have pupils from similar backgrounds. By definition, they give them similar teaching. Having therefore minimised the differences in environmental influences, they have unconsciously maximised the role of heredity: it is inevitable that the difference between the high-scoring and the low-scoring pupils must be down to their genes, for that is just about all that is left to vary. Again, heritability is a measure of what is varying, not what is determining.
Likewise, in a true meritocracy, where all have equal opportunity and equal training, the best athletes will be the ones with the best genes. Heritability of athletic ability will approach 100 per cent. In the opposite kind of society, where only the privileged few get sufficient food and the chance to train, background and opportunity will determine who wins the races. Heritability will be zero. Paradoxically, therefore, the more equal we make society, the higher heritability will be, and the more genes will matter.
COINCIDENCE
I’ve laboured the caveats deliberately before even mentioning the results of modern twin studies. The story of those studies begins in 1979, when there appeared in a Minneapolis newspaper an account of a pair of identical twin men from western Ohio reunited at the age of 40. Jim Springer and Jim Lewis had been reared apart in adopted families since they were a few weeks old. Intrigued, the psychologist Thomas Bouchard asked to meet them to record their similarities and differences. Within a month of their re-encounter, Bouchard and his colleagues examined the Jim twins for a day and were astonished by the similarities. Though they had different hairstyles, their faces and voices were almost indistinguishable. Their medical histories were very similar: high blood pressure, haemorrhoids, migraines, ‘lazy eye’, chain-smoked Salem cigarettes, bitten nails, weight gain at the same age. As expected, their bodies showed remarkable similarity. But so did their minds. Both followed stock-car racing and disliked baseball. Both had carpentry workshops. Both had built a white seat around a tree trunk in the garden. They went to the same Florida beach on vacation. Some of the coincidences were, well, coincidences. Both had dogs named Toy. Both had wives named Betty. Both had divorced women named Linda. Both had named their first children James Alan (though one spelled it James Allen).
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