Nature vs Nurture Debate: Intelligence + Academic Success (Video 2/4)

Are genetics and socioeconomic status strong predictors of intelligence and academic success? --- In our last video we kicked off a short series on the ‘Nature vs Nurture’ debate by looking at a unique piece of research that measured bright and dull rats performing across different environments. We learned that genes don’t actually function in the way we&traditionally been led to believe, and that genetic expression and environment are inextricably linked. In video two of this series, we shift our focus from rats to humans by looking at a newer study that compares genetic composition and socioeconomic status to academic performance: * Predicting Educational Achievement from Genomic Measures and Socioeconomic Status (Sophie von Stumm et al, 2019) When this study was published a few years back it received a fair bit of publicity. The main takeaway was effectively that ‘genes and family’ are strong predictors of academic success – and this is largely true … on a group level. Unfortunately, what was lost in the crude media coverage was just how much variability existed within the research data on an individual level – both from a genetic and socioeconomic standpoint. I address this issue in the video, but suffice it to say that the idea of applying group predictors to individual students raises some serious questions. Here are some of the questions I tackle: -- What is genome-wide sequencing, and what does it reveal about how genes mediate human traits (hint: it’s...