Parents provide their children with Genes

Steven Pinker writes in The Blank Slate that “[p]arents … provide their children with genes, not just a home environment” (p. ix).  Therefore, all studies showing that “[l]oving parents have confident children [, and] authoritative parents…have well-behaved children” need to be “redone with adopted children (who only get their environment, not their genes, from their parents)”.  Only then will we know whether good nurturing really makes a difference.

It seems common sense to most people that parents’ nurturing skills are what influence their children’s success.  But common sense is often wrong.  Common sense tells us that if we travel in a car moving at 0.5c and we throw a ball ahead of us at 0.5c, then the ball will be traveling at a cumulative speed of 0.5c + 0.5c = 1.0c.  But as Einstein showed, this is wrong. 

When we study human nature, especially, we need to be wary of our own common sense, for it will mislead us.  Pinker points out (p.43) that we humans tend to confabulate, or make up plausible explanations for things.  When the human brain studies itself, the observer tends to get in the way of the observed.

So whether we believe it or not, studies show that "[v]irtually all the differences in parenting within a family can be explained as reactions to genetic differences that the children were born with" (p.389).