[nunb]

I heard the most bizarre & unexpected opinion first-hand from an obgyn. Prior to this I was firmly in the nurture camp of nature/nurture, but this obgyn's opinion on adoptions shocked me out of my complacency.

I am hoping Sapolsky's latest book may shed some light on the subject without the Wade/Murray "bell curve" implications.

[decafninja]

Curious as to what you mean. I think you're implying that the personality makeup of the adopted child that comes from his/her biological parents is not to be underestimated? Is that really a questionable or controversial topic though?

The thought has occurred to me. I would describe both my wife and I as being stable mannered and not prone to rash decisions. Odds are a biological child of ours might resemble that personality.

I also acknowledge a child we adopt may have had biological parents with very different personalities than us, and therefore the child may be very different from us in personality.

At the same time, I don't believe that just because the child's biological parents might have been wild and crazy, the child is doomed to the same fate even with our care.

[d0100]

Some wild and crazy behavior comes by because of genetic "features" that translate into mental issues

But I do believe nurture can help to prevent or exacerbate those issues

[JamesBarney]

> At the same time, I don't believe that just because the child's biological parents might have been wild and crazy, the child is doomed to the same fate even with our care

Tell me you haven't read many behavioral genetics papers without telling me you haven't read many behavioral genetics papers :).

[pram]

After having kids, my opinion is they come out of the womb with baked-in personalities.

Not that we don't change as we age obviously, but it's definitely not a blank slate by a mile.

[random314]

What was the opinion?

[nunb]

adoptee turned to hard drugs (opiods) in his teens. the opinion was: what do you expect, the father was an addict too. at the time I was shocked as I was so firmly in the nurture camp.

[tfigment]

I can only speak from personal experience but that is what happened to my family. My brother is a sociopath who caused our family a lifetime of difficulty. The biological mother was drug addict and abusive before adoption and he became an addict. My sister also adopted from different family was less of a problem but also had some issues. My dad was very kind and not abusive and spent way too much trying to help. Who knows maybe it was environment and early abuse or something but nature stacked the deck I think in my family. The other issue with adoption is limited access to family medical history.

[rayiner]

Do you really think genetics don't matter? Depending on the study, IQ heritability is between 60-80%.

[random314]

Heritability includes both nurture and nature(genetic). There is no real way to separate nature and nurture in these studies.

For eg, if you take Einstein's kid and let wolves raise him, we can expect the kids IQ to be somewhat lower.

I would guess IQ is primarily genetic, but these heritability studies don't show that.

[tptacek]

This isn't even wrong.

Is the number of human toes genetic? How heritable is the number of toes on a human being?

Is wearing a dress genetic? How heritable is whether or not you wear a dress?

[imtringued]

Okay but that just implies that having a wide distribution of IQ is well adapted to our natural environment.