Berman just said...

"Andy and Tammy Reid, uh, they're not deadbeat parents. I can tell you that for a fact."

I see 2 convictions and a house fulla drugs that say otherwise.

I think Mortensen or Paolantonio (sp?) defended Reid earlier in the week when the judge called the Reid house a "drug emporium." Saying the judge was too harsh in saying that.

Why not just call it like it is: Reid was either clueless to his sons' drug problems (before all the legal problems) or just let it slide by. Either way, he failed as a father.

If there was that much stuff stashed in the house, then the statement made by the judge was just.


Off note: Berman on the set next to Da Coach and Parcells looked like the 3rd most bloated blowhole...

45-55% of how a child turns out is genetic. 45-55% of how a child turns out is unshared environment- factors in the womb, friends, etc. That leaves about 0-10% for parenting.

Andy Reid could have probably spent every weekend taking his kids to the county fair and they'd still be screwed up.

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Fire Phil Emery

I'd be shocked if they did anything other than what they did today, and that's basically spin the story into something other than what it is.

Wow. So I should just give up doing anything for my kids since it'll only affect them 0-10%? Thanks for the knowledge.

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No- absolutely horrible parenting can ruin a child; I'm talking about locking them in the closet and stuff like that. But research has pretty clearly demonstrated that if your kid turns into a monster, it probably wasn't your parenting that did it. On the other hand, if your kid turns into a genius, it probably wasn't because of you either. The most significant thing you do as a parent is contribute to the genetic material of the child.

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Fire Phil Emery

I'm just guessing that this was an ongoing problem in the Reid house, and that it was always allowed to happen...so yes, poor (or failed) parenting is at least partly to blame, IMHO.

You cannot control everything that happens to your offspring, but you can control what happens inside your house.

Huh...I haven't seen this clearly established research. Feel free to divulge your scientific sources.

I only have a psychology minor, but I'm pretty sure your theory of "don't lock them in the closet and it's not your fault" is not correct.

Research indicates that 50% of how someone turns out is genetic. 50% is environment. Parents are a major part of environment.

Parents have an impact over 0-10%.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Here's the abstract from just one of many papers written on the subject:



(emphasis added) H. J. Eysenck (1990)
Genetic and Environmental Contributions to Individual Differences: The Three Major Dimensions of Personality
Journal of Personality 58 (1), 245–261.

The Cliff's Notes version is that we know from watching adopted identical twins who were split at birth that the correlation of behavior between those identical twins remains incredibly high, while the correlation between those twins and siblings not genetically related to them, but raised by the same parents, is close to nonexistent. I know it seems counterintuitive- I resisted it for a long time- but the data are impossible to refute.

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Fire Phil Emery

Phew! I feel better now. I don't have twins.

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I had to learn about twin studies in college also and I never remember having a professor that treated twin studies as the definitive answer to the answer of genetics vs. environment as you seem to be doing. There was a very high correlation for things such as IQ and introvert/extrovert but I would be very interested if you could show me something that correlates twins with drug use or illegal activity.

I think the fact that there was reportedly rampant drug use at the Reid household may have had an impact as well.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I can, but give me some a day or two, as I'm in the middle of other research right now. (Also, don't just me like some assholes when I take the time to do the research, even if you disagree with me) There are statistically significant correlations on nearly every facet of life you can think of, including political ideology and criminality (two studies I've actually read.) I'll find some abstracts within the week.

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Fire Phil Emery

The only thing I disagree with is that you have irrefutable evidence that parenting has a 0-10% effect on how a child will turn out. I know that there are varying level of correlations in most facets of life but I never remember hearing anything as definitive as that.

It sounds as if you know for a fact the answer to the "nature vs. nurture" debate which would have saved a few professors about 3 weeks worth of lectures.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

It's not so much nature and nurture, because they're about even. The only thing is that the "nurture" part doesn't really include parenting all that much. 0-10% refers to the fact that when multifactor analysis is used to determine what correlates with what, parenting (or shared environment) is consistently found to be responsible for only 0-10% of the variability. Who your friends are is more important that who your parents are; just as an anecdotal-type example, children almost always adopt the accent of their peers and not their parents. I understand that "guy on message board" isn't an irrefutable source, so I'll find some literature for you during the week. Just not tonight, as I'm exploring the fascinating world of 1st Amendment jurisprudence.

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Fire Phil Emery

Just make sure telling them not to play with matches is included in your 0-10%

Randolph and Mortimer Duke proved it is nurture.

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"It's not exactly a rocket surgery." D.J.

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"It's not exactly a rocket surgery." D.J.

A few questions

What were Reid's kids doing the last 15 years while he coached in the NFL?

If Reid had another job, say high school coach, where would his kids come up with the cash for the drugs?

If Dads had them move out at 22 and get their own gigs instead of living with Ma and Pa, would they have still found the same trouble?

I think that it may be helpful to your case to cite more than one study when you have more time to do so.

I need a road block...

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SideshowBob311: "Sadly enough, I think we're the "intelligent" portion of the sports radio fanbase".
"I make fun of whoever sucks, including me"- Harry 11/30/07

jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

Do you have any scientific basis for this assertion or did you just pull this out of your leprebum?

Right, I forgot all about this thread. I said I was going to post papers. Here we go:

The best tool we have for separating heredity from environment is the twin study. The idea is simple; identical twins have identical DNA, so when reared apart, their DNA will be the same while their environments will be different.

Perhaps the most commonly tested trait (because people both for and against the proposition of the primacy of genetics are interested) is IQ. Without getting too par out into the weeds of the debates (Stephen Jay Gould wrote a very fashionable book about how hereditary didn't matter that has been lampooned by most scientists in the field ever since), most geneticists agree that IQ tests measure something, however imperfectly. Here are the correlations between scores on IQ tests:

The same person tested twice= .87
Identical twins reared together= .86
Identical twins reared apart= .76
fraternal twins reared together= .55
Biological siblings= .47
Parents and children living together= .40
Parents and children living apart= .31
Adopted children living together= 0
Unrelated people living apart= 0

Citation: Genome by Matt Ridley, also Neisser, I. et al (1996) Intelligence: knowns and unknowns, American Psychologist 51: 77-101

Here's Ridley a little bit later in the book:



Remember, these findings are utterly uncontroversial, and can be applied to a whole bunch of different human pheonomena. Your penchant for change and daringness is very largely influenced by a gene found on Chromosome 11, the D4DR, studied in depth by Dean Hamer (his book, Living with our Genes, is a classic in this field.) Of course, that gene, like all genes, is genetically determined. Professor Ira Carmen at Illinois has done a whole slew of research on genetics and political affiliation (http://ann.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/614/1/34). Think of a trait- any trait at all- and I'll bet you that it will be about 40-50% genetic, at least. Some are much more, such as certain diseases, and the obvious stuff such as hair and eye color, which follow basic Mendelian principles. The only one I can think of is what language you speak, but even there, your ability to comprehend language is very largely biological and genetically determined.

There's much, much more (this time I'm fighting on my home turf- this is like safety stuff for you Coast.) If you'd like more citations, I'll bring more citations, but I'm late for my workout.

Please post the study that proves your statement that parenting can have 0-10% effect on a child over pretty much every measure.

No one is doubting the shared enviornment vs. unshared that has been uncovered by the twin studies.

You made a statement that basically said that as long as you don't lock your kid in a closet, you have almost no effect on how they turn out.

You probably have a psychology major, and I only have a minor, but I don't see anything in what you posted that shows that parenting has no effect or almost no effect on drug usage, which was your original claim.

Twin studies show a lot of information, but your "don't lock them in a closet and you can do just about anything else" theory is unlike anything I've ever heard.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Actually, neither. My major is chemestry, but my focus is the link between chemestry and genetics, so I have a heavy background in genetics. Part of that is evolutionary psychology to be sure.

As for the "don't lock them in the closet" theory, here's one example of the fully laid out belief in an admittedly non-academic setting: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9275 Judith Rich Harris wrote the very important book The Nurture Assumption, which you can read about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption. I strongly recommend you read the book, and note that even much of the critical reaction to the book is that she plays down the truly important parts of nurture- what happens in the womb, non-parental social influences- not that parents are so critically important. The book, which I don not have with me in Champaign, is chock full of all the critical studies that support that conclusion. Note that Miller is also highly respected in her field, having won the Miller Award from the APA for an article based upon this premise.

Once again, Matt Ridley, a genetics popularizer, put it best: "it seems likely that parenting is like Vitamin C; as long as it is adequate, a little bit more or less has no discernable long term effect."

Twin studies are vital in all this because they help us sort correlation from causation. Of course criminal parents have a higher proportion of criminal children. Or course obese parents have a higher proportion of obese children. Of course Chinese parents have Chinese children. But it's not because children are learning to be Chinese, or obese, or even criminal (see Mednick, Gabrielli and Hutchings, 1984: Genetic influences in criminal convictions: Evidence from an adoption cohort. Science 224:891-4). We know this because this is the case even when the children of criminals are adopted into loving, law-abiding families, they become criminals at much higher proportion than otherwise. And, believe it or not, we even know that when a child is adopted by a criminal family, they show no higher rates of criminality. And all this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Interesting. My son has mannerisms similar to my grandfather. He died about 20 years ago so obviously they weren't learned. There may be something to your genetic theory.

There is a fairly big difference between the numbers for identical twins and biological siblings though. So I think that parenting which is part of the environment has a little more influence than 10%.

It would make sense that identical siblings have almost the same IQ and similar personality traits because they have the exact same DNA. Theoretically there should have been 1 baby and for whatever reason the zygote split.

There are usually to reactions to the data (I've been drinking, so forgive misspellings). First is the reaction you had, Nas. It seems like parenting accounts for much more than that. But remember that you've contributed roughly half your genome to any children, so they reflect you in that regard. But even besides from that, 5-10% difference could be the difference between an average or above average student, a motivated or ordinary athlete, whatever. 5% isn't a negligible amount; it's just smaller than we think of.

The second reaction is, well, if I'm only worth 5-10% of the child's final makeup, what the hell does it matter how much time and effort I put into parenting? Why don't I just get by with the minimum? The answer is so obvious it's often overlooked. You do these things as a parent because they are the right thing to do, because you love your children and you want to create the most comfortable environment for them possible, not because you want them to turn into little geniuses or Rembrandts. Why are you nice to your friends, even though you're not trying to make them into better people? Why be nice to anyone?

Parenting is about much more than molding the ideal child. It's about allowing the child- who is fully an individual in his own right- to develop without detriment. That's where the "don't lock them in the closet" comes in. If you do something really bad, it'll show up. Probably, it'll be detrimental if you are one of those superparents who needs to heal every woud and be there for everything. Besides from that, are you really parenting because you want your child to be excellent, or because you love them and want them to be happy? The role of genetics in creating personalities doesn't change any of that.

The first two answers are genetically linked. How can two smart parents have an idiot child, or two normal parents have a murdering child? The first is mutations. All people's have DNA that is slightly different from both their father and their mother. Most of the time, it doesn't matter, because about 97% of the DNA we carry is junk. The other 3% are genes which code for some protein or some developmental trigger. Change a letter in any sequence during conception due to transcription error, and you could potentially have a big problem. Mutations are a necessary part of evolution; they help change the species, sometimes creating advantages. Often, they are neutral- they don't make any difference. Sometimes, they are terrible.

The second answer is that not everything you display is in your full genome. Your body has both recessive genes and dominant genes. So it is possible (though not likely) for two parents with brown eyes to have a child with blue eyes, or for two healthy parents to give birth to a child with sickle-cell anemia (I chose those two because they are binary results and easier to think about, unlike intelligence or personality, which is on a spectrum.)

There are other factors at play. What happens in the womb is very important. Researchers have long known about the link between carrying mothers who contract the flu while carrying a child and schizophrenia, which could of course lead to a violent child. I suppose you could consider that parenting in a limited sense, it kind of stretches the definition of good parenting to not get the flu. After the womb, friends or peers are actually more important than parents. So if a kid grew up and everyone hates him and makes fun of him, it might not matter how many hugs his parents give him, he might still turn out horrible. And then there are really terrible parents who don't meet the threshold of what is needed to raise a proper child, but that group is relatively small.

Plus, your final sentence confirms my point. Being a good parent allows children the opportunity to reach their potential. Being a really bad parent stunts the child's development and progress. But there is very little you can do to make sure your child becomes smarter or funnier or more personable than he should be besides from 1.) pick a good mate to share DNA with, 2.) take procautions while carrying the child, and 3.) make sure the child hangs out with the right crowd. You should still love your children, even if you can't really make them into who you want them to be.

How can you say this and the next statement in the same thread?



I am not trying to play psychology expert but this is the point that people were calling you on. You are right in that parenting has a much smaller effect than you would logically think. Now getting back to the original point of this whole post. It was your position that Andy Reid could have done nothing in order to make this happen or not happen. I don't see anything you've posted that says that is true, even if his parenting skill wasn't the number one reason of drug use.

If you reread your original posts and then your responses then you will see what I am talking about. One of the things that I learned in psychology is that very few things in psychology are as concrete as your first reply in this thread seems to indicate.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

as the parent of 2 children (7 year old son, 4 year old daughter), i have read this thread with interest. i do not have a psychology degree, nor have i ever studied it at all. what i can say is that children are very much a product of their environment. we have from a very early age encouraged our children that reading is important, therefore, now they now both demand to read and be read to every night. we have been very strong in teaching our children to treat others with respect and to be onto others as they wish to be treated, and therefore, they have (to the extent a 7 year old and a 4 year old can). we have taught our children behavioral patterns in almost every situation, from table manners to personal hygiene, so they can learn right from wrong and carry these things on as they grow older.

i know, i know, they are only 7 and 4, things will change when they grow older, and they spread their wings. i am just not seeing how i am only contributing perhaps 10% to my child's behavior. kids are natural mimics, they mimic my wife's behaviors, as well as mine, and, unfortunately, also kids at school. sure, there is genetics involved, but in no way do i agree that a good home and good parental guidance only weighs 10%. not dissing anyones opinion, i just don't agree from a parental point of view.