Today: more Nature/Nurture and Evolution

Correlation of weight (BMI)% Identical twins reared together80 Identical twins reared apart72 Fraternal twins reared together43 Biological siblings34 Parents and children living together26 Adopted children and parents 4 Unrelated children living together 1 *But food preference shows little genetic correlation Correlation of weight and relatedness The nature of environmental influences on weight and obesity: A behavior genetic analysis. Grilo, Carlos M.; Pogue-Geile, Michael F.; Psychological Bulletin, Vol 110(3), Nov pp And two books by Matt Ridley: Nature via Nurture (2003) and Genome: the Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (1999)

Nature and Nurture: Are traits coded for by genes fixed while traits coded for by the environment are under our control?

See: (and/or) Disentangling prenatal and inherited influences in humans with an experimental design Frances Ricea, Gordon T. Haroldb, Jacky Boivinb, Dale F. Hayb, Marianne van den Breea, and Anita Thapara PNAS early editioncgidoi pnas Fetal exposure to smoking can have several affects on children, including: -decreased birth weight -increased anti-social behavior Are these affects genetic or environmental?

In Vitro Fertilization- fertilization occurs in a lab, and then the embryo is implanted into a woman's uterus. Usually the pregnant woman is related to the embryo, but sometimes they are unrelated.

The average birth weight for all babies born to smoking mothers was lower...

Anti-social behavior was only different if the child and mother were related...

birth weight anti-social behavior...So birth weight reductions were strongly nurture...while increases in anti-social behavior were strongly nature.

Nature and Nurture: Are traits coded for by genes fixed while traits coded for by the environment are under our control?

Adults exposed to cigarette smoke as fetuses have higher risk of obesity and heart disease

17,000 births studied and checked at age 16 and 33. Fetuses exposed to smoking had increased rate of adult obesity and more smoking meant more obesity.

Fig 25.7 Humans have existed on earth for 100,000+/- years

What will humans be like/look like in 100,000 years? Fig 34.40

Next: What is evolution and who does it? Homework #1 due W 2/3 in class Fig 34.40