Is it just coincidence that Bobby Bonds and his son Barry both made baseball history with their all-star power and speed? Or that Francis Ford Coppola and daughter Sofia rose to fame as award-winning film directors? Questions like these have long plagued psychologists, geneticists and philosophers. Coined nature versus nurture, it is one of the great mysteries of the mind, and much research has focused on the relative role of genes and the environment in determining everything from athleticism to personality to a person’s predisposition to obesity. Smart research More than a century ago, Sir Francis Galton began studying the role of genes in intelligence. He theorized that parents transferred intelligence to their children, who in turn passed these intelligent-boosting genes down to their offspring. To test his ideas, Galton used a method that’s still widely used today: twin studies. In addition to looking alike, identical twins carry exactly the same genes. By examining, for instance, differences between identical twins and fraternal twins, who grow up in the same environment but have different genetics, scientists can tease out environmental versus genetic affects. Explore Yourself! With the advent of molecular genetics, and then […]