Re:Ask HN: If you’ve considered homeschooling, what’s stoppi...
by concinds on Friday July 01, 2022 @04:17PM
(#31952193)
Be extremely careful believing in the "it's mostly genetics, nurture is a minor factor" stuff. Most of these studies have surprisingly bad (or at least naive) methodologies, of the "we don't know what we don't know (but people like Taleb do)" kind (!).
Of course if you want to read studies by biologists too, there's quite a few addressing the problems with twin studies (especially with high-dimensional outcomes like intelligence and emotional health). But to be clear, the problem with the nature-matters-a-lot studies isn't a biology problem; it's a math problem.
And the wider problem is that the "mostly nature not nurture" idea disincentivizes conscientious, careful parenting (since "it doesn't matter in the long run anyway").
See e.g. this study: https://elifesciences.org/articles/39725 (and that's for height, which is vastly lower-dimensional than emotional health or IQ)
Or an easier to read article: https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-turmoil-over-predicting-t...
Can also see this thread: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1163435285193076737 and this tweet: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1476173796323246082. Nature-über-alles studies rely on relatively basic misunderstandings of the required math.
Of course if you want to read studies by biologists too, there's quite a few addressing the problems with twin studies (especially with high-dimensional outcomes like intelligence and emotional health). But to be clear, the problem with the nature-matters-a-lot studies isn't a biology problem; it's a math problem.
And the wider problem is that the "mostly nature not nurture" idea disincentivizes conscientious, careful parenting (since "it doesn't matter in the long run anyway").