Behavioral Geneticist Celebrates Twins, Scorns PC Science

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 325 3 JULY 2009 27

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Last month, the Behavior Genetics Associa-

tion 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

Q: What got you into twin studies?T.B.: I was teaching the psychology of indi-

vidual 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 amaz-

ing and a major mystery to me.

Q: What were attitudes toward behavioralgenetics in the early years of your career?T.B.: In graduate school at UC [the Univer-

sity 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 schizo-

phrenia. 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 psy-

chologists believed correlation is causation,

… and many still do.

In the ’70s, when I was teaching research

by [IQ researcher Arthur] Jensen and [twin

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.

Q: Do you think perceptions have changeddramatically since the ‘70s now that twinresearch has revealed genetic bases formany disorders, such as autism (which hadbeen blamed on cold mothers) and ADHD(for which many blamed food dyes)?T.B.:Within the university—at least at U. Min-

nesota—the cumulative impact of behavioral

genetics f indings 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

self-esteem was much lower than white self-

esteem, 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 gener-

ated 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 discrimina-

tion 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.

Q: What are you working on now?T.B.: I’m studying what I call the

traditional-values triad: religious-

ness, conservatism, and authori-

tarianism. 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 under-

lying 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 adminis-

tered 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.

Behavioral Geneticist Celebrates

Twins, Scorns PC Science

NEWSMAKER INTERVIEW

Twin pioneer. ThomasBouchard launched theworld-famous study withthe “Jim twins.”

Published by AAAS

on

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July 23, 2009, 3:35 pm

Researcher Condemns Conformity Among His PeersBy NICHOLAS WADE

“Academics, like teenagers, sometimes don’t have any sense regarding the degree to which they areconformists.”

So says Thomas Bouchard, the Minnesota psychologist known for his study of twins raised apart, in aretirement 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 tobelong inside the group, to think like the majority, to lick the boss’s shoes, and to win the group’s approvalby trashing dissenters.

The strength of this urge to conform can silence even those who have good reason to think the majority iswrong. You’re an expert because all your peers recognize you as such. But if you start to get too far out ofline 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 myposition on the panel, I felt the need to use restraint,” he relates. “While I warned about the bubbles Ibelieved were developing in the stock and housing markets, I did so very gently, and felt vulnerableexpressing 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 inherentlyrevolutionary because progress often depends on overturning established wisdom. It’s obvious that least 100genes must be needed to convert a human or animal cell back to its embryonic state. Or at least it wasobvious 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 scientificcreativity. Though they sprout up in every country, they may be a particular problem inConfucian-influenced cultures that prize conformity and respect for elders. It’s curious that Japan, forexample, despite having all the ingredients of a first rate scientific power – a rich economy, heavyinvestment in R&D, a highly educated population and a talented scientific workforce – has never posed aserious challenge to American scientific leadership. Young American scientists can make their name byshowing 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 neverfall, what other policies founded on consensus wisdom could be waiting to come unraveled? Globalwarming, you say? You mean it might be harder to model climate change 20 years ahead than house prices5 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 andlegitimate, but the silencing of skeptics. “We still have whole domains we can’t talk about,” Dr. Bouchardsaid, referring to the psychology of differences between races and sexes.

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1. July 23, 2009 3:48 pm Link

Read “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Kuhn.

— Nutjob

1.

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 togo 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 andSpain, where there’s less conformism in science.

— Patricia

2.

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 theessence from the proposed ideas and use it for their own benefit.

— Balaji Raman

3.

4. July 23, 2009 4:32 pm Link

You know, there’s a significant difference between the researcher who thinks that maybe things mightnot work the way the majority thinks they do, and then finds experimental evidence to support his/heropinion, and the sort of “skeptic” who says “That can’t possibly be true ’cause if it was it’d cramp mylifestyle!”

— James

4.

5. July 23, 2009 4:49 pm Link5.

Yahoo! Buzz

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4 of 15 12/9/09 4:03 PM

James uses a perfect example of how unsubstantiated personal smears are used to supress science thatdissents from the concensus views.

The group think problem is a huge issue in climate science in particular because many scientists havedeveloped a Messiah complex and like the idea that they are ’saving the world’ with science. Thismeans 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 powerfulpschological club that they use ruthlessly supress any questioning of the consensus mantra.

— Raven6. 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 livableenvironment, we have to voluntarily limit the population growth rate. It’s the most neglected subject inmany countries.

“The academic monocultures referred to by Dr. Bouchard are the kind of thing that sabotagesscientific 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 beingdenied 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 ashumanly 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 thepeer-review system work together with the funding sources to judge whether to fund a creative,far-out, challenging proposal. The details are important.

— stilldreaming

6.

7. July 23, 2009 5:18 pm Link

Kuhn for the win!

Though I think Lakatos had it better…

— Bryson

7.

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. Butglobal warming is not affected merely by what people believe.

8.


5 of 15 12/9/09 4:03 PM

— Robert9. July 23, 2009 5:32 pm Link

Wade gives examples from two different realms - the finances and the science. The first one reallydoes 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 ofinfluence.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 muchmore prudent practices of the past).

It should be completely different in science - its very purpuse is to seek new stuff and to ‘boldly gowhere no one (originally ‘no man’) has gone before’. I am pretty sure that this is still happening andthere are many examples of that - Wade names just one, even more striking (and of great practicalsignificance) was the completely ‘against the grain’ discovery that stomach ulcers are actually aninfectious disease and can be cured by antibiotics.

As for being ostracized, that, of course, happens sometimes as well - the ‘discovery’ of cold fusion wasa good example of that. Despite the problems the two scientists encountered when virtually nobodycould reproduce their results, the research in ‘cold fusion’ is still going on with claims that it willbecome 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 forcancer research will NOT bring any breakthroughs. This is not a result of ‘conformity’ but ‘playing itsafe’. Some of the recipients, she reported, actually ‘cheat’ and use the money for new stuffcommiting, technically, a fraud.

I have a great confidence in the viability of, at least, American science. Wade is right that in othercultures the situation may be different but not from any inherent ‘conformity’ but because of theexaggerated respect for authority, not quite the same thing.

— Ladislav Nemec, CA

9.

10. July 23, 2009 5:51 pm Link

Methinks the psychologist protests too much. Sure, conformity is bad, but is scientific conformitymore or less likely than the conformity of non-scientists? I know that my father the scientist is lessinflexible and more open minded that may untrained men his age (90!) and he has always felt willingto voice his take on things, some which are hardly conformist. I’ll tell you what, listening to some ofthe “non-comformist” claptrap coming from scientists on say global warming (check out ThomasFuller’s blog at the SF Examiner) makes me shudder to think that Bouchard is just going to end upfueling more nutjob behavior. Just sayin’ . . .

— A

10.

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

11.

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.

12.


6 of 15 12/9/09 4:03 PM

Scotty Scottcertified field archaeologistTucson, Arizona

— scotty scott13. 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

13.

14. July 23, 2009 6:17 pm Link

I love how Raven decries “unsubstantiated personal smears” and then goes on to perpetrate oneherself:

“…many scientists have developed a Messiah complex and like the idea that they are ’saving theworld’ with science. This means their egos will take a huge hit if the problem turns out to be lessserious than claimed.”

Raven is presumably psychic, since she can see the inner motives of scientists that they themselves are unaware of.

— Bodhi

14.

15. July 23, 2009 6:19 pm Link

Being the only person who is wrong reflects negatively on you. Being wrong, along with everyoneelse, doesn’t reflect negatively on you. The old saying in business a few decades ago was, “No onegets fired for choosing IBM.”

The benefits gained by being the only person who was correct, are not that great. Saying, “I told youso”, does not win you friends. Many years of consulting have taught me to tell the customer myopinion of how something should be done, at first, but if the customer disagrees, I do what they want.The customer isn’t always right, but he is the 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 mycontract with them. There was no money in being *right*. I often told friends I felt like an atheist whobuilt churches.

— Steve

15.

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 yearsof the global warming theory, its followers were termed “tree huggers” or “eco-terrorists”, That wasthe 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 thechemical balance of the world’s ecosystems are changing more and more rapidly. Global warming is atheory of where the results appear to be headed. But it is only the blind group think that belive there isgoing 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!

16.


7 of 15 12/9/09 4:03 PM

— JoAna17. 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

17.

18. July 23, 2009 6:29 pm Link

Conformity is the biggest enemy of freedom.

Biggest exploiters of conformity: monotheistic faiths.

— DJS

18.

19. July 23, 2009 6:33 pm Link

Wonderful article. What great insights - all scientists should reflect honestly on these issues. Um, exceptfor global warming, of course. THAT we all know is the exception, and there really isn’t any validdissention. But aside from that, great stuff!

— Andy

19.

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 ourprogress as a society with ‘political correctness’ ‘bad think’ and other nasty epithets for forbiddenideas. However, how can society encourage academia and academics, who are training our nextgeneration, to be more open? I believe that widening the process of peer review to include ‘peers’ instature from other fields might be one way.Another way might be to train academics in teaching, most are not. Their lack of training encouragesthe ‘mini-me’ approach to graduate education, where the professor who has not be trained to teachdoes their best and often unwittingly trains a student in their own image. If academics were trained toteach thinking and to embrace original thinking from their students society as a whole would benefit.

— Catherine Duckett

20.

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

21.

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 bubbleand subsequent collapse. How does that connect to global warming?” In light of lowering globaltemperatures in the last ten years, and in light of the failure of the crude computer models in use topredict 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

22.

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 todestroy a commonly held idea or assumption. When I’ve come up with a novel idea, the first person tocome along and refute it is usually me. I actually like being wrong; it means I’ve just learnedsomething.

23.


8 of 15 12/9/09 4:03 PM

Be that as it may, conformity and lack of imagination is a problem. It took years before Wegener’stheory of continental drift had any sort of hearing, although the refusal to consider such anoutlandishly counter intuitive theory is readily understandable. It wasn’t until evidence on amechanism (see floor spreading) was found that continental drift and plate tectonics was seriouslyconsidered. A revolution in earth science followed.

— Maurie Beck24. 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-temperaturesuperconductors? 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 skepticshave 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 havebeen flat or declining for a decade.Back in the early 1990s, I interviewed John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, whowas the chief analysts of NASA climate data coming from the agency’s satellites, which wasn’tshowing 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 arebased on consensus. I want to see lots of skepticism.

— Kennedy Maize

24.

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 arethe 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

25.

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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.

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