In November, 2018 behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin published Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are.1 In this book, Plomin argued that DNA is the main factor that determines differences in human behavior, that most environmental influences on behavior should be counted as genetic influences, that true environmental influences are mostly random and âwe cannot do much about them,â and that the molecular genetic âpolygenic scoreâ method is a ânew fortune-telling deviceâ that uses a personâs genetic profile to âpredict psychological traits like depression, schizophrenia and school achievementâ (Blueprint, p. vii). Plomin described the polygenic score method as a molecular genetic technique that finds statistically non-significant individual âSNPâ hits (single nucleotide polymorphisms), and combines them to produce a polygenic (composite) score.
Plominâs thesis was that âthe DNA differences inherited from our parents at the moment of conception are the consistent, lifelong source of psychological individuality, the blueprint that makes us who we areâ (p. ix).
Plomin, who was born and educated in the United States and has lived and worked in England since 1994, has been a leader of the behavioral genetics field since the 1980s. He was awarded the American Psychological Associationâs (APA) âAward for Distinguished Scientific Contributionsâ in 2017. He has conducted âquantitative geneticâ twin and adoption studies since the 1970s, and since the early 1990s he has also conducted molecular genetic studies in an attempt to discover genetic variants that he believes underlie âgeneral intelligenceâ (IQ) and other areas of behavior.
In the spring of 2019, psychologist/behavioral genetic researcher Eric Turkheimer published a review of Blueprint in a peer-reviewed academic journal.2 Turkheimer is known as a critic, from within behavioral genetics, of some of his fieldâs theories and claims. âThe great era of behavioral genomics was on the horizonâ 20 years ago, Turkheimer wrote, âbut it never arrived.â Countless studies (and accompanying media reports) have appeared over the past few decades reporting the discovery of genes that influence behavior, but they could not be replicated, leading to what he characterized as the current âfailure of the gene-finding project.â
Nevertheless, Turkheimer wrote, Blueprint is âhardly the product of a gloomy author,â but is instead âa declaration of victory of nature over nurture, a celebration of the vindication of Plomin as a scientist and of behavioral genetics as a field of study.â Because Plomin relied on the polygenic score method, in Turkheimerâs view he had abandoned âthe original task of figuring out which gene does what on a biological level,â because âpolygenic scores achieve their predictive power by abdicating any claim to biological meaning.â
Turkheimer criticized Plominâs triumphalist theme that the polygenic score method provides vindication of the behavioral genetic research program. In fact, as Ken Richardson (author of the 2017 book Genes, Brains, and Human Potential) and Michael C. Jones showed in a 2019 analysis, polygenic scores may be âconfounded by formidable biological, social, and statistical, as well as technological difficulties.â The âmost important source of spurious associations,â they wrote, is the âpervasive problemâ of âunrecognized population structure (also called population stratification).â3 (See also the Blueprint review by Steve Pittelli.)
In his concluding remarks, Turkheimer took the formerly gene-environment âinteractionalistâ Plomin to task for his new stance that âDNA makes us who we are,â a phrase that Plomin used in Blueprintâs title and repeated in a similar form no fewer than 25 times in the book. Genetic (biological) determinism has been defined as âthe idea that most human characteristics, physical and mental, are determined at conception by hereditary factors passed from parent to offspringâŚ.largely [but not entirely] unaffected by environmental factors.â
Turkheimer suggested that Plomin had arrived at a determinist/hereditarian position in order to declare the victory of ânatureâ in the nature-nurture debate, and to settle accounts as he neared the end of his 45-year career:
âAll the scientistic bluster about DNA fortune-tellers is unbecoming in someone with an intellectual pedigree as interactionist as Plominâs, and it leaves one wondering why so many social scientists start with a commitment to complex gene-environment interplay but wind up committed to blunt hereditarian overstatement. The obvious explanationsâprovocation for its own sake, hawking books, settling scoresâare beneath a scientist of Plominâs stature, although there is some of all that in Blueprint.â
When a figure as authoritative as Plomin âoverstat[es] the science of human behavioral genetics,â Turkheimer wrote, it âcomes with the greatest price imaginable: it encroaches on human freedom and justice.â
Turkheimer highlighted a sentence by Plomin that âmay in fact be the worst ever written by an important behavior geneticist.â According to Plomin, âPut crudely, nice parents have nice children because they are all nice geneticallyâ (p. 83). This led Turkheimer to ask, âAnd not-so-nice parents? Criminals, beggars, the unintelligent, the miserable, and the insane? What of them and their children? He canât have it both ways.â
âGenetic determinism,â Turkheimer concluded, âis a cheap nostrum for an unhappy social scientist late in his career, but its side effects are poisonous.â
Major Problem Areas in Blueprint
I will now describe some important problem areas in Blueprint (while skipping over numerous less important problem areas), with an emphasis on areas that were not covered, or were mentioned only briefly, by other reviewers.
Plomin as Historian
In Blueprintâs Prologue, Plomin grossly misrepresented the history of genetic research in the area of human behavior. He wrote that genetic researchers, using twin and adoption studies, started accumulating evidence in favor of genetics in the 1960s, and that environmental theories had been dominant until then. For example, âFrom Freud onwards, the family environment, or nurture, was assumed to be the key factor in determining who we are. In the 1960s geneticists began to challenge this viewâ (p. vii). He also claimed that âgenetics had been ignored in psychologyâ until the early 1970s (p. xi). In fact, twin and adoption studies go back to the 1920s and earlier, and a belief in the power of heredity has a long history. By making these claims, Plomin overlooked the worldwide eugenics movement of the first half of the 20th century, German psychiatric genetics, sterilization laws, top American psychologistsâ claims that intelligence was largely innate and fixed, and so on.
In the first four decades of the 20th century, hereditarian and eugenic theories were mainstream, and American psychologists played a major role in promoting eugenic theories and policies. See, for example, Stephen Jay Gouldâs The Mismeasure of Man, Leon Kaminâs The Science and Politics of I.Q., and The Legacy of Malthus by Allan Chase. The field of psychology (and especially its psychometrics subfield) has always held that genetic factors play a role in causing differences in cognitive ability (IQ) and other behavioral characteristics, although the emphasis, meaning, and especially the weight given to genetic influences changes from era to era.
In an era when genetics supposedly âhad been ignored in psychology,â Edward Thorndike, listed by the APA as the #9 âmost eminent psychologistâ of the 20th century (Plomin was #71), concluded in his 1905 twin study of âmental traitsâ that âit is highly probable from the facts givenâŚthat the similarity of twins in ancestry and conditions of conception and birth accounts for almost all of their similarity in mental achievementâthat only a small fraction of it can be attributed to similarity in training.â4 In 1923, leading American psychologists wrote that intelligence testing had demonstrated the âdefinite intellectual superiority of the Nordic race,â while warning American âcitizensâ not to âignore the menace of racial degeneration.â5 No âdog whistlesâ were needed in this era, as it could be openly proclaimed by psychologists in scholarly works that âscienceâ had found that the âNordic raceâ was intellectually/genetically superior to all other âraces.â Nineteen years later, the question of whether âdefectiveâ American children should be put to death for eugenic and other purposes in a âeuthanasiaâ program similar to Germanyâs was openly debated by two doctors in the July, 1942 edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP). Between 1944 and 1965, the AJP published a eugenics- and compulsory-sterilization-friendly annual report with the title, âReview of Psychiatric Progress: Heredity and Eugenics.â As recently as 1972, the eugenically oriented British-American psychologist Raymond Cattell (#16 on the APAâs âmost eminent psychologistâ list) discussed the desirability of promoting what he called âgenthanasia,â which he described as the âphasing outâ and âendingâ of genetically âmoribund cultures.â6
The general post-World War II era view on the nature-nurture issue in American psychology is found in a 1958 article by Anne Anastasi, who later became APA president. Anastasi wrote that the âheredity-environment questionâ was a âdead issue,â because âit is now generally conceded that both hereditary and environmental factors enter into all behavior.â7
Plomin wrote that âthirty years ago [circa 1988] it was dangerous professionally to study the genetic origins of differences in peopleâs behaviour and to write about it in scientific journalsâ (p. xi). This simply is not true, although in the wake of the social struggles of the 1960s it was âdangerousâ to come out in favor of eugenics, or to promote genetic explanations of racial group differences in IQ, criminal behavior, and other areas.
Ignoring the Critics
In Blueprint, all behavioral genetic concepts and methods, including twin studies, adoption studies, âheritability,â genetic and environmental variance-partitioning âmodel-fittingâ techniques, and âgeneral intelligenceâ (IQ) were presented as valid concepts and methods. Plomin did not mention the names, arguments, or publications of the critics, or the fact that these concepts, techniques, and methods have always been controversial. (Critics of twin research, the use of heritability estimates, and model fitting can point to a 2019 twin study where, using all three methods, the researchers concluded that âgenetic factors largely contributed to dog ownership, with heritability estimated at 57% for females and 51% for males.â)
Ignoring the Most Controversial and Crucial Assumption in Twin Research
Behavioral genetic claims rely heavily on the âclassical twin method,â which compares the behavioral resemblance or psychological test-score correlations of reared-together MZ (monozygotic, identical) and reared-together same-sex DZ (dizygotic, fraternal) twin pairs. MZ pairs are said to share a 100% genetic resemblance, whereas same-sex DZ pairs are said to share an average 50% genetic resemblance.
Genetic interpretations of the usual twin method finding that MZ pairs behave more similarly than DZ pairs are based on the long-controversial âequal environment assumptionâ (or âEEAâ). This assumption states that MZ and DZ pairs grow up experiencing roughly equal behavior-shaping environments, and that the only factor distinguishing these pairs is their differing degree of genetic relationship to each other (100% vs. 50%). The EEA as it relates to behavioral twin studies is obviously false, since when compared with same-sex DZ pairs, MZ pairs grow up experiencing (1) much more similar treatment by parents and others, (2) much more similar physical and social environments, and (3) identity confusion and a much stronger twin emotional bond.8Â Because the EEA is false, the greater behavioral resemblance of MZ versus DZ twin pairs can be completely explained by environmental (non-genetic) factors. This means that genetic interpretations of twin method resultsâpast, present, and futureâmust be rejected outright.
In Blueprint, Plomin did not say a word about this crucial assumption, and he failed to mention that genetic interpretations of his own âTwins Early Development Studyâ (TEDS) twin studies, which he discussed throughout the book, were based entirely on the validity of the EEA.
Adoption Studies
Plomin wrote that in behavioral genetic adoption studies, birthparents âshare nature but not nurture with their childrenâ (p. 13). However, even if children are adopted away at birth, they and their birthmothers share several environmental similarities. These include the prenatal environment, social class, racial or ethnic background (often resulting in oppression or privilege), culture, religion, and so on. Additional biases and environmental confounds in adoption research include attachment rupture and its impact on an abandoned/rejected childâs developing brain, late separation from the birthparent, late placement after separation, selective placement, and range restriction. Plominâs claim that adoption studies are able to âdisentangle nature and nurtureâ (p. 13), therefore, is simply wrong.
In Plominâs own 1998 âColorado Adoption Projectâ adoption study of personality, he and his colleagues found an average personality test-score correlation of .01 (that is, zero) between birthparents and their 240 adopted-away 16-year-old biological offspring, a correlation that Plomin believed âdirectly indexes genetic influence, unlike the indirect comparisons between nonadoptive and adoptive relatives or between identical and fraternal twinsâ (italics added).9 Although he found a way to conclude in favor of genetic influences on personality (a classic example of confirmation bias), the results of Plominâs large and carefully planned 1998 adoption study showed no genetic influences on personalityâa result that stands in remarkable contrast to his later claim in Blueprint that âDNA makes us who we are.â
Reared-Apart (Separated) Twin Studies
Plomin also cited reared-apart (separated) twin studies in support of his positions, which included his own âSwedish Adoption/Twin Study on Agingâ (SATSA) of the 1980s and 90s. Critics, however, have described the massive flaws and biases found in these studies, and have shown that most twins in these investigations were only partially reared apart. In the SATSA, for example, Plomin and colleagues defined twin pairs as âreared-apartâ if they had been âseparated by the age of 11â (italics added). The twins, who averaged 65.6 years of age, had been âseparatedâ from each other for an average of only 10.9 years at the time of testing.10
Plomin repeated the standard behavioral genetic assumption that only genetic factors can account for reared-apart MZ (identical) twinsâ behavioral similarity (p. 18), an assumption that is completely false because reared-apart MZ twins are the same age and gender (sex), are similar in appearance, and experience numerous non-familial cohort influences in common. (My analysis of Bouchard and colleaguesâ âMinnesota Study of Twins Reared Apartâ can be found HERE; the abridged version can be found HERE.)
The Most Important Question Is Interpretation, Not Replication
Behavioral genetic studies are well replicated, Plomin emphasized (pp. 32-33), but he failed to address the long-controversial assumptions underlying these studies. If a key assumption is false, such as the twin methodâs EEA, genetic interpretations of hundreds or even thousands of studies finding similar results will all be wrong. The most important question that independent analysists should ask about a behavioral genetic study is not whether its results have been replicated, but how its results should be interpreted.
The Fallacy of Counting Environmental Influences as Genetic Influences
The ânature of nurtureâ argument, which was a major component of Plominâs polygenic score âfortune tellerâ claim, states that âwhat looks like environmental effects are to a large extent really reflections of genetic differences,â which âimplies that parents donât make much of a difference in their childrenâs outcomes beyond the genes they provide at conceptionâ (pp. 82-83). Plominâs justification for counting most environmental influences as genetic influences is that âwe select, modify and even create our experiences in part on the basis of our genetic propensities,â meaning that âthe environmental effect of parenting on childrenâs psychological development actually involves parents responding to their childrenâs genetic differencesâ (p. ix).
Plomin promoted the general theme that parental and other environmental influences are not important. As he put it, true environmental effects are âmostly randomâunsystematic and unstableâwhich means that we cannot do much about themâ (p. xii). He even rejected the metaphor that âparents areâŚlike gardeners, providing conditions for their children to thrive.â In Plominâs view, âparents are not even gardeners, if that implies nurturing and pruning plants to achieve a certain resultâ (p. 215).
The ânature of nurtureâ argument is based on what we have seen are very problematic research methods, such as twin studies and adoption studies, and largely ignores basic common sense as well as decades of research from other areas of the social and behavioral sciences that record the importance of environmental influences. It also overlooks or denies the behavior-shaping influences of culture, class, religion, nation, region, the mass media, peer groups, and so on.
Do children âcreateâ family environments containing physical, sexual, and emotional abuse? If children who are forced to endure such abuse experience depression, low self-esteem, and even suicidal behavior as adults, should we conclude that this is caused by their DNA? Do children âcreateâ alcoholic or drug-addicted parents and the accompanying psychologically damaging environments caused by addiction? And what about children who grow up in neglectful, cold and distant, or psychologically invalidating family environments? Do children and adults of color âcreateâ psychologically harmful racist environments? How does the oppression of women and the LGBT community factor in? The list of examples is endless.
The bottom line is that Plominâs ânature of nurtureâ argument makes no sense, since it portrays children as being able to create their environments on the basis of their inherited behavioral blueprints, while simultaneously portraying parents as possessing an amazing ability to override their own behavioral blueprints by âresponding to their childrenâs genetic differences.â Even in this mythical parent-child Battle of the Blueprints, the family environments created by the parents will still prevail because parents possess power and authority in addition to their rigid behavioral blueprints, and because they have experienced many more years of ârandomâ and âunsystematicâ behavior-shaping events. Children would be largely unable to âselect, modify, and createâ their family environments for the simple reason that they would be no match for the blueprint-driven behavior of their parents!
Amazingly, the absurd claim that âthe environment is to a large extent geneticâ forms the basis of the most important behavioral genetic positions (the validity of the EEA and the twin method, for example), and genetic âheads I win, tails you loseâ arguments of this type were a central aspect of the famous yet severely flawed Minnesota reared-apart twin study.
The ânature of nurtureâ is not a behavioral genetic âbig finding,â as Plomin claimed, but is in reality a nonsensical and illogical claim.
The Claim that the Environment âDoesnât Make a Differenceâ
The entire discussion in Chapter 8, where Plomin wrote that parents, schools, and life experiences âmatter,â but âdonât make a difference,â is confusing and contradictory. If something doesnât make a difference, it doesnât much matter. It certainly âmatteredâ and âmade a difference toâ American football coaching brothers Jim and John Harbaugh that they grew up with a father who was a career football coach.
Plominâs âblueprintâ theory cannot explain countless other real-world and historical examples showing that the environment is massively important. To cite four examples, his theory cannot explain (1) why Australia has a relatively low crime rate despite having been founded and settled by convicted criminals, (2) why political and other types of behavior are very different in North Korea compared with South Korea, (3) why religious beliefs and practices have increased dramatically in Russia since 1991, and (4) the fact that IQ scores have risen âmassivelyâ during the past century (the âFlynn Effectâ). Once again, the list is endless.
A major theme of Plominâs previous writing had been that, in addition to genetics, âbehavioral traits are substantially influenced by non-genetic factors.â11 The reasonable/moderate pre-Blueprint Plomin wrote things like, âAs the pendulum of fashion swings from environmentalism to biological determinism it is important that it be caught mid-swing, because behavioral genetic research clearly demonstrates that both nature and nurture are important in human development.â12 To sell the new DNA blueprint story, he had to make these âsubstantialâ and âimportantâ non-genetic influences disappear.
Letâs compare two quotations. The first is found on page 96 of G Is for Genes, a 2014 book Plomin co-authored with Kathryn Asbury. The second is found in Blueprint (p. ix).
Plomin, 2014
âThe truth is that next to nothing is determined by genes, and our environments are hugely powerful.â
Plomin, 2018
âThe DNA differences inherited from our parents at the moment of conception are the consistent, lifelong source of psychological individuality, the blueprint that makes us who we are.â
What happened between 2014 and 2018? Did the âhugely powerfulâ impact of the environment somehow disappear in those years, or did Plomin decide to greatly diminish its influence in order to make the case for his DNA blueprint claim?
âContradictions and Logical Non Sequitursâ
In a December 14th, 2018 Scientific American article promoting his book, Plomin wrote,
âWe would essentially be the same person if we had been adopted at birth and raised in a different family. Environmental influences are important, accounting for about half of the differences between us, but they are largely unsystematic, unstable and idiosyncraticâin a word, random.â
As psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman pointed out in his January 18th, 2019 Scientific American blog, it is âimpossible to make this claim based on what we currently know about genetics. Not only that, but these two sentences contradict themselves. First he says we would be the same, but then in the very next sentence he says of course we wouldnât be the same.â Although Kaufman in general is an admirer of Plominâs work, he wrote that many of Plominâs 2018 statements were âriddled with contradictions and logical non sequiturs, and some of his more exaggerated rhetoric is even potentially dangerous if actually applied to educational selection.â
Academic Achievement
On the question of whether sex differences influence academic achievement, Plomin wrote,
âHow much do boys and girls actually differ in school achievement? The answer is that sex differences account for less than 1 per cent of the variance. In other words, if all you know about a child is whether the child is a boy or a girl, you know practically nothing about their propensity to achieve at school.â (p. 30)
In the context of Plominâs entire argument, this statement could be interpreted as implying that the âpropensity to achieve at schoolâ of people of color, of the poor, of immigrants to Europe or to the United States, and of members of the working class is lower because of their inherited DNA. In addition, although Plominâs claim about the lack of a relationship between gender and school achievement may be true currently in the U.K. and the U.S., it is completely false historically. In the past (and in some countries currently), when women were discouraged or prohibited from getting a good education, a childâs gender was a good predictor of his or her propensity to achieve at school. This is because, in previous eras, social conditions and political policies were very different, and massive social and political struggles were needed to change them.13
Plominâs Interpretations of His Own Polygenic Scores
Plomin offered several explanations for why some of his own polygenic scores did not match his reality. For example, his schizophrenia score was in the 85th percentile, even though âI donât feel at all schizophrenic, in the sense of having disorganized thoughts, hallucinations, delusions or paranoiaâ (pp. 149-150). Rather than offer this result as evidence that polygenic scores cannot be trusted, he seemed to suggest that his high score could be the result of his creative thinking and genius. âA nicer way of thinking about my higher than average polygenic risk score for schizophrenia,â Plomin wrote, âis to contemplate possible aspects of what at the extreme is called schizophrenia. The best example is a possible link between schizophrenia and creative thinking. Aristotle said âno great genius was without a mixture of insanityââ (p. 151).
âFirst Law of Behavior Geneticsâ
In his October 29th, 2018 âGloomy Prospectsâ blog posting, Turkheimer complained that in Blueprint, Plomin took credit for his âFirst Law of Behavior Genetics,â which Turkheimer had developed two decades earlier. According to Turkheimerâs 2000 âFirst Law,â âAll human behavioral traits are heritableâ to some degree. Plomin cited a 2016 article that he (Plomin) wrote as the source of the âFirst Lawâ (p. 195), and in the main body of Blueprint he did not mention the name of any of his behavioral genetic colleagues or mentors.
As Turkheimer wrote in this 10/29/2018 blog posting, Plomin âendorses a hard-line hereditarianism,â but âdoesnât bother to actually defend his ideas from even the most obvious objections. Faced with arguments or data that might contradict him, he ignores them, demagogues them, or, as he mostly does with me, pretends that the inconvenient ideas were actually his all along.â Blueprint, in Turkheimerâs view, is âsimultaneously grandiose, boring and dangerous.â
Psychiatric Disorders are Both Non-Existent and Highly Heritable
In Blueprintâs Chapter 6, Plomin called for ending the idea that specific behavioral or psychiatric disorders exist, arguing that they are caused not by genes specific to each disorder, but are instead influenced by âgeneralist genesâ falling into âthree broad genetic clusters.â This means that we will have to âtear up our diagnostic manuals based on symptomsâ (p. 68). Plomin predicted the âdemiseâ of psychiatric diagnoses, since âthere are no disorders to diagnose and there are no disorders to cureâ (p. 165). At the same time, he cited research claiming that these (for him non-existent) disorders are âunder substantial genetic influenceâ (p. 5), and can be predicted by polygenic scores. What he failed to explain is how psychiatric disorders can be studied, predicted, and âsubstantially genetically influencedâ if they do not exist.
If Plominâs claim is true that DNA âinherited from our parents at the moment of conceptionâŚmakes us who we are,â it follows that MZ twin concordance rates for schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders should approach 100%. (Concordance means that both twins are diagnosed/labeled with the same disorder.) In fact, MZ concordance rates for the major psychiatric disorders are well below 100%. Most textbooks report the schizophrenia MZ concordance rate as 50%, and the pooled rate for the better-performed studies appearing after 1960 is less than 25%.14 A 2018 Danish study by Rikke Hilker and colleagues found a very un-blueprintlike 12 of 81 MZ pairs (14.8%) concordant for schizophrenia, meaning that when one twin was diagnosed with schizophrenia, 85% of the time his or her identical-DNA co-twin was not so diagnosed.15
Four Decades of Unfulfilled Gene Discovery Claims and Predictions
According to Plomin, we have been in the midst of a âDNA revolutionâ since 2015-2016. Previously, decades of studies had failed to produce the expected genes for behavior, and he was ready to give up, and take up sailing in his retirement (pp. 122-123). For Plomin, his earlier failed attempts to identify genes that underlie intelligence reminded him of âthe cartoon about a scientist with a smoking test tube who asks a colleague, âWhatâs the opposite of Eureka?ââ (p. 122).
It is important to understand that whatever Plomin says now about his own or other researchersâ past failed gene-finding attempts, he usually said something different when these failures were actually occurring. His first published behavioral gene discovery claim appeared in 1978, when he and a colleague wrote that âevidence has accumulated to indicate that inheritance of bipolar depression involves X-linkage in some instances.â16 In a 1994 article appearing in the prestigious journal Science, Plomin and colleagues reported that genetic linkages and associations had been found for reading disability, sexual orientation, alcoholism, drug use, violence, paranoid schizophrenia, and hyperactivity.17 Four years later, Plomin and Michael Rutter informed their fellow psychologists that genes associated with behavioral dimensions and disorders were âbeginning to be identified.â18 In the 2008 (fifth) edition of the textbook Behavioral Genetics, Plomin and colleagues reported gene associations or discoveries in the areas of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), reading disability, schizophrenia, panic disorder, personality, and antisocial behavior. (Many more examples can be found HERE, expanded and updated in Chapter 10 of The Trouble with Twin Studies.)
As an example of Plominâs use of the media to publicize his own tentative findings that later became non-replicated âsmoking test tubes,â on May 14th, 1998 the New York Times published an article by Nicholas Wade, entitled âFirst Gene to Be Linked with High Intelligence Is Reported Found.â As Wade described it,
âDr. Plomin has sought to move the debate forward by arguing that if genes for intelligence exist it should be possible to track some of them down through the powerful new genetic scanning techniques that have recently become available. Searching through a small part of the human genome, the long arm of chromosome 6, he found that a particular variant of a certain gene was twice as common in his sample of children with ultra-high I.Q.âs than in those with average I.Q.âs The gene has a very small effect, accounting for about 2 percent of the variance, or 4 I.Q. points, Dr. Plomin said.â
When Plominâs claims and predictions fell through, his tendency since the late 1980s has been to cover up failure, âmiseryâ (p. 123), non-replication, and âgetting depressedâ (p. 122) through the frequent use of published words and phrases such as âbreathtaking pace,â âexciting,â âon the cusp,â âspectacular advances,â âdawn of a new era,â ârevolutionary advance,â ârevolutionary genetic research,â âbegun to revolutionize,â âgenetic advances are just around the corner,â âmomentum of genomic science,â âmissing heritability,â âgolden post-genomic era,â âthe future looks bright,â âthreshold of the post-genomic era,â and âaccelerating pace.â
Plomin has a 40-year track record of unfulfilled gene discovery claims and predictions. He again made bold new claims and predictions in Blueprint, yet he did not mention this dreadful track record, nor was there any hint of embarrassment about it. There is every reason to believe that Plominâs new polygenic score claims and predictions are merely a continuation of this 40-year trend.
Fears of Genetic Claims and Genetic Determinism Are not âMisplacedâ
The implications of Plominâs claimed âDNA revolutionâ are enormous, and if true would require re-writing all human history. He danced around the potential eugenic and racial differences implications of his claimsâwhile at the same time airbrushing out of history the crimes committed, and the pseudoscience promoted, in the name of genetics and eugenicsâand wrote that the IQ genetics debate raged due to earlier environmentalist criticsâ âmisplaced fears about biological determinism, eugenics, and racismâ (p. 53). Why misplaced? Is Plomin aware of books such as The Science and Politics of I.Q., The Mismeasure of Man, The Legacy of Malthus, Murderous Science, Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis, The Surgical Solution, The Nazi Doctors, and War Against the Weak? Few readers of these books would conclude that fears of biological determinism, eugenics, and racism are misplaced!
Plomin claimed that âno specific policies necessarily follow from genetic findingsâ (p. 105). In fact (early 20th century left-wing supporters of eugenics, and Plominâs stated support for the British Labour Party notwithstanding), a whole set of politically conservative and right-wing beliefs, policies, and actions flow from genetic determinist claims. Genetic determinism supports the idea that human beings, for the most part, are in their biologically destined places in society and in the world. It helps justify inequality and huge income disparities, and supports the belief that changing or improving the environments of individuals, ethnic groups, economic classes, and nations wonât accomplish very much. It is a worldview perfectly suited for the former colonial and current neo-colonial powers, and for the tiny handful of billionaires who currently own as much wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity.
Regardless of his intentions and beliefs, Plominâs âblueprintâ claims provide pseudoscientific support to the appalling agendas and actions of the growing number of far-right and white-nationalist fascist groups in the United States and Europe. These groups are all about âbiological determinism, eugenics, racism,â and anti-Semitism. Perhaps this is one aspect of what Turkheimer saw as Blueprintâs âpoisonous side effects.â
The historian of biology Nathaniel Comfort wrote in his October 5th, 2018 Genotopia blog entry:
âPlomin is spreading a simplistic and insidious doctrine that says âenvironmental intervention is futile.â I donât care whether Plomin himself, in his heart of hearts, wants to ban public education; he gives ammunition to people who do want to ban it. âRace realistsâ and âhuman biodiversityâ advocatesâmodern euphemisms for white supremacyâread this stuff avidly.â
Comfortâs 2018 Nature review of Blueprint can be found HERE. Behavioral genetic researcher Paige Harden also weighed in on this issue:
âGenetic research on human behavior is entangled, both in historical fact and in popular imagination, with the horrors of eugenics. Plomin sidesteps this history. He also avoids any mention of race, the typical flashpoint of controversy for genetics books. Both omissions will strike many readersâparticularly in America, where racial divisions loom largeâas irresponsible. Scientific racism never went away, and any discussion of genetic influence unwittingly attracts a swarm of far-right fanboys.â
A âSales Pitchâ for Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Tests
In various places, Plomin promoted direct-to-consumer genetic tests such as 23andMe as being able to provide polygenic scores for various behavioral characteristics. In his own words, his book included a âsales pitchâ (p. 161) for people to purchase these tests. Plomin informed his readers that the test costs less than ÂŁ100 (about $125.00 U.S.). He specifically promoted the purchase of 23andMe tests, and mentioned the 23andMe founderâs self-serving belief that it is the âduty of parents to arm themselves with their childâs blueprintâ (p. 178). âMillions of people,â Plomin wrote, âhave already voted with their credit card by paying to have their genomic fortunes foretold, even before polygenic scores are availableâ (p. 184). It is worth noting that Blueprint did not contain a statement that its author had no financial conflict of interest in his role as a scientist promoting the large-scale purchase of direct-to-consumer genetic tests.
Conclusions
Behavioral genetic researchers donât like to be called âgenetic determinists,â which might explain why Plomin made occasional statements that âthe environment is importantâ (p. 32), and that âgenes are not destinyâ (p. 92). And yet, in Blueprint he repeatedly conveyed the message that genes are destiny, and that environmental influences are not important.
The polygenic score method will likely become the latest in a long line of failed gene-finding methods in the area of human behavior, whose failures are usually only recognized after the latest-and-greatest method is said to have finally found the long-lost âgenes for behavior.â The most reasonable explanation for these failures is that Plomin and other researchers have been massively misled by twin and adoption studies, and by their strong genetic biases. Molecular genetic studies of behavior are characterized by the publication of false-positive results followed by non-replication, systematic error, and a reliance on false assumptions and dubious heritability estimates. These errors are repeated year after year, and decade after decade, and are the most likely explanation for a much-publicized August, 2019 report that genes contribute to same-sex sexual behavior.
What appears to matter most to Plomin now are âfortune-tellingâ polygenic scores, and his claim that researchers have found genetic âgold dust, not nuggets. Each speck of gold was not worth much, but scooping up handfuls of gold dust made it possible to predict genetic propensities of individualsâ (p. 187). Most likely, Plominâs âgold dust specksâ are the latest version of the genes-for-behavior foolâs gold that molecular genetic researchers have been collecting, and the corporate media has been misreporting as real gold, for the past half century or so.
Future historians of science may well see Blueprint as marking the beginning of the behavioral genetics fieldâs decline. Turkheimer recognized the decades-long âfailureâ of the behavioral genetic âgene-finding project,â whereas Plomin attempted to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat as he neared the end of his long career. Plomin has gone all in with polygenic scores in an attempt to escape from the âgenes for behaviorâ corner he had painted himself into, but the only real âbig findingâ that his field of behavioral genetics has ever produced is, paradoxically, the finding that such genes might not even exist.
I have read something different –
“Robert Plomin, on whose passionate, prolific, and perceptive writings this chapter has frequently relied, urgently warns against using genetics in a simplistic manner. He states: âGenetic effects on behavior are polygenic and probabilistic, not single gene and deterministic.â I gather from him a warning to psychiatry: Do not capsize your noble vessel under the weight of pharmaceutical, insurance company, and government gold, and do not set your compass toward Fantasy Island, where genetics will define âdisease entities in psychiatry.â âWe have learned little about the genetics of development [how genes act and interact over time] except to appreciate its complexity.â Therefore we can never arrive at that equation where one defective gene equals one clinical picture (except for true anomalies like Huntingtonâs chorea).
These warnings have little effect; simplistic thinking fulfills too many wishes. The heads of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison are carved into the Mount Rushmore of the mind. The monster of mechanism appears in every century of modern Western history and must be watched for by each generationâespecially ours, when to hold out for âsomething elseâ besides nature or nurture means believing in ghosts or magic.
Ever since French rationalism of the seventeenth (Marin Mersenne, Nicolas de Malebranche) and eighteenth (Etienne de Condillac, Julien Offroy de La Mettrie) centuries and right through to the positivism of the nineteenth (Antoine Destutt de Tracy, Auguste Comte) in which all mental events were reduced to biology, a piece of the collective Western mind had been yolked like a dumb ox to the heavy tumbrel of French mechanistic materialism. It is astounding how people with such subtle taste as the French and with such erotic sensibility can go on and on contributing so much rationalist rigor mortis to psychology. Every import that arrives from France must be inspected for this French disease, even though it carries the fashionable label of Lacanism, Structuralism, Deconstruction, or whatever.
Today rationalism is global, computer-compatible every-where. It is the international style of the mindâs architecture. We cannot pin it to a particular flag, unless to the banners of the multinational corporation that can spend big bucks turning psychiatry, and eventually psychological thinking, and therefore soul control, toward monogenetic monotheism. One gene for one disorder: Splice the gene, teach it tricks, combine it, and the disorder is gone, or at least you donât know you have it. The narrow path leads back to the thirties and forties of psychiatric history, though in a more refined manner and with better press releases. From 1930 into the 1950s, correlating specific brain areas with large emotional and functional concepts provided the rationale for the violence of psychosurgery and the lobotomizing of many a troubled soul at odds with circumstance.
The narrow path is yet more retro, going back to the skill analysis of Franz Josef Gall (M.D., Vienna, 1795), who settled in Paris and was much appreciated by the French. From him came the âevidenceâ that skull bumps and declivities could be correlated with psychological faculties (a system later called phrenology). Much as they are today, the faculties were given big names, such as memory, judgment, emotionalism, musical and mathematical talent, criminality, and so on. Refinement in methods over the years does not necessarily lead to progress in theorizing: 1795 or 1995âmaterial location, and then reduction of psyche to location, prompts the enterprise.”
James Hillman “Soul Code”
Plomin should have read Hillman’s books. But he is a scientist, and scientists know nothing about psyche.
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Without archetypal psychology scientist will remain small anti human butchers. Apollonian ego arrogance will destroy humanity.
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Forget about family and biology. Let’s talk about psyche. Descartes era of biological scientific fanaticism will leave us with nothing else than rotten tissue.
We all are fooled. Science is just a wealthy garbage of the rich.
“Soul code” should be obligatory in school.
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I respectfully disagree; our community considers science to be our best way of understanding ourselves and our environment. Consistently, psychiatry dominates the “mental health” care industry based on its false claim of being a biological science. Hence, I appreciate Joseph’s challenges to their pseudo genetics- to their garbage “science.”
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It was my own weak grasp of science that made me fall for psychiatry’s lies when young.
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We use scientific language only to prove our own convenient thinking.Psyche has got nothing to do with -logy, science and scientific language. Our monotheistic dumb mind needs science. Psyche does not need science. Psyche, pathology is not a problem to solve.
Psyche, pathology, depression and schizophrenia needs a proper meaning not solutions.
Science.This type of simplification is unacceptable when it comes to describing the psyche.
PSYCHE IS NOT A PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED.
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“FINAL SOLUTION”. WE DO NOT NEED IT, BECAUSE WE ARE NOT NAZIS.
Monotheistic medicine/science is theology in medical disguise. And theology is against psyche.
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Very astute of Dr, Plomin to skirt the issues of differences between male and female chromosomes. It looks as though he evades the issue of possible racial differences altogether.
Something left out of this nature/nurture debate is how our choices shape our personality as we grow and age.
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Thank you for presenting this information so clearly Dr. Joseph. Science is important but so is integrity.
As with psychiatry there are many false assumptions and confirmation bias. A couple sentences that stand out:
âWhat he (Plomin) failed to explain is how psychiatric disorders can be studied, predicted, and âsubstantially genetically influencedâ if they do not exist.â
“The historian of biology Nathaniel Comfort wrote in his October 5th, 2018 Genotopia blog entry:
âPlomin is spreading a simplistic and insidious doctrine that says âenvironmental intervention is futile.â”
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I agree; they are denying our humanity by “relegating personal histories to ‘triggers’ of an underlying genetic time bomb.”
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I do personally believe that both nature and nurture affect behavior. So I think it’s sad the behavioral genetics researchers are claiming only genetics matter, especially since that’s basically the same belief system as eugenics.
It’s good Plomin is admitting that the DSM disorders are “Non-Existent.” But I agree, it’s bizarre that he believes non-existent disorders can be “Highly Heritable.” That makes no sense.
I do agree, “Genetic determinism supports the idea that human beings, for the most part, are in their biologically destined places in society and in the world. It helps justify inequality and huge income disparities, and supports the belief that changing or improving the environments of individuals, ethnic groups, economic classes, and nations wonât accomplish very much. It is a worldview perfectly suited for the former colonial and current neo-colonial powers, and for the tiny handful of billionaires who currently own as much wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity.”
Since this “tiny handful of billionaires” needed bank bailouts in 2008, then went on to “steal $trillions worth of houses,” because their minion hadn’t been doing their paperwork properly.
https://boingboing.net/2013/08/12/unsealed-court-settlement-docu.html
I’m quite certain we have the wrong “elite” in charge of America, and the world’s financial systems. We have psychopathic, never ending war mongering and profiteering thieves in charge, not fiscally responsible and respectable people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfEBupAeo4&app=desktop
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Danzig666, I want to ask you a question about James Hillman.
Recently I saw a reference to:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385489676/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i7
That doesn’t really sound like Psychotherapy.
The reason I read the Dick Russell book was that I wanted to see if Hillman every renounced psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/161145462X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i9
It is a huge book. But when I got it I realized that it only covered the first portion of Hillman’s life. Other volumes seem not to be written yet.
Without psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, you don’t have sessions, you don’t have a client disclosing their affairs to a non-comrade, you don’t have transference, you don’t have abuse.
It would be just a guy giving lectures to groups and writing interesting books.
Did Hillman ever renounce psychoanalysis and psychotherapy?
Thanks
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Hillman was an ideological polytheist. In polytheistic society we do not need psychiatry. Because psychiatry is only a form of control in monotheistic kind of society, in which, religion theology and so called rationalism is in the center of thinking. Apollonian ego and spiritualism have banned psyche. The whole Age of Enlightenment have mocked and condemned psyche.
In psychological hierarchy the real father of human psyche is Hades and Zeus, not Apollo, which means science, brain, ego in the center of the psyche, and we must remember that for apollonians psyche does not exists, because they are materialists and they see only brain and theories of fake illnesses. Hades is their enemy. They and their small rational thinking belongs also to Hades, to psychological reality.
I mean, psyche need Copernicus, not theology in medical disguise. We need to see the hierarchy in psychological reality, because now, we see only materialism or our thinking is highly theological even if we are atheists. Because monotheism do not need religion. Monotheism is a very simple kind of thinking, which we create for our own comfort, not for seeing the psyche.
Apollo,as a style of thinking, is too blind, and too psychopathic to rule the mythical imagination.
In fact, apollonian ego, destroyed the true image of the psyche. Those people are anti psychological fundamentalists and they either reject, or want to rule, the fantasy which is beyond ego control.
It is very hard to imagine how it would be, to accept our own pathology in society beyond monotheistic simple theories and religion that have rejected psyche long time ago. The word normal is used against human pathology, human psyche. Theology is also against psyche. Generally, people see in their pathology only evil and sin. Because hades ( the heart of psyche)was condemned by monotheistic religion. It is a hidden strategy of controlling people.
I called it Anneliese Michel paradox. Because psychiatry rejected psychological hades and sees the devil as a real, only because, devil is real for theology. The rest of mythic imagination is not real for monotheistic people.Psychiatry rejected human psyche, because theology rejected human psyche first.
Theological power or rational power, in medical disguise, have power to reject or regain the human identity. This is hideous crime and sick ideology.
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These are Hillman’s words about psychotherapy-
“Hillman: I’m not critical of the people who do psychotherapy. The therapists in the trenches have to face an awful lot of the social, political, and economic failures of capitalism. They have to take care of all the rejects and failures. They are sincere and work hard with very little credit, and the HMOs and the pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies are trying to wipe them out. So certainly I am not attacking them. I am attacking the theories of psychotherapy. You don’t attack the grunts of Vietnam; you blame the theory behind the war. Nobody who fought in that war was at fault. It was the war itself that was at fault. It’s the same thing with psychotherapy. It makes every problem a subjective, inner problem. And that’s not where the problems come from. They come from the environment, the cities, the economy, the racism. They come from architecture, school systems, capitalism, exploitation. They come from many places that psychotherapy does not address. Psychotherapy theory turns it all on you: you are the one who is wrong. What I’m trying to say is that, if a kid is having trouble or is discouraged, the problem is not just inside the kid; it’s also in the system, the society.
London: You can’t fix the person without fixing the society.
Hillman: I don’t think so. But I don’t think anything changes until ideas change. The usual American viewpoint is to believe that something is wrong with the person. We approach people the same way we approach our cars. We take the poor kid to a doctor and ask, “What’s wrong with him, how much will it cost, and when can I pick him up?” We can’t change anything until we get some fresh ideas, until we begin to see things differently. My goal is to create a therapy of ideas, to try to bring in new ideas so that we can see the same old problems differently.”
the rest of interview -http://scott.london/interviews/hillman.html
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“Hillman was an ideological polytheist.”
Yes, and others have pointed out how similar Freud is to religion and original sin. And Psychotherapy is just a sugar coated version of the same thing.
Okay, so I like most of what you and Hillman are saying. But still, if he supports Psychotherapy, I still see that as preying on survivors. They should not be conned into disclosing their private affairs to someone who is not actually a comrade. That harms them.
Books, lectures, fine, but not Psychotherapy sessions.
I’ll read this carefully
http://scott.london/interviews/hillman.html
Thanks!
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BBC News – Stress in pregnancy ‘makes child personality disorder more likely’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49593620
A stressed parent can pass stress onto their child and most parents do at some level or another.
But it’s the consumption of psychotropic drugs during pregnancy that causes brain damage to children in the womb.
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But how can this kind of research hold any validity if the âpersonality disordersâ are as invalid as the rest of the DSM labels? This is where the neuropsych field continues to run into replication issues. The DSM labels are unscientific to start with, so any correlations between adverse events and specific diagnoses needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Much better to simply assert that adverse prenatal environments have adverse effects on child development. This would be inclusive of other research that attempts to correlate prenatal infection, stress, drug exposure, etc on âautismâ, âadhdâ, âschizophreniaâ, âpsychopathyâ etc.
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This present emphasis on genetics reminds me of those earlier guys’ attempts to prove the “White Man’s” right and duty to own the prime real estate and command the locals in regions where he’d turn into a delirious insane lobster if he spent an hour in the midday sun.
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Dr Joseph. Thank you for a very thorough discussion of a controversial topic. Job well done.
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Thank you.
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^^^^ ~personality disorder~ is still a ~mental health~ concept.
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I am very interested in two parts of this wonderful article:
“However, even if children are adopted away at birth, they and their birthmothers share several environmental similarities. These include the prenatal environment, social class, racial or ethnic background (often resulting in oppression or privilege), culture, religion, and so on. ”
I’d like to know why they would share religion. Is this because they are adopted through religiously-affiliated adoption agencies??
In fact, I often wonder if the adoption agencies tend to send their kids to “range-restricted” homes, so to speak!
“And what about children who grow up in neglectful, cold and distant, or psychologically invalidating family environments?”
I often am interested in this topic. Is there any research on cold, distant, psychologically-invalidating family members? I ask because it is the exact home environment that I grew up in.
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Responding to your question, “Iâd like to know why they would share religion. Is this because they are adopted through religiously-affiliated adoption agencies??”
I was not thinking so much about religiously-affiliated adoption agencies as I was about countries and cultures with a dominant religion. For example, it is likely that birthparents and their adopted-away offspring in Spain grow up with the teachings of the Catholic religion, which influences people’s beliefs and behaviors. This is an example of a major non-genetic behavioral influence shared by birthparents and adoptees. They may not have grown up together in the same family, but they grew up and live together in similar non-familial social environments. Another example would be adoptions made within religious communities such as the Pennsylvania Amish, where we would expect to see much behavioral resemblance for non-genetic reasons.
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The God gene hypothesis proposes that human spirituality is influenced by heredity and that a specific gene, called vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2), predisposes humans towards spiritual or mystic experiences. The probability of switching allegiance in our models depends on the genetic endowment of the individual concerned. A child who is genetically predisposed towards religion is more likely than other children to remain or become religious as an adult. Overall, findings suggested genetic factors may indeed have a lifelong influence on religious beliefâwhether through life course pathways or direct cognitive ones. VMAT2 codes for a vesicular monoamine transporter that plays a key role in regulating the levels of the brain chemicals serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. These monoamine transmitters are in turn postulated to play an important role in regulating the brain activities associated with mystic beliefs.
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â VMAT2 codes for a vesicular monoamine transporter that plays a key role in regulating the levels of the brain chemicals serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine.â
What if these neurotransmitters do something really, really broad, which itself is correlated with religiosity (at least in certain cultures)?
For example, what if it makes you more content, less aggressive, or less worried? Calmer and happier, in other words.? And what if one lives in a culture where religious affiliation is deeply entertained into the texture of social life, such that only a cranky person dissents, and the happy people just go with the flow? I hope you understand what I mean.
It seems to me that it is dangerous and potentially erroneous to conclude that genes might directly control for certain very specific behaviors, when their statistical relationship might be an indirect sort of relationship – a kind of second-order or third-order âcauseâ of A behavior.
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