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College notes Nature v.S. Nurture (AB_1057)
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Nature versus NurtureInhoudsopgave
Lecture 1 – History.......................................................................................................... 1
Lecture 2 – Introduction to twins and heritability............................................................5
Lecture 3 - Design of experiments................................................................................18
Lecture 4 and 5 - Basic genetics...................................................................................20
Lecture 6 - Introduction to Genome-Wide Assocation Studies (GWAS).........................33
Lecture 7 - Beyond genome-wide association analysis.................................................46
Lecture 8 - Diversity in GWAS.......................................................................................51
Lecture 9 - From heritability to gene-finding.................................................................55
Lecture 10 – Phenotyping in genetics...........................................................................58
Lecture 11 – from genes to neuroscience.....................................................................69
Lecture 13 – epigenetics............................................................................................... 71
Lecture 1 – History
Nature – genes and hereditary factors. Physical appearance.
Personality characteristics.
Nurture – environmental variables. Childhood experience. How we
were raised. Social relationships. Surrounding culture.
Why do we differ and why are we similar?
Nature Nurture
Behaviour is caused by innate Behavior is determined by
characteristics environment – what people learn,
observe, experience
All behaviors are present from Behavior results from interaction
conception with environment
Genes provide the blueprint for Tabula rasa: born as a blank slate,
behavior: some expressed at birth, an empty vessel, waiting to be
some programmed to “emerge filled up with experiences
with age”
Deterministic (probabilistic) Everything is possible given the
right environment
Deterministic (probabilistic)
Debate: to what extent play genes and environment a role in shaping
behavior?
Old Greeks
Hippocrates: founder of modern medicine. His oath: “I will use treatment
to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a
view to injury and wrongdoing”.
,Human behavior product of biological/physical processes, specifically the
balance between four fluid types (humors):
- Blood
- Yellow bile
- Black bile
- Phlegm
John Locke (1632-1704)
Individuals are born without built in mental content, they are tabula rasa
(clean slate, blank sheet: the absence of preconceived ideas or
predetermined goals; everything is possible).
We are born “equal”. All knowledge comes from experience. All behavioral
traits are formed by nurture.
Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)
Homo universalis: naturalist, geologist, biologist.
“The origin of species (1859)” – animals adapt to their environments in
ways that are inherited by future generations.
“The descent of man (1871)”.
Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911)
Hereditary Genius (1869) – Galton become inspired in human abilities,
were they inherited?
Method: is the offspring of “eminent men” also more eminent than
expected?
Result: indeed, this was the case. Family of the eminent men were more
often eminent themselves. Additionally, the numbers of eminent men
dropped off as a function of the degree of relatedness.
Conclusion: human (cognitive) abilities are heritable.
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)
The father of genetics. Used pea plants to study the inheritance of traits.
Heyday (hoogtepunt) of genetics: biology is destiny. Humans are
constraint by their genetics. Reaction -> behaviorism.
The black page of eugenics
In order to ‘save the world’ from disabled, mentally ill, criminal, epileptic
etc. persons (traits that were transmitted from generation to generation)
compulsory sterilization of women was proposed (Buck versus Bell case,
1st execution in 1927).
Sterilization was extended to murder in the 2nd world war, including
horrible experiments with twins.
Goal: improve the quality of the population’s genes, and thus the quality
of human traits.
Reaction -> behaviorism
(That is, nurture!).
Humans are shaped and constraint only by their environment
(upbringing, experiences). Everything is learned!
,Conditioning: Pavlov Response
Behavior can be conditioned: reward positive behavior, punish negative
behavior.
1. Stimulus: food
Response dog: saliva.
2. Stimulus: food + sound
Response dog: saliva.
3. Stimulus: sound
Response dog: saliva.
Behaviorism
Psychological concept introduced by John B. Watson (1878-1958) and
Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904-1990).
Quote Watson: give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own
specified world to bring them up in and I will guarantee to take any one at
random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select –
doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant – chief and, yes, even beggar – man and
thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations,
and race of his ancestors (1930).
Skinner (1948): raising of children by ‘specialists’ in an aim to create a
peaceful world social science fiction.
Human research ‘little baby Albert’ by Watson. Everything is learned –
even things that seem “instinctive” like fear.
Consequence of behaviorism – blame the parent. “Parents should take
active control of upbringing by shaping their children’s environment”. ->
refrigerator mother theory.
Determinism
Jean Piaget: children’s thought processes change at pre-determined age-
related stages.
Birth to 2: know the world through movement/the senses. I am sperate
from others. Object permanence. Action = reaction.
2 to 7 years: learn to use symbols: letters, pictures. They are the center of
the universe. Mostly concrete, hardly abstract thought.
7 to 11 years: more logical, organized thinking. Start of conversation. Start
inductive logic: from specific to general.
12+: abstract thought, hypothetical problems. Moral, ethical, social,
political issues. Start deductive logic: from general to specific.
Avram Noam Chomsky
- Language is result of innate cognitive structures
- Inherited ability to learn language
- Universal innate grammar causes similarities between languages
- Children are predisposed to make sound and understand grammar
- Language skills develop rapidly from certain ages on
- Language acquisition follows the same sequence in all children.
, “Language is a process of free creation; its law and principles are fixed,
but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and
infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a
process of free creation”.
Galton introduced the nature vs. nurture term. He suggested that a
more sufficient way to study nature vs. nurture would be the use of
adopted individuals, and twins.
Monozygotic (MZ) twins
Genetically identical, they origin from a single egg and a single sperm.
Reared apart:
Familial resemblance -> shared genes or shared environment?
Twins: experiment of nature
Adaption: experiment of nurture
MZ twins reared apart:
- Same gene
- Different environment
Thomas Bouchard: study of identical twins reared apart that reuniting
about 100 separated MZ twin pairs. Despite the fact the twins grew up in
totally different environments he found striking similarities in:
- Cognitive functioning
- Habits
- Interests
- Personality
Nature: develop drug/medical therapies to adjust behavioral/psychological
problems. Can people always be held responsible for their behavior?
Nurture: adapt environment (home situation, school system, specific
school curriculum focused on learning social behavior). Is the environment
responsible for a child’s behavior?
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