On 7 December 2006 Stephen wrote: >I suppose I should know when it's time to lay a thread to rest, and >the increasingly agitated tone of some of the recent posts suggests >that the time is now. But I'm not one for taking my own good advice.
I agree with Chris and Tasha that it is unfortunate that Stephen introduced the Cheyney stuff into the discussion, which has only diverted us from what was becoming a very interesting exchange of views on what I think most TIPSters will agree is a topic of considerable importance. (For instance, people became so engaged with the Cheyney issue that no one responded to my posting see below which is in danger of remaining unanswered.) So I'm happy to see that Stephen has put the discussion back on track and I hope it can continue as before. I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to 'hear' the arguments and counter-arguments. And I'd especially like to read responses to my points. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2006 06:48:56 -0500 Author: "Allen Esterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Impact of early experience: nurture vs nature On 4 December 2006 Marie Helweg-Larsen wrote [snip]: > And (without a rereading) I would stick by my description > of her thesis as "parents don't matter except by passing on their > genes" (and possibly creating positive peer environments for > their children). Can we put this one out of the way (so that the really important issues are discussed)? I think the quote above is a loaded way of expressing what Harris says. She does not say "parents don't matter" in general. She says of course they matter for providing love, support, and all the things kids value in parents *immediate* behaviours towards them. On 4 December 2006 Joan Warmbold wrote [snip]: > And why are first born children far more often the super-achievers > in families? Duh, because they received the most attention for their > achievements as well as parents usually having higher expectations. Assuming your basic contention is correct, and leaving aside Harriss views, how would you know that the factors to which you allude are the really significant ones. As against, for instance sibling interaction effects, or maybe other things I cant suggest offhand partly because I have no expertise on these complex questions, and also because there are other points to be made (below) [and Im too busy on other things to put my full attention on this!]. >I am so pleased to hear folks contesting Harris's conclusions. >Every where I look I see the impact of parents on the emotional >development of their children. So then Tiger Woods dad really >didn't make a significant impact on his son's golf skills? Pleeese. >Benjamin Bloom's reseach on the early environment of super-achievers >in various fields shows that they are amazingly consistent: 1) early >exposure to an area, whether it be math, figure skating, golf or >music; 2) lots of encouragement with little if any criticism; >3) parents bringing in a coach at the appropriate time to take the >child to the next level. Ill put that together with Joans point [snip]: >The idea that child abuse has no lasting long term impact is >outrageous because there is strong empirical data that early >abuse sculptures the brain differently Maybe someone can correct me, but my impression is that Harris is excluding the *very* extreme examples. For instance, in her discussion of abuse studies in *No Two Alike* (pp. 79ff.) she writes that abuse is very widely defined, in one study, according to Harris, including one change of primary carer and soiled, unkempt appearance at age three. So we should first be clear that Joan and Harris mean the same thing by child abuse. So with the example of Tiger Woods and his dad, does Harris include such *extreme* instances, the rare super-achievers? After all, they wont show up statistically in the general studies. And (as always) what about control groups. How many kids have been given the hot-house treatment and turned out to be, at best, moderately good in the sphere in question? If, as I suspect, very many, then the parental influence *even in the exceptional cases* which may be excluded from Harris conclusions may be just one of several other preconditions such a strong genetic propensities in talent, ability to concentrate attention, perseverance, and so on. On December 2006 Michael Sylvester asked: >Please folks, let us minimize testimonials, case studies, >cross-sectional,longitudinal,and ex-post facto stuff. >Whatever happened to 'interaction effects'.? If Im not very much mistaken, Harris deals thoroughly with such effects. As I said above, I have no pretensions to expertise on this subject, and certainly not in disentangling the immensely complex issues involved with the analysis of the multitude of relevant research studies, but I would say that Harriss two books on the subject are object lessons in how to critically examine claims made on the basis of such studies. One doesnt have to feel one has mastered the literature (virtually impossible unless one puts in a huge amount of time) to appreciate that Harris has raised massive question marks about a whole universe of received opinion. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org/ --------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Stopping smoking/Judith Harris, etc. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2006 20:32:58 -0500 >I suppose I should know when it's time to lay a thread to rest, >and the increasingly agitated tone of some of the recent posts >suggests that the time is now. But I'm not one for taking my >own good advice. >Tasha Howe said: >>My final comment on this thread is that those posting their >>agreements with Judith Harris have obviously not read the >>developmental science on parenting/contextual influence, which goes >>far beyond correlation and unfounded assumptions, research done by >>top scholars in the field (I referred to much of it in my long email >>earlier in the week, including behavior genetics studies). >In the earlier post to which she referred, she said: >>For example, Parke and Ladd (1992) wrote a tome about how complex >>the impacts of parents on their children's peer relationships >>actually are. >Here's an example of the powerful evidence adduced in the tome edited by >Parke and Ladd in support of the complex impacts of parents. I quote from >their book: >"_Mothers'_ total expressiveness, mothers' positive expressiveness, and mothers' negative expressiveness were all positively correlated with _girls'_ peer acceptance, but not with _boys'_ peer acceptance. Conversely, _fathers'_ total expressiveness and fathers' negative expressiveness were positively correlated with _boys'_ acceptance, but not with girls' acceptance. Fathers' positive expressiveness was not related to boys' acceptance, but was related to girls' acceptance." "Parents' emotional expressiveness was also significantly correlated with peer and teacher behavior measures. Greater maternal total expressiveness was associated, for boys, with greater prosocial behavior and less disruptiveness. A congruent pattern of results emerged in relation to maternal positive and negative expressiveness. A different pattern emerged in relation to paternal emotional expressiveness. Greater paternal total expressiveness was associated, for boys, with less aggression, less shyness, and more prosocial behavior. For girls, greater paternal total expressiveness was associated with less aggression, more prosocial behavior, and less disruptiveness. A congruent pattern of results emerged in relation to paternal positive and negative expressiveness, with one exception: a positive correlation between fathers' negative expressiveness and girls' shyness." > "These findings reveal connections between parental emotional expressiveness within the family context and children's social competence." >And here's what Judy Harris said about studies which use the same >technique as described above to generate similarly powerful evidence >of the complex impact of parents: >(from The Nurture Assumption, pp. 19-20:) >"If we collect, say, five different measurements of each home and five different measurements of the child's intelligence, we can pair them up in twenty-five ways, yielding twenty-five possible correlations. Just by chance alone, it is likely that one or two of them will be statistically significant. What, none of them are? Never fear, all is not lost: we can split up the data and look again [...]. Looking separately at girls and boys immediately doubles the number of correlations, giving us fifty possibilities for success instead of just twenty-five. Looking separately at fathers and mothers is also worth a try. "Divide and conquer" is my name for this method.[...] " >Powerful evidence in Parke and Ladd? Or powerful delusion? >Stephen --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
