The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Robert Plomin

Episode Date: July 31, 2020

Professor Robert Plomin is a psychologist and geneticist best known for his work in twin studies and behavior genetics. His new book, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are, that describes what he has learned after 45 years of research on nature and nurture.

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the table, on the podcast of New York's world-famous comedy seller, coming at you on Sirius XM 99 Raw Dog and on the Riotcast Podcast Network. Dan Natterman here with Noam Dorman, owner of the world-famous comedy seller and Eau de Trie Café. And Perrie L. Ashenbrand, the show's producer, is with us as well. And today we have Professor Robert Plowman. He's written a book, Blueprint, How DNA Makes Us Who

We Are, that describes what he has learned after 45 years on nature and nurture. And we just might get into trading places, the movie, but who knows. Have you seen that that Robert the movie no I haven't actually seen trading places there's one that I hope we get to talk about three identical strangers which is an amazing depiction of the power of nature

no uh it was a depiction of the power of nurture, though not peer-reviewed. You should see Trading Places. It's great. But anyway, this promises to be an interesting discussion. No one had particular interest in this area. Well, okay. So, Mr. Plowman, this is Professor Plowman. Robert.

Robert, please. Robert. So, you're here with two parents who have young children and a guy who deals with lifelong nuttiness. Periel and I have parents and Dan is a little nutty. So we all want to know what we're up against here. Before we get into it, I want to just ask you to define a couple of terms, which I notice quite often in interviews, people think laymen understand them, but I even have trouble understanding them. I presume you're going to talk about heritability and with numbers attached to that, 0.8 heritability. Let's just define it for everybody. What does that heritability number mean?

That's great that you bring that up because those six syllables are the most misunderstood concept in biology, I think. Some people think, oh, it's DNA, it's in the genes. But what it really is is a descriptive statistic, you know, like a mean or an average describes a particular population at a particular time. You change the population, different time, different conditions, the mean changes, the average changes. Well, heritability is a descriptive statistic

that describes the extent to which genetic inherited DNA differences and environmental factors account for differences between people that we observe in a population. So there's so many aspects to that, but the biggest one is the word differences. You know, if you say height is, take weight, about surprises people to know it's about 70% heritable. That means of the differences between people, about 70% of the differences between us can be ascribed to inherited DNA differences. that if I'm 100 kilograms or something, it doesn't mean 70 kilograms came from my genes and 30 from the environment. And that almost sounds funny, but you scratch the surface of what people know,

and that's what they're thinking about. They're thinking about one individual, whereas this is always about differences between people. Why are some people schizophrenic and others not? Like all descriptive statistics, it's relevant only to a particular population at a particular time with a particular mix of genetic and environmental influences.

So in another time, in another culture, in another universe, the answers could be quite different, which is correct because it's a descriptive statistic. So how do you translate that from, let's say, okay, if I knew that weight is 80% heritable, then I guess that means that there's some average number of pounds that people with identical DNA will vary, and that will be a smaller average if the heritability is higher.

How do you get a feel for how close in weight people are likely to be based on a heritability? Or you just do that from the data? Yeah. Well, if you take unrelated people in the population, they correlate zero. I assume your listeners know what a correlation is. It goes from zero to one. One being perfectly similar, exactly the same. Zero meaning not at all similar.

It doesn't mean they're different. It just means they're not more similar than two people. So identical twins aren't 100% similar, but their correlation is about 0.8. And non-identical twins, 1% of all births are twins, one third of those are identical. Mon monozygotic twins that come from one fertilized egg that separates early in life. So they really are clones. They're genetically identical. You sequence their DNA, it's exactly the same. So they're genetically identical. The other type of twin, called a fraternal twin, it's like any brother and sister who happen to be born at the same time. Two eggs are released, they're both fertilized, so those twins grow up in the same womb,

and they're born at the same time, but they're only 50% similar. So that's the twin method, and it's simply to say if identical twins, if something's heritable like weight, you have to predict that identical twins will be more similar than fraternal twins because they're twice as similar genetically. And in fact, that's what you find. Identical twins are about 0.8 correlated and fraternal twins are about 0.4 correlated for body mass index weight. So, and so, so what, okay, so what's the average? My question is that how similar does that tell us? In other words, what I'm saying is that, so whatever is attributable to the environment, I mean, somebody could overeat so much, there could still be a hundred pound difference between them. But I guess as you aggregate everybody, you're going to have a small average difference between them and so when this goes to IQ that's what I'm

never clear on so it is how just because they okay well let me put it this way what among identical twins would you know what's the largest spread in IQ you've ever seen what's the largest sorry right in iq you would you would see or you've seen the green identical twins yeah yeah well we can we can go do you want to go with iq are we talking about weight let's go i i went to i went to iq because it's less obvious how you overeat in the context of iq but however you want to handle it yeah okay well let's go with IQ. The average difference between two people in the population is about 0.17. You know, so you just take thousands of people and you look at the difference between these two and those two and those two.

On average, you get differences of about 17 IQ points on average. Right? Okay. Identical twins differ by about, I think it's like seven, five or seven IQ points. So they're, you know, they're much less different within pairs. And non-identical twins differ by, it's on the order of 12 IQ points. So they're more similar than the population as a whole. It's really just the flip side of the correlations I gave you, in the case of IQ, the correlations for identical

twins are about 0.75, and for fraternal twins, it's about 0.45. And siblings as well, you just take regular siblings, who are 50% similar genetically, they also correlate about 0.45. So let me just, because this is so fascinating to me. So if you take two people at random, you get a 17 point difference between them. Yeah, a correlation of zero. A correlation of zero. But they will, they're not attached to any, well, I guess they're attached to each other. But in other words, if you take an identical twin, you start with the guy who's one twin has an IQ of 130. So now you're in the range of 130 to 123. If you take two people at random, you get 17 points,

but it could be 17 points anywhere, right? So it's... But what I was asking is that because when in a lot of... And this relates to even politics today. We can see a lot of aggregate statistics that in my mind cover something up to me, which is that you could have an average difference of seven points where the widest range is nine and eight. Or you could have it all over the map and it still winds up averaging to seven, right? So I'm wondering, like, how far apart do identical twins actually get? Yeah, well, you're right. You're right to say these are all statistics on average.

So heritability of 70% for weight, that just means on average in the populations we study, which are American and Northern European, on average, given the fact that some of us are on diets all the time, some of us exercise a lot, given all the environmental and genetic differences that exist, about 70% of the differences on average in the population are due to genetic differences. But you know that if you want to lose weight, I mean, if we lock you in a room and we don't give you any food, you're going to lose weight. But we're talking about what happens in the real world. You know, given our fast food nation and, you know, how we're always bombarded with food advertisements and that sort of thing,

someone like me who has a genetic propensity to put on weight, you know, finds it very difficult to ignore those signals. Just a last, let me last, I think I might ask it. So if I have an IQ of 130 and I have an identical twin, what are the odds out of 100 situations like mine,

what are the odds that there might be a, would you say, a 20-point difference in our IQ? Well, I don't think, you know, there's several, about 200 pairs of identical twins who were to part have been studied with IQ. And I think the biggest difference was something on the order of 15 IQ

points. And that was one identical twin had all sorts of early problems. I see. Developmental problems. And, you know, to the extreme, I mean, one twin could have been knocked on the head and, you know, so that would count. I mean, it's an environmental influence, but it's not really one that accounts for much variance. So that's why it's not so good to just think about the one extreme case, except that it does make the point you're trying to make. We're talking about on average in a population. But it is remarkable when you study these identical twins who are apart, which you see so dramatically in this film, three identical strangers, you know. Maybe we'll get to that story later.

Oh, yeah, I've seen that movie three times. Dan, you wanted to say something? No, I just wanted to say something with regard to the propensity to gain weight. Is there anybody out there that does not have a propensity to gain weight, especially after 50 years old? Yeah. Well, I mean, everyone gains weight, but some people gain a lot more weight than others. I can tell you that from personal experience. I find it very easy to put on weight. I find it very hard to take weight off. And in my book, I talk about my own DNA scores called these polygenic scores. And my highest score for risk is for obesity. So I'm at the 94th percentile. My actual body weight is at the 70th percentile. So I'm definitely overweight, but I'm way under

what my genetic expectation would be. So that, you know, I find that a really cool example, because some people say, well, if you knew you were genetically likely to be, say, obese, you'd just give up and say, I'm a genetic fatty, can't do anything about it. But I find that the contrary, it's actually motivating. Because I know, I just, I've learned it's a lifelong battle. It's easy for me to put on weight and it's hard for me to lose weight and I don't think well we can go into that some more so cavalierly in this world make fun of fat people that sort of you know I mean I guess it's less so now that it used to be but that's sort of the one thing you get to make fun of about people and and not shamed

and and fat people are you know they're uh they you know, they're waging a war, many of them. Yeah. I'd just like to say one more thing about that, you know, this fat shaming stuff. People don't realize 70% heritable. You know, people think if they're skinny, they just don't understand. Just don't be a slob. Don't eat so much. You know, and it's easy to say, but if you have this propensity that I have, it's really hard. You know, I try and try, but sometimes you come home late at night, you're tired, and those frigging potato chips are screaming at you, you know, from, from the cupboard, you know, so it's that sort of thing. You just sort of give in and you binge and then you hate

yourself in the morning, and then you try again, you know. So I think skinny people really ought to remember that the heritability is 70%, which doesn't mean I can't do anything about it. I definitely can lose weight, but it's just a lot harder for me. So, okay, this is really upsetting me as a parent as I'm thinking about it.

So are you telling me that whatever my child's DNA is, whatever my, I probably, with all the work in the world, can't affect their IQ by more than maybe four points in the upside. Well, these are descriptive statistics and they describe what is,

on average, right? So, you know, one particular parent who goes all out can make a difference. It's easier probably to make a difference in the other direction. Yeah, that's why I said four points. I was assuming I wouldn't lower it.

That's why I took the halfway point. Yeah, but there's a difference between what is and what could be. You know, we're talking about what is. Suppose some new discovery came along, a smart pill or something. It could make almost, you know, any kid who takes that pill, it could give them, say, a 10-point IQ increase. So that could happen. But as a parent, you know, part of the book is I'm sort of writing my next book on the genetics of parenting. So I'm really glad that, you know, you want to talk about this.

I don't know if you saw that bit in my book that's caused more controversy than anything else. Parents matter, but they don't make a difference. I saw that. I have to admit, because it was so quick, I skimmed a lot of the book, but I definitely saw that part of it. Yeah. And, you know, it's sort of what you're getting at here. Parents matter in the sense that, you know, obviously they give the kid their psychological and physical environment, you know, and as Judith Rich Harris said in her book, The Nurture Assumption, they can make the kids, they can't really change the kid's future

much, but they make a big difference today. They make life enjoyable or not. And I think parents really need to relax more and realize they don't have as much control as they think, even over IQ and educational achievement. So I can go into the data behind that some more. Robert, I was having an argument with my friend just the other night, and maybe you can kind of judge who's right and who's wrong. He said that he, my friend did, he said he could take any, any non-developmentally or non-mentally challenged child with, you know, absent mental retardation and with sufficient hard work and sufficient studying and sufficient whatever, get that kid into an Ivy League school

in an engineering program and have the kid get a B average. That any human being is capable of getting a B average in, say, an Ivy League electrical engineering program. Would you concur that that is correct? I would not. That's the most famous quote in psychology by John J.B. Watson in 1924. You know, he said in his book, he was a behaviorist, you know, psychology for so long was dominated by nurture, the idea of what you just said. It's all environment. You can make any kid into anything. So his famous quote is something like, give me a dozen babies, you know, who don't have any congenital problems, and I'll turn one into a baker and one into a lawyer and one into an academic. You know, it's that same sort of thing.

And nobody believes that anymore, I don't think. Well, my friend did, but I'll have to. Cariel, you want to say something? I have a question. Are you going to change the subject? No, I'm not. You made me into a top 1,000 tennis player. I also disagree with. Go ahead, Perrielle. Perrielle, go ahead.

So how come parents can ruin a child's life, you know, if they're in some horrible situation or abused, I mean, that seems like it has really deep and longstanding effects. How come if you are loving and nurturing and helpful and all of the things that are, you know, well, I suppose opposite of abusive, how come that wouldn't really change the child's life for the better in as significant a way? Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm talking about the normal range of environmental and genetic influence. So we study maybe 95% of the population. They're fairly representative samples, but they probably don't include parents who are abusing their kids

or severely neglecting their kids. So that's outside the range of what we know. And that could make a big difference. But within the normal range, what's important to understand is people differ a lot. They differ how much they hothouse their kid, you know, and whether they're a tiger mom, or whatever, those things don't make much of a difference. And what I'm saying... She's a cougar mom, by the way, but that's a whole other matter. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah.

What was I going to say? You're blushing, sir. I'm sorry to interrupt, Joe. I'm sorry. I couldn't pass up. Tiger moms don't make that big a difference. Yeah. Yeah.

So the environment's important, right? Heritability, say, of intelligence is maybe 50% on average, increasing as you go through life, which is an interesting story. But take 50%. That means 50% of the differences between kids in their IQ is not genetic. So what is it? Well, everyone assumed it's nurture. And nurture, from Freud onward, was always thought to be the parent. And so, you know, that's all very reasonable. But the thing is, I've done an adoption study where you look at kids adopted away from their birth parents at birth, and they're reared by adoptive parents. Well, parents and their children, when the children are adolescents, correlate about 0.4 for IQ. Is it nature or nurture?

Well, everyone always assumed it's nurture. It makes sense. Those parents provide the cognitive environment for the kids. But in our adoption study, which has been going on for 40 years, called the Colorado Adoption Project, the correlation between adoptive parents' IQ and those same adopted kids is zero. The correlation between the birth parents who give the kids up for adoption at birth, this is back in the 70s, they never saw the kid again,

their correlation is 0.4. They correlate just as much with their adopted away kids as do parents who raise their own genetic kids. And you really see that dramatically in this film, Three Identical Strangers, because here are three guys, you know the story, they're identical twins, but they didn't know it. They were adopted from an adoption agency in New York. Triplets, right? You said twins, you mean triplets, right?

Yeah, well, yeah, they're identical triplets, but yeah, that's right. No, I'm sorry. No, no, that's okay. So this one kid, you yeah, that's right. No, I'm sorry. No, no, that's okay. So this one kid, you know, Bobby, who grew up in Long Island, wealthy family, he goes up to upstate New York to college, and the first day of school, everyone's calling him Eddie. And he thought, you know, it's a weird psychology experiment. He's looking around for the cameras, you know, and then he meets Eddie,

and they're like looking in the mirror. And the publicity that came from that led to a third identical twin because sometimes when the egg splits in the first few days of life, one of those splits again. So you get- That's why it's close. Well, these guys, if you see the film, you can't tell them apart much physically,

but it's also in personality. They're all outgoing. In psychopathology, they're all depressive. I mean, quite so. One committed suicide, but they were all three. In psychopathology, they're all depressive. I mean, quite so. One committed suicide, but they were all three treated for depression in adolescence, which back then was a very unusual thing to happen because they didn't know about the existence of the other. I think it's a dramatic illustration, but it is just one case study, very powerful one. But I really urge people to see it. It's on all the streaming sorts of services. Yeah, let me tell you, this movie is

so great that my six-year-old was enthralled by this movie. I mean, it's just because she, I guess, appreciated seeing these guys look exactly the same way, doing exactly the same things. I don't think she could understand genetics and everything, but it was entertaining. So it succeeds on every level, that documentary. It's really wonderful. Related question, Robert. I don't know if this is necessarily your area,

but we're hearing a lot nowadays about women trying to shift the focus from women being appreciated for their physical attributes uh versus for the rather treat them uh you know uh appreciate them for their uh intellect and for their contributions and is it hardwired in humanity to appreciate women for their physical beauty are we just fighting a battle that can't possibly be won or is dan alone he's what he's asking go ahead no one posted a picture of his his daughter on facebook everybody said gorgeous so beautiful what a princess and you know i've read that you shouldn't you're not supposed to say that to little girls teach them that it's not all about you being a perfect little, you're not supposed to say that to little girls. Teach them that it's not all about

you being a perfect little princess. You're an intelligent being, but is this a battle we can't possibly win? See, that's an evolutionary question, isn't it? We're asking, are we hardwired for that? And those are great questions. And 99% of all our 3 billion base pairs of DNA are the same. That's what makes us human. But what we're talking about is the 1% of DNA that makes us different. And that's a very different question from the one you raised. That's saying, is man a natural language user? You're saying, has the human species evolved so that men look at women and appreciate them for physical attributes, right? And the reason there's so much heat about that, I think,

is it's very hard to nail that question. I can't, you know, I don't know the answer to that question. It seems reasonable evolution does seem to have a lot of power over us. But it's not something that you can really study well empirically. Okay, so I just want to, because I don't want to lose this opportunity. I don't think I convinced Dan on that one. No, you can't convince him. I don't want to go away because I'm doing this parenting thing just for one second, because it's so important to me. So because I, listen, I spend all my time trying to, and by the way, I should say, I've always believed it's all genetic. I see the difference between my kids. It's obvious to me the difference is genetic. I wrote a paper in my senior year in college

that got a bad grade saying that everything was genetic, including our conscience. Yet, I find myself throwing all my effort into trying to squeeze out those extra five points of IQ. And by the way, this may or may not be correct, but I don't even think IQ can be changed. I mean, I don't think intelligence can be changed. Like if you took Michael Jordan and raised him in the 40s or Hussein Bolt or one of these guys, they would perform within the variation of those athletes in those days, but I don't think they'd be any less athletic. We just measure it according to those standards. So I'm unconvinced that,

well, how do I put it? Like if all the aspects of our intelligence were visible as features on our face, well, that's what they would look like. And so how you do an IQ test is to me a blunt measure of your IQ, but I'm very skeptical that your IQ ever could change unless there's some sort of neuroplasticity. I've heard that talked about a few years ago, but it seems to have faded away where actually you can build your brain organically and like muscles. And I mean, that would be a game changer, I guess. Yeah. But you know, there's all experiments published all the time saying, you know,

do this brain test, do that, you can increase IQ. Generally, those things don't work. If anything, they can teach to the test. Right. So, you know, you can give Donald Trump his 30 questions. You know, amusingly, that IQ test that Trump keeps trumpeting on about is, it's like, there's a famous test called the mini mental test. It's a screening test for dementia. You know, the questions begin. Here's an, here's some animals is what is this? Oh, that's an elephant. This is a cow. And the most typical question that he goes on about these five items,

I'm going to tell you door, cup you know no person woman man camera television yeah exactly yeah i mean that is really funny because i mean if people think that's iq well it's not that's a screening test for dementia so so wait so so so so so i'm very skeptical yet i would i guess i'd have two questions. The first question is, what about habit formation? Like, I feel like I was at a point in my own life where I was just not being required to do the habit of coming home, do my homework, whatever it is. And I started getting myself into real academic trouble. And at some point, my father put my foot down

and he saved me, you know, and he didn't totally, I still have those bad work habits, but he corralled me in some way that I was able to do well and go to good schools. So I'm incensed. Do you think that changed your IQ? No, I don't think it changed my IQ,

but it definitely changed my success in life. I'm obsessed with having my kids do like 30 minutes of school-ish work every day now. Not because I think they're actually going to learn any or they're going to get any smarter from it. Because I feel like it's a healthy habit to just have every day not being like, oh my God, what are you doing? To be comfortable with doing something academic every day. I feel like maybe that'll make it easier for them to perform better. Is that crazy? No, not at all. I think one way to think about it is if you think about your partner, you do nice things for them. You say, if you do that, you piss people off. That's not a wise thing to do. Or if you're

pissing people off at work, that's not cool. You try to correct them a bit because you love them and you want life to be nicer for them. You're not trying to change them as a person. If you were, that's probably a recipe for disaster in a relationship. Well, I think that's the way we should think about kids. I haven't really talked much about the data, but the data to me are very convincing that parents don't make much of a difference, certainly in cognitive abilities, but in personality, psychopathology. And as a parent, you ought to be really glad to hear that because 1% of the population is going to be diagnosed as schizophrenic. Why do good parents have bad kids, kids with bad outcomes?

I mean, imagine how it was when I was in graduate school. We were told schizophrenia was caused by what your mother did to you in the first few years of life. It was all mother blaming, this Freudian crap. You know, and it's simply not true. Imagine then, you think it's all environmental. It's all, so your kid doesn't become diagnosed as schizophrenic until they're in their late teens. And then you're told it's because of what you did to them in the first few years of life. You know, you can't do anything about that.

It's an incredible guilt trip. So it's actually parents of schizophrenics who are the biggest supporters of genetic research. And what really bugs me is I've had people say, well, it just gets them off the hook. Well, there was no hook they belonged on, you know? So I think that really is important. What about a father that doesn't pay attention?

You know, I see this quite a bit just anecdotally. Young ladies with absent fathers that are often attracted to older men looking for daddy, you know. Anecdotally? That is to say that parents certainly do have an effect in many ways, not maybe over schizophrenia, but over children that, you know, their sexual mores, perhaps, or their... Dan, Robert, is this a good analogy? Because this is the analogy that I've always thought of.

You take a seed for a tree, and you give it the adequate amount of... And there's a very quick law of diminishing returns. You give it the soil and the sunlight that it requires, and it's going to grow to be that tree, basically the height it was meant to be. It's only when you deprive it of enough sunlight, deprive it of enough water, of enough soil, that's when you begin to really see a change in what that tree becomes. And that is kind of what I consider trauma or lack of attention or whatever. I think there's

a baseline amount of, there's a baseline things that children need. And if they get those things, then they're basically going to grow to the height of that tree that they're supposed to be. But if you deprive them of things, then that can be quite serious in my opinion. Yeah. That's a good way of saying it. Yeah. So, so, and then, you know, in one of the, in one of the reviews, I saw that you wrote about it of your book, somebody mentioned this thing about height is heritable, but in a famine, much less so. Yeah. And that's another way I think of, of saying that I, and then of course leads me to the question of our schools.

At what point is it, or the way our children are growing up, at what point is it fair to look at their scores and say, well, this is a consequence of a famine. This is not them reaching their full potential. Or of a pandemic, for example. Yeah. But I mean, I think that really is a very, very important policy question is that we need to know where is that law of diminishing returns kicks in because we have to worry about kids

not doing well and it's hard to believe. I think they are in many situations. I think it can be likened to a famine. The sum total of problems that some kids in our society are facing would seem to me to be comparable to a famine. And I think, you know, that would be the, where I would like to understand really what's going on. But we can say for 95% of the population, you know, with their families that provide pretty poor environments, you know, those family environments are not making much of a difference.

And, you know, and maybe you're talking about really extreme families or well, groups that we just don't study, I suppose, but within the normal range, it's important to recognize that the environmental differences that exist don don't study, I suppose. But within the normal range, it's important to recognize that the environmental differences that exist don't make much of a difference. So when kids screw up at school, parents, the first thing people do is they blame the teachers,

they blame the schools, and if that doesn't work, they blame the parents, then they blame the kids. But really, they don't really consider that genetics is a big part of this. And I'm particularly interested in the implications of genetics in education. And, you know, what does it mean if we accept the high heritability of IQ, which is basically learning ability? You know, does it mean you just give up on the kids?

Well, it depends, I think. This is an old-fashioned view, but it depends on your values. You know, if you have a right-wing perspective, you could say from a societal point of view, maybe just educate the best, forget the rest. I think that doesn't work because society, the society's intellectual capital is what determines how these new inventions, you know, filter through society. But there's a left-wing perspective, if you call the Finnish model, and that's that you've got to get whatever resources are needed to get all kids up to some minimal levels of literacy and numeracy to be able to participate in an increasingly technological society. You know, I think all of us would probably share that latter view, but it really does depend on

your values, you know, how you apply this knowledge. I don't think there's any necessary connection between what we learn in science and what we do in policy. And the older I get, the more I think politicians only use the science if it fits what they wanted to say in the first place. Absolutely. Anything. I want to give you a family anecdote, and you tell me whether this is out to lunch or not. My father's mother, my grandmother, I knew her. She lied about everything.

She was maybe a compulsive liar. And my father always told me that growing up, he never knew what was true. Consequently, he felt that was the reason. So he never lied to me. He was extremely honest with me. And he feels that was the reason. So he never lied to me. He was extremely honest with me. And he feels that was a reaction to his mother. And I'm wondering if you think that, because I thought about it for the first time last night

as I was reading your book. I said, well, maybe actually no. Maybe my father just was born more honest and he's rationalizing this because his mother was dishonest. He thinks he's reacting to his mother because probably he's a million parents whose parents always lied to them who just continue to lie to their kids. Right.

Yeah. What's that Dan? What does your father's real father think about that? My father's real father. His mother lied all the time. So my father, my father's father. Yeah.

Oh yeah. He, no, it was a big problem. It was a big problem with my family. My grandmother was a wonderful woman, but she was a prevaricator, but go ahead, go ahead, Robert, tell me what you think about it. Well, I think that's a, you know, a good example of a correlation between something your mother did this and the son does that. And we, you know, like parents, you know, one of the items that best predicts kids' school achievement is how many books they have in the home. And so books,

number of books in the home correlates with how well kids learn to read at school. And, you know, people say, yeah, of course, that's nurture. But it isn't. Yeah. You know, books don't get on the shelves by themselves, but which parents have more books on the shelves? Which parents like to read? And then it couldn't be genetic that they have kids who also like to read, and they read early, they read easily, you know? So that's an important point is if I could just get people to keep saying correlation does not imply causation,

because whenever they see a correlation between parenting and kids' outcomes, they always assume it's environmental, whereas our research says it's mostly due to genetics. I think as I have six grandchildren now, I really get the feeling that to a greater extent, the correlations aren't caused by the parents affecting the kid. It's more like the parents responding to the kid. You know, I've got six grandchildren. One of them, she let me read her all day long, first grandchild. I thought, yeah, great.

That's what grandchildren are supposed to do. Then I had another one where it would almost be abuse if I made her sit there. She wants to kick a football around, you know? So I think we respond to differences in our kids, therefore creating a correlation. But the main thing is correlation does not imply causation. And the bottom line of what I'm saying is that if your kid had been switched at the hospital in the maternity ward and grew up in a different family, I'm saying that kid would be very much in personality, psychopathology, educational achievement,

very similar to the way she is now. First of all, I just want to clarify, when you say kick a football around, do you mean a soccer ball? Because I know you're living in England. That's correct, but you guys are... Clarify. Number two is Chris Rock once... In England, they call it a football, don't they? Yes, they call it a football, don't they? Yes. Chris Rock once famously said that a father's job with regard to his daughter is to keep her off the pole, i.e. she does not become a stripper. So in your model, is Chris Rock out to lunch because there's nothing we can do to keep our daughters off the pole they are inclined to go in that direction well you know that raises a serious point i mean i don't know how serious you're being about this am i serious i mean yeah yeah you can control but you know here's a more general point so i don't have to get into strippers so much but you can control your kid's behavior. If your one kid is hitting the other kid over the head, you know, you can say, you don't do that.

And you stop the kid from doing it, however you do that. I don't think you're changing the kid's aggressiveness. You're just telling them that's not allowed in this circumstance. I think like in England, schools have had the zero tolerance of bullying for a few years now. It's been very effective in cutting down in bullying in schools. That's great.

You can control their behavior. But when those kids who are bullies go outside the schools, they're outside of those laws, I bet you they're just as much bullies as they were, maybe even more, because they haven't gotten their ya-ya's out in school. So that's why we have laws and the 10 commandments. If you drive drunk, you're going to get locked up. And I don't think we're changing people's genetic risk for alcoholism.

Right. So then what is culture and how does it affect us? You probably know more about that than me. I mean, culture is what we experience, isn't it? I mean, by culture, do you mean the books we read, the music we like? No, I'm saying culture seems to produce people from different parts of the world who behave quite differently in a way with a variation that you, from what you're saying, we wouldn't expect within,

you know, the population you're studying in America or in England, but at some point, total immersion in a different way of life does seem to imprint a different, you know, just a different way of acting and seeing the world. Again, that's a group difference, isn't it?

Yeah. All right. But, you know, what I'm saying, it's important. I'm kind of saying, like, how could I raise my kid in my home with the lessons of knowing what culture can do at some point? Like, if I really immerse them in something, I can look at other parts of the world and say, well, there is some way to have them.

Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe the point there is this difference between what is and what could be. If you're looking to make a difference on your kid, there's an awful lot of stuff that differs in American society and the way parents raise the kids. Those differences, on average, don't make much of a difference. So if you wanted to make a difference, you probably want to go outside of those. You want to think of some novel intervention and hope that it would make a difference. But I think to a greater extent, we ought to just relax and just say, we don't make much of a difference. Let's enjoy our relationship with our kid.

Because often the things you're talking about, even eking out those extra three or four IQ points that you talked about, I think they can often be counterproductive to the relationship and to the child's happiness and your happiness. That's easy for you to say. Your kids are brainy. What about punctuality? Does that correlate genetically? Yeah, because my kids are not on time and I'm very much on time. Yeah, me too. And it bothers me a lot when people aren't on time. So we tried to study,

things have changed so much in psychology. In the 70s when I was in graduate school, everything's environmental. You had to be very careful about even saying, isn't it possible there might be some genetic influence on something? Things have changed so much that now the challenge is to find anything in psychology reliably measured that does not show significant genetic influence. So I tried to do that. I've asked psychologists, what kind of things do you think would not show genetic influence? They didn't mention

punctuality. That's a good one though. They mentioned things like kindness, table manners. Yeah. They show just as much genetic influence as other aspects of personality. Then you start to think about it and you say, yeah, you know, I mean, some kids just are more obedient. They care more about what other people think about, you know, so there could be personality that affects individual differences in table manners even. But what about punctuality? I bet you it'll be the same story. Can I ask a question? And then we should get the humor.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. Two very quick questions. One is that you said that it really annoys you when people are not punctual. I wonder if you're more understanding of sort of the things that drive most of us crazy, because you have a deeper sort of sense that, well, they just can't help it. That's just, it's their genetics. Yeah. But again, you can control people's behavior. I mean,

if we have a lot of meetings and you're late all the time, it pisses me off. So I could say, it's not in your interest to piss me off like that. I'm not going to change it. You're probably going to be just as impulsive and non-punctual elsewise, but I can make it more likely that you or my child, you know, will be punctual because it means a lot to me. And if they care about me, they'll do that again. You know, if they have the genetic capacity to care about you, but go ahead. Yeah. So, I mean, to bring me to the next question, which is also very brief. I mean, there's sort of this adage that has always stuck with me. I mean, probably since I was in college, that I read somewhere, which said, the way you do anything is the way you do everything. Does that resonate at all? I mean, is there any,

or is that just some, you know, sort of cheesy saying that belongs on a mug? You know, I guess it depends what you mean by that. You mean, you know, if you're conscientious about things, you'll be conscientious about everything. But I mean, it doesn't mean if you're going to be good at athletics. I mean, you know, so it's an individual. I see these hundreds of types of differences between people. So I find it hard to get into the idea that there's some kind of correlation overall on these things. But, but, you know, you're talking particularly about like conscientiousness, are you? I mean, perhaps, or, you know,

if you're careful and organized or I don't know just um or passionate i mean perhaps that those things are you'll take care to be the same way in many other facets not just in there was a big controversy in personality research about 20 years ago that went on for two decades it's just about over now, and it's called situational specificity. So the idea is they thought there's no such thing as personality, it just depends on the situation. It was a version of environmentalism, and it is true to some extent. You say you're a very loud, flamboyant person, you go to a concert, you're pretty quiet, you know? So if there is some situational variance, right, between people, but most people realize that what personality is about is what you're saying, trans situational consistency. You know, so if you're emotional, you'll tend to be emotional

in lots of different situations. Well, I just want to make one more quixotic appeal to the idea of nurture, which is that I think this is from just my take on life, that a 5% difference in six or seven different qualities can add up to a very substantial success, additional chance of success in life. So a couple extra points, a little bit better, a little bit more conscientiousness, a little bit more honesty, all these things together,

which might be almost imperceptible. The sum total can be significant, I think. So it may be hard to measure what you're actually accomplishing if you want to look at one particular aspect, one slice measure what you're actually accomplishing. If you want to look at one particular aspect, one slice of what you're trying to accomplish, but the total, you know, also, I also noticed that kids just knowing that you care about something. I see it in my kids. If they know that I'm concerned about it, they will put some extra effort into it. I see it, you know, cause it makes daddy happy. Yeah. You got to ask, does it make a

difference in the long run? Maybe not. But you know, if it makes you happy and you're doing it because you love them, you want life to be nice to them and you think it will be better for them that way. You know, you got to think about the other side of it though, that your kids are 50% different from each other. And I think this is where the DNA. I say they're 50% like their mother, but go ahead. It's not like their mother, it's not like the DNA... I say they're 50% like their mother, but go ahead. They are 50% like their mother and 50% like you, but that means they're 50% different from you as well. One of the hardest things for university educated parents is when they get a kid who doesn't want to go to university. But there's 50% difference between siblings. So I think that we

can predict 15% of the differences between children in their educational achievement at the end of school. We have these compulsory national exams in England. 15% of the differences between kids. The trait itself is 60% heritable. But with DNA, we can predict 15% of the difference. I think one of the big uses of that is going to be within families because, you know, we had no books in my home when I was growing up, literally. I grew up in a one-bedroom tiny flat in Chicago. My parents didn't go to university. They were depression era. You

know, many people didn't go to university. One of them didn't finish high school even. Well, I just loved books from an early age. You know, they had public libraries then. I went and filled up bags of books, came home, and I read from an early age. School was easy. I loved it. My sister, however, was slow to learn to read, and she didn't do well at school. And when you don't do well at school, you can't like it. You know, you don't want to beat your head against the wall. She didn't want to go to university. She ended up going to a medical technical school where she learned to do blood assay sorts of things. And she's made much better contributions to the world than I have because, you know, she's very precise, you know, focused on this, on doing good blood

tests, you know. And so I think if we had, I know my DNA score, and I don't know hers, but I would predict that there's a difference between us and our DNA scores. That doesn't mean then you would have said, if you did it with your kids, and you found there's a big difference. It doesn't mean the one with the low score, you'd say, oh, well, you're wrong. But you might recognize that it's harder. That could make you put more resources, you one with the low score, you'd say, oh, well, give up. But you might recognize that it's harder. That could make you put more resources. You could help the kid more. You could support them.

You certainly wouldn't say, come on, get your shit together, like your sister, you know, because you recognize that there are those differences. So I think there's a lot of good that can come from this. I keep harping on about it, one, because I'm an optimist, but also because everybody else is saying the sky is going to fall if we ever get these DNA tests. Right. All right. Do you have views on the origins of differences between humor, people in humor? You think people are born with a natural sense of humor? Well, I think that's a great question. I wanted to ask you guys about that because there's hardly any research done on it, you know, and on the genetics, like twin studies or adoption studies or DNA studies of humor. The only study that was done, I mean,

you'd laugh at it. It involves this questionnaire that's called, oh, I forget. It's something like the humor questionnaire, but it just, it asks about things like i enjoy making people laugh i laugh and joke a lot with my friends if i'm feeling depressed i can usually cheer myself up with humor so i mean i think that's not what we mean by humor it's as you know no doubt it's hard to say what you mean by humor are you talking about comedic performance i think that's a very different thing but you know some people are funny i don't know what it is. Are they trying to be funny? I just think some people see the light side of life. You know that, you know, they see humor in things. There's other people who want to be funny. You know, they want to make you fun. So I really wonder what do you guys, what would

you mean by humor? And what do you think is the origin of it? I'm the only, I guess Perry, how you would qualify yourself as a humorist of sorts. You don't do much in the way of standup. I do actually. Okay. Haven't been paying attention. Let's hear what Dan says.

What was your question? Your question is what is, is humor? Well, what kind of humor are you talking about? Standup comedic performance. I think it? Well, what kind of humor? Are you talking about stand-up comedic performance? I think it's a very specific type of humor. I'm mostly interested in what you think about the nature-nurture issue.

The nature. It's very hard to say, you know, because, I mean, there's no studies that have been done. But what I will say is that, well, there's nobody in my family that's gone in the direction that I've gone in. You know, I mean, I've won. But did they tell, were they telling jokes? You know, I mean, I know there are some family gatherings where people are just. A little bit. A little bit.

I think that every family people tell jokes, but... Not mine. This is what I think, and this is kind of what I... Are you finished, Dan? I also would say that, you know, we have had cases of comedians, some famous, some less famous, whose children have gone into stand-up, and it doesn't seem to be an overwhelming correlation there that we know that's regret that's regression to the mean uh you're talking about you're talking about the greatest you know we know like the best stand-ups and it's like nba players you know the odds of their their kids actually uh it happens but you know they they become more average my feeling is this and this was that paper i wrote in college that there's nothing we see in humans.

I mean, I know you're going to agree with this and it may be almost trite in your profession, but that there's nothing we see in humans which isn't encoded in us genetically. There's no behavior a dog shows that isn't in his DNA. And therefore, if humor is part of what humans do, then obviously it's genetic. And then obviously it will distribute in gene pools in certain ways. Maybe it's a combination of things. I mean, you can't get a human being to crow at dawn.

That's not in him. but he will tell jokes. So that's obviously part of us, and whatever is responsible for that will distribute on some kind of curve in the way it's passed on. I mean, right? Is that? I think that's mixing up the evolutionary sorts of arguments with the individual differences. So take like language. Is man a natural language user? By natural, you mean, is it kind of encoded in the

human species that we learn language easily? Most of us would agree with that. But does that mean that individual differences in the rate at which infants learn to speak is due to inherited DNA differences? You see, the evolutionary encoding has to do with the 99% of DNA that's the same for all of us. And I think we'd agree, yeah, a man's probably a natural language user. It's easy to get him to use language anyway. But that doesn't mean individual differences in the rate of language acquisition are necessarily genetic,

like Einstein didn't speak until he was three. So humor could be in the 99, the enjoyment of humor. I don't know. But the, and the ability to make it is, is some combination of intelligence and charisma, whatever, whatever charisma breaks down into. And, and, and, and I don't know, it's related to the ability to tell stories.

And there's so many, there's so many different traits that go into humor but i'm sure each one each one of them has its inheritable quality it's also a natural rhythm to telling a joke that is very difficult to explain to somebody why you emphasize this word why this is just kind of funny and i can't explain to you why it just is and if you don't feel it naturally yeah very big difference between like the standups who do one liners, Jimmy Carr, for example,

you know, boom, boom, boom, boom. Versus the guys who just kind of tell a story, you know, we know Jimmy Carr.

He's a big, a good friend of ours. So listen, I just so you know, I have, I have three kids with my wife. And one more thing to say about the humor. Well, it's related to to it but go ahead dad good well i was also going to say then there's then there's the issue of who's motivated to get into a there's one thing to be funny and we've all

known a lot of funny people in our lives most of them did not have the uh temerity to try to make a living at it and so then we have to ask what factors are involved in that you know temerity to try to make a living at it. And so then we have to ask what factors are involved in that, you know, is a, is a quality. Yeah. You know, also,

I think that if you look at standup comics, it's, it's a stereotype, but probably like many stereotypes with more than a grain of truth, the standup comics have issues with psychological issues. And, you know, there might be something about feeling the need to have a whole room of people laugh and pay attention to you that's

indicative of some sort of pathology you know so where that would come from we could then argue whether that's genetic or environment but all of those traits do show genetic influence so that would imply that that those ingredients also contribute to the genetics of differences between people. Like, why are some people funnier than others? Why do some people find it easy to get up in front of an audience and tell jokes? I mean, that would be my nightmare. So let me just add to that.

It's my nightmare, too, by the way. I was hoping to film a TV deal, but it never happened. Go ahead, Noam, you say what. My wife and I have three children, and I also raised my wife's son from the time he was months old. And so I have a pretty good cross-section of things. And it all falls into line with what you're saying. I will tell you, people used to say,

Dan always said that I'm exactly like Noam, is exactly like his father, same mannerism, same laugh, whatever it is. Well, do you know my stepson does not have one single thing in common with me. He has not one mannerism, not one, doesn't speak like me. I mean, there's zero in common with me, despite me being the only father he's basically ever known. And I will say, he does not have my sense of humor. And where my little children, I do see my sense of humor in them. I absolutely do see it.

Even when something happens, we'll make eye contact because we see the same thing as funny at the same time. You know, I've got the same story, Norm. I have one adopted son. I had a wife who brought a kid from a former marriage and she died. So I was this kid's only parent, this adopted kid. And, you know, he's now in his forties, but it's the same thing. You know, even, have you noticed this smell? You know how your kids, you know your kids just love that smell that they have? Yeah. With him, even the smell.

But it was the same thing as you. We're not at all alike, except he's a very high achiever. Yeah. Oh, you froze. Hello? I'm not quite clear on what he meant by the smell. Are you saying you didn't like I think he means he imprints better

not to go go ahead say again I didn't quite know what you meant by the smell well do you know I mean some people smell good to you and others don't you're saying your adoptive son doesn't smell good.

With my adopted son, I noticed from early in life, you know, I didn't really enjoy sniffing him. Whereas my other kids, you know, they just smell so good. This is my beautiful wife. It's a weird example. Ah, hello. And I always tell her that our children, the word, it's heterosis, right?

The idea that crossbreeding produces more robust, more. So my wife and I are testing the theory of heterosis. And it's working out pretty good. We have terrific. Well, in animal breeding, it certainly is true. It's what the green revolution is about in agriculture, for example. And with dogs, you definitely see it. I mean, generally, the crossbreeds are much healthier than the purebreds, especially when some of them get inbred,

and especially when they get inbred for weird traits. But you would agree with me that Nicholas has none of my qualities, right? Yeah. And you see me in the kids. Right, yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah. qualities right yeah Nicola and you see my you see me in the kids right yeah yeah yeah 100 percent yeah yeah Robert Coleman when you saw Juanita that's Noam's wife Juanita you didn't you didn't

know her prior previously were you at all surprised to see her uh darker beautiful she is that it all take you aback in any way. Oh, Dan. Not living in England. A lot of Indian white marriages. So listen, we have to wrap it up. So I really would recommend very much that everybody read Robert's book. I'm about a third of the way through it, reading it carefully and also skimmed to the end in

order to equip myself for the interview. In the afterward, he talks very interestingly about why he only focuses on individual difference and not group differences, which is a very third rail topic now. I would only say the only thing that I keep thinking is that at some point the people who are studying this stuff are kind of, in my opinion, they put the revolver and the bullets and everything on the table

and then say, well, what happens is not my problem. And what I worry about with all this is that they will get picked up by the worst among us and used recklessly. And at some point, because some of these notions, correctly or incorrectly, just lead us into certain ideas, that I kind of worry that the smartest and most decent among us are not better advising us how to

incorporate this all because people will start drawing their own conclusions and that and that worry and they'll draw the wrong conclusions they'll draw ignorant conclusions they'll they'll draw dangerous conclusions so that worries me about this and that's that's the only thing i wanted to comment about that yeah Yeah, well, I share that concern. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, that was a fantastic hour. Go ahead, Daniel. I just wonder whether the audience knows what you're talking about, because you tiptoed around. No, no, I don't. They know what I'm talking about. And I don't want to get into it more than that. Obviously, there's people who pick up these facts and

misappropriate them for their racist... Well, can I add something to that? Yeah. All right. So I feel like because you raised Nicholas and we know that he's completely different, the differences do not change the fact that you still love this child. That's right. I mean, you don't have a genetic connection, but there is a connection, you know?

Absolutely. So we don't want to... Oh, yeah. Yeah, connection, you know? Absolutely. So we don't want to... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. I don't want Nicholas to hear this after I'm gone and say, you love me. I love you, Nicholas. There's no genetic similarities where they can connect on, but there is a connection, and you do love each other, you know?

You're still father and son. It's just different. You know? Absolutely. That's a very good point, really. Yes. son it's just different you know absolutely that's a very good point really yes that's the case with your uh your adopted son what's that tony robert yeah he would say that that's he concurs with his experience with his adopted son of course yes it doesn't mean i love him less

either you know i agree with that it's just that it's, as a psychologist, it's quite noticeable how different he is from me. And it's just a single case. It doesn't prove anything, but it corresponds to the adoption data, you know, with very large samples. And it's kind of important for parents to realize in a way they get a leg up because your kids are similar to you genetically. So there should be some harmony. If you have a hyperactive kid, chances are you're probably a pretty high-energy, active person. I think it's an interesting question. I'm sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. I think it's an interesting question,

and I know we've gone over an hour, but in Noam's case, he raised a son, the son of the woman he loves, Juanita. You raised the son and adopted the son of the woman he loves, Juanita. You raised the son and adopted the son of the woman you love. In other words, you weren't, it wasn't potluck. But for those people that are adopting children that they have no idea where they're coming from, would you advocate prudence given your belief that there's only so much you can do? I mean, you're playing with fire, according to your, you know. Well, I grew up in the 70s in Boulder and the Newsweek,

when I moved to Boulder in 1974, the front page of Newsweek was Boulder, where the hip come to trip. You know, so it was a kind of druggy place, very lefty. And I knew a lot of women who decided, well, they're going to get pregnant. They don't want a man around. They're just going to go out to a bar, pick up a one night stand and get pregnant. And it's the same thing with people who put off having kids for a long time, and then they can't, you know, as they say in England, sod's law, and they adopt a kid. And, you know, as people, do you know how important genetics is? I don't want to turn them off to doing that. And it's fine if you do that. Take a handicapped kid. There's lots of kids who need to be adopted, but don't do it because you think love conquers

all and that everything's going to be hunky-dory because you're a great person and you're going to be a super parent because it isn't going to work. Yeah. Yeah. I have a question. Before you adopt your child, do they warn you of that do they say listen is there any of that conversation that comes up before you adopt the child with anybody no but um you know increasingly now it's it's in when i was doing it in the early 70s um adoption was um sort of anonymous you you were just given a child. It was mostly a matter of your place on the waiting list. Now there's much more selection on both sides, you know, where it's interesting. The number one trait, if you're doing artificial insemination,

there are these books that are like cattle breeding books. And, you know, you can get statements by these guys if you're trying to get sperm. You know, there's a lot of sperm donor kids out there now. And the first thing parents want to look at is like education, intelligence. It matters the most to parents. The first thing they should look at is mental illness. And then with that hurdle cleared, as long as they're not mentally ill, it's only so horrible it can go, even if they're not brilliant.

But once that hurdle is cleared, then you can move on to things like intelligence and athletic ability and looks and this sort of thing. Except Dan, I got to tell you, as a parent, you really want to find one thing that you can really deeply connect with your child on. So like with me and my father, we had numerous things. We played music together. We had an intellectual bent together. We could discuss things together. And if we didn't have those

things, I'm sure my father would still love me, but it would be a drastically different relationship. So I don't think you can underestimate how important it is and how nice it is anyway. Like if you adopt a child and you find that we connect on just one thing can be huge, but to really connect, like a friend. But I think, yeah, exactly. And I think parents ought to be thinking of themselves as resource managers. Find out what the kid likes to do, what they're good at, and help them do that, rather than imposing your preconceptions of what they ought to be. I mean, like disastrously, if you think your kid's going to be an Olympic athlete, or a concert pianist or something like that, go with the

genetic flow, you know, don't swim upstream, and really give them opportunities to find out what they like to do. Because a lot of it has to do with appetites, not aptitudes. You know, aptitudes are important, but you got to really want to do something or you're just not going to be good at it, no matter how talented you are. So I think that's the way parents ought to think about it. And you do that not because you're trying to mold your child, but you know, you just love your child. You want what's best for them. You help them do what they want to do rather than making them do what you want them to do, which is a disaster. What you're saying is exactly true in my experience

about appetites and aptitudes, but it is very tragic when you meet someone who has a tremendous appetite and no aptitude. And you see that like in auditions and musicians, like get out, we see it in comedy. And then the flip side, I i know people like an air my air chino the air conditioning guy he's hilarious he'd be a great stand-up comic he's like nah i'm not interested and it's clear he has the aptitude i will cite a counter example of

somebody that at least according to his autobiography had more uh aptitude than uh appetite was andre agassi whose father pushed him into tennis and he didn't like it never really i mean maybe maybe he doesn't even know himself enough to know that he did like it but according to his autobiography he didn't like it but he became a world champion and he wanted to like be an english teacher now he's got the money to do anything he wants. And he actually, I think he bought a school. So I don't know whether he, I don't know if we interviewed him, I'd ask him, do you think at the end of the day, your father helped you or hurt you by pushing you into this thing that you made millions of dollars at, but didn't like doing. But there's a guy that seemed to have the aptitude

with little appetite and yet pulled it off anyway. I have to go. I'm sorry. I do have to go. I have an interview I have to do. Robert, it was such a pleasure to meet you. And I really admire your work. And I'm fascinated by this stuff. And maybe after your next book, if you wouldn't mind, you come on again. Yeah, I enjoyed it very much. And you might get a lot of uh i hope you don't get much pushback on this but if you do i'd be happy to come back and talk some more no one would also like to include you in his circle of intellectuals no one feels a little bit insecure because he's a comedy club owner and because what the comedy comedy instead of a professor so he likes to surround himself with intellectuals and yeah but you know

to be good in any profession you have to be pretty bright i think don't you think even in tennis anything you know the very best people are usually smart because they can think up the strategies and that sort of thing so well it was no anxiety to open up the underground that means nothing to you but that was one of his i i have to i have to go you i'll leave it to you to sign off don't please i don't mean to be rude dan i'll leave it to you to finish or whatever ask whatever you want but i'm sorry great to meet you where can people find you yeah if you just um you just google robert plowman i'm not one of those people who hide so i've got my university uh links there my personal web page. So I'm easy to find. And in books, you can find them.

Yeah. Well, the book, just look up Blueprint. Any of the publishers, Amazon, whatever, just Plowman. And the first thing that will come up is Blueprint. So it's easy. And it comes in, you know, Kindle and Audible. And I would like to say, I did the Audible myself, which I think it means a lot, you know, when I hear some someone's book being read, especially a science book, when the author themselves read it, it means more because they know how to put

meaning into the sentence, not just the words, you know, these readers are great, but they can't, they're not scientists, so they don't know what's important. So anyway, a lot of people have liked the Audible version of it. I would also add that in your case you do have a soothing voice, maybe you picked up a little bit of the English accent but you you do have a nice soothing voice, you probably do meditation, if you did meditation tapes. I did the Sam Harris interview you know and one of his apps you know it's making sense. This is big app. What does he have half a million subscribers, but his other app that's very popular is called waking up

and it's about meditation. So he's very big into meditation. So he tries to get everybody to do meditation. And I told him I've tried, I've tried is what I do is I fall asleep because I'm so sleep deprived and I don't sleep much at night because I'm kind of type a you know kind of wanting to work all the time and so for me meditations falling asleep but I can fall asleep in one minute so that kind of means my head is you know I would say empty but you know it's I can you know I'm not sweating stuff I can just really I can fall asleep within a minute or two and that's my meditation. He doesn't like that.

Sam Harris doesn't like that. Your voice is tranquil and calm. I'm glad to think so. I think anyway. I think it would be good. I think not because not everybody that has something interesting to say can say it well

or can say it has a good vocal quality. So I think your audible, having your voice in, it's a very good idea. Anyway, you can write us questions, comments, suggestions, a podcast at ComedySeller.com. And Periel runs our Instagram account. So she has something to say about that. And you can also watch this on YouTube.

Oh, can you? Yes. Can you watch any of the podcasts on YouTube? Yes. Oh, I didn't get, I didn't catch that. Yeah, that's why we do listen to a number of them. We've been doing lockdown because we've been doing the video prior to that. You couldn't, but, um, all right. So I guess apparently you have anything else to say? Um, at live from the table is our Instagram and Dan it's always astonishing to me how little you actually know about who I am and what I

do never failing I wonder if that's nature or nurture keeping the mystery alive thank you Robert thank you thank you so much thanks a lot you guys