I enjoy when you repost old essays. I've probably read more than 50% of what you've writtten since 2003 so it's great to take the occasional stroll down memory lane.
Then there is what I have dubbed "The Fallacy of Misplaced Empiricism," which is the idea that everything important can be measured. The question of whether children's future happiness and well-being are affected by divorce for example.
If the children of divorce are more likely to get divorce when adults, then one could argue that the data supports the theory that childhood divorce affects future happiness because getting divorced is a very unhappy experience.
There's an autistic (anti-buddhist) presumption that "qualia" or the like are easily quantifiable, or that's it's even rational to attempt it.
I don't mean to diminish the importance of Science, but much of what is done in that grand name causes a diminishment of perspective and tends to be interpreted by us, as simple homosapien machines, as simultaneously important and, worse, limitingly prescriptive.
Does this -- whatever this was referring to in 1998 -- still exist in the 2020s?
The Hype Machine of this era seems to resemble more a digitized pro-wrestling (WWE), more than a machine that would hype a book (any book, but especially one on a Sailerian topic. ("Idiocracy" (produced in 2004) was a lot closer to 1998 than 2025 but resembles the 2020s a lot more.)
Back then, there was a an incredibly energetic and ambitious literary agent for science books, guy named John Brockman. (He was pals with another energetic guy named Jeffrey Epstein.)
If one goes back and look at speculative fiction, most male authors could not conceive of a future where lower quality of life lead to fewer children and lower fertility. See something like Soylent Green. Of course, if one looks at the Great Depression, fertility did not down due to economic conditions.
Very nice. It is tempting to exaggerate the effect of genetics especially because we begin with the assumption that it affects very little about human behavior. Sure we understand it affects eye color and appearance and height, but why would it affect whether you like Doritos or buy a green Chevy Nova? Then you read an article about separated at birth twins who discover they have so much in common. They both love Doritos and own a green Chevy Nova. What are the odds! Bayes would say, yeah, 'what are the odds?', but it doesn't matter, now we think everything is genetic.
The peer group being much more important than parents? I haven't read the book, but I suspect this has to do with our tendency to place more importance on fear of broad, bad outcomes (meth addiction) than specific good outcomes (basketball scholarship to Princeton). There's a zillion ways to have a good life. You can have a good life if (many of my friends parents) you have to get straight As and you can have a good life if (my parents) grades are less important than what you learn. Likewise one set of parents can focus on social skills and another on the importance of a good work ethic. Lot's a way to have a good life.
OTOH the wrong peer group can influence you down the path that dead-ends in meth. That would ruin anyone's life.
How then did the Robinsons afford to send two children there, then Michelle O's HLS tuition? Need/diversity-based scholarships? Granted, it was much cheaper then.
Craig Robinson attended before I went to Princeton, but Michelle was just a year ahead of me (I did not know her, of course, as she had different interests than I did). Regarding admission, Princeton was an affirmative action university at the time, so both Robinsons were helped by being black, though Craig was also a basketball recruit, which helped him get in (sports can help one be admitted but are not considered for financial aid purposes).
Regarding money, scholarships/grants were given on a strictly need-based calculation during the 80s, and I believe that that is still the case. So, both Robinsons likely received a lot of financial aid. My older daughter went to Brown in the 2010s and she received financial assistance based upon my salary (what little of it there is).
I took the prospective student tour in March '77 with a black family, and the white female student guide actually told them their child could expect some hostility from a subset of students. My jaw dropped. Even if true, I couldn't believe the admissions office would have wanted her to discourage them.
"It’s parents and relatives who pass on both specific occupations (e.g., Italians and marble-cutting, Cambodians and doughnut-making) and general attitudes toward work, thrift, and entrepreneurship."
I can see the first, but have a harder time believing that the second is due to parents/relatives actions/words/influence (i.e., not [as much] genetic).
A joke that I use when someone points out a nepo baby such as a second or third generation actor, muscian, artist is "What did you expect them to do? Go to dental school"
Whereas if you talk to your dentist, many of them are second generation dentist.
JUDITH RICH (marr. HARRIS); born 1938 in Brooklyn; Brandeis University graduate, 1959; married Charles Harris, 1961; researched and published on children's socialization between early 1980s and mid-2000s; died 2018.
The Brooklyn birth, the Brandeis connection in the late 1950s, and the birth-surname "Rich" point to a Jewish family origin. A lot of people may be tempted to make a "Jewish mother" joke in there somewhere given her research and writing preoccupations.
No position one way or another but ... In 1965 I was walking home from 3rd grade with a Jewish girl named Cindy. She asked me, "how much money do you have in your bank account?" I said, "bank account?" And she said, "I have $8,000."
The BLS inflation-calculator says that is equal to above $80,000 today. I wonder who told her she had that kind of big money in the bank at around age 9?
I recently found a 1931 pay envelope with my father's name from his father's company. It contained two cents. He was not yet 4. My grandfather hoped he would become a businessman like himself, but he went in the Navy.
In both cases environment is determinate. The only argument they have is to what degree genotype is phenotype. I doubt either side would argue it's 100% one way or the other.
I think they're both wrong. Behavior - not environment - determines both genotype and phenotype. Environment is merely the parameters within which behavior takes place.
Including behavior in phenotype really muddies the waters regarding natural selection, doesn't it?
Richard Dawkins wrote a book - The Extended Phenotype - defending his gene-based selection theory in an attempt to account for this.
The problem is that this expands the scope of natural selection to the point where the organism itself is little more than an afterthought, and the idea that genes are meaningfully causal in such a context becomes practically unknowable, so we're beyond the realm of science here.
> the point where the organism itself is little more than an afterthought
the organism / phenotype including its behavior and the environment are also necessary constituents to "causation". So the organism is not at all an "afterthought"
A lever of understanding you might be grasping at is time. The perspective of genes + environment at an individual slice of time can be quite limiting. But when you view them changing / interacting over time then possibilities open up (heck it's HOW we have the amazing diversity of life)
It's because of interactions over time that I doubt the scientific validity of this theory of genetic determinism.
I'm not saying that evolution doesn't happen (obviously it does), but rather that arguments over what determines phenotype - environment, genes, behavior, extended phenotypical effects (which includes all of these) - haven't been resolved scientifically, and as far as I know nobody has even conceived of an experiment that can say one way or the other.
Therefore the nature vs. nurture debate is philosophical -- not scientific.
> arguments over what determines phenotype - environment, genes, behavior, extended phenotypical effects (which includes all of these) - haven't been resolved scientifically
Are you saying this has not been done for ANY single gene? That scientists have not been able to change a single gene and see how that gene caused a phenotypic variation while holding the environment constant? I hope you don't believe that.
I hope instead you are talking about some generic model that can calculate ALL genetic and environmental reactions. You are correct, no such model currently exists.
> Therefore the nature vs. nurture debate is philosophical -- not scientific.
No. YOU can make the debate scientific or philosophical based on what YOU want to discuss (framing).
Yes of course I mean in general. But I think even the effects of changing one gene (or one environmental factor) could demonstrate the uncertainty of the system by causing unforeseen (and likely unforeseeable) effects.
And if you think about it, uncertainty is part of what drives natural selection -- we can't say for sure how a genotype will evolve in response to any given circumstance (even if sometimes we can guess pretty accurately).
I'll admit that I prefer framing it philosophically despite (or perhaps because of -- who can know?) the annoyance it may provoke in scientists.
Unscientific... but I have two sons about two years apart. One is an applied math/finance major at a top ten university with a nearly perfect GPA. The other is barely getting out of high school. To say they are night and day is putting it mildly. They were raised by the same parents, and yet...
You can do all the "right" things as a parent, but the outcome, from my perspective is a roll of the dice.
First children usually outperform their siblings. There are a variety of theories as to why. The gist is they don’t get as much attention/resources/adult interaction.
Your 1998 article is good and ages well. You made a familiar point: Nature and nurture both matter in children's lives and outcomes. And it was no doubt personal experience that informed your sensitive discussion of the nuanced decisions that parents, especially mothers, make about family size and paid employment.
But you are a little harsh on Mrs. Harris. Yes, Real Clear Parents already knew that different children from the same parents are different from day one, and that peer groups really matter. But the psychological establishment she faced didn't acknowledge these things and she was trying to right the boat. Which is why Steven Pinker and others whose views are now ascendant, wrote in praise.
If the "mistakes" made by Judith Rich Harris were typical of public intellectuals in general, the world would be a better place.
Some things written in the last couple of years that Steve needs to read:
1. "The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind" Of course, this does not support the nature as much as nurture argument.
2. "Paying for the Party" that shows that there are a lot more parenting strategies that either being a tiger mom or not being a tiger mom.
3. "Of Boys and Men" If achievement gaps are nature, then why do boys underperform girls for all socio-economic groups. Also, it covers parts of nurture that Steve refuses to address.
4. "Troubled" If parents do not matter then why do children in the foster system underachieve so much?
If would also help if Steve would think about risks when it comes to life choices.
terrific essay glad you re-posted
I enjoy when you repost old essays. I've probably read more than 50% of what you've writtten since 2003 so it's great to take the occasional stroll down memory lane.
I wish I had read you 25 years ago.
I first read Steve right about when he wrote this -- in early 1997.
Then there is what I have dubbed "The Fallacy of Misplaced Empiricism," which is the idea that everything important can be measured. The question of whether children's future happiness and well-being are affected by divorce for example.
If the children of divorce are more likely to get divorce when adults, then one could argue that the data supports the theory that childhood divorce affects future happiness because getting divorced is a very unhappy experience.
There's an autistic (anti-buddhist) presumption that "qualia" or the like are easily quantifiable, or that's it's even rational to attempt it.
I don't mean to diminish the importance of Science, but much of what is done in that grand name causes a diminishment of perspective and tends to be interpreted by us, as simple homosapien machines, as simultaneously important and, worse, limitingly prescriptive.
"the Great American Intellectual Hype Machine"
Does this -- whatever this was referring to in 1998 -- still exist in the 2020s?
The Hype Machine of this era seems to resemble more a digitized pro-wrestling (WWE), more than a machine that would hype a book (any book, but especially one on a Sailerian topic. ("Idiocracy" (produced in 2004) was a lot closer to 1998 than 2025 but resembles the 2020s a lot more.)
Back then, there was a an incredibly energetic and ambitious literary agent for science books, guy named John Brockman. (He was pals with another energetic guy named Jeffrey Epstein.)
If one goes back and look at speculative fiction, most male authors could not conceive of a future where lower quality of life lead to fewer children and lower fertility. See something like Soylent Green. Of course, if one looks at the Great Depression, fertility did not down due to economic conditions.
Very nice. It is tempting to exaggerate the effect of genetics especially because we begin with the assumption that it affects very little about human behavior. Sure we understand it affects eye color and appearance and height, but why would it affect whether you like Doritos or buy a green Chevy Nova? Then you read an article about separated at birth twins who discover they have so much in common. They both love Doritos and own a green Chevy Nova. What are the odds! Bayes would say, yeah, 'what are the odds?', but it doesn't matter, now we think everything is genetic.
The peer group being much more important than parents? I haven't read the book, but I suspect this has to do with our tendency to place more importance on fear of broad, bad outcomes (meth addiction) than specific good outcomes (basketball scholarship to Princeton). There's a zillion ways to have a good life. You can have a good life if (many of my friends parents) you have to get straight As and you can have a good life if (my parents) grades are less important than what you learn. Likewise one set of parents can focus on social skills and another on the importance of a good work ethic. Lot's a way to have a good life.
OTOH the wrong peer group can influence you down the path that dead-ends in meth. That would ruin anyone's life.
Princeton, like the other Ivies, does not offer athletic scholarships.
How then did the Robinsons afford to send two children there, then Michelle O's HLS tuition? Need/diversity-based scholarships? Granted, it was much cheaper then.
Craig Robinson attended before I went to Princeton, but Michelle was just a year ahead of me (I did not know her, of course, as she had different interests than I did). Regarding admission, Princeton was an affirmative action university at the time, so both Robinsons were helped by being black, though Craig was also a basketball recruit, which helped him get in (sports can help one be admitted but are not considered for financial aid purposes).
Regarding money, scholarships/grants were given on a strictly need-based calculation during the 80s, and I believe that that is still the case. So, both Robinsons likely received a lot of financial aid. My older daughter went to Brown in the 2010s and she received financial assistance based upon my salary (what little of it there is).
I took the prospective student tour in March '77 with a black family, and the white female student guide actually told them their child could expect some hostility from a subset of students. My jaw dropped. Even if true, I couldn't believe the admissions office would have wanted her to discourage them.
"It’s parents and relatives who pass on both specific occupations (e.g., Italians and marble-cutting, Cambodians and doughnut-making) and general attitudes toward work, thrift, and entrepreneurship."
I can see the first, but have a harder time believing that the second is due to parents/relatives actions/words/influence (i.e., not [as much] genetic).
A joke that I use when someone points out a nepo baby such as a second or third generation actor, muscian, artist is "What did you expect them to do? Go to dental school"
Whereas if you talk to your dentist, many of them are second generation dentist.
"pre-teen peer groups are intensely conservative. (Some playground games have been passed down since Roman times.)"
Which playground games have been passed down since Roman times?
Tag, hide and seek come to mind. Most wouldn’t go that far back.
Smear the queer, probably.
Animal ball.
JUDITH RICH (marr. HARRIS); born 1938 in Brooklyn; Brandeis University graduate, 1959; married Charles Harris, 1961; researched and published on children's socialization between early 1980s and mid-2000s; died 2018.
The Brooklyn birth, the Brandeis connection in the late 1950s, and the birth-surname "Rich" point to a Jewish family origin. A lot of people may be tempted to make a "Jewish mother" joke in there somewhere given her research and writing preoccupations.
No position one way or another but ... In 1965 I was walking home from 3rd grade with a Jewish girl named Cindy. She asked me, "how much money do you have in your bank account?" I said, "bank account?" And she said, "I have $8,000."
The BLS inflation-calculator says that is equal to above $80,000 today. I wonder who told her she had that kind of big money in the bank at around age 9?
A Jewish girl.
I recently found a 1931 pay envelope with my father's name from his father's company. It contained two cents. He was not yet 4. My grandfather hoped he would become a businessman like himself, but he went in the Navy.
Well written piece, Mr. Sailer.
Arguments over nature vs. nurture are splitting hairs: they're two slightly different versions of the same thing.
People who believe nature is more important think environment determines genotype, which determines phenotype.
Nurturists believe environment determines phenotype.
In both cases environment is determinate. The only argument they have is to what degree genotype is phenotype. I doubt either side would argue it's 100% one way or the other.
I think they're both wrong. Behavior - not environment - determines both genotype and phenotype. Environment is merely the parameters within which behavior takes place.
Behavior is part of phenotype:
> The term "phenotype" refers to the observable physical properties of an organism; these include the organism's appearance, development, and behavior
Including behavior in phenotype really muddies the waters regarding natural selection, doesn't it?
Richard Dawkins wrote a book - The Extended Phenotype - defending his gene-based selection theory in an attempt to account for this.
The problem is that this expands the scope of natural selection to the point where the organism itself is little more than an afterthought, and the idea that genes are meaningfully causal in such a context becomes practically unknowable, so we're beyond the realm of science here.
> the idea that genes are meaningfully causal
Genes are not alone in causation
> the point where the organism itself is little more than an afterthought
the organism / phenotype including its behavior and the environment are also necessary constituents to "causation". So the organism is not at all an "afterthought"
A lever of understanding you might be grasping at is time. The perspective of genes + environment at an individual slice of time can be quite limiting. But when you view them changing / interacting over time then possibilities open up (heck it's HOW we have the amazing diversity of life)
> we're beyond the realm of science here
No
It's because of interactions over time that I doubt the scientific validity of this theory of genetic determinism.
I'm not saying that evolution doesn't happen (obviously it does), but rather that arguments over what determines phenotype - environment, genes, behavior, extended phenotypical effects (which includes all of these) - haven't been resolved scientifically, and as far as I know nobody has even conceived of an experiment that can say one way or the other.
Therefore the nature vs. nurture debate is philosophical -- not scientific.
> arguments over what determines phenotype - environment, genes, behavior, extended phenotypical effects (which includes all of these) - haven't been resolved scientifically
Are you saying this has not been done for ANY single gene? That scientists have not been able to change a single gene and see how that gene caused a phenotypic variation while holding the environment constant? I hope you don't believe that.
I hope instead you are talking about some generic model that can calculate ALL genetic and environmental reactions. You are correct, no such model currently exists.
> Therefore the nature vs. nurture debate is philosophical -- not scientific.
No. YOU can make the debate scientific or philosophical based on what YOU want to discuss (framing).
Yes of course I mean in general. But I think even the effects of changing one gene (or one environmental factor) could demonstrate the uncertainty of the system by causing unforeseen (and likely unforeseeable) effects.
And if you think about it, uncertainty is part of what drives natural selection -- we can't say for sure how a genotype will evolve in response to any given circumstance (even if sometimes we can guess pretty accurately).
I'll admit that I prefer framing it philosophically despite (or perhaps because of -- who can know?) the annoyance it may provoke in scientists.
Parents need to raise their children themselves, and not pass this responsibility on to schools, peers, and pop culture
You can’t keep kids away from schools, peers and pop culture.
Actually, you can, and should
I don’t mean keep them entirely away, but mostly
Of course you can, whether you will or not is a matter of choice.
Around ten or fifteen? years ago I heard a podcast(or whatever you called it then) of Stefan Molyneux interviewing Charles Murray.
And they both generally agreed with the idea that
'Parents cannot make a child, but they can break a child'
Unscientific... but I have two sons about two years apart. One is an applied math/finance major at a top ten university with a nearly perfect GPA. The other is barely getting out of high school. To say they are night and day is putting it mildly. They were raised by the same parents, and yet...
You can do all the "right" things as a parent, but the outcome, from my perspective is a roll of the dice.
First children usually outperform their siblings. There are a variety of theories as to why. The gist is they don’t get as much attention/resources/adult interaction.
Steve,
Your 1998 article is good and ages well. You made a familiar point: Nature and nurture both matter in children's lives and outcomes. And it was no doubt personal experience that informed your sensitive discussion of the nuanced decisions that parents, especially mothers, make about family size and paid employment.
But you are a little harsh on Mrs. Harris. Yes, Real Clear Parents already knew that different children from the same parents are different from day one, and that peer groups really matter. But the psychological establishment she faced didn't acknowledge these things and she was trying to right the boat. Which is why Steven Pinker and others whose views are now ascendant, wrote in praise.
If the "mistakes" made by Judith Rich Harris were typical of public intellectuals in general, the world would be a better place.
Ken
Indeed.
Some things written in the last couple of years that Steve needs to read:
1. "The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind" Of course, this does not support the nature as much as nurture argument.
2. "Paying for the Party" that shows that there are a lot more parenting strategies that either being a tiger mom or not being a tiger mom.
3. "Of Boys and Men" If achievement gaps are nature, then why do boys underperform girls for all socio-economic groups. Also, it covers parts of nurture that Steve refuses to address.
4. "Troubled" If parents do not matter then why do children in the foster system underachieve so much?
If would also help if Steve would think about risks when it comes to life choices.