The Genius in All of Us

Nightline gets caught in genetic testing trap

ABCNews Nightline last night became the latest news organization to get tripped up by the genetic testing industry. It's an irresistable story: Should I or shouldn't I find out what my genes say about my genetic destiny?

Alas, in 2008, it's the wrong story to be telling about genes. The premise of the question is false. With very rare exceptions, genes simply don't work that way. Genes are not, as we were all taught, self-contained packets of information dictating a specific blueprint design for each individual. Rather, they interact with each of our unique environments from the moment of conception to the moment we die. That's why genetic tests won't be able to tell us if are going to get a disease; all they can tell us (again, with some rare exceptions) is whether or not, statistically, we are slightly more or slightly less likely to get a disease than the average person.

So last night Martin Bashir found out that he has an increased risk of Type II Diabetes -- 19% rather than the average of 11.2%. He also has an increased chance of becoming obese.

But when you think about it, that percentage doesn't really apply to him as an individual -- it's only a population average. It's not any different from measuring the height of 100,000 people and then telling each one of them whether they are more or less likely *than average* to become a pro basketball player. There are so many other influential factors at play in any individual life, the "disposition" means almost nothing. It's useful to statisticians, useless to individuals.

I don't want this to be one of those bash-the-press blogs, because absolutely any good journalist would be expected to miss this story. That's because most of the scientists themselves have done such a poor job of correcting the extraordinary misperceptions about genetics. We're fighting an entire century of misleading metaphors about genes.

And I should point out that, toward the end of the Nightline piece, they did get the real point. After leading us in one direction for quite a long time, they closed with a quote that challenged the premise of the piece itself.

Hank Greely, a Stanford law professor, said it beautifully: "We both fear and love the idea that somehow our genomes are us, that everything about us is defined by this long sequence of as CS GS and TS. You know, it's just not true. For most of us, the events that have happened during our lifetimes  our parents' efforts for us, the friends' we've made, the jobs we've had, the good and bad luck we've had  that's more important in who we are than what genes we're born with. And that's really important to remember."

"Genes are, except for a very few unfortunate people, not destiny, they're influences, they're not destiny," he said, "and if we think too heavily that they are destiny, we are going to mess ourselves up."

The Genetics of Mathematics

Behold the feats of 27-year old Frenchman Alexis Lemaire, who just accurately calculated the 13th root of a random 200 -digit number. I was alerted to this achievement by my Uncle Stan, who feels that it must be proof of a genetic gift since this ability could not be learned or taught.

My (admittedly incomplete) reply to Stan:

***
Stan,

First, you need to back away from your argument about genetics, because genes don't work that way. It's entirely understandable that you think they do. I did too. For a century, we've all been taught that genes contain information and programming for how our minds and bodies are supposed to develop. This is wrong. Genes don't contain such intricate plans. I know this sounds preposterous, but it's true, and I will demonstrate it to you in the opening chapters of my book. I'm as shocked by this stuff as everyone else will be, and it does require a very strange reorientation of some rock-solid beliefs.

Second, you are illustrating a false choice: either this man's problem-solving ability is innate (genetic) or it is learned/taught. The missing option there is that it is *developed* -- developed from the first moment of conception to the very moment of his latest calculation; developed from an incalculable number of dynamic interactions between genes, hormones, nutrients, thoughts, emotions, actions, movements, curiosities, and so on. Putting all of this into a development paradigm fits two important truths:

A. Genes are not directors. They are actors, along with other equally important actors. It is an ensemble, and the product created is only possible as a result of that ensemble. A trumpet player does not make jazz on his own. He needs to interact with the other players. Human development is a jazz improvisation. It follows certain rules, but the outcome develops from the interaction.

B. "Development" does not imply that everything is under our control, or ever will be. If we say that anything can be taught/learned, we imply that we have near-100% control over the process. We don't. We don't control which gene actors are inside each developing fetus, nor do we control how many trees are growing in the front yard. Nor do we control the content of the water that the mother is drinking. Nor do we control all the cultural messages the baby comes into contact with. What we can do, though, is learn more about all these variables, and perhaps gain a little bit more control over some of them. It's not a guaranteed recipe to create exactly the individual capabilities we desire, but it is a plan to nudge all of humanity in the right direction.

David

Nice, if conventional, refutation

A nice piece in yesterday's NYT by psychologist Richard E. Nisbett on the race/intelligence controversy sparked by The Bell Curve and reignited recently by James Watson. (Thanks to Michael Bowerman for pointing it out).

Nisbett cogently and concisely deflates the claims that intelligence has been proven 60-80% "heritable" by twin and adoption population studies. By the end of the piece, the reader is left with the strong impression that those studies are flawed and misleading. They don't stand up, even on their own terms.

What Nisbett doesn't do -- understandably, because it's a lot trickier -- is explain how those population studies also fly in the face of our modern understanding of genetics. It's not biologically possible for someone to directly inherit, via genes, a certain level of intelligence. Genes don't work that way. Everything about our genes is mediated through interaction with the environment. The dichotomy of "nature vs. nurture" actually does not exist.

Our popular discussion of genetics, intelligence, talent etc is stuck in a very strange place. We use terms, concepts and metaphors which lead us astray. In order to get unstuck, we're going to need a whole new way to frame the discussion. That's what I'm working on (struggling with) in my book.

Amy Harmon's DNA is not definitive

Before I dig into Amy Harmon's recent NYTimes cover story about exploring her own DNA, two caveat/disclosures:

1. I am not constantly critiquing NYTimes stories in this blog because the Times does a particularly bad job of explaining the science behind genetics, talent and intelligence. As with nearly every subject, they do a much better job than most. I refer to them so often because I that's the daily paper I read, and because it's the paper of record. Because they're so good, they bear the burden of the most scrutiny.

2. Amy Harmon is a great science and technology reporter. I have long admired her work, and have talked to her a few times as she was reporting tech stories over the years. I think we also have some friends in common.

Ok, now onto her piece.

This is a good story that needed to be written. In a light and entertaining way, it begins to illustrate the thicket we're all stepping into as cheap consumer genetic tests become available. For those of you who haven't yet read the piece, Harmon writes about her experience in receiving a state-of-the-art genetic report about herself. From her report, she is able to see if she is more or less predisposed to a number of diseases and traits. This information carries a lot of emotional baggage and a ton of very practical concerns ranging from lifestyle choices to insurability.

But the story also leaves out what I think is the most important part: a true explanation of what "predisposition" and "risks" actually mean in this context. The heart of this story, for me, is when Harmon reassures herself about a supposed genetic disposition for poor verbal memory.

"Should I be recording more of my interviews? No, I decided. I remember what people say. DNA is not definitive."

What does that mean -- that DNA is not definitive? And what does it mean that Harmon has three high-intelligence mutations out of a possible six? What does it mean that her particular gene sequence "meant that I had been eligible for the 6-point I.Q. boost when my mother breast-fed me"? What does it mean that she is 23% more likely than average to have a heart attack?

We need to start with an essential -- and widely misunderstood -- truth about genes. While our number and basic sequence of genes does insure that each of us develops into a human being rather than a hippopotamus, our particular genes themselves do not dictate what we become. They are not individual blueprints of our future brains, bodies, personalities, talents, intelligence, creativity, or athleticism.

Instead, from the moment of conception, we become our individual selves through a dynamic process of interaction between genes and our environment. Genes are not instruction code telling our cells what to do; rather, they are switches getting rapidly turned on and off by external factors. That switching process subsequently tells cells how to behave.

Don't take my word for it. Listen to Michael Meaney, Director of the McGill Centre for the Study of Behaviour, Genes and Environment:

"There are no genetic factors that can be studied independently of the environment, and there are no environmental factors that function independently of the genome. Phenotype emerges only from the interaction of gene and environment. The search for main effects is a fool's errand. In the context of modem molecular biology, it is a quest that is without credibility."

That's what Harmon means when she says "genes are not definitive." It's actually a lot more interesting than that. Genes are just one part of the equation of our lives. They do not give us heart attacks, or Alzheimer's disease, or higher or lower I.Q.'s. It's the gene-environment interaction that leads to those things.

In other words, there is no nature vs. nurture. There is only there is only n N u A r T t U u R r E e , a tangled fusion of the two, inextricably intertwined, catalyzing one another.

So when someone says that DNA is not definitive, that may be the most profound understatement printed in the New York Times all year. When Harmon reveals that she has half the known high-intelligence mutations, this actually tells her absolutely nothing about her intelligence capabilities. Intelligence is something that comes out of a developmental process; it is not an innate ability.

Except for extreme and very limited cases, genes do not limit what we can become. They play an important role, but there's actually no evidence that they set true upper or lower limits on our capabilities. To the contrary, all the evidence seems to indicate that our limitations come out of the developmental process that is our lives.

Which means that Harmon is giving in to myth and not science in this paragraph:

"But I had decided not to submit my daughter’s DNA for testing — at least not yet — because I didn’t want to regard anything about her as predestined. If she wants to play the piano, who cares if she lacks perfect pitch? If she wants to run the 100-meter dash, who cares if she lacks the sprinting gene? And did I really want to know — did she really want to know someday — what genes she got from which parent and which grandparent?"

First of all there is no perfect pitch gene. Musicologists now think that perfect pitch is something available to all or most of us given the right developmental circumstances. More here.

There is also no sprinting gene. There are mutations that, under absolutely-optimal lifestyle and training conditions, will help make some faster sprinters than others. But there is no "predestined" genetic sequence that is going to make her daughter fast or slow.

With very rare exceptions, there is no predestined anything in our lives. Almost none of us will ever know our true limitations in any area unless we push ourselves to extraordinary lengths.

A lot of this probably sounds bizarre to an intelligent audience raised in a nature-vs.-nurture paradigm. Certainly Harmon owes us no apology for her articulate explanation of the science as it has been explained to her. But there's an enormous gap now in what the leading developmental biologists understand and our antiquated popular understanding of what genes do. That's what I'm trying help correct in my book.

Benefits of bilingualism (or multilingualism)

The NYTimes today has a story about the educational trend towards bilingual education in the U.S.

The article is all about the the obvious practical benefits -- interacting with more people in our shrinking world. Not one word in the story mentions the extraordinary cognitive benefits that have been documented.

In François Grosjean's book, Life With Two Languages, Grosjean shows that bilinguals can reach a stage in semantic development 2 or 3 years earlier than monoligual peers. (Thanks to Sharone Bergner).

In Rafael M. Diaz's article, "Thought and Two Languages: The Impact of Bilingualism on Cognitive Development," Diaz concludes that bilingual students learn greater cognitive flexbility and improved powers of concept formation. (Thanks to David Rider of Xavier University in Louisiana).

According to behavioral psychologist Dean Keith Simonton: "Research has shown that intensive exposure to two or more different languages helps build the cognitive basis for creativity. After all, concepts will be coded in multiple ways, enriching the associative interconnections among various ideas. The process here is not unlike the possible role of hybridization in the generation of new biological species."

More from Diana Deutsch on Perfect Pitch

In an earlier post, I referred to evidence from Diana Deutsch and others suggesting that perfect pitch and other extraordinary musical tools are probably available to almost everyone at a very early stage in life. After a while, the window of musical opportunity gradually closes and those who haven't taken advantage have less and less access to a "natural" musicality.

For a compelling listening experience that ends with an emphatic reiteration of this point, listen to the recent "Musical Language" show from public radio's RadioLab. RadioLab is a remarkable program that makes difficult ideas easy to understand and fun to think about.

Plugging my new paperback

Anchor Books has just published the paperback edition of my book The Immortal Game.

"Elegant . . . a true page-turner, and a superb introduction to the game of chess."
— Wall Street Journal

“Clear, elegant, sophisticated and easy to understand . . . just the thing to get you in the thrall of this ancient game.”
— Los Angeles Times

“Shenk, a spry writer....[offers] a strong case for the game’s bewitching power.”
— New York Times Book Review

“Fresh and fascinating...a world-spanning story [Shenk] relates with skill and verve.”
— Chicago Sun-Times

"Beguiling . . . [Shenk's] history has an improvisational dexterity that suits its subject."
— Weekly Standard

“A bravura demonstration of the art of storytelling.”
— Globe and Mail (A Top 100 Book of 2006)

“Fascinating...[Shenk] writes about chess history with contagious zest.”
— Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Brilliantly conceived . . . You won’t find a more lucid and captivating exploration of [chess].”
— Toronto Star (A Best of 2006)

“Shenk weaves a masterful tale that all readers can enjoy, no matter how little they know about chess.”
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Wonderful . . . a book filled with daring moves and cunning patience."
— Stephen J. Dubner, coauthor of Freakonomics

"I loved this book . . . Like a great chess game, this is an achievement that will be talked about for many years to come."
— Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman

"With the depth and insight of a grandmaster, The Immortal Game explores and explains not only the addictive power of chess but its shockingly important, Zelig-like role in the history of humankind."
—Stefan Fatsis, author of Word Freak

David Brooks gets intelligence right -- but genetics wrong

In today's NYTimes, David Brooks has a thoughtful, intelligent column about how mainstream science is gaining a more nuanced understanding of intelligence, and getting past crude measures like IQ. He gets a lot of stuff right. Unfortunately, Brooks gets tripped up near the beginning of his column by the Big Fallacy of "heritability." Brooks writes:

"Intelligence is partly hereditary. A meta-analysis by Bernie Devlin of the University of Pittsburgh found that genes account for about 48 percent of the differences in I.Q. scores."

This is just not correct. It's an entirely understandable mistake on Brooks' part, because so many journalists and even scientists are making it. But what statistical studies like Devlin's miss is that genes actually do not pass any complex traits down on their own. The expression and regulation of genes, biologists now understand, is entirely dependent on their interaction with the environment. You cannot separate one from the other. There is no "nature vs. nurture."

Don't take my word for it. Listen to Michael Meaney, Director of the McGill Centre for the Study of Behaviour, Genes and Environment:

"There are no genetic factors that can be studied independently of the environment, and there are no environmental factors that function independently of the genome. Phenotype emerges only from the interaction of gene and environment. The search for main effects is a fool's errand. In the context of modem molecular biology, it is a quest that is without credibility."

Or take a look at this chart and look at all the influence-arrows going in both directions:

 

The point of the chart is to show how genes are not simple information dispensers, but are dynamic actors in the life of every cell. They don't dictate -- they interact. And how they interact can be affected by just about anything under the sun. Again, Michael Meaney:

"Everything we have learned about molecular biology has shown that gene activity is regulated by the intracellular environment. The intracellular environment is a function of the genetic make-up of the cell and the extracellular environment [which is] also influenced by the environment of the individual."

None of this is yet reflected in how we talk about genetics publicly, thanks in part to this stream of statistical studies that supposedly show what percent of various traits we inherit.

Brooks and the rest of us are victims of the continual and extreme misreading of population studies that seem to show what portion of intelligence comes from genes vs. what portion comes from the environment. When you actually sit down to understand how genetics works, you realize how misleading these studies are. By echoing a strict "nature vs. nurture" sensibility, these heritability estimates are statistical phantoms; they purport to represent something in populations that simply does not exist in actual biology.

If all this has you a little confused, its ok. It should. The ramifications of gene-environment interdependence are so sweeping, it will take a while to come to grips with them. It changes everything we think we understand about "innate," and "hereditary." It opens up a whole new understanding of what human beings are truly capable of. But first we have to describe it correctly. We don't even have right metaphors for genetics to discuss it sensibly in ordinary conversation. That's what I'm spending a good amount of time on now in my book.

Study shows I'm smarter than my brothers

As the eldest of three, I'm delighted to hype a robust new Norwegian study (explained very well here in the New York Times) showing pretty conclusively that the I.Q.'s of oldest siblings are, on average, three points higher than their younger siblings. I've been telling Mom and Dad this for years -- but they won't listen!

In all seriousness, the study is profoundly important for one big reason. It's not because this huge population study (241,310 people) reveals anything about particular individual families (in our family, the youngest is the smartest). And it's not because it helps us understand how birth order might affect intelligence. Rather, it's simply because it's definitive scholarship helps chip away at the myth that we are all born with a certain intelligence. Intelligence, like all complex behavioral traits, clearly has strong genetic influences, but is ultimately a process, not a thing; like personality, it's a consequence of millions of tiny influential events from the realms of nutrition, parenting, play, sibling relationships, schooling, media exposure, and random happenings. The process starts at conception and never stops.

(This is my first post in while -- I'm still in the middle of wrestling with some of the actual content in the book, but hope to return soon to more regular posts.)

The surprising realities of Absolute Pitch and Tone Deafness

Glenn Gould had it -- so did Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Horowitz and Sinatra. On the surface, absolute pitch seems like the province of musical geniuses -- the exotic gift that they have and we don't. But the truth about absolute pitch -- and the opposite phenomenon of tone deafness -- is much more interesting, and helps us understand what "musical talent" really is and isn't.

What is Absolute Pitch?
Absolute pitch (AP) is the ability to produce and identify a certain musical tone without any reference tone. A person with AP is able to hum middle C or any other note on request, without any prompting from a song or an instrument.

How common is AP?
In strict definitional terms, AP is pretty rare -- somewhere between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 2000 in the general population. But the rare part is the note-naming, not the note reproducing. Many studies have now shown that most people can sing a familiar song in the right key without being given a reference tone, and that virtually everyone who speaks a tonal language such as Mandarin can remember and recall specific pitches. What few people possess is the specific trained ability to link that tone to a named note.

"Our studies tie right in with the idea that we all have this latent absolute pitch ability, but we can't get fully bloomed absolute pitch without early childhood training," says Shepherd College's Laura Bischoff.

"The real puzzle about perfect pitch is not why so few people possess it but rather why most people do not," UC San Diego's Diana Deutsch says. "Everyone has an implicit form of perfect pitch, even though we aren't all able to put a label to notes..They can recognize the note but can't label it. What's learned as a child is the ability to label."

Also, contrary to public assumption, AP is not an all-or-nothing skill. Many have AP in varying degrees, explain Bischoff and University of Rochester's Elizabeth West Marvin.

Is AP a critical ingredient in musical talent?
No. While AP can sometimes be a useful tool for musicians, it is far from essential in helping musicians build the necessary skills or in expressing themselves magnificently. AP is more common among professional musicians than non-musicians, but research shows very clearly that this is not cause-and-effect. Rather, the correlation exists because both are so frequently a product of early (prior to age 6) musical training. 
    Neither Wagner nor Stravinsky had AP, to name just two. McGill University's Daniel Levitin (author of This Is Your Brain on Music ) does not think AP helps musicians much. What musicians thrive on and must develop to a fine degree, he points out, is relative pitch -- the ability to distinguish between tones. Such relative pitch is available to almost everyone, to be developed to whatever individual degree desired.

"The average person is able to carry a tune almost as proficiently as professional singers. This result is consistent with the idea that singing is a basic skill that develops in the majority of individuals, enabling them to engage in musical activities. In short, singing appears to be as natural as speaking." (Dalla Bella et al, 2007.)

What about "tone deaf" people who can't carry a tune?
So-called "tone deafness" is a little-studied and much misunderstood subject now getting closer attention. Four percent of the general population has tone-deafness (Kalmus and Fry, 1980), which until recently was thought to be mainly a perceptual deficit -- affected individuals supposedly could not hear the difference in tones; they did not have and could not develop relative pitch, and therefore could not appreciate or produce music.
    New evidence has forced an entirely new conclusion. Studies now show that virtually everyone can distinguish tonal differences and appreciate music (Dalla Bella et al, 2007). And while a tiny percentage of people truly cannot hear tonal differences due to some specific brain damage, "present findings suggest that tone-deafness may emerge as a pure output disorder....that poor singing may occur in the presence of normal perception. This possibility finds support in a recent study conducted with poor singers who exhibited pitch production deficits but normal pitch discrimination (Bradshaw & McHenry, 2005)."   
    In other words, the vast majority of people who call themselves tone deaf (or who are mocked as such by friends and spouses) actually hear and perceive music perfectly well, and simply have a problem generating with their vocal chords the tones they hear in their brain.

(Thanks to Jim Berman for asking some great questions and turning me on to some extraordinary music.)