There’s more to life – and people – than academic skills

If we talked about the fact that DNA accounts for most of our brain power, we could begin to change destinies written in our genes

I often listen to The Life Scientific on BBC Radio 4, and just as often switch it off after 15 minutes because I can't follow the science. This is probably because I'm not quite intelligent enough. Or was I simply raised in an insufficiently nurturing environment? Last week, Jim Al-Khalili interviewed Prof Robert Plomin, a behavioural geneticist who specialises in the inheritability of intelligence. His subject is a taboo for many because it raises the spectre of the discredited "science" of eugenics.

Plomin has spent the last several decades examining 10,000 pairs of identical twins, as well as adopted children. His conclusion, and he considers it cast iron, is that DNA accounts for up to two thirds of your intelligence, while environment - whether educational, familial or societal - accounts for only around 20% of variation.

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