cs 50 or No Harvard CS 50

Would identical twin Alana be as exceptional if she had been separated  at birth, raised with bad parents, and sent to a school with negative  peer influences?  

At thirteen, Alana is taking Harvard CS50, scoring in the top 1% on her  verbal SATs, reading Homer for fun, and winning national jiu-jitsu  championships.  Would she be the same person if she had been raised in a  different home by different parents?  

Judith Harris’s book, “The Nurture Assumption”, is usually  interpreted to mean that “parents don’t matter,” outcomes are the result  of genetics and peer groups, and all the attention focused on parenting  is wasted. Her second book, ‘No Two Alike’, develops a theory for why the  personalities of identical twins can be so different (given identical  genetics).  She invokes a three part explanation involving:  

1.  A relationship system for recognizing individuals 

2.  A socialization system for internalizing peers and culture 

3.  A status system for optimizing one’s status within one’s social niche  

For today we read and discussed the Farnum Street summary of the first two mechanisms

We shifted to this article after trying the first chapter of Richard  Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene last time.  I realized it relied on too much  background knowledge, and chose something more accessible and  immediately engaging (due to the fascinating topic at hand).  

I start off asking her what she got from it, listening to her description  of key points.  I realize that while as a reader she is understanding  sentence level concepts reasonably well, she is missing the big picture  context, so I provide that to orient her.  We then dig into the  Relationship System briefly before focusing on the Socialization System.  

Most of the remainder of the conversation is focused on her own  experience with peer influence.  As a homeschooled child (including  part-time at @socraticexp ) who spends most of her time in  jiu-jitsu and wresting practice, she is aware that she is not exposed to  standard public school peer influences.  

We then discuss whether she  would be a different person if she was, and she notes that given her  parents, she would not be so much different, but then later agrees that  if her identical twin had been separated at birth and raised with poor  parents and then also put in a public school with a bad peer environment  she might be very different.  

Harris herself acknowledges that one major influence that parents can  have is with respect to the peer groups that parents immerse their  children in.  Alana is acutely aware of just how intentional her parents  are in this respect (her dad chose the jiu-jitsu community because the  peer group there is disciplined, motivated, focused, etc.)  Alana is also aware that because she (and the other homeschooled kids  who practice at her dojo) spend more time with their parents, and are  not  influenced by standard public school peer relationships.  She and  her friends are in a distinctive subculture with much more positive  norms.  

It is a longer argument that verbal interactions with parents (including  the distinctive Socratic interactions that Alana has had with her  parents and I since age four) HAVE had a tangible impact on Alana’s  cognitive growth and intellectual focus in the past nine years.  Harris  style skeptics of parenting impact point to large scale studies showing a  modest influence of “shared environment” on the outcomes of identical  twins.  

@bryan_caplan , known for supporting Harris’s argument that parenting  doesn’t matter, acknowledges that evidence from international adoptions  show that such adoptions can increase IQ by almost half a standard  deviation,  

Moreover, the earlier the adoption the larger the impact, with children  adopted in the first six months showing larger gains than older  adoptees.    

Evidence that parenting has little impact is likely an artifact from the homogeneity of public school:  

“. . . twin studies . . .  can only pick up the variation that’s already  out there. If at present all parents provide very similar environments  for their children, then they won’t make their children very different .  . .  late 20th-century Western childrearing was probably more uniform  than ever before or since. Almost all children in these studies went to  state-provided schools with nationally shared curricula and policies . .  .   Before this unique period, families couldn’t be so similar. . . . In  this era, a hundred flowers can bloom. We don’t yet know how much our  children can do, given the right environment!” 

bps.org.uk/psychologist/n…  

As a Socratic educator working on creating distinctive learning  subcultures for 35 years, I see creating these cultures in the home and  among peers as the biggest underappreciated approach to human  development.  Alana is one case study documented in 9 years of YouTube  videos.