#353 - Robert Plomin - How Do Genes Influence Our Behaviour?
Modern Wisdom
Chris Williamson
4.7 • 4.6K Ratings
🗓️ 2 August 2021
⏱️ 108 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Robert Plomin, is a psychologist, geneticist and an author.
Separating the influence of nature and nurture is something everyone considers. Robert is the 71st most cited psychologist of the 20th century and has run the largest and most clinically detailed twin and adoption studies in history to finally provide definitive answers to these fundamental questions.
Expect to learn how much of who we are can be attributed to our environment and how much was predisposed by our genetics, why parenting doesn't make a difference, why the choice of school your child goes to only impacts 1% of their outcomes, whether penis size is heritable, if there is a gay gene or not and much more...
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Robert Ploman, he's a psychologist, |
| 0:05.2 | geneticist and an author when we're talking about how genes influence our behaviour. |
| 0:10.6 | Separating the influence of nature and nurture is something everyone considers. |
| 0:15.0 | Robert is the 71st most cited psychologist of the 20th century and has run the largest and |
| 0:21.2 | most clinically detailed twin and adoption studies in history to finally provide definitive answers |
| 0:26.5 | to these fundamental questions. Today, expect to learn how much of who we are can be attributed |
| 0:32.0 | to our environment and how much was predisposed by our genetics, why parenting doesn't make a |
| 0:37.4 | difference, why the choice of school your child goes to only impacts 1% of their outcomes, |
| 0:43.0 | where the penis size is heritable if there is a gauging and much more. This is one of the biggest |
| 0:51.5 | switches in my thinking that I've had over the last year. Robert's work really does sort of |
| 0:56.4 | upend a lot of the commonly held assumptions about how outcomes and intelligence and general |
| 1:03.6 | life happiness manifests. We live in a world that's a meritocracy where you can be anything you want |
| 1:08.2 | to be and to discover that there are these immutable truths that are with you from literally as |
| 1:12.9 | you're conceived can feel restricting to some people. But it can also be liberating, learning that |
| 1:18.7 | there are certain things that you are predisposed to enjoy and other things that you're not actually |
| 1:23.5 | reassures us that a lot of the preferences that we have and the ways that we enjoy living our lives |
| 1:28.9 | is something that we should just embrace as opposed to fight against. This is a uncomfortable but |
| 1:34.4 | unbelievably enlightening conversation. I really, really hope that you enjoy this one. Before I get |
| 1:39.7 | onto other news, the Modern Wisdom Reading List is finally finished 100 books that you should |
| 1:45.1 | read before you die. That will be available on Monday, the 9th of August. I'll tell you where you |
| 1:49.6 | can get it on the pre-roll for next Monday's podcast plus it will be on the swipe up on my story |
| 1:54.6 | on Instagram. So make sure that you're following me and make sure that you tune in next Monday |
... |
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