Many people see gene and environment as separate entities and believe that height, weight, or personality type can be sliced, rather like a cake, in a section controlled by inherited factors or nature, while others are due to differences in the environment, or nurture.

In fact "heritability" (a measure much misunderstood by politicians and educationists) is more subtle than this and always involves an intimate interaction between the two, whether we are interested in height, weight, sport, or intelligence.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/nature-nurture-or-neither-the-view-from-the-genes

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,700 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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