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What genetic research on intelligence tells us about the environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Robert Plomin ,
Stephen A. Petrill  and
Alexandra L. Cutting
Robert Plomin
Affiliation:
Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF
Stephen A. Petrill
Affiliation:
Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF
Alexandra L. Cutting
Affiliation:
Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF
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Extract

More than a century ago, Francis Galton, the father of behavioural genetics, coined the scientific use of the phrase nature–nurture. He believed that ability, especially individual differences in intelligence, is due primarily to nature rather than nurture, as implied by the title of his earliest and most famous work, Hereditary Genius (1869). In a paper on twins, he declared that ‘there is no escape from the conclusion that nature prevails enormously over nurture’ (1875. p. 404).

Information

Type
Session 4: Social and Group Differences
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 28 , Special Issue 4: Proceedings of the Galton Institute Symposium on Biological and Social Aspects of Intelligence , October 1996 , pp. 587 - 606
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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