
Japanese 'Prince' Switched At Birth Was Raised A Pauper - timr
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/11/29/247807768/japanese-prince-switched-at-birth-was-raised-a-pauper
======
rayiner
If you think about it, it makes no more sense to be angry at having been
switched in the hospital than to be angry about having been born to poor
parents in the first place. Adding the random element of the hospital switch
doesn't make the underlying process any more random than it already was.

And of course while the single data point of the fact that the man ended up
being a truck driver, while his counterpart became the president of a real
estate company, proves nothing, I do find it an interesting anecdote. People
who want to downplay the importance of class delineation like to point to the
extraordinary people who rise from poverty into success. But my hunch is that
given two individuals of ordinary moral fortitude, the one born into a rich
family will tend to be pretty successful, while the one born into a poor
family will tend not to be.

~~~
sillysaurus2
_my hunch is that given two individuals of ordinary moral fortitude, the one
born into a rich family will tend to be pretty successful, while the one born
into a poor family will tend not to be._

Is it even possible to disagree? This seems as obvious as gravity, but the
counterargument (if one exists) may be interesting to hear.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
You'd be surprised. There's a certain segment of the population thats finds it
vital to their self-image to insist that-- _in America,_ now--absolutely
anyone from any social background can be guaranteed success if they only work
hard and apply themselves; and therefore, if you're poor, you must obviously
be lazy and deserve to be poor.

Naturally it's mainly successful people who say this, but they say it with
such fervent faith and belief that there's a fair few miserably poor folks who
buy it, generally in the form of "I'm better than the rest of you poor
bastards 'cause I work hard and I'm gonna be rich any minute now." And then
they spend the rest of their lives slaving for minimum wage and not rocking
the boat, always convinced that the American Dream is right over the next
hill. It's sad.

~~~
protomyth
The Declaration of Independence says "pursuit of Happiness" and anybody can
pursue it. I've never met anyone who thought it was a guarantee even with hard
work and I live in the area of the country that still believes in the American
Dream.

Of course, I also live in the part of the country that doesn't measure
happiness by the size of the bank account when you shuffle off the the great
beyond. Although the farmers and vocationally trained in the area are doing
pretty darn well.

Hard work seems to give one a better chance at reaching your goals, much like
exercise seems to help with keeping you healthy. Some folks live a long time
without exercising and some die early even when exercising regularly.

~~~
yetanotherphd
"The pursuit of happiness" is an attempt to express human rights in a
_positive_ way. That is, rather than say what the state cannot stop you from
doing, it attempts to say what it is you are supposed to be allowed to do.
This is important because many people will want to say "I agree with human
rights but why would you ever want to do X". "The pursuit of happiness" is an
expression of what we are trying to protect: people freely choosing the
lifestyle that they feel is best.

------
fembot__
The craziest part is that the three brothers were so sure that their oldest
brother didn't belong that they travelled back 60 years in time to uncover the
truth... can you imagine being so convinced someone in your family was an
outsider?

Casts my weird uncle in a whole new light.

~~~
protomyth
Before the US was so identity heavy[1], it was not an uncommon phenomena for a
family to raise a child as their own[2] and the child not be told. That crazy
uncle or great aunt might find out and might not.

In more modern times, questions generally get asked as a result of some blood
tests or organ compatibility tests.

1) birth certificate for everything, although I remember an old story that the
birth certificate might have been written by a sympathetic official

2) sadly, some stigmas were pretty great

------
tokenadult
This is an interesting news story about one case of a "natural experiment" on
human beings that would be quite unethical to perform on a large scale. The
study of twins reared apart, which was especially active at my alma mater
university while I was a student there,[1] took advantage of some other
happenstance separations of monozygotic ("identical") twins into more than one
family of upbringing to see what effects of home environment on genetically
identical young people as they grow up might be.

For behavior genetic studies on fruit flies, direct gene manipulation is
considered ethical, and quite harsh environmental tests, tests that would
never be considered ethical for mice, are also used. For mice, they can be
bred into inbred strains in which every individual for generation after
generation is all but identical, and can also be given gene "knockouts"
through genetic engineering technology, and the environments can be varied by
systematic controlled experiments rather than the haphazardly varying
experiences of human beings.

I discuss issues related to this research every week during the school year at
my alma mater university with some of the world's leading experts on human
behavior genetics.[2] This is a fascinating area of research, and there is
always more to learn. Some of the more puzzling questions will probably only
get answers as more researchers from varied postgraduate educational
background collaborate on conducting continued research.

[1]
[http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674055469](http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674055469)

[2]
[http://www.psych.umn.edu/research/areas/pib/](http://www.psych.umn.edu/research/areas/pib/)

~~~
ghshephard
I don't suppose anyone knows if there is _any_ ethical review required for
experiments on fruit flies?

And, follow up question, at what level (higher or lower than fruit flies) are
experimenters allowed to proceed experimenting on life forms without an ethics
review.

~~~
timr
I used to work in a fly lab. As far as I know, there are no ethical reviews
required for insect studies.

I know that animal welfare and ethics reviews are required for mice, rats and
other small mammals, but I don't know where a formal line is drawn.

~~~
throwaway0094
Vertebrates.

~~~
tlarkworthy
And octopuses

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recuter
This reminds me of an episode of Curb'd where Larry David is under the
impression that he was switched at birth and isn't really Jewish.

This made him giddy and broke imaginary bonds that were the source of his real
personal flaws. It was hilarious.

------
fela
Made me think of the following though experiment: what if we randomly shuffled
all babies at birth?

~~~
mynameishere
People would rebel with tremendous violence against it. Either you would have
a total revolution, or a dual system, where the elites had a separate set of
rules for themselves. Probably the latter.

~~~
meric
I don't know why but I have a feeling women would be more against it than men.

~~~
smtddr
I'm lead to believe the bond that a mother has for the child that grew inside
her for 9 months is something a man can never _truly_ understand. I just asked
my wife what she'd do if she found out our 3yr-old daughter wasn't
biologically ours. She said she'd keep this child _AND_ fight to get our
biological one as well. I said, as painful as it'd be, I'd prefer to give up
our current child and get our biological one....

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scotty79
It doesn't matter who you are. Success seems to be shaped entirely by your
environment.

~~~
mattm
Not entirely. Look at Oprah. But on a general level, yes.

~~~
kaa2102
Exception or the rule?

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confluence
The fact that he even got a settlement made me laugh. Being brought up poor is
now fair consideration for compensation? I hope every poor person sues the
rich for the kleptocracy they have constructed. Oh wait, only the rich can do
that. Carry on. But before you leave, I'd like to toast to kleptocracy; never
have so few been given so much for doing so little. To plopping out of the
right vagina, my friends.

------
paulschreiber
Once I was the King of Spain…
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Spain_(song)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Spain_\(song\))

------
daniel-cussen
> The story has also reignited the nature vs. nurture debate, with, as Lucy
> points out, many people saying that "this is proof positive that it doesn't
> matter what your background is, nature cannot overcome nurture, and people
> who are born into poverty are doomed to stay there."

"With...many people saying that 'this is proof positive...'" is bullshit. You
don't have many people saying exactly that. I don't think you even have one
person saying exactly that, other than Lucy. Many people? Which people, and
where? In Japan? In America? Did you count them? Weasel words, trying to lend
credibility to the _Lucy 's_ claim that this is proof positive (!) that nature
cannot overcome nurture (!). Third clause of this whopper: people who are born
into poverty are doomed to stay there. Wow. You know, I'm not altogether sure
that the prince-born pauper is actually _poor._ Going by what we know, he has
a job as a truck driver, which is more than can be said for his mother, who
was on welfare, and formally poor. He simply couldn't go to high school or
college. In other words, he moved up a bit in life, though granted, not much.

And as rayiner pointed out, this is a single data point. It proves nothing.

Now, what if it did prove exactly that nature cannot overcome nurture? This
would mean so much! Suddenly, so much of the progressive agenda would be
validated! It would truly be bigotry, and literally nothing else, that was
responsible for minorities in perpetual plight. It would truly be sexism, and
literally nothing else, that was responsible for how many fewer women are
CEO's. It would be a rallying cry for the communists of the world to unite
against the pure, distilled evil that etcetera.

~~~
wsxcde
There's no dearth of evidence showing that, for instance, parental wealth
correlates with educational success of children. And then there's a loads of
evidence showing that educational outcomes correlate with lifetime earnings.

Have you even tried looking for these citations? It's hard to believe you
didn't find them because there is no shortage of published research on this
topic. Here's the first link I picked off google scholar:
[http://www.jstor.org/stable/2673145](http://www.jstor.org/stable/2673145)

How about you provide citations for the case that you are making?

~~~
anotheraccount7
The correlations you present don't inform the nature v nurture debate at all.

The pro-nature side would simply contend that wealth correlates with more
advantageous genetics and that the success of their prodigy mostly has to do
with the genetics they pass down, and less to do with the economic advantages
presented to them

~~~
wsxcde
Maybe I didn't make it very clear but I was responding to daniel-cussen's
sarcastic comments about "the progressive agenda".

 _The pro-nature side would simply contend that wealth correlates with more
advantageous genetics_

Seems like this is easily testable by looking at the distinction in, say,
educational outcomes between "old" and "new" money. Are you aware of any
citations supporting this hypothesis?

------
jfb

      Louis: Looking good, Billy Ray!
      Billy Ray: Feeling good, Louis!

------
latj
Twist: Pauper guy is Satoshi.

~~~
contingencies
Re-twist: Pauper guy's landlord is the real estate company the other guy runs.

Triple-twist: Property manager woman working for real estate guy is shared
love interest, leaves other guy for pauper guy.

Quadruple-twist: They all wind up friends, throwing in city life and moving to
the countryside.

Quintuple-twist: The woman winds up working for a country hospital. In
closing, she is presented with an opportunity to switch two look-alike babies
that have just been delivered...

