Behavioral Geneticist Celebrates Twins, Scorns PC Science

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Behavioral Geneticist Celebrates Twins, Scorns PC Science Last month, the Behavior Genetics Association held its annual meeting in Minneapolis, home of the world-famous Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. Attendees took the occasion to honor psychologist Thomas Bouchard, the man who started it all. Bouchard, 71, is retiring after 40 years at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and has moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Bouchard spoke with Science at the meeting; his comments have been edited for clarity and brevity. –CONSTANCE HOLDEN

researcher Francis] Galton, people picketed me, called me a racist, tried to get me fired. The progressive student association sent members in to ask hostile questions. … So I put a tape recorder on the podium and said: “I’m going to tape my lectures.” I never heard from them again. They knew what they were saying was nonsense and I would be able to prove it.

CREDITS: KELLY MACWILLIAMS; (INSET) COURTESY OF JIM LEWIS AND JIM SPRINGER

Q: What got you into twin studies? T.B.: I was teaching the psychology of individual differences, and in 1979, two different people put a copy in my mailbox of a story about twins reared apart and their similarities when they met. [These were the “Jim twins,” Jim Springer and Jim Lewis, who had been separated at birth and reunited at age 39. Both married women named Linda, divorced, and remarried women named Betty. They named their sons James Allan and James Alan, respectively, and both had dogs named Toy.] They sounded interesting, so I asked a few of my colleagues to help me study them. We ended up studying twins reared apart—126 pairs including 74 pairs of identical twins—for 20 years. [The twin study wound down in 2000.] I found that I loved working with twins. They’re still amazing and a major mystery to me. Q: What were attitudes toward behavioral genetics in the early years of your career? T.B.: In graduate school at UC [the University of California] Berkeley, I was reading a book edited by psychiatrist D. D. Jackson on the etiology of schizophrenia. The f irst chapter, by a geneticist, was on twin studies. Then Jackson refuted it all with just the kind of crap you hear now against twin studies. He said families are the cause of schizophrenia. I remember saying in a graduate seminar, “Most of this stuff [in Jackson’s argument] is junk”—I crawled out of the seminar room a bloody pulp. The reaction [from seminar members] was my f irst absolutely clear-cut demonstration that psychologists believed correlation is causation, … and many still do. In the ’70s, when I was teaching research by [IQ researcher Arthur] Jensen and [twin

Twin pioneer. Thomas Bouchard launched the world-famous study with the “Jim twins.”

Q: Do you think perceptions have changed dramatically since the ‘70s now that twin research has revealed genetic bases for many disorders, such as autism (which had been blamed on cold mothers) and ADHD (for which many blamed food dyes)? T.B.: Within the university—at least at U. Minnesota—the cumulative impact of behavioral genetics findings has had a lot of effect. There’s a lot more tolerance for the idea of genetic influences in individual differences. But we still have whole domains we can’t talk about. One of the great dangers in the psychology of individual differences is self-censorship. For example, when I was a student, it was widely accepted that black

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self-esteem was much lower than white selfesteem, and that was a cause of differences in achievement between the two groups. Now that’s been completely overturned—there is virtually no racial difference in self-esteem. But people had enormous amounts of data [showing this] that they didn’t publish because it did not fit the prevailing belief system. How much wasted effort was generated by the flawed self-esteem work as an explanation of the black-white IQ difference? Nowadays, I’m sure there are people who are not publishing stuff on sex differences. Look what happened to Larry Summers [who resigned as president of Harvard University after suggesting that discrimination alone doesn’t account for women’s lower representation in math-based disciplines]. I talk about those things in my class all the time—that males and females have different interests; … in a sense, females have a broader and richer view of life. There are a lot of people who simply won’t talk about those things. Academics, like teenagers, sometimes don’t have any sense regarding the degree to which they are conformists.

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NEWSMAKER INTERVIEW

Q: What are you working on now? T.B.: I’m studying what I call the traditional-values triad: religiousness, conservatism, and authoritarianism. They correlate with each other. In our most recent paper [based on Minnesota twin data], we showed that the same genes affect all three traits. The superfactor [the underlying trait they share] is traditionalism; I think the underlying psychological process is the notion of obedience. It’s exactly the same trait that Stanley Milgram studied in the ’60s [when students willingly administered electric shocks to unseen victims]. Most researchers talk about obedience as being a bad thing. But it’s also the glue that holds societies together. Q: Anything you would have done differently? T.B.: Bouchard has gotten everything he wanted from day one. … I’ve led a charmed life. … If I had it to do all over again, I would do almost exactly what I’ve done. I know there are people who really dislike what I do. … But look, I’m retired—they’re not going to take my skis away.

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July 23, 2009, 3:35 pm

Researcher Condemns Conformity Among His Peers By NICHOLAS WADE “Academics, like teenagers, sometimes don’t have any sense regarding the degree to which they are conformists.” So says Thomas Bouchard, the Minnesota psychologist known for his study of twins raised apart, in a retirement interview with Constance Holden in the journal Science. Journalists, of course, are conformists too. So are most other professions. There’s a powerful human urge to belong inside the group, to think like the majority, to lick the boss’s shoes, and to win the group’s approval by trashing dissenters. The strength of this urge to conform can silence even those who have good reason to think the majority is wrong. You’re an expert because all your peers recognize you as such. But if you start to get too far out of line with what your peers believe, they will look at you askance and start to withdraw the informal title of “expert” they have implicitly bestowed on you. Then you’ll bear the less comfortable label of “maverick,” which is only a few stops short of “scapegoat” or “pariah.” A remarkable first-hand description of this phenomenon was provided a few months ago by the economist Robert Shiller, co-inventor of the Case-Shiller house price index. Dr. Shiller was concerned about what he saw as an impending house price bubble when he served as an adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York up until 2004. So why didn’t he burst his lungs warning about the impending collapse of the housing market? “In my position on the panel, I felt the need to use restraint,” he relates. “While I warned about the bubbles I believed were developing in the stock and housing markets, I did so very gently, and felt vulnerable expressing such quirky views. Deviating too far from consensus leaves one feeling potentially ostracized from the group, with the risk that one may be terminated.” Conformity and group-think are attitudes of particular danger in science, an endeavor that is inherently revolutionary because progress often depends on overturning established wisdom. It’s obvious that least 100 genes must be needed to convert a human or animal cell back to its embryonic state. Or at least it was obvious to almost everyone until Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University showed it could be done with just 4. The academic monocultures referred to by Dr. Bouchard are the kind of thing that sabotages scientific creativity. Though they sprout up in every country, they may be a particular problem in Confucian-influenced cultures that prize conformity and respect for elders. It’s curious that Japan, for example, despite having all the ingredients of a first rate scientific power – a rich economy, heavy investment in R&D, a highly educated population and a talented scientific workforce – has never posed a serious challenge to American scientific leadership. Young American scientists can make their name by showing their professor is dead wrong; in Tokyo or Kyoto, that’s a little harder to do. If the brightest minds on Wall Street got suckered by group-think into believing house prices would never fall, what other policies founded on consensus wisdom could be waiting to come unraveled? Global warming, you say? You mean it might be harder to model climate change 20 years ahead than house prices 5 years ahead? Surely not – how could so many climatologists be wrong? What’s wrong with consensuses is not the establishment of a majority view, which is necessary and legitimate, but the silencing of skeptics. “We still have whole domains we can’t talk about,” Dr. Bouchard said, referring to the psychology of differences between races and sexes. E-mail This Print

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Yahoo! Buzz Twitter Sign in to Recommend conformity, Thomas Bouchard, twin studies Previous post The Curious Case of Phineas Gage, RefocusedNext post NASA Captures an Eye in Space From 1 to 25 of 128 Comments 1 2 3 ... 6 Next » 1. 1. July 23, 2009 3:48 pm Link Read “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Kuhn. — Nutjob 2. 2. July 23, 2009 4:23 pm Link It’s definitely like that when you look into the medical marijuana issue. The endocannabinoid system is a fascinating system to study. But the average American pothead knows more about the endocannabinoid system than does the average American scientist. That’s because you have to be a non-conformist in order to become a pothead. After all, you have to go up against the most powerful government in the world. Most American scientists would rather NOT go up against the US government when it comes to drug policy. That’s why most of the important cannabinoid research ends up being done in places like Israel and Spain, where there’s less conformism in science. — Patricia 3. 3. July 23, 2009 4:25 pm Link Yes, it is a pity in academia that people who propose bold ideas are being laughed at behind the back ! More importantly, most of them do not want to advance the maverick’s ideas, but would try to pull the essence from the proposed ideas and use it for their own benefit. — Balaji Raman 4. 4. July 23, 2009 4:32 pm Link You know, there’s a significant difference between the researcher who thinks that maybe things might not work the way the majority thinks they do, and then finds experimental evidence to support his/her opinion, and the sort of “skeptic” who says “That can’t possibly be true ’cause if it was it’d cramp my lifestyle!” — James 5. 5. July 23, 2009 4:49 pm Link

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James uses a perfect example of how unsubstantiated personal smears are used to supress science that dissents from the concensus views. The group think problem is a huge issue in climate science in particular because many scientists have developed a Messiah complex and like the idea that they are ’saving the world’ with science. This means their egos will take a huge hit if the problem turns out to be less serious than claimed. This ’saving the world’ meme also gives the self apointed guardians of the consensus a powerful pschological club that they use ruthlessly supress any questioning of the consensus mantra. — Raven 6. 6. July 23, 2009 5:09 pm Link “We still have whole domains we can’t talk about,” for instance, overpopulation. In order to make sure all of Earth’s human children inherit a livable environment, we have to voluntarily limit the population growth rate. It’s the most neglected subject in many countries. “The academic monocultures referred to by Dr. Bouchard are the kind of thing that sabotages scientific creativity” Religious monocultures sabotage any creativity, except works of art dedicated to the deities. They are prevalent, steeped in tradition and often represent the core of belonging to a supportive group of peers. In science, we need to examine the details of how an individual or team is challenging the consensus. Consequences, from mild ones like being kidded as “maverick” to more severe ones, such as being denied a grant or a position have to exist. Scientists have to be able to ostracize individuals who leave scientific rigor and methods in favor of fringe pursuits. If a scientific team investigates far-out claims, we all have to be sure, as sure as humanly possible as defined by scientific methodology, that the methods, research, analysis they are following are impeccable. There is no easy way out of the dilemma — what judgement criteria do we choose. How can the peer-review system work together with the funding sources to judge whether to fund a creative, far-out, challenging proposal. The details are important. — stilldreaming 7. 7. July 23, 2009 5:18 pm Link Kuhn for the win! Though I think Lakatos had it better… — Bryson 8. 8. July 23, 2009 5:19 pm Link It was a delusional belief that housing prices would never fall that resulted in a bubble and subsequent collapse. How does that connect to global warming? Are you saying the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will go back down as soon as scientists stop believing they will keep rising? In the housing price example, peoples’ beliefs affected the market prices and kept them inflated. But global warming is not affected merely by what people believe.

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— Robert 9. 9. July 23, 2009 5:32 pm Link Wade gives examples from two different realms - the finances and the science. The first one really does not belong here - there is no stated goal for any financial institution to do anything inherently ‘new’, just to make a lot of money. If this can be accomplished by tricks, it’s OK till the bubble(s) burst. Warnings are not welcome and will, most likely, result in removal from any position of influence. Actually, it can be argued that subprime mortgages and subsequent turning them in to other ‘instruments’ was VERY nonconformists and the critics were the ultimate conformists (with the much more prudent practices of the past). It should be completely different in science - its very purpuse is to seek new stuff and to ‘boldly go where no one (originally ‘no man’) has gone before’. I am pretty sure that this is still happening and there are many examples of that - Wade names just one, even more striking (and of great practical significance) was the completely ‘against the grain’ discovery that stomach ulcers are actually an infectious disease and can be cured by antibiotics. As for being ostracized, that, of course, happens sometimes as well - the ‘discovery’ of cold fusion was a good example of that. Despite the problems the two scientists encountered when virtually nobody could reproduce their results, the research in ‘cold fusion’ is still going on with claims that it will become practical very soon. I personally doubt it but all power to the ‘dissenters’. To conclude, conformism is certainly a problem for exactly the reasons Wade mentions. It is, in my opinion, much greater danger in realms other than basic science. As Kolata reported here some time ago, we are pretty much sure that very large part of funding for cancer research will NOT bring any breakthroughs. This is not a result of ‘conformity’ but ‘playing it safe’. Some of the recipients, she reported, actually ‘cheat’ and use the money for new stuff commiting, technically, a fraud. I have a great confidence in the viability of, at least, American science. Wade is right that in other cultures the situation may be different but not from any inherent ‘conformity’ but because of the exaggerated respect for authority, not quite the same thing. — Ladislav Nemec, CA 10. 10. July 23, 2009 5:51 pm Link Methinks the psychologist protests too much. Sure, conformity is bad, but is scientific conformity more or less likely than the conformity of non-scientists? I know that my father the scientist is less inflexible and more open minded that may untrained men his age (90!) and he has always felt willing to voice his take on things, some which are hardly conformist. I’ll tell you what, listening to some of the “non-comformist” claptrap coming from scientists on say global warming (check out Thomas Fuller’s blog at the SF Examiner) makes me shudder to think that Bouchard is just going to end up fueling more nutjob behavior. Just sayin’ . . . —A 11. 11. July 23, 2009 5:54 pm Link Put the archaeologists in the do not think tank.. with little research to back them and repetitious orders of acceptable class room books the field of archaeology is like an exhibit in a museum. Stagnant and without real teaching power. — scotty scott 12. 12. July 23, 2009 6:00 pm Link Put archaeologists in the do not think tank.. With little research to back them and repetitious orders of acceptable classroom books the field of archaeology is like an exhibit in a museum; stagnant and without real teaching power.

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Scotty Scott certified field archaeologist Tucson, Arizona — scotty scott 13. 13. July 23, 2009 6:12 pm Link How about the delusion, common among economists, that markets are the all purpose cure for everything that ails humanity? Like, for example, neoliberal development policy that has promoted free trade and exports to the US as the all purpose cure for world poverty. Assuming, of course, that the US could always buy everything without selling anything. — Wonks Anonymous 14. 14. July 23, 2009 6:17 pm Link I love how Raven decries “unsubstantiated personal smears” and then goes on to perpetrate one herself: “…many scientists have developed a Messiah complex and like the idea that they are ’saving the world’ with science. This means their egos will take a huge hit if the problem turns out to be less serious than claimed.” Raven is presumably psychic, since she can see the inner motives of scientists that they themselves are unaware of. — Bodhi 15. 15. July 23, 2009 6:19 pm Link Being the only person who is wrong reflects negatively on you. Being wrong, along with everyone else, doesn’t reflect negatively on you. The old saying in business a few decades ago was, “No one gets fired for choosing IBM.” The benefits gained by being the only person so”, does not win you friends. Many years of opinion of how something should be done, at The customer isn’t always right, but he is the

who was correct, are not that great. Saying, “I told you consulting have taught me to tell the customer my first, but if the customer disagrees, I do what they want. one paying me.

I worked for many startup companies during the dotcom boom that I *knew* didn’t have a chance. Telling them that their product didn’t have a chance in the market would have rapidly ended my contract with them. There was no money in being *right*. I often told friends I felt like an atheist who built churches. — Steve 16. 16. July 23, 2009 6:21 pm Link For hundreds of years the group think was “the solution to polution is dilution”. For the first 10 years of the global warming theory, its followers were termed “tree huggers” or “eco-terrorists”, That was the goup think. It took almost another 20 years to change that thinking so that the majority believe, based on mounting scientific evidence, that we have over polluted both the air and water, and the chemical balance of the world’s ecosystems are changing more and more rapidly. Global warming is a theory of where the results appear to be headed. But it is only the blind group think that belive there is going to be no repercussions to maintaining the staus quo.. It seem Tierney is stuck in the old group think that humans can just keep pumping out pollutants with no results. I have some advice, read your own column and lose the OLD goup think. The world is not flat!

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— JoAna 17. 17. July 23, 2009 6:27 pm Link The classic quote on the matter is that when all the experts agree- they are almost certainly wrong. — Mitch Diamond 18. 18. July 23, 2009 6:29 pm Link Conformity is the biggest enemy of freedom. Biggest exploiters of conformity: monotheistic faiths. — DJS 19. 19. July 23, 2009 6:33 pm Link Wonderful article. What great insights - all scientists should reflect honestly on these issues. Um, except for global warming, of course. THAT we all know is the exception, and there really isn’t any valid dissention. But aside from that, great stuff! — Andy 20. 20. July 23, 2009 6:37 pm Link I am glad that the subject of forbidden ideas is being broached in the public discourse. We retard our progress as a society with ‘political correctness’ ‘bad think’ and other nasty epithets for forbidden ideas. However, how can society encourage academia and academics, who are training our next generation, to be more open? I believe that widening the process of peer review to include ‘peers’ in stature from other fields might be one way. Another way might be to train academics in teaching, most are not. Their lack of training encourages the ‘mini-me’ approach to graduate education, where the professor who has not be trained to teach does their best and often unwittingly trains a student in their own image. If academics were trained to teach thinking and to embrace original thinking from their students society as a whole would benefit. — Catherine Duckett 21. 21. July 23, 2009 6:38 pm Link Groupthink and the power of conformity are of interest to me not so much because I can see the truth of it in society, but because, since I see that it is a universal problem, I conclude that I am guilty of it. If your fundamental beliefs are erroneous, then your whole life can be a lie. So it is important to realize at every moment that you may be wrong. It makes us less eager for war, as well as the obnoxious behavior that leads to violence. — David 22. 22. July 23, 2009 6:39 pm Link Robert asks: “It was a delusional belief that housing prices would never fall that resulted in a bubble and subsequent collapse. How does that connect to global warming?” In light of lowering global temperatures in the last ten years, and in light of the failure of the crude computer models in use to predict climate change, the quasi-religious belief in anthropogenic global warming may be delusional. That’s how. More broadly, we tend to hubris when we assume we know more than we do know, more than we really can. A hundred years from now, they will look back on us and see it more clearly. — Peter 23. 23. July 23, 2009 7:05 pm Link There is conformity in science, but there is also out and out rebellion. Many scientists are happy to destroy a commonly held idea or assumption. When I’ve come up with a novel idea, the first person to come along and refute it is usually me. I actually like being wrong; it means I’ve just learned something.

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Be that as it may, conformity and lack of imagination is a problem. It took years before Wegener’s theory of continental drift had any sort of hearing, although the refusal to consider such an outlandishly counter intuitive theory is readily understandable. It wasn’t until evidence on a mechanism (see floor spreading) was found that continental drift and plate tectonics was seriously considered. A revolution in earth science followed. — Maurie Beck 24. 24. July 23, 2009 7:08 pm Link John, As always, you are on to a great topic. I’ve been an energy and environmental journalist for 35+ years, and I’ve see all kinds of fads in the science. Whatever happened to high-temperature superconductors? It may come to pass that they make a contribution, but it’s nowhere near. Similarly, as you cite, is global warming. I’ve been following this issue since 1980, and the skeptics have been run out of the room, but their critiques are trenchant, and may win the day. Witness the “hockey stick” fiasco and the fact that global temperatures have not followed the models, and have been flat or declining for a decade. Back in the early 1990s, I interviewed John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, who was the chief analysts of NASA climate data coming from the agency’s satellites, which wasn’t showing warming. I asked Christy if this was a feud between modelers and empiricists. He responded that it wasn’t, because he ran his own global circulation model, and it heated up, even in the absence of CO2. It’s important for science — and public policy — not to get wedded to views of the world that are based on consensus. I want to see lots of skepticism. — Kennedy Maize 25. 25. July 23, 2009 7:11 pm Link Academic researchers are conformists? Oh please. Anyone who has ever attended a university SCIENTIFIC PhD seminar knows that academics are far more likely to attack a presenter no matter what. The diversity of opinions from academia are huge, and associate professors are rewarded for challenging presenters. New and unconventional ideas are the lifeblood of university life among the hope-to-be tenured set who hope to be noticed for their new ideas. Silly, silly silly analysis. Is this the best the NYTimes can do? — tim 1 2 3 ... 6 Next » Add your comments... Your Name Your E-mail

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John Tierney always wanted to be a scientist but went into journalism because its peer-review process was a great deal easier to sneak through. Now a columnist for the Science Times section, Tierney previously wrote columns for the Op-Ed page, the Metro section and the Times Magazine. Before that he covered science for magazines like Discover, Hippocrates and Science 86. With your help, he's using TierneyLab to check out new research and rethink conventional wisdom about science and society. The Lab's work is guided by two founding principles: 1. Just because an idea appeals to a lot of people doesn't mean it's wrong. 2. But that's a good working theory. Comments and suggestions are welcome, particularly from researchers with new findings. E-mail [email protected].

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Researcher Condemns Conformity Among His Peers - TierneyLab B... http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/researcher-condemns...

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