Blueprint Download

ISBN: B07KRGW7CP
Title: Blueprint Pdf How DNA Makes Us Who We Are

A top behavioral geneticist makes the case that DNA inherited from our parents at the moment of conception can predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses.

In Blueprint, behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin describes how the DNA revolution has made DNA personal by giving us the power to predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses from birth. A century of genetic research shows that DNA differences inherited from our parents are the consistent life-long sources of our psychological individuality - the blueprint that makes us who we are. This, says Plomin, is a game-changer. It calls for a radical rethinking of what makes us who were are.

Plomin has been working on these issues for almost fifty years, conducting longitudinal studies of twins and adoptees. He reports that genetics explains more of the psychological differences among people than all other factors combined. Genetics accounts for fifty percent of psychological differences - not just mental health and school achievement, but all psychological traits, from personality to intellectual abilities. Nature defeats nurture by a landslide.

Plomin explores the implications of this, drawing some provocative conclusions - among them that parenting styles don't really affect children's outcomes once genetics is taken into effect. Neither tiger mothers nor attachment parenting affects children's ability to get into Harvard. After describing why DNA matters, Plomin explains what DNA does, offering listeners a unique insider's view of the exciting synergies that came from combining genetics and psychology.

Important Work with Some Flaws This book discusses an important topic and one that should inform our policy decisions. Unfortunately it does not and this topic is generally taboo. The bottom line, supported by massive amounts of evidence by the way, is that the most important systematic influences on who we are and what we become our our genes.I give the author high marks for the courage to write this book and the first part of it was really outstanding. I was a little disappointed in the second part because I don't think the author's evidence support some of his conclusions. As of yet the correlations are not strong enough and there's way too much individual variation. To his credit Plomin admits and even shows in graphs the massive amount of overlap between individuals of different groups, but then he makes statements that seem to ignore what he just demonstrated.For example he says based on DNA alone you could predict that he is tall. His polygenic score for height is in the 90th percentile. And he is tall, however his own scatterplot shows a significant portion of the individuals in the 90th percentile of polygenic scores for height around the normal range. And there are plenty of people even below normal. So what you can predict from his DNA alone is that it is more likely than not that he is tall but not with a great deal of confidence. A significant portion of the people in his percentile are not tall. The same problem runs through much of the second part of his book.I do happen to believe that his general theme is correct and that EVENTUALLY polygenic scores will become much more predictive as the data accumulates. When he talks about how genes are responsible for approximately 50% of psychological traits, and how even a significant part of the so-called environmental effect is driven by genes, and finally how most of the rest of the environmental impacts are not systematic and unknown his analysis is outstanding and has powerful implications. This is important and we need to come to terms with it. We just aren't there yet with the predictive power of polygenic scores. And he way over plays its predictive power at the present time.Despite this flaw, overall I think this is an outstanding work and it's very important. I wish this information was much more widely known and accepted because it has important policy implications. I can't give it five stars but I do highly recommend this book.A real game-changer Very insightful and readable. I wish he had responded to some critiques of twins studies but otherwise there is more than enough making this book worth a read. Pay attention since this topic will become increasingly important with time.New information on genetics, well presented for general reading This book provides brand new information, information that constitutes a summation of research hinted at by the many twin studies and Head Start program analyses in the past: that genetics is the overwhelming determiner of the basic structure of character and personality.The main weakness in the book is that Dr Plomin follows the hallowed: "Tell them what you are going to tell them, then tell it to them, then tell them what you told them." format of presentation. I would have preferred less repetition and more information. The technical component could thus have been kicked up a notch (no, I am not a geneticist).Overall, outstanding new work in genetics is well described.Jan

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