

Much of personality decided at birth, say scientists  - peter123
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/health/news/article.cfm?c_id=204&objectid=10566320

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rjurney
I've come to feel this intuitively over the last five years as I have become
my father despite a strong determination not to. Moreover, I've been shocked
to realize that I enjoy being him. Its me. Feels like a magnetic, genetic
force more so than environment.

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rw
A large reason to do this research is that our intuitions are often wrong.
Your instrospective conclusions could easily have credited your father's early
influence on you, instead of genetics.

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rjurney
Thats true, the research is valuable. I just feel better if its genetics,
because I think I could fight environment better :)

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philwelch
Maybe you could. The funny thing is, most of the science on this issue
suggests that the "you" that is supposedly fighting either environment or
genetics...is entirely composed of environmental and genetic influences. So if
there is a "you" that can fight environment, it's the genetic you, and vice
versa.

And it's not like you're Mister Spock, with one half of your personality
fighting a completely different half. It's more like a smoothie, where you
can't tell what part is the banana, what part is the strawberry, and so forth,
except it tastes like a mixture of both. So really, what you're saying is a
lot less coherent than it sounds.

~~~
rjurney
Yeah, ultimately nature/nurture is a 'false dichotomy.' But then the whole
concept of 'self' is bupkus :) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atman_(Buddhism)>

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TomOfTTB
These stories always scare me because, if true, they mean that someday we'll
be able to customize not only the physical aspects of a child but the
emotional ones as well. That in turn could lead to a devastating change in the
makeup of our world.

To give an example, I think a large percentage of people would select an "easy
going" kid if given the chance. But if we're honest with ourselves we find the
people who have something to prove are the ones who make the major break
throughs.

Bottom Line: Society's need for mal-adjusted people might be in conflict with
a parents desire to have an affable child.

~~~
noonespecial
Worse still, it may become illegal, or at least highly socially unacceptable,
to have anything _but_ an affable child.

~~~
rjurney
I think its far more likely that engineering a better child will be illegal,
for the foreseeable future.

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Femur
People already select for desired traits in their children through mate
selection (although it is generally a subconscious selection). If I wanted to
have a child with dark skin, I would mate with a person with dark skin.

Would genetic modification be that different from the above example I gave?

Additionally, I have the right to reproduce. Who can tell me what I can or
cannot do to produce my child?

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philwelch
You may have the right to reproduce, but as to "who can tell me what I can or
cannot do", the answer is always "whoever has all the guns". Whether or not
they're justified, the government usually gets to tell us what we can or
cannot do, assuming they catch us. This is generally considered a major risk
of having a government.

~~~
TomOfTTB
The sad truth is the scenario you describe is not that different from what has
been done in countries like China. The difference here is that China had an
irrational desire for male children.

Where as here there might be a rational reason for the Government to step in.
So the very scary scenario that forms is one in which a parent's right to
reproduce as they desire is pitted against a governments understandable need
to keep society moving forward.

At least, that's what I'm afraid it might come to.

~~~
philwelch
By some accounts, the history of politics consists of a conflict between
individual rights and the public good.

~~~
dantheman
or some notion of public good, which historically has resulted in the death of
millions.

As soon as a country gives up on the concept of individual rights, it seems
death follows.

~~~
philwelch
I like to think of it as a conflict between different sets of individual
rights, such as your right to swing your fists about and my right to an
uninjured nose. But there are some tragedy-of-the-commons cases where this
model doesn't work out.

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briancooley
How can a snapshot sampling of (presumably) adult brains yield the conclusion
that personality is decided at birth?

I have always assumed that environment is a large factor in personality. What
evidence is there in this data set to suggest that it isn't?

It strikes me as entirely plausible that they have the causal relationship
reversed.

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dkarl
Yet another science article where a vital gap in reasoning is simply left out.
I trust scientists over science journalists, so my guess is that the scientist
provided an argument, but the writer or editor didn't realize its importance
and cut it out of the final piece. Still, you never know. Maybe there will be
a better writeup when the study is actually published.

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alyx
You know how we have P and NP problems when it comes to algorithms? Well we
need the same thing for real life problems/questions. Some questions are just
too difficult to answer in polynomial number of years.

Yes I'm studying for a fourth year algorithms exam! :)

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tokenadult
The subject of the article is certainly interesting, and the article is well
reported. Let's go down the checklist of issues in interpreting scientific
research by Peter Norvig

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

to see how many issues need to be checked as other researchers attempt to
replicate this finding.

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frossie
Well-reported? I rather hope people were misquoted.

While this is undoubtedly a very interesting field, I found the article as
written rather misguided. You need a brain scan to tell if your child is
timid? Seriously? Oh and you would shout at your child, if only you hadn't
been handed a scan at birth telling you your child's brain is such that it
shouldn't be shouted at?

As for the advice about using this kind of information to affect how to raise
a child, it runs contrary to all the best current child development advice.
The child psychologists maintain that you should in every way avoid
pigeonholing children (eg "she is the adventurous one", "he is the creative
one"). If that is so, I can't imagine anything worse that "he is the one
likely to get addicted to drugs".

This kind of thing is a small glimmer of understanding. Let's not rush to
speculating about applications until we've thought about it a bit more, eh?

~~~
TJensen
I agree that we shouldn't pigeon-hole children, but they do find their niches,
regardless.

Personally, as a father, I think the more interesting application of data like
this (if true, I tend to wonder about the order of causality as well) would be
around how can I get my child out of their comfort zone. This is not shouting
at my timid child, it is exposing the highly methodical child to free-form
creative activities.

Also, coming from a family with a history of substance abuse problems, knowing
that a child had a particular predisposition towards abuse would be useless
without a solid way to do something about it. Otherwise, it just becomes yet
another thing a parent needs to fear and become over protective about.

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yafujifide
I fail to see how measuring adults' brains tells us what they were like at
birth. Can't brains change? I can recall recently reading about how neurons
actually can be created anew, in contradiction with ancient established fact.
Can the structures of brains not change as well? Perhaps the brains of these
adults have shifted along with their personalities.

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MaysonL
Anybody who's watched a number of children grow up knows this is true.

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nazgulnarsil
but...if some things are decided by biology, that means I _can't_ be anything
I want.

This study is clearly unamerican and probably racist.

~~~
rjurney
Trollish, but amusing. We do have a lot of resistance to this idea in America.

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hc
the phrenologists were right all along.

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biohacker42
Much of you decided by your genetics, news at 11.

Sorry about being so cynical but seriously that article's not exactly
insightful. Was there ever an HN full of much better articles and never such
as this one? Or it just my memory and wishful thinking fooling me into
believing the old times were better? I bet that's genetic too.

~~~
rjurney
You missed the point of the article. The interesting part is that personality
was strongly correlated with and likely caused by structural differences in
the brain that can be measured with a 'ruler.'

