approaches to education and clinical psychology look set to be rethought.
One thing that I would have liked to know about that is not in the book is the impact of DNA and genetics on a person being transgender. Can DNA predict that?
One thing that I would have liked to know about that is not in the book is the impact of DNA and genetics on a person being transgender. Can DNA predict that?
December 1, 2021
Needs more figures! Some glaring errors would have been caught if Plomin had bothered to ask some scientists to read it over. Odd choice he did not.
May 30, 2020
Rarely have I felt such contrast between the quality of a book’s content, and its form. Let me explain:
- One the one hand, Plomin presents decades of brilliant research and the consequences it will have leading into the future, for our societies as well as our social relationships, school system, health system and ultimately in public policies. It is truly fascinating and it will take a while before we fully grasp what the impact of “the DNA revolution” will be.
- On the other hand, this book infuriated me. Not at all because of its somewhat controversial content and the arguments that are made, but mainly due to its lack of structure, its vagueness in key parts, the absence of understandable definitions. The absence of any strong story-telling - not for a lack of trying - is also noteworthy. Frankly, I find it so astonishing that I wonder whether the responsibility for such a debacle shouldn’t be blamed more on the editor than the author. How can one let such a great researcher publish the conclusion of decades of work in such a poor writing? It saddens me, because the arguments made in this book - and the underlying research - demand our attention and a public discussion. In that sense, this book is a wasted opportunity because its lack of clarity is a barrier to reaching a very broad public.
If I can give you one piece of advice, it would be to start reading the Epilogue and Afterword to the first edition. They provide a great summary of the book and open the discussion on key topics.
- One the one hand, Plomin presents decades of brilliant research and the consequences it will have leading into the future, for our societies as well as our social relationships, school system, health system and ultimately in public policies. It is truly fascinating and it will take a while before we fully grasp what the impact of “the DNA revolution” will be.
- On the other hand, this book infuriated me. Not at all because of its somewhat controversial content and the arguments that are made, but mainly due to its lack of structure, its vagueness in key parts, the absence of understandable definitions. The absence of any strong story-telling - not for a lack of trying - is also noteworthy. Frankly, I find it so astonishing that I wonder whether the responsibility for such a debacle shouldn’t be blamed more on the editor than the author. How can one let such a great researcher publish the conclusion of decades of work in such a poor writing? It saddens me, because the arguments made in this book - and the underlying research - demand our attention and a public discussion. In that sense, this book is a wasted opportunity because its lack of clarity is a barrier to reaching a very broad public.
If I can give you one piece of advice, it would be to start reading the Epilogue and Afterword to the first edition. They provide a great summary of the book and open the discussion on key topics.
February 27, 2024
This book really fired me up intellectually, and I loved it, despite not agreeing with all of the author’s interpretations of the data. Plomin makes the strong claim that genetics is the single biggest systematic force that shapes who we are (our psychological traits). He shows evidence that traits like intelligence, propensity for depression, and any other psychological trait you care to name are on average roughly 50% heritable. He goes on to claim that environment has negligible systematic impact, thought it obviously does have a hand in shaping us, just not in a way we can predict. Plomin is positioned really well to write this book, as he led a lot of really interesting large twin studies and child adoption studies, including the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS, 16,000 twin pairs).
Plomin presents the concept of heritability more clearly than in any popular science book I’ve read, and that was one of the major strengths of the book. He explains that heritability isn't a constant, and it represents a single population at a single time. For example, weight is more heritable in the US than it is in poor countries. Wealthy countries have more access to fattening fast food and this exposes more genetically vulnerable people to high calorie diets. One common confusion in the concept of heritability is that it represents what is and not what could be. Another important point is that heritability is about the one percent of DNA that differs between us. Stuff like having two legs is not heritable technically, it's just part of our background genetics. It doesn't vary so we don't measure it as heritable.
One of Plomin’s most eye-opening points in this book was his argument that a lot of seemingly environmental factors could be a reflection of genetics. For example, instead of reading to your children making them more likely to like reading, it could just be that parents who like to read produce children who genetically like to read. Data from twin studies supports this. The correlation between adopted children and their parents for a range of “environmental” factors turned out to be quite small, things like how much kids watch TV, how much they read, and how much they weigh. Instead, these traits correlate pretty strongly with their biological parents, who they were not raised by. For example, the classically environmental measure television watching, was about 33% heritable in adoption studies. On average, "environmental" factors turned out to be about 25% heritable. And usually genetics accounted for about half the reported effect of a given environmental factor in Plomin’s studies.
Where I think he went pretty off the rails is in the interpretation of the effect of environmental factors. Plomin uses two main lines to evidence to argue that environment doesn’t reliably significantly affect what psychological traits we’ll grow up to have. One is the effect of school quality on children’s standardized test scores after correcting for genetics (often using proxy measures like scores when they entered school) and the other is twin studies in which two non-related twins were brought up in the same household. I have a lot of criticisms of the design and data interpretation in both regards. For example, he generalizes the school findings to schools everywhere, despite the fact that many countries have far more school quality disparity than the UK (like the US). Regarding the shared environment twin studies, it's an inherently weak research design to compare two children brought up by the same parents and just collect a bunch of those pairs. Differences between that pair's life experiences/genetics or both will be amplified in this study design making it look like the environment has completely random effects on their development, which is exactly what Plomin concludes. It would be a much stronger research design to have one set of parents bring up hundreds of kids, but of course that’s impossible. It’s just not possible to make strong research claims from the type of shared environment design Plomin utilizes, in my opinion, yet he does. Weirdly, he also seems to forget lessons he himself teaches us earlier in the book. For example, he concludes again and again that shared environment has a negligible systematic effect. However, earlier, he shows us that the heritability of weight differs dramatically between rich and poor countries. Putting these two pieces of evidence together, we can see that as a result of shared environmental influences, the average weight of Americans systematically ballooned starting in the early 1980s, which is directly against Plomin’s contention that we can’t reliably alter traits like weight with environment at a population level.
This brings me to my biggest criticism of the book: the lack of discussion on gene-environment interactions. I guess he has good personal incentive to skirt this topic, given that Plomin’s studies aren’t typically statistically powered to see gene-environment effects. That’s not his fault, since very few studies are. Given the effect size of most genes that influence behavior, you need sample sizes of above 200k people. Thus, not accounting for the interaction inflates the heritability estimate. This is fine, because complex models can’t account for all factors due to resource limitations, but it’s inappropriate to conclude that the misappropriated variance indicates that environment had a negligible systematic effect, since this will likely not be true once the studies are sufficiently powered.
I liked Plomin’s discussion on polygenic risk scores and how they are likely to change medicine and society largely. In general, the book made me think much more carefully about my assumptions about environmental factors, as I was pretty convinced a large part of them is probably genetically determined. I enjoyed critically thinking through Plomin’s, in my view, misguided interpretations in the second half of the book.
Overall, would totally recommend this bold, unique, and rigorously researched book to anyone interested in behavioral genetics or human nature. However, I’d advise the reader to think carefully about Plomin’s assertions about the systematic effect of environmental factors given the data he actually presents.
Plomin presents the concept of heritability more clearly than in any popular science book I’ve read, and that was one of the major strengths of the book. He explains that heritability isn't a constant, and it represents a single population at a single time. For example, weight is more heritable in the US than it is in poor countries. Wealthy countries have more access to fattening fast food and this exposes more genetically vulnerable people to high calorie diets. One common confusion in the concept of heritability is that it represents what is and not what could be. Another important point is that heritability is about the one percent of DNA that differs between us. Stuff like having two legs is not heritable technically, it's just part of our background genetics. It doesn't vary so we don't measure it as heritable.
One of Plomin’s most eye-opening points in this book was his argument that a lot of seemingly environmental factors could be a reflection of genetics. For example, instead of reading to your children making them more likely to like reading, it could just be that parents who like to read produce children who genetically like to read. Data from twin studies supports this. The correlation between adopted children and their parents for a range of “environmental” factors turned out to be quite small, things like how much kids watch TV, how much they read, and how much they weigh. Instead, these traits correlate pretty strongly with their biological parents, who they were not raised by. For example, the classically environmental measure television watching, was about 33% heritable in adoption studies. On average, "environmental" factors turned out to be about 25% heritable. And usually genetics accounted for about half the reported effect of a given environmental factor in Plomin’s studies.
Where I think he went pretty off the rails is in the interpretation of the effect of environmental factors. Plomin uses two main lines to evidence to argue that environment doesn’t reliably significantly affect what psychological traits we’ll grow up to have. One is the effect of school quality on children’s standardized test scores after correcting for genetics (often using proxy measures like scores when they entered school) and the other is twin studies in which two non-related twins were brought up in the same household. I have a lot of criticisms of the design and data interpretation in both regards. For example, he generalizes the school findings to schools everywhere, despite the fact that many countries have far more school quality disparity than the UK (like the US). Regarding the shared environment twin studies, it's an inherently weak research design to compare two children brought up by the same parents and just collect a bunch of those pairs. Differences between that pair's life experiences/genetics or both will be amplified in this study design making it look like the environment has completely random effects on their development, which is exactly what Plomin concludes. It would be a much stronger research design to have one set of parents bring up hundreds of kids, but of course that’s impossible. It’s just not possible to make strong research claims from the type of shared environment design Plomin utilizes, in my opinion, yet he does. Weirdly, he also seems to forget lessons he himself teaches us earlier in the book. For example, he concludes again and again that shared environment has a negligible systematic effect. However, earlier, he shows us that the heritability of weight differs dramatically between rich and poor countries. Putting these two pieces of evidence together, we can see that as a result of shared environmental influences, the average weight of Americans systematically ballooned starting in the early 1980s, which is directly against Plomin’s contention that we can’t reliably alter traits like weight with environment at a population level.
This brings me to my biggest criticism of the book: the lack of discussion on gene-environment interactions. I guess he has good personal incentive to skirt this topic, given that Plomin’s studies aren’t typically statistically powered to see gene-environment effects. That’s not his fault, since very few studies are. Given the effect size of most genes that influence behavior, you need sample sizes of above 200k people. Thus, not accounting for the interaction inflates the heritability estimate. This is fine, because complex models can’t account for all factors due to resource limitations, but it’s inappropriate to conclude that the misappropriated variance indicates that environment had a negligible systematic effect, since this will likely not be true once the studies are sufficiently powered.
I liked Plomin’s discussion on polygenic risk scores and how they are likely to change medicine and society largely. In general, the book made me think much more carefully about my assumptions about environmental factors, as I was pretty convinced a large part of them is probably genetically determined. I enjoyed critically thinking through Plomin’s, in my view, misguided interpretations in the second half of the book.
Overall, would totally recommend this bold, unique, and rigorously researched book to anyone interested in behavioral genetics or human nature. However, I’d advise the reader to think carefully about Plomin’s assertions about the systematic effect of environmental factors given the data he actually presents.
February 21, 2021
Blueprint: How DNA makes us who we are | Robert Plomin, MIT Press, p261.
With a slightly different viewpoint than "She Has Her Mother's Laugh," Blueprint by Robert Plomin gives human genes more influence in who we are. He hopes this will make us all more empathetic than potentially our present default (a.k.a., how can we expect more, that person was merely born that way. A gene-based determinism.) Ironic, given his perspective, would or should also ascribe capacity for empathy as primarily influenced by genetics.
In the authors' view, psychotherapy will be a preventive practice focused on your identified inheritable predispositions at some future point.
As the science evolves, Polmin predicts that we will have large enough samples to chart the range of impact your polygenic score accounts for, which he indicates is 50% of who you are. Parents or the home, 25%, and all other factors the balance. In one regard, this view lets parents and schools substantially off the hook. Only in the cases of damaging trauma is his thesis disrupted in his perspective.
However, given that variations in thousands of genes combine to contribute to one aspect of who you are and what activates a mutation or doesn't is often environmental, caring about your environment's architecture remains a top concern.
Plomin has odd ideas on education, too; when he notes its purpose is to allow children the "opportunity to find out what they like to do and what they are really good at." No, this is not nor has it ever been the purpose of education.
In the timeless, nature versus nurture debate, Blueprint adds to the discourse in an unsatisfactory fashion.
With a slightly different viewpoint than "She Has Her Mother's Laugh," Blueprint by Robert Plomin gives human genes more influence in who we are. He hopes this will make us all more empathetic than potentially our present default (a.k.a., how can we expect more, that person was merely born that way. A gene-based determinism.) Ironic, given his perspective, would or should also ascribe capacity for empathy as primarily influenced by genetics.
In the authors' view, psychotherapy will be a preventive practice focused on your identified inheritable predispositions at some future point.
As the science evolves, Polmin predicts that we will have large enough samples to chart the range of impact your polygenic score accounts for, which he indicates is 50% of who you are. Parents or the home, 25%, and all other factors the balance. In one regard, this view lets parents and schools substantially off the hook. Only in the cases of damaging trauma is his thesis disrupted in his perspective.
However, given that variations in thousands of genes combine to contribute to one aspect of who you are and what activates a mutation or doesn't is often environmental, caring about your environment's architecture remains a top concern.
Plomin has odd ideas on education, too; when he notes its purpose is to allow children the "opportunity to find out what they like to do and what they are really good at." No, this is not nor has it ever been the purpose of education.
In the timeless, nature versus nurture debate, Blueprint adds to the discourse in an unsatisfactory fashion.
January 21, 2021
كلنا نسير على قدمين ، ولدينا جميعًا عيون في مقدمة رؤوسنا ، ولدينا جميعًا ردود أفعال أساسية مثل إغلاق أعيننا استجابةً لنفخة من الهواء. تتم برمجة هذه الخصائص بنسبة 99 في المائة من حمضنا النووي الذي لا يختلف بيننا. في المقابل ، فإن التوريث هو حوالي 1 في المائة من الحمض النووي الذي يختلف بيننا ويسهم في اختلافاتنا في السلوك. على الرغم من أن الخصائص الفطرية مبرمجة بواسطة الحمض النووي ، لا يمكننا التحدث عن وراثتها لأن الخصائص الفطرية لا تختلف بيننا.
كلمات مثل "جيني" و "موروث" - والعبارات العامية مثل "في جيناتي" أو "في حمضك النووي" - تعني أي شيء يتعلق بالحمض النووي. وهي تشمل 99 في المائة من حمضنا النووي العالمي بالإضافة إلى 1 في المائة التي تجعلنا مختلفين. وهي تشمل أيضًا طفرات الحمض النووي التي لم يتم توريثها أو نقلها إلى نسلنا ، مثل طفرات الحمض النووي في خلايا الجلد التي تسبب سرطان الجلد.
في العلم ، عندما يكون للكلمات معانٍ ودلالات متعددة ، فمن المفيد صياغة كلمة جديدة تعني فقط ما تريدها أن تعنيه. هذا هو سبب وجود كلمة "التوريث" . إنها تفهرس إلى أي مدى يمكن توريث سمة مثل زيادة الوزن. إن 70٪ من التوريث بالنسبة للوزن يعني أن 70٪ من الفروق بين الناس في أوزانهم يمكن أن تُعزى إلى الاختلافات بينهم في تسلسل الحمض النووي الموروث. قد تكون نسبة الـ 30 في المائة الأخرى ناتجة عن عوامل بيئية منهجية مثل النظام الغذائي والتمارين الرياضية ، ولكن ، كما سنرى ، ما يجعلنا مختلفين بيئيًا هو سمات عشوائية غير منهجية لا نملك سوى القليل من التحكم فيها.
.
Robert Plomin
Blueprint
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
كلمات مثل "جيني" و "موروث" - والعبارات العامية مثل "في جيناتي" أو "في حمضك النووي" - تعني أي شيء يتعلق بالحمض النووي. وهي تشمل 99 في المائة من حمضنا النووي العالمي بالإضافة إلى 1 في المائة التي تجعلنا مختلفين. وهي تشمل أيضًا طفرات الحمض النووي التي لم يتم توريثها أو نقلها إلى نسلنا ، مثل طفرات الحمض النووي في خلايا الجلد التي تسبب سرطان الجلد.
في العلم ، عندما يكون للكلمات معانٍ ودلالات متعددة ، فمن المفيد صياغة كلمة جديدة تعني فقط ما تريدها أن تعنيه. هذا هو سبب وجود كلمة "التوريث" . إنها تفهرس إلى أي مدى يمكن توريث سمة مثل زيادة الوزن. إن 70٪ من التوريث بالنسبة للوزن يعني أن 70٪ من الفروق بين الناس في أوزانهم يمكن أن تُعزى إلى الاختلافات بينهم في تسلسل الحمض النووي الموروث. قد تكون نسبة الـ 30 في المائة الأخرى ناتجة عن عوامل بيئية منهجية مثل النظام الغذائي والتمارين الرياضية ، ولكن ، كما سنرى ، ما يجعلنا مختلفين بيئيًا هو سمات عشوائية غير منهجية لا نملك سوى القليل من التحكم فيها.
.
Robert Plomin
Blueprint
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
Read
August 22, 2022كتاب مهم ومختلف عن ما مر بي من كتب مترجمة في الوراثة ..يوالف علم الوراثة مع علم النفس، ويؤسس لأهم طرق الاستفادة من بيانات الجينوم للتنبؤ بما سنكون عليه ،،
احتوى الكثير من التوضيح حول الفرق بين مفهوم التوريث والتنشئة والبيئة ، إذ بدت كل هذه المسميات متشابكة بشكل كبير ،، و��يف يجعلنا الدي ان ايه مختلفين على مدى واسع يضم تدرجات لنفس الصفة وليس امتلاك او عدم امتلاك الصفة..
حاول وضع تصور مختلف للأمراض النفسية من ناحية كونها نهايات طرفية لصفات نمتلكها جميعا، وكيف تساهم البيئة بالوصول لهذه النهاية ولا تتسبب بشكل مباشر بهذا ،،..
خاض بنقاش مهم حول التبعات الاخلاقية والاقتصادية والاجتماعية للدراسات التابعة لعلم الوراثة السلوكي ، وأهمية اتخاذ قرارات حاسمة حول إعطاء فرص مختلفة للناس المختلفين، والبحث عن مغالطات الاقتصاد في مجالات تسلق السلم الوظيفي بالجهد الشخصي او كون مهن افضل من مهن أخرى من ناحية المردود المادي بشكل غير مبني على اساس عادل بين الناس ..
احتوي الكتاب على العديد من الدراسات البطولة وشرح لكيفية قرائتها احصائيا والتعامل معها والاستفادة منها ...
كان الفصل الاخير مكرر وغير مفيد ابدا وهذه ملاحظة على الهامش ...
يستحق القراءة والفهم
احتوى الكثير من التوضيح حول الفرق بين مفهوم التوريث والتنشئة والبيئة ، إذ بدت كل هذه المسميات متشابكة بشكل كبير ،، و��يف يجعلنا الدي ان ايه مختلفين على مدى واسع يضم تدرجات لنفس الصفة وليس امتلاك او عدم امتلاك الصفة..
حاول وضع تصور مختلف للأمراض النفسية من ناحية كونها نهايات طرفية لصفات نمتلكها جميعا، وكيف تساهم البيئة بالوصول لهذه النهاية ولا تتسبب بشكل مباشر بهذا ،،..
خاض بنقاش مهم حول التبعات الاخلاقية والاقتصادية والاجتماعية للدراسات التابعة لعلم الوراثة السلوكي ، وأهمية اتخاذ قرارات حاسمة حول إعطاء فرص مختلفة للناس المختلفين، والبحث عن مغالطات الاقتصاد في مجالات تسلق السلم الوظيفي بالجهد الشخصي او كون مهن افضل من مهن أخرى من ناحية المردود المادي بشكل غير مبني على اساس عادل بين الناس ..
احتوي الكتاب على العديد من الدراسات البطولة وشرح لكيفية قرائتها احصائيا والتعامل معها والاستفادة منها ...
كان الفصل الاخير مكرر وغير مفيد ابدا وهذه ملاحظة على الهامش ...
يستحق القراءة والفهم
January 14, 2021
Mám ráda populárně naučnou literaturu, toto na mě působí nepopulárně naučně. Jsem matematik, ale tohle fakt nedávám:
"polygenní skóre na základě 97 celogenomově signifikantních SNP předpovídá 1% variance, ale polygenní skóre zahrnující 2000 SNP predikuje 4% variance BMI. Zahrnutím ještě dalších SNP do polygenního skóre zvýšíme predikci na 6% variance..."
1 poznatek mi z knihy zůstal: hmotnost člověka je ovlivněna geneticky (i spousta dalších vlastností, dokonce i psychologických znaků).
Kniha by samozřejmě byla zajímavější, kdyby někdo podobně podrobně rozebral můj vlastní genom, ale takto obecně to bylo úmorné.
Varování: Jestli přede mnou ještě někdo zmíní polygenní skóre, doporučuji, aby se ode mě vzdálil víc než na vzdálenost paže. Pokud budu mít v ruce nějakou věc, jako např. deštník, pak ještě o to dál.
"polygenní skóre na základě 97 celogenomově signifikantních SNP předpovídá 1% variance, ale polygenní skóre zahrnující 2000 SNP predikuje 4% variance BMI. Zahrnutím ještě dalších SNP do polygenního skóre zvýšíme predikci na 6% variance..."
1 poznatek mi z knihy zůstal: hmotnost člověka je ovlivněna geneticky (i spousta dalších vlastností, dokonce i psychologických znaků).
Kniha by samozřejmě byla zajímavější, kdyby někdo podobně podrobně rozebral můj vlastní genom, ale takto obecně to bylo úmorné.
Varování: Jestli přede mnou ještě někdo zmíní polygenní skóre, doporučuji, aby se ode mě vzdálil víc než na vzdálenost paže. Pokud budu mít v ruce nějakou věc, jako např. deštník, pak ještě o to dál.
February 7, 2021
Short but too dry and technical. Considering the fast developments in the field of genetics - it might also be somewhat out of date (since it is outside my field its hard to tell). Still, I learned some new things. Developments in predicting human psychology from genetic scores is something that clearly will rise in importance.
August 14, 2019
Brilliant -- a must-read for anyone interested in a current (2018) take on the field of genetics and its projected future. Offers valuable insights into how mental illness may soon be redefined by genetic causes rather than observed symptoms and how diagnosis will switch from asking whether or not a patient has a particular disorder to identifying where the patient lies on a polygenic bell curve distribution incorporating many dozens/hundreds of SNPs associated with the condition. In the words of the author: "the abnormal is normal," making it impossible to draw an artificial line above which individuals have a disorder and below which they lack it.
"Genetics... explains more of the psychological differences between us than everything else put together." (viii)
"What makes us different environmentally are random experiences, not systematic forces like families." (ix)
"DNA predictors of psychological traits... are unique in psychology because they do not change during our lives. This means that they can foretell our futures from birth. For example, in the case of mental illness, we no longer need to wait until people show brain or behavioural signs of the illness and then rely on asking them about their symptoms. [...] DNA predictors open the door to prediction and, eventually, prevention of these problems before they create collateral damage that is difficult to repair." (x)
"... inherited DNA differences account for about 50 per cent of our psychological differences." (5)
"TEDS [The Early Development Study] took the lead in showing that what we call disorders are not genetically distinct from the normal range of variation. Although it might not sound very exciting, this finding has far-reaching implications for clinical psychology because it means that there are no disorders, that the 'abnormal is normal.' " (23)
"... another of the 'big findings' of genetic research: heritability increases during development." (27)
"Growing up in the same family does not make children similar in weight unless the children share genes." (28)
"Characteristics of adolescents' peer groups are especially highly heritable, such as the peer group's academic orientation or their delinquency. [...] With friends, you can select individuals similar to you genetically, actively creating correlations between your genes and your experiences with friends." (45)
"The nature of nurture suggests a new way of thinking about experience. In the past, psychologists assumed that the environment is what happens to us passively, but genetic research on the nature of nurture suggests a more active model of experience. Psychological environments are not 'out there,' imposed on us passively. They are 'in here,' experienced by us as we actively perceive, interpret, select, modify and even create environments correlated with our genetic propensities. Our genetically rich differences in personality, psychopathology and cognitive ability make us experience life differently. For example, genetic differences in children's aptitudes and appetites affect the extent to which they take advantage of educational opportunities. Genetic differences in our vulnerability to depression affect the extent to which we interpret experiences positively or negatively. This is a general model fro thinking about how we use the environment to get what our DNA blueprint whispers that it wants." (51)
"... one of the big findings from behavioural genetic research is counterintuitive: genetic influences become more important as we grow older. No psychological trait shows less genetic influence with age, but the domain where heritability increases most dramatically during development is cognitive ability." (52)
"By sixteen years of age, the correlation for intelligence was the same for adopted children and their biological parents as for children reared by their biological parents. The correlations between these adopted children and their adoptive parents, who share nurture but not nature, hovered near zero. [...] The few available studies of later life suggest that increasing heritability continues throughout adulthood to about 80 per cent heritability at the age of sixty-five." (53-4)
"... Slight nudges from genetics early in development are magnified as time goes by. That is, the same genetic factors snowball into larger and larger effects, a process that is known as genetic amplification. Genetic effects could be amplified as we increasingly select, modify and create environments correlated with our genetic propensities. For example, children with a genetic propensity for high intelligence are likely to read books and select friends and hobbies that stimulate their cognitive development. This is the active model of experience mentioned earlier. [...] I like the idea that we grow into our genes. The older we get, the more we become who we are genetically. To some extent, especially for cognitive ability, this means we become more like our parents as we age. Perhaps this is why people, as they get older, often seem to fear that they are becoming just like their parents." (57)
"... psychological problems are diagnosed as if they are diseases that you either have or don't have. This either/or mindset means that scientists have tried to look for *the* cause of the disorder, something that makes 'us' different from 'them.' [but in reality...] It's a matter of more or less (quantitative), not either/or (qualitative). [...] It means there are no disorders - they are just the extremes of quantitative dimensions. That is what is meant by the slogan 'Abnormal is normal.'" (58-9)
"A shift in vocabulary is needed so that we talk about 'dimensions' rather than 'disorders.' (62)
"We all have DNA differences that affect our risk for psychological problems. The more of these DNA differences we have, the more problems we are likely to have. It's all quantitative - a matter of more or less." (65)
"Inherited DNA differences contribute substantially to your risk of being anxious or depressed but they do not specify whether you will be diagnosed as anxious or depressed. Whether you become anxious or you become depressed is caused by environmental factors. In other words, genetic risks are general across disorders; environmental risks are specific to a disorder." (67)
"... the genetic architecture of psychopathology suggests just three broad genetic clusters, in contrast to the dozens of disorders in psychologists' diagnostic manuals. One cluster includes problems like anxiety and depression, which are called *internalizing* problems because they are directed inward. The second genetic cluster, *externalizing* problems, includes problems in conduct and aggressiveness in childhood, and, in adulthood, antisocial behaviour, alcohol dependence and other substance abuse. Psychotic experiences such as hallucinations and other extreme thought disorders form the third genetic cluster, which includes schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression." (67)
"Most genetic effects are also general across cognitive abilities. For example, cognitive abilities such as vocabulary, spatial ability and abstract reasoning yield genetic correlations greater than 0.5, even though these abilities are thought to involve very different neurocognitive processes." (68)
"The generalist-genes model makes more sense genetically and evolutionarily than the traditional modularity model. There are two great principles of genetics as they affect complex psychological traits like psychopathology and cognitive abilities as well as neurocognitive traits involving brain structure and function. First, genetic influence is caused by thousands of DNA differences of extremely small effect size; this is called *polygenicity*. Second, each DNA difference affects many traits; this is called *pleiotropy*. Given polygenicity and pleiotropy, it seems likely that generalist genes result in generalist brains. It also makes sense to assume that the brain evolved as a general tool for solving problems. Natural selection did not care about making things easy for neuroscientists by creating neat modules with specific functions. In fact, the brain did not evolve, people did. Our ancestors' survival depended on how well their brainpower translated into behaviour." (70)
"Growing up in the same family with someone does not make you resemble them beyond your genetic similarity." (73)
"The absence of evidence for shared environmental influence has been found not only for traditional personality traits like extraversion and neuroticism but also for traits that might seem especially susceptible to parental influence, such as altruism, caring and kindness. [factor: *agreeableness*]"( 74)
"The only exception from hundreds of traits that shows some evidence of shared environmental influence is religious and political beliefs... even here shared environmental influence accounts for only 20 per cent of the variance." (83)
"Parents *can* make a difference to their child but, on average in the population, parenting differences don't make a difference in children's outcomes beyond the genes they share." (84)
"Parents are the most important relationship in children's lives. Still, it is important that parents get the message that children are not blobs of clay that can be moulded however they wish. Parents are not carpenters building a child by following a blueprint." (85)
"It is also important for parents to know that, beyond genetics, most of what happens to children involves random experiences over which parents have no control. The good news is that these don't make much of a difference in the long run. [...] Some children bounce back sooner, some later, after difficult experiences such as parental divorce, moving house and losing friends. They bounce back to their genetic trajectory." (85)
"Parenting is not a means to an end. [...] Just as with our partner and friends, our relationship with our children should be based on being with them, not trying to change them." (86)
"Differences in schools do not make much of a difference in children's achievement. [...] This does not mean that the quality of teaching and supporting offered by schools is unimportant. It matters a lot for the quality of life of students, but it doesn't make a difference in their educational achievement." (87)
"Schools should be supportive places for children to spend more than a decade of their lives, places where they can learn basic skills like literacy and numeracy but also learn to enjoy learning." (89)
"One general message that should emerge from these discoveries is tolerance for others - and for ourselves. Rather than blaming other people and ourselves for being depressed, slow to learn or overweight, we should recognize and respect the huge impact of genetics on individual differences. Genetics, not lack of willpower, makes some people more prone to problems such as depression, learning disabilities and obesity. Genetics also makes it harder for some people to mitigate their problems. Success and failure - and credit and blame - in overcoming problems should be calibrated relative to genetic strengths and weaknesses." (91)
"Equality of opportunity does not translate to equality of outcome. If educational opportunities were the same for all children, would their outcomes be the same in terms of school achievement? The answer is clearly 'no' because even if environmental differences were eliminated genetic differences would remain. [...] Heritability of outcomes can be seen as an index of equality of opportunity." (94)
"Some recent evidence suggests [that in the US,] decreased heritability and increased shared environmental influence on educational attainment, which suggests there is greater inequality of educational opportunity." (97)
"Selective schools do not improve students' achievement once we take into account the fact that these schools preselect students with the best chance of success." (98)
"Self-selection is an important factor to the extent that people are free to choose what they do to earn a living. Self-selection involves listening to genetic whispers, not just about intelligence but also about personality and interests." (104)
"Individual differences in income are, like everything else, substantially heritable, about 40 per cent. Income correlates with intelligence, and genetics drives this correlation. But this does not mean that higher intelligence merits more income. I would argue that genetic wealth is its own reward. If society really wanted to reduce income inequality, it could do so directly and immediately with a tax system that redistributes wealth." (104)
"I would argue that more important than the relative inequality of income for this top 1 per cent is the absolute inequality of the bottom third, whose debts exceed their assets." (105)
"Dimensions provide more power in GWA studies than disorders because every individual counts, whether they are low, middle or high in the distribution. [...] Another huge advantage of studying dimensions rather than disorders is that the same sample can be used to study many traits, whereas samples selected for a particular disorder are only useful to study that disorder." (118)
"Although the effects of individual SNPs are tiny, these effects can be added like we add items on a test to create a composite score. [...] They are generally called *polygenic scores*" (133)
"Unlike any other predictors, polygenic scores are just as predictive from birth as from any other age because inherited DNA sequence does not change during life." (140)
"Polygenic scores are useful for individual prediction only as long as we keep in mind that the prediction is probabilistic, not a certainty [/not deterministic]." (145)
"My high polygenic score does not mean that I must resign myself to being overweight. It means that I am genetically predisposed to put on the pounds and that I find it harder to lose them. Forewarned can be forearmed." (146)
"Polygenic scores will really take off in clinical psychology as soon as we discover treatments that interact with genotypes, in the sense that the success of treatments depends on polygenic scores. Treatments can then be tailored to individuals on the basis of their polygenic scores. For example, profiles of polygenic scores might be used to predict whether a depressed person will respond better to talking therapies or drugs, or to a certain type of talking therapy or drug." (165)
"Many psychological problems, such as alcohol dependence and eating disorders, are difficult to cure once they become full-blown problems, in part because they cause collateral damage that is difficult to repair. Preventing problems before they occur is much more cost-effective economically, as well as psychologically and socially." (165)
"Genetics... explains more of the psychological differences between us than everything else put together." (viii)
"What makes us different environmentally are random experiences, not systematic forces like families." (ix)
"DNA predictors of psychological traits... are unique in psychology because they do not change during our lives. This means that they can foretell our futures from birth. For example, in the case of mental illness, we no longer need to wait until people show brain or behavioural signs of the illness and then rely on asking them about their symptoms. [...] DNA predictors open the door to prediction and, eventually, prevention of these problems before they create collateral damage that is difficult to repair." (x)
"... inherited DNA differences account for about 50 per cent of our psychological differences." (5)
"TEDS [The Early Development Study] took the lead in showing that what we call disorders are not genetically distinct from the normal range of variation. Although it might not sound very exciting, this finding has far-reaching implications for clinical psychology because it means that there are no disorders, that the 'abnormal is normal.' " (23)
"... another of the 'big findings' of genetic research: heritability increases during development." (27)
"Growing up in the same family does not make children similar in weight unless the children share genes." (28)
"Characteristics of adolescents' peer groups are especially highly heritable, such as the peer group's academic orientation or their delinquency. [...] With friends, you can select individuals similar to you genetically, actively creating correlations between your genes and your experiences with friends." (45)
"The nature of nurture suggests a new way of thinking about experience. In the past, psychologists assumed that the environment is what happens to us passively, but genetic research on the nature of nurture suggests a more active model of experience. Psychological environments are not 'out there,' imposed on us passively. They are 'in here,' experienced by us as we actively perceive, interpret, select, modify and even create environments correlated with our genetic propensities. Our genetically rich differences in personality, psychopathology and cognitive ability make us experience life differently. For example, genetic differences in children's aptitudes and appetites affect the extent to which they take advantage of educational opportunities. Genetic differences in our vulnerability to depression affect the extent to which we interpret experiences positively or negatively. This is a general model fro thinking about how we use the environment to get what our DNA blueprint whispers that it wants." (51)
"... one of the big findings from behavioural genetic research is counterintuitive: genetic influences become more important as we grow older. No psychological trait shows less genetic influence with age, but the domain where heritability increases most dramatically during development is cognitive ability." (52)
"By sixteen years of age, the correlation for intelligence was the same for adopted children and their biological parents as for children reared by their biological parents. The correlations between these adopted children and their adoptive parents, who share nurture but not nature, hovered near zero. [...] The few available studies of later life suggest that increasing heritability continues throughout adulthood to about 80 per cent heritability at the age of sixty-five." (53-4)
"... Slight nudges from genetics early in development are magnified as time goes by. That is, the same genetic factors snowball into larger and larger effects, a process that is known as genetic amplification. Genetic effects could be amplified as we increasingly select, modify and create environments correlated with our genetic propensities. For example, children with a genetic propensity for high intelligence are likely to read books and select friends and hobbies that stimulate their cognitive development. This is the active model of experience mentioned earlier. [...] I like the idea that we grow into our genes. The older we get, the more we become who we are genetically. To some extent, especially for cognitive ability, this means we become more like our parents as we age. Perhaps this is why people, as they get older, often seem to fear that they are becoming just like their parents." (57)
"... psychological problems are diagnosed as if they are diseases that you either have or don't have. This either/or mindset means that scientists have tried to look for *the* cause of the disorder, something that makes 'us' different from 'them.' [but in reality...] It's a matter of more or less (quantitative), not either/or (qualitative). [...] It means there are no disorders - they are just the extremes of quantitative dimensions. That is what is meant by the slogan 'Abnormal is normal.'" (58-9)
"A shift in vocabulary is needed so that we talk about 'dimensions' rather than 'disorders.' (62)
"We all have DNA differences that affect our risk for psychological problems. The more of these DNA differences we have, the more problems we are likely to have. It's all quantitative - a matter of more or less." (65)
"Inherited DNA differences contribute substantially to your risk of being anxious or depressed but they do not specify whether you will be diagnosed as anxious or depressed. Whether you become anxious or you become depressed is caused by environmental factors. In other words, genetic risks are general across disorders; environmental risks are specific to a disorder." (67)
"... the genetic architecture of psychopathology suggests just three broad genetic clusters, in contrast to the dozens of disorders in psychologists' diagnostic manuals. One cluster includes problems like anxiety and depression, which are called *internalizing* problems because they are directed inward. The second genetic cluster, *externalizing* problems, includes problems in conduct and aggressiveness in childhood, and, in adulthood, antisocial behaviour, alcohol dependence and other substance abuse. Psychotic experiences such as hallucinations and other extreme thought disorders form the third genetic cluster, which includes schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression." (67)
"Most genetic effects are also general across cognitive abilities. For example, cognitive abilities such as vocabulary, spatial ability and abstract reasoning yield genetic correlations greater than 0.5, even though these abilities are thought to involve very different neurocognitive processes." (68)
"The generalist-genes model makes more sense genetically and evolutionarily than the traditional modularity model. There are two great principles of genetics as they affect complex psychological traits like psychopathology and cognitive abilities as well as neurocognitive traits involving brain structure and function. First, genetic influence is caused by thousands of DNA differences of extremely small effect size; this is called *polygenicity*. Second, each DNA difference affects many traits; this is called *pleiotropy*. Given polygenicity and pleiotropy, it seems likely that generalist genes result in generalist brains. It also makes sense to assume that the brain evolved as a general tool for solving problems. Natural selection did not care about making things easy for neuroscientists by creating neat modules with specific functions. In fact, the brain did not evolve, people did. Our ancestors' survival depended on how well their brainpower translated into behaviour." (70)
"Growing up in the same family with someone does not make you resemble them beyond your genetic similarity." (73)
"The absence of evidence for shared environmental influence has been found not only for traditional personality traits like extraversion and neuroticism but also for traits that might seem especially susceptible to parental influence, such as altruism, caring and kindness. [factor: *agreeableness*]"( 74)
"The only exception from hundreds of traits that shows some evidence of shared environmental influence is religious and political beliefs... even here shared environmental influence accounts for only 20 per cent of the variance." (83)
"Parents *can* make a difference to their child but, on average in the population, parenting differences don't make a difference in children's outcomes beyond the genes they share." (84)
"Parents are the most important relationship in children's lives. Still, it is important that parents get the message that children are not blobs of clay that can be moulded however they wish. Parents are not carpenters building a child by following a blueprint." (85)
"It is also important for parents to know that, beyond genetics, most of what happens to children involves random experiences over which parents have no control. The good news is that these don't make much of a difference in the long run. [...] Some children bounce back sooner, some later, after difficult experiences such as parental divorce, moving house and losing friends. They bounce back to their genetic trajectory." (85)
"Parenting is not a means to an end. [...] Just as with our partner and friends, our relationship with our children should be based on being with them, not trying to change them." (86)
"Differences in schools do not make much of a difference in children's achievement. [...] This does not mean that the quality of teaching and supporting offered by schools is unimportant. It matters a lot for the quality of life of students, but it doesn't make a difference in their educational achievement." (87)
"Schools should be supportive places for children to spend more than a decade of their lives, places where they can learn basic skills like literacy and numeracy but also learn to enjoy learning." (89)
"One general message that should emerge from these discoveries is tolerance for others - and for ourselves. Rather than blaming other people and ourselves for being depressed, slow to learn or overweight, we should recognize and respect the huge impact of genetics on individual differences. Genetics, not lack of willpower, makes some people more prone to problems such as depression, learning disabilities and obesity. Genetics also makes it harder for some people to mitigate their problems. Success and failure - and credit and blame - in overcoming problems should be calibrated relative to genetic strengths and weaknesses." (91)
"Equality of opportunity does not translate to equality of outcome. If educational opportunities were the same for all children, would their outcomes be the same in terms of school achievement? The answer is clearly 'no' because even if environmental differences were eliminated genetic differences would remain. [...] Heritability of outcomes can be seen as an index of equality of opportunity." (94)
"Some recent evidence suggests [that in the US,] decreased heritability and increased shared environmental influence on educational attainment, which suggests there is greater inequality of educational opportunity." (97)
"Selective schools do not improve students' achievement once we take into account the fact that these schools preselect students with the best chance of success." (98)
"Self-selection is an important factor to the extent that people are free to choose what they do to earn a living. Self-selection involves listening to genetic whispers, not just about intelligence but also about personality and interests." (104)
"Individual differences in income are, like everything else, substantially heritable, about 40 per cent. Income correlates with intelligence, and genetics drives this correlation. But this does not mean that higher intelligence merits more income. I would argue that genetic wealth is its own reward. If society really wanted to reduce income inequality, it could do so directly and immediately with a tax system that redistributes wealth." (104)
"I would argue that more important than the relative inequality of income for this top 1 per cent is the absolute inequality of the bottom third, whose debts exceed their assets." (105)
"Dimensions provide more power in GWA studies than disorders because every individual counts, whether they are low, middle or high in the distribution. [...] Another huge advantage of studying dimensions rather than disorders is that the same sample can be used to study many traits, whereas samples selected for a particular disorder are only useful to study that disorder." (118)
"Although the effects of individual SNPs are tiny, these effects can be added like we add items on a test to create a composite score. [...] They are generally called *polygenic scores*" (133)
"Unlike any other predictors, polygenic scores are just as predictive from birth as from any other age because inherited DNA sequence does not change during life." (140)
"Polygenic scores are useful for individual prediction only as long as we keep in mind that the prediction is probabilistic, not a certainty [/not deterministic]." (145)
"My high polygenic score does not mean that I must resign myself to being overweight. It means that I am genetically predisposed to put on the pounds and that I find it harder to lose them. Forewarned can be forearmed." (146)
"Polygenic scores will really take off in clinical psychology as soon as we discover treatments that interact with genotypes, in the sense that the success of treatments depends on polygenic scores. Treatments can then be tailored to individuals on the basis of their polygenic scores. For example, profiles of polygenic scores might be used to predict whether a depressed person will respond better to talking therapies or drugs, or to a certain type of talking therapy or drug." (165)
"Many psychological problems, such as alcohol dependence and eating disorders, are difficult to cure once they become full-blown problems, in part because they cause collateral damage that is difficult to repair. Preventing problems before they occur is much more cost-effective economically, as well as psychologically and socially." (165)
February 12, 2022
Blueprint How DNA Makes Us Who We Are - Robert Plomin
Robert Plomin is a psychologist and a behavior geneticist, he is one of the most published scientists in his field.
In Blueprint he tries to explain what his research and various other studies have pointed at in regards to the role of DNA in determining who we are.
The book is very well written, one of the better science books I've ran into, it is accessible to the public despite its specific theme. Plomin also makes the experience of catching up on the terminology, implications and stats easier through frequent repetitions, although that may feel redundant at times, it is warranted. This book is also aware of the context within which it is coming out, Plomin does explain what each scientific result mean carefully and adds what it does not mean in order to avoid misinterpretation of his work. Lastly, the sections about utility of such research, and the predictions for the future were very much welcome. Overall, this is a very awesome, rich, and light book.
The nature vs. nurture debate is one of the oldest and most persistent ones in both psychological and philosophical discussions. Are we born who we are, or do we become who we are due to the influence of our environment?
Robert Plomin believes science have answered that question to a great and satisfying degree. He estimates that genetics determine 50% of who we are on average, and he goes on to say that we have misunderstood the environment, as the effect of things like parents and school are largely negligible, leaving the 50% left to the environment to mostly chance and small experiences that leave unquantifiable impacts on our lives.
One thing this book does not mention clearly, and I argue it should, is a clear way to define what is nature and what is nurture, what does science mean by effect of genetics and environment. Plomin does make a lot of explanations to how genetics work, but little is left to the environment. One may land the argument that he redefines a lot of what used to be environment so that it falls under the umbrella of genetics. However, that would be a misunderstanding. For example, Plomin says that the impact of patenting on our identity is negligible because it is our DNA that defines how that parenting occurs to a large degree, thus wrestling the ball from environment.
To back many of his claims, Plomin goes back again and again to research on twins and adopted children, which help us a lot in understanding how one is measure differences and attribute them to one source or another. Separated identical twins have the same genetical making yet not the same "shared environment", shared environment refers to things like parents and schools, while non-shared environment refers to more or less random experiences that even identical twins living together would not share, while adopted children and their siblings have the same shared environment but not the same genetical making.
The second half of the book is more modern and explains more recent developments in the field, namely polygenic scores, and Plomin would pitch it as follows:
"A new fortune-telling device that promises to transform our understanding of ourselves and our life trajectories. It predicts important traits like schizophrenia and school achievement better than anything else, including family background, parenting and brain scans. It is 100 per cent reliable and 100 percent stable, unchanging from day to day, year to year, birth to death, which means that it predicts adult traits from conception or birth just as well as it does in adulthood. The device is also unbiased, and not subject to coaching, faking or anxiety. And the one-time total cost for this new device is about 100$."
What does that mean? What does it imply? What kind of progress with be coming in the next few years? Read and find out.
Criticism of the book:
I would say that sometimes many interpretation of results seem to be pushed and there is little consideration for looking at things differently. Some of the ways to study things like psychological traits have been criticized a lot over the years, yet Plomin does not seem to respond to those criticisms. However, this book does not have to do that, and it would add significant length and maybe complexity to it in such a scenario. Additionally, I do not know enough about the field to levy such criticisms, for all I know they are not taken seriously for good reasons.
P.S. Political and philosophical discussion of the implications is deliberately left out of this review, I do not want to add a 1000 words to it.
Robert Plomin is a psychologist and a behavior geneticist, he is one of the most published scientists in his field.
In Blueprint he tries to explain what his research and various other studies have pointed at in regards to the role of DNA in determining who we are.
The book is very well written, one of the better science books I've ran into, it is accessible to the public despite its specific theme. Plomin also makes the experience of catching up on the terminology, implications and stats easier through frequent repetitions, although that may feel redundant at times, it is warranted. This book is also aware of the context within which it is coming out, Plomin does explain what each scientific result mean carefully and adds what it does not mean in order to avoid misinterpretation of his work. Lastly, the sections about utility of such research, and the predictions for the future were very much welcome. Overall, this is a very awesome, rich, and light book.
The nature vs. nurture debate is one of the oldest and most persistent ones in both psychological and philosophical discussions. Are we born who we are, or do we become who we are due to the influence of our environment?
Robert Plomin believes science have answered that question to a great and satisfying degree. He estimates that genetics determine 50% of who we are on average, and he goes on to say that we have misunderstood the environment, as the effect of things like parents and school are largely negligible, leaving the 50% left to the environment to mostly chance and small experiences that leave unquantifiable impacts on our lives.
One thing this book does not mention clearly, and I argue it should, is a clear way to define what is nature and what is nurture, what does science mean by effect of genetics and environment. Plomin does make a lot of explanations to how genetics work, but little is left to the environment. One may land the argument that he redefines a lot of what used to be environment so that it falls under the umbrella of genetics. However, that would be a misunderstanding. For example, Plomin says that the impact of patenting on our identity is negligible because it is our DNA that defines how that parenting occurs to a large degree, thus wrestling the ball from environment.
To back many of his claims, Plomin goes back again and again to research on twins and adopted children, which help us a lot in understanding how one is measure differences and attribute them to one source or another. Separated identical twins have the same genetical making yet not the same "shared environment", shared environment refers to things like parents and schools, while non-shared environment refers to more or less random experiences that even identical twins living together would not share, while adopted children and their siblings have the same shared environment but not the same genetical making.
The second half of the book is more modern and explains more recent developments in the field, namely polygenic scores, and Plomin would pitch it as follows:
"A new fortune-telling device that promises to transform our understanding of ourselves and our life trajectories. It predicts important traits like schizophrenia and school achievement better than anything else, including family background, parenting and brain scans. It is 100 per cent reliable and 100 percent stable, unchanging from day to day, year to year, birth to death, which means that it predicts adult traits from conception or birth just as well as it does in adulthood. The device is also unbiased, and not subject to coaching, faking or anxiety. And the one-time total cost for this new device is about 100$."
What does that mean? What does it imply? What kind of progress with be coming in the next few years? Read and find out.
Criticism of the book:
I would say that sometimes many interpretation of results seem to be pushed and there is little consideration for looking at things differently. Some of the ways to study things like psychological traits have been criticized a lot over the years, yet Plomin does not seem to respond to those criticisms. However, this book does not have to do that, and it would add significant length and maybe complexity to it in such a scenario. Additionally, I do not know enough about the field to levy such criticisms, for all I know they are not taken seriously for good reasons.
P.S. Political and philosophical discussion of the implications is deliberately left out of this review, I do not want to add a 1000 words to it.
October 3, 2018
3.5 stars
You can also find this review on my book blog.
*I would like to say to the readers of this review [and future readers of the book] that I am neither a professional in the field of genetics nor have superb knowledge in it – I am merely an individual who’s interested in finding out more about this field and in the following sentences I discuss and express my personal thoughts on it as well as my experience with the book.
I’m the kind of person who enjoys learning new things and who’s especially interested in the field of psychology, biology and genetics. I love finding out new things because I feel like I didn’t pay enough attention when it came to these topics and want to educate myself more. Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are by Robert Plomin looked very interesting and appealing to me and I was lucky enough to land an advance reading copy of it.
Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are is a book by a behavioural geneticist Robert Plomin, who in this book does his best to introduce the reader to the field of genetics and the new advances in the field. Blueprint consists of two parts: WHY DNA MATTERS and THE DNA REVOLUTION. In the first part of the book the author talks about many theories on things like nature vs nurture, equal opportunity and meritocracy and more. Plomin also showcases some of his longitudinal studies of twins and adopted children and telling the reader his findings. What I adored when it came to the first part of the book was the information about certain traits e.g. eye colour and what percentage of them are heritable. I also appreciated Plomin’s look at nature vs nurture and his efforts in explaining what they are (which I’m sure readers who are not familiar with it will appreciate). The second part of the book introduces the reader to Genetics 101 where Plomin does his best to explain key things that are important in order to understand the rest of the book. After the introduction to Genetics we have certain techniques that are used in the field for determining certain aspects of an individuals life which are fascinating.
Now, I have to say that what I didn’t like that much was how most of the book was statistical and although Plomin provides explanation to certain things I didn’t find them as helpful. While reading the book I was thankful for my Statistics 101 class I took at the beginning of this year which made me familiar with correlation, multivariate analysis, standard residuals etc. I wouldn’t classify this book necessarily as popular science because it sort of requests certain before-hand knowledge. As I mentioned, the author is an expert in the field of behavioural genetics and presents many of his studies and findings. He proposes certain theories like e.g. looking at mental disorders from a spectrum/dimension rather than looking at someone as a person with a specified disorder.
In Blueprint, the author uses statistical data when showcasing certain findings and explaining theories which might confuse individuals who don’t have some basic knowledge on statistics. Plomin repeats himself at times in the book perhaps because of the fear of the reader forgetting certain things. There are many things discussed in this book that are very fascinating like using genetics to determine a person’s proneness to a certain disease, looking at genes to find out if the person will have some kind of a disorder in the future and more. At the end of the book you will find a section called Notes which provides further information for individuals who want to know more about his studies, certain things he didn’t go further into explaining etc. The chapters in Blueprint aren’t long but they will demand focus because you’ll better understand the material Plomin presents – saying that I’m not saying I’m an expert in this field after reading the book because of course there are things I missed and didn’t quite understand but I appreciated seeing how research in this field works and how both genetics and psychology interact with each other.
In conclusion, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are reads more like a thesis rather than a non-fiction popular science book but I’m sure this won’t discourage people who either are interested in this subject or work in a similar or the same field to pick up a copy and find out more about the fascinating field called genetics.
I would like to thank the publisher Allen Lane Books for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions written here are my own and weren’t influenced by anything.
You can also find this review on my book blog.
*I would like to say to the readers of this review [and future readers of the book] that I am neither a professional in the field of genetics nor have superb knowledge in it – I am merely an individual who’s interested in finding out more about this field and in the following sentences I discuss and express my personal thoughts on it as well as my experience with the book.
I’m the kind of person who enjoys learning new things and who’s especially interested in the field of psychology, biology and genetics. I love finding out new things because I feel like I didn’t pay enough attention when it came to these topics and want to educate myself more. Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are by Robert Plomin looked very interesting and appealing to me and I was lucky enough to land an advance reading copy of it.
Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are is a book by a behavioural geneticist Robert Plomin, who in this book does his best to introduce the reader to the field of genetics and the new advances in the field. Blueprint consists of two parts: WHY DNA MATTERS and THE DNA REVOLUTION. In the first part of the book the author talks about many theories on things like nature vs nurture, equal opportunity and meritocracy and more. Plomin also showcases some of his longitudinal studies of twins and adopted children and telling the reader his findings. What I adored when it came to the first part of the book was the information about certain traits e.g. eye colour and what percentage of them are heritable. I also appreciated Plomin’s look at nature vs nurture and his efforts in explaining what they are (which I’m sure readers who are not familiar with it will appreciate). The second part of the book introduces the reader to Genetics 101 where Plomin does his best to explain key things that are important in order to understand the rest of the book. After the introduction to Genetics we have certain techniques that are used in the field for determining certain aspects of an individuals life which are fascinating.
Now, I have to say that what I didn’t like that much was how most of the book was statistical and although Plomin provides explanation to certain things I didn’t find them as helpful. While reading the book I was thankful for my Statistics 101 class I took at the beginning of this year which made me familiar with correlation, multivariate analysis, standard residuals etc. I wouldn’t classify this book necessarily as popular science because it sort of requests certain before-hand knowledge. As I mentioned, the author is an expert in the field of behavioural genetics and presents many of his studies and findings. He proposes certain theories like e.g. looking at mental disorders from a spectrum/dimension rather than looking at someone as a person with a specified disorder.
In Blueprint, the author uses statistical data when showcasing certain findings and explaining theories which might confuse individuals who don’t have some basic knowledge on statistics. Plomin repeats himself at times in the book perhaps because of the fear of the reader forgetting certain things. There are many things discussed in this book that are very fascinating like using genetics to determine a person’s proneness to a certain disease, looking at genes to find out if the person will have some kind of a disorder in the future and more. At the end of the book you will find a section called Notes which provides further information for individuals who want to know more about his studies, certain things he didn’t go further into explaining etc. The chapters in Blueprint aren’t long but they will demand focus because you’ll better understand the material Plomin presents – saying that I’m not saying I’m an expert in this field after reading the book because of course there are things I missed and didn’t quite understand but I appreciated seeing how research in this field works and how both genetics and psychology interact with each other.
In conclusion, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are reads more like a thesis rather than a non-fiction popular science book but I’m sure this won’t discourage people who either are interested in this subject or work in a similar or the same field to pick up a copy and find out more about the fascinating field called genetics.
I would like to thank the publisher Allen Lane Books for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions written here are my own and weren’t influenced by anything.
September 24, 2020
Hoe vaak val je van je stoel door een nieuw inzicht waar je niet van op de hoogte was? Niet vaak, gok ik. Toen ik in Blank Slate van Steven Pinker over behavioral genetics en dit boek van Robert Plomin las had ik het al moeilijk om het te vatten. De inzichten van Plomin hakken namelijk diep in op de gebruikelijke riedeltjes die we al zo lang horen en vaak ook zo tastbaar aanvoelen: ik ben voor een groot stuk wie ik ben door mijn opvoeding, mijn ouders, mijn socio-economische achtergrond. Jaja, nature is wel belangrijk, maar nurture is ook of nog veel belangrijker. Hoe kan ik anders mijn ouders de schuld geven van mijn huidige mankementen? Of die ene leraar, of die slechte vriend van vroeger, enzovoort.
Spoiler alert: that shit is all wrong! Nogal wiedes dat je dan ff denkt: WTF!?!
Om kort te gaan zijn er sinds het ontstaan van dit vakgebied drie wetmatigheden ontdekt die intussen gevestigde wetenschap zijn geworden, hier even in het Engels weergegeven want ik copy paste dat ook maar gewoon from ze interwebs:
- First Law: All human behavioural traits are heritable.
- Second Law: The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of the genes.
- Third Law: A substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioural traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or families.
Laat me daar nog aan toevoegen dat onderzoek uitwijst dat de genen ongeveer 50% van de verschillen tussen mensen verklaren, en dat de rest eigenlijk door toeval ontstaat. Zo lang je niet grof mishandeld wordt of crepeert van ontbering zijn het dus voornamelijk je genen die sturen hoe/wie je bent. Niet 100% determineren, maar wel de grondstroom voorzien in een bepaalde richting.
Laat de implicaties daarvan rustig doordringen, beste lezer. Bent u een ouder, dan is er voor u de bevrijdende, dan wel angstaanjagende boutade: you matter, but you don't make a difference. Voor de nuances moet je dit boek zelf maar lezen, maar over het algemeen heb je als ouder de grootste invloed op het leven van je kind op het moment van de conceptie. Voor velen een ondraaglijke gedachte, maar Plomin (en Pinker ook in zijn beschrijving van dit werk) is dit net een bevrijdende gedachte, mooi verwoord door Hahlil Gibran:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
Een wijze les voor veel gecrispeerde ouders die tegen die grondstroom van hun kinderen in willen gaan en zich na jaren strijd vermoeid afvragen: "waarom en was het dat allemaal waard?", vergezeld van de nodige schuldgevoelens en frustraties.
Mij bracht dit boek naast de ontnuchterende inzichten alleszins een grotere mildheid naar mijn ouders en omgeving, en een voornemen om de lessen mee te nemen in de opvoeding van de eigen kinderen.
Spoiler alert: that shit is all wrong! Nogal wiedes dat je dan ff denkt: WTF!?!
Om kort te gaan zijn er sinds het ontstaan van dit vakgebied drie wetmatigheden ontdekt die intussen gevestigde wetenschap zijn geworden, hier even in het Engels weergegeven want ik copy paste dat ook maar gewoon from ze interwebs:
- First Law: All human behavioural traits are heritable.
- Second Law: The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of the genes.
- Third Law: A substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioural traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or families.
Laat me daar nog aan toevoegen dat onderzoek uitwijst dat de genen ongeveer 50% van de verschillen tussen mensen verklaren, en dat de rest eigenlijk door toeval ontstaat. Zo lang je niet grof mishandeld wordt of crepeert van ontbering zijn het dus voornamelijk je genen die sturen hoe/wie je bent. Niet 100% determineren, maar wel de grondstroom voorzien in een bepaalde richting.
Laat de implicaties daarvan rustig doordringen, beste lezer. Bent u een ouder, dan is er voor u de bevrijdende, dan wel angstaanjagende boutade: you matter, but you don't make a difference. Voor de nuances moet je dit boek zelf maar lezen, maar over het algemeen heb je als ouder de grootste invloed op het leven van je kind op het moment van de conceptie. Voor velen een ondraaglijke gedachte, maar Plomin (en Pinker ook in zijn beschrijving van dit werk) is dit net een bevrijdende gedachte, mooi verwoord door Hahlil Gibran:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
Een wijze les voor veel gecrispeerde ouders die tegen die grondstroom van hun kinderen in willen gaan en zich na jaren strijd vermoeid afvragen: "waarom en was het dat allemaal waard?", vergezeld van de nodige schuldgevoelens en frustraties.
Mij bracht dit boek naast de ontnuchterende inzichten alleszins een grotere mildheid naar mijn ouders en omgeving, en een voornemen om de lessen mee te nemen in de opvoeding van de eigen kinderen.
September 15, 2021
Blueprint: How DNA makes us who we are by Robert Plomin, was a fascinating scientific read, and one that I will reread to clearly grasp how our genes play a bigger part in who we are than the environment in which we are raised. I understood the basics, and the undeniable scientific evidence, but the nuances call for more reading. Ironically, it clearly shows why some grown children view their parents entirely different from one another. Unless those grown children are identical twins, they inherit differences in their genes that force them to react differently to the environment in which they are raised. The book, of course, covers more material than that statement, and it's all super interesting.
June 11, 2024
Blueprint is a gentle introduction to behavioral genetic research and its social implications. It is an introduction that leans more digestible takeaways than a detailed tour of the literature. This is perfect for a lay audience but may disappoint some behavioral genetics experts/amateur scientists. Nonetheless, it is a persuasive piece on the importance of genetic variation to social and behavioral outcomes in advanced nations.
Plomin draws heavily from his twin research work. He recounts how twin (comparing similarities between identical and fraternal twins) and adoption (how similar are twins reared apart?) studies have shown that about half the differences in psychological traits can be explained by differences in genes in any given population. This 50% figure is huge with respect to most psychological research. Few effect sizes in psychology are greater than 5%. Thus it is incredible to find that 50% of the differences between people in psychological traits are caused by genetic differences between them.
Despite the powerful influence of genes, we should be careful not to over-interpret what Plomin is claiming. He isn't saying genes are destiny. He actually acknowledges that common genetic variation does not operate deterministically. It operates probabilistically. Certain variants increase or decrease the chance a phenotype is some amount different than the population mean. These effects tend to be tiny individually but can be summed to make predictions about a trait overall (i.e. a polygenic index). There is still a lot of noise and uncertainty in these predictions at this time, but they're improving everyday because of the hard work of statistical geneticists.
So far a lot of what I've discussed revolves around insights from and applications of the concept called heritability. Heritability is the proportion of the variation in a trait that is attributable to genetic variation. It is a population-level statistic that doesn't describe what is happening at the level of the individual with great precision. Additionally, heritability for the same trait can vary across different population, times, and places. This is true even within the same population because there is no firewall between nature and nurture. The two are entangled.
Plomin beautifully illustrates how nature and nurture are entangled by summarizing some of the literature on "genetic nurture," a phenomenon he refers to as "the nature of nurture." This refers to how the genes of one's parents that aren't inherited affect one's parent's behavior and this affects the environment one experiences (example -> https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...). Genes are acting through the environment.
The one limitation of Blueprint is that is doesn't dwell too much on what has been learned from molecular studies of behavioral traits thanks to advances in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and whole-exome/genome sequencing on large phenotyped biobanks. These studies have shown substantial gaps between twin heritability and SNP-heritability. This phenomenon called missing heritability is quite important as it gets at to what extent our current understanding of genetic effects are picking up gene-by-environment effects or are confounded/limited in other more elusive ways (population structure, assortative mating, twin study biases, and measurement error). However, I don't think Plomin can be faulted too much on this point as he does have some footnotes on it and the state of the research is rapidly evolving (2018 is ancient in this field).
Blueprint importantly shows the dramatic and ubiquitous influence of genes on psychological and behavioral traits. It shows that even variation that we call "abnormal" or "diseased" is in an ultimate sense natural. It acknowledges that genes are not destiny but that much of who we are and what we become is significantly beyond our direct control and often cannot be changed (at least not without enormous effort).
Plomin draws heavily from his twin research work. He recounts how twin (comparing similarities between identical and fraternal twins) and adoption (how similar are twins reared apart?) studies have shown that about half the differences in psychological traits can be explained by differences in genes in any given population. This 50% figure is huge with respect to most psychological research. Few effect sizes in psychology are greater than 5%. Thus it is incredible to find that 50% of the differences between people in psychological traits are caused by genetic differences between them.
Despite the powerful influence of genes, we should be careful not to over-interpret what Plomin is claiming. He isn't saying genes are destiny. He actually acknowledges that common genetic variation does not operate deterministically. It operates probabilistically. Certain variants increase or decrease the chance a phenotype is some amount different than the population mean. These effects tend to be tiny individually but can be summed to make predictions about a trait overall (i.e. a polygenic index). There is still a lot of noise and uncertainty in these predictions at this time, but they're improving everyday because of the hard work of statistical geneticists.
So far a lot of what I've discussed revolves around insights from and applications of the concept called heritability. Heritability is the proportion of the variation in a trait that is attributable to genetic variation. It is a population-level statistic that doesn't describe what is happening at the level of the individual with great precision. Additionally, heritability for the same trait can vary across different population, times, and places. This is true even within the same population because there is no firewall between nature and nurture. The two are entangled.
Plomin beautifully illustrates how nature and nurture are entangled by summarizing some of the literature on "genetic nurture," a phenomenon he refers to as "the nature of nurture." This refers to how the genes of one's parents that aren't inherited affect one's parent's behavior and this affects the environment one experiences (example -> https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...). Genes are acting through the environment.
The one limitation of Blueprint is that is doesn't dwell too much on what has been learned from molecular studies of behavioral traits thanks to advances in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and whole-exome/genome sequencing on large phenotyped biobanks. These studies have shown substantial gaps between twin heritability and SNP-heritability. This phenomenon called missing heritability is quite important as it gets at to what extent our current understanding of genetic effects are picking up gene-by-environment effects or are confounded/limited in other more elusive ways (population structure, assortative mating, twin study biases, and measurement error). However, I don't think Plomin can be faulted too much on this point as he does have some footnotes on it and the state of the research is rapidly evolving (2018 is ancient in this field).
Blueprint importantly shows the dramatic and ubiquitous influence of genes on psychological and behavioral traits. It shows that even variation that we call "abnormal" or "diseased" is in an ultimate sense natural. It acknowledges that genes are not destiny but that much of who we are and what we become is significantly beyond our direct control and often cannot be changed (at least not without enormous effort).
June 27, 2021
Bought this after hearing Plomin on Sam Harris's podcast. He seemed like a credible source in behavioural genetics, and was a super clear, concise speaker so thought I'd enjoy his work.
This book is a really wonderful and accessible summary of the current state of genetics research. Plomin makes the case that it isn't just physical traits that are, to some extent, genetically determined, but also the psychological states and conditions that we think of as so closely associated with the 'nurture' side of the spectrum, ranging from mental illnesses like schizophrenia to aptitudes like sense of direction or appetite for reading.
What I enjoyed in particular was Plomin's clear outline of how genetic research was conducted, from determining the degree of heritability of traits, to using polygenetic scores to incrementally determine the genes that made up the heritability. He was also incredibly thoughtful with reiterating the definition of heritability as genes being expressed within an environment - so heritability for weight would be different for the same populations living in an environment of plenty, where the genes have the opportunity to express themselves, vs an environment with fewer such opportunities.
Finally, I think Plomin's analysis of the usefulness of knowing these genetic scores was on point - he makes the case that more knowledge is always a good thing, and that families and communities can be more tailored to augmenting an individual's weaknesses if they have information about genetic predispositions at hand.
Overall, highly recommended for people who are interested in how our genes shape us!
This book is a really wonderful and accessible summary of the current state of genetics research. Plomin makes the case that it isn't just physical traits that are, to some extent, genetically determined, but also the psychological states and conditions that we think of as so closely associated with the 'nurture' side of the spectrum, ranging from mental illnesses like schizophrenia to aptitudes like sense of direction or appetite for reading.
What I enjoyed in particular was Plomin's clear outline of how genetic research was conducted, from determining the degree of heritability of traits, to using polygenetic scores to incrementally determine the genes that made up the heritability. He was also incredibly thoughtful with reiterating the definition of heritability as genes being expressed within an environment - so heritability for weight would be different for the same populations living in an environment of plenty, where the genes have the opportunity to express themselves, vs an environment with fewer such opportunities.
Finally, I think Plomin's analysis of the usefulness of knowing these genetic scores was on point - he makes the case that more knowledge is always a good thing, and that families and communities can be more tailored to augmenting an individual's weaknesses if they have information about genetic predispositions at hand.
Overall, highly recommended for people who are interested in how our genes shape us!
January 29, 2019
How much of your personality is determined by genes, and how much is shaped by family, friends and environment? 50 years of cutting edge behavioral genetics research in one easy read.
Plomin pioneered the research into heritability by studying twins and adopted children. This made it possible to factor out the percentage of similarity between parents and children that was due to nature (i.e. DNA) and what percentage that was due to nurture (upbringing and environment).
— "For example, the most important environmental factors, such as our families and schools, account for less than 5 per cent of the differences between us in our mental health or how well we did at school – once we control for the impact of genetics. Genetics accounts for 50 per cent of psychological differences, not just for mental health and school achievement, but for all psychological traits, from personality to mental abilities. I am not aware of a single psychological trait that shows no genetic influence."
The past 20 years, Plomin has done research into identifying the genes responsible for psychological traits. But this has proved much more difficult than twin studies, since pathways between genes and traits are hard to trace because each tiny DNA-difference has many different effects (so called "pleiotropy") and each trait is influenced genes ("polygenicity"). So there's a huge gap between which effects of heritability that may be detected (by using twin and adoptee studies) and what may be explained by genetic sequencing.
Genetic testing and statistical analysis of large populations are promising
— "For the first time in psychology, polygenic scores will make it possible to identify problems on the basis of causes rather than symptoms"
Key takeaways
- Parenting is overrated. Personality and intelligence mostly shaped by genes, not parenting.
- Correlations that seems like being caused by environment, are quite often mediated variables caused by genetic factors.
- Psychological disorders are just the extremes of quantitative dimensions -> ‘Abnormal is normal’.
- "socioeconomic status should be more heritable as a country becomes more meritocratic. As environmentally driven differences decline, genetic differences account for more of the remaining differences in socioeconomic status."
Plomin pioneered the research into heritability by studying twins and adopted children. This made it possible to factor out the percentage of similarity between parents and children that was due to nature (i.e. DNA) and what percentage that was due to nurture (upbringing and environment).
— "For example, the most important environmental factors, such as our families and schools, account for less than 5 per cent of the differences between us in our mental health or how well we did at school – once we control for the impact of genetics. Genetics accounts for 50 per cent of psychological differences, not just for mental health and school achievement, but for all psychological traits, from personality to mental abilities. I am not aware of a single psychological trait that shows no genetic influence."
The past 20 years, Plomin has done research into identifying the genes responsible for psychological traits. But this has proved much more difficult than twin studies, since pathways between genes and traits are hard to trace because each tiny DNA-difference has many different effects (so called "pleiotropy") and each trait is influenced genes ("polygenicity"). So there's a huge gap between which effects of heritability that may be detected (by using twin and adoptee studies) and what may be explained by genetic sequencing.
Genetic testing and statistical analysis of large populations are promising
— "For the first time in psychology, polygenic scores will make it possible to identify problems on the basis of causes rather than symptoms"
Key takeaways
- Parenting is overrated. Personality and intelligence mostly shaped by genes, not parenting.
- Correlations that seems like being caused by environment, are quite often mediated variables caused by genetic factors.
- Psychological disorders are just the extremes of quantitative dimensions -> ‘Abnormal is normal’.
- "socioeconomic status should be more heritable as a country becomes more meritocratic. As environmentally driven differences decline, genetic differences account for more of the remaining differences in socioeconomic status."
May 5, 2023
يتكلم كتاب بلومين عن الصراع الأبدي بين الجينات والتربية وأيهما له السطوة الأكبر علي حياتنا وسلوكنا وشخصياتنا وخياراتنا في الحياة. يختم بلومين نظرياته لصالح الجينات أوالطبيعة ويفنذ حججه من زاوية طبية نفسية، حيث تخصصه في الطب النفسي يسمح له بالإستعانة بكل الدراسات والتحليلات العلمية ليوثق ما وصل له من نظريات.
شخصيا لم أجد كل الحجج مقنعة، لا علميا ولا فلسفيا، رغم أني أدعم التأثير الجيني أولا وآخرا، ولكن الكاتب على ما يبدو لا يضع للتنشئة أو التربية الإعتبار الذي ما زلت آرى آنها تستحقه.
كذلك الكتاب كان ممل بالنسبة لي قليلا نظرا لأني على معرفة بمعظم هذه الدراسات والنظريات آصلا ولم أجد الكثير من الجديد في هذا الكتاب بالذات.
لكني أعرف أن النقاس في موضوع الكتاب سيكون شيق دائما.
شخصيا لم أجد كل الحجج مقنعة، لا علميا ولا فلسفيا، رغم أني أدعم التأثير الجيني أولا وآخرا، ولكن الكاتب على ما يبدو لا يضع للتنشئة أو التربية الإعتبار الذي ما زلت آرى آنها تستحقه.
كذلك الكتاب كان ممل بالنسبة لي قليلا نظرا لأني على معرفة بمعظم هذه الدراسات والنظريات آصلا ولم أجد الكثير من الجديد في هذا الكتاب بالذات.
لكني أعرف أن النقاس في موضوع الكتاب سيكون شيق دائما.
December 20, 2018
Robert Plomin (october 2018)
"By disentangling the effects of nature and nurture rather than assuming that nurture alone was responsible for who we are, this research produced startling results that suggest a completely different way to think about the roles of nature, nurture and their interplay in making us who we are."
The discussion of nature or nurture has been raging on and off ever since DNA was discovered. Robert Plomin, an American psychologist and geneticist, gives the reader a brief insight on the methods they use to study the relationship between genetics and psychological traits. We also get a short tour of the history, methods that failed, and what we´ve learned the last few decades. This also leads to some pretty interesting implications.
There are similarities that run in families. And it was assumed it was due to the shared environment. But families also share genetics. In order to separate nature (DNA) and nurture (the environment) there has been two main methods; adoption studies and monozygotic (MZ) twin studies. In adoption studies the children do not share DNA with the adoptive parents so similarities would have to be caused by the environment. And likewise MZ twins are identical exactly because of their biology. But being raised in the same family it is still difficult to separate the environment from nature. The most powerful studies are studies of MZ twins separated at or close after birth. Being raised in completely different environments means that any similarity they share will have to be purely genetics.
It is no surprise that identical twins (MZ) are, well, identical in most things. What was new to me was that even though some identical twins have been reared apart they are still very similar. Not only in appearance but also in personality, interests,
" ..MZ twins reared apart are almost as similar as MZ twins reared together, indicating that what makes them so similar is nature, not nurture." page 19
The study of twins makes researchers able to determine how much of the variation of a trait that is caused by variation in genes. The correlation between the height of twins is not surprisingly quite high, but not a perfect 1.0. Fraternal twins is closed to 0,5, which is due to the fact that they share on average about half their genes. Fraternal twins (dizygotic) are just like any other siblings, since two different sperm fertalize two different eggs. From this pattern geneticists can infer that height is a very heritable trait, with most of the variation in the population due to variation in genes.
Cognitive abilities is also quite heritable, but not as much as height. The correlation is about 0,75 in identical twins, and between other siblings it is less than 0,5.
The correlation for intelligence was the same for adopted children and their biological parents as for children reared by their biological parents. The correlations between these adopted children and their adoptive parents, who share nurture but not nature, hovered near zero. page 54
The book is full of examples like this. A certain trait is somewhat correlated between parents and their children. Sibling usually have a correlation about 50% which is because they share on average 50% of the genes, (while their environment is very similar).
Throughout the book Plomin makes a strong case for genetics has a large impact on just about every psychological trait they have studied. But the genetic studies also quantify to what extent the environment (meaning anything from accidents, chance to education, upbringing, social network etc) affects different traits.
"genetics provides the best evidence we have for the importance of the environment independent of genetics. That is, heritabilities are never even close to 100 per cent, which proves that the environment is important." page 32
Most traits are affected by many different genes. Some traits are affected by thousands of genes. So called single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP).
Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) can determine whether a genetic variant is associated with a disorder or a trait. Because a trait is more or less affected by the number of genes traits fall in a spectrum. This in turn means that the abnormal is normal. Syndromes or genetic disorders are therefore extreme parts of the spectrum. This will lead to two huge implications. First of all it is now possible to anticipate which individuals that might develop certain disorders such as anxieties, dementia or psychosis. We knew that certain disorders ran in families but before proper genetic studies psychologists would have to wait for symptoms before trying to help people. Now we can monitor people and try to prevent disorders from occurring in the first place.
Genetics is not purely deterministic, however. Genetic influences are probabilistic propensities, not predetermined programming.
"Evidence for genetic influence has been found for home environments such as chaotic family environments, for classroom environments such as supportive teachers, peer characteristics such as being bullied, neighborhood safety, being exposed to drugs, work environments and the quality of ones marriage." page 44.
The last one is particularly interesting. According to Plomin MZ twins have a higher corrolation than DZ twins when it comes to divorce. Which indicates that their genetic makeup is a major factor whether people can maintain a stable relationship or not.
The Flynn Effect, the effect where IQ increases for every generation, has general been explained by an improvement in education, health, food, safety and other factors that increase human wellbeing. Basically the IQ has been increasing because the environment has been improving. I was hoping that Plomin would discuss this. Unfortunately he didn't. Plomin also fails to support his claims that environmental factors are mostly accidental and poorly understood. I would like to know how he can say that.
Because genetics is such a large factor in determining our psychology Plomin encourages us all to have more empathy and tolerance towards each others misfortune. When a disorder such as obesity is so closely tied to our genetic makeup we should simply stop fat shaming people who are overweight. They need empathy, help and understanding, not ridicule. The same goes for many other aspects of our personality.
The Human Genome Project was a landmark study that mapped all the genes in the human body and it started a revolution. It cost many many millions of dollars to complete. With increased computer power and the much better analytical tools we now have the ability to analyze anyones DNA for a very low price. There are several commercial companies offering to "help us". Now millions of people all over the world are contributing to companies such as 23andme, Myheritage, Ancestry There are ethical questions about this for sure, but the researchers will have endless data to work with. One of the studies mentioned in the book was based on the DNA from more than a million people!
Needless to say a book like this gets a lot of attention. Most reviews are pretty good, but some warn people about the implications of this new knowledge.
Basically this book is really interesting and I can highly recommend it. At times I had to wrestle with my inner cognitive dissonance, but I guess that is healthy. It is hard for a layman like yours truly to determine whether the science is valid or not. The author says the genetic basis for our psychological traits have been replicated many times. And I do note that none of the reviews I´ve seen disagrees with the science itself.
I bought my copy of the book at Amazon. Where will you get yours?
Do not read the book if you prefer to think of the mind as a blank slate. Or maybe that´s exactly why you should read it.
Rating: 5/5
"By disentangling the effects of nature and nurture rather than assuming that nurture alone was responsible for who we are, this research produced startling results that suggest a completely different way to think about the roles of nature, nurture and their interplay in making us who we are."
The discussion of nature or nurture has been raging on and off ever since DNA was discovered. Robert Plomin, an American psychologist and geneticist, gives the reader a brief insight on the methods they use to study the relationship between genetics and psychological traits. We also get a short tour of the history, methods that failed, and what we´ve learned the last few decades. This also leads to some pretty interesting implications.
There are similarities that run in families. And it was assumed it was due to the shared environment. But families also share genetics. In order to separate nature (DNA) and nurture (the environment) there has been two main methods; adoption studies and monozygotic (MZ) twin studies. In adoption studies the children do not share DNA with the adoptive parents so similarities would have to be caused by the environment. And likewise MZ twins are identical exactly because of their biology. But being raised in the same family it is still difficult to separate the environment from nature. The most powerful studies are studies of MZ twins separated at or close after birth. Being raised in completely different environments means that any similarity they share will have to be purely genetics.
It is no surprise that identical twins (MZ) are, well, identical in most things. What was new to me was that even though some identical twins have been reared apart they are still very similar. Not only in appearance but also in personality, interests,
" ..MZ twins reared apart are almost as similar as MZ twins reared together, indicating that what makes them so similar is nature, not nurture." page 19
The study of twins makes researchers able to determine how much of the variation of a trait that is caused by variation in genes. The correlation between the height of twins is not surprisingly quite high, but not a perfect 1.0. Fraternal twins is closed to 0,5, which is due to the fact that they share on average about half their genes. Fraternal twins (dizygotic) are just like any other siblings, since two different sperm fertalize two different eggs. From this pattern geneticists can infer that height is a very heritable trait, with most of the variation in the population due to variation in genes.
Cognitive abilities is also quite heritable, but not as much as height. The correlation is about 0,75 in identical twins, and between other siblings it is less than 0,5.
The correlation for intelligence was the same for adopted children and their biological parents as for children reared by their biological parents. The correlations between these adopted children and their adoptive parents, who share nurture but not nature, hovered near zero. page 54
The book is full of examples like this. A certain trait is somewhat correlated between parents and their children. Sibling usually have a correlation about 50% which is because they share on average 50% of the genes, (while their environment is very similar).
Throughout the book Plomin makes a strong case for genetics has a large impact on just about every psychological trait they have studied. But the genetic studies also quantify to what extent the environment (meaning anything from accidents, chance to education, upbringing, social network etc) affects different traits.
"genetics provides the best evidence we have for the importance of the environment independent of genetics. That is, heritabilities are never even close to 100 per cent, which proves that the environment is important." page 32
Most traits are affected by many different genes. Some traits are affected by thousands of genes. So called single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP).
Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) can determine whether a genetic variant is associated with a disorder or a trait. Because a trait is more or less affected by the number of genes traits fall in a spectrum. This in turn means that the abnormal is normal. Syndromes or genetic disorders are therefore extreme parts of the spectrum. This will lead to two huge implications. First of all it is now possible to anticipate which individuals that might develop certain disorders such as anxieties, dementia or psychosis. We knew that certain disorders ran in families but before proper genetic studies psychologists would have to wait for symptoms before trying to help people. Now we can monitor people and try to prevent disorders from occurring in the first place.
Genetics is not purely deterministic, however. Genetic influences are probabilistic propensities, not predetermined programming.
"Evidence for genetic influence has been found for home environments such as chaotic family environments, for classroom environments such as supportive teachers, peer characteristics such as being bullied, neighborhood safety, being exposed to drugs, work environments and the quality of ones marriage." page 44.
The last one is particularly interesting. According to Plomin MZ twins have a higher corrolation than DZ twins when it comes to divorce. Which indicates that their genetic makeup is a major factor whether people can maintain a stable relationship or not.
The Flynn Effect, the effect where IQ increases for every generation, has general been explained by an improvement in education, health, food, safety and other factors that increase human wellbeing. Basically the IQ has been increasing because the environment has been improving. I was hoping that Plomin would discuss this. Unfortunately he didn't. Plomin also fails to support his claims that environmental factors are mostly accidental and poorly understood. I would like to know how he can say that.
Because genetics is such a large factor in determining our psychology Plomin encourages us all to have more empathy and tolerance towards each others misfortune. When a disorder such as obesity is so closely tied to our genetic makeup we should simply stop fat shaming people who are overweight. They need empathy, help and understanding, not ridicule. The same goes for many other aspects of our personality.
The Human Genome Project was a landmark study that mapped all the genes in the human body and it started a revolution. It cost many many millions of dollars to complete. With increased computer power and the much better analytical tools we now have the ability to analyze anyones DNA for a very low price. There are several commercial companies offering to "help us". Now millions of people all over the world are contributing to companies such as 23andme, Myheritage, Ancestry There are ethical questions about this for sure, but the researchers will have endless data to work with. One of the studies mentioned in the book was based on the DNA from more than a million people!
Needless to say a book like this gets a lot of attention. Most reviews are pretty good, but some warn people about the implications of this new knowledge.
Basically this book is really interesting and I can highly recommend it. At times I had to wrestle with my inner cognitive dissonance, but I guess that is healthy. It is hard for a layman like yours truly to determine whether the science is valid or not. The author says the genetic basis for our psychological traits have been replicated many times. And I do note that none of the reviews I´ve seen disagrees with the science itself.
I bought my copy of the book at Amazon. Where will you get yours?
Do not read the book if you prefer to think of the mind as a blank slate. Or maybe that´s exactly why you should read it.
Rating: 5/5
Displaying 1 - 30 of 244 reviews