Most of us believe that our upbringing and our environment are critical to our success and to shaping the person we become. Yet a flurry of books from behavioural geneticists backed by long term twin studies contend that our DNA is primarily responsible for determining who we are.
Is genetics more influential than we have come to imagine? Are parents deluded when they imagine the upbringing and schooling of their children is vital to their future? Or are the studies and the apparent evidence dangerously misleading and socially regressive, cementing privilege for those with privileged backgrounds and undermining adversity and disadvantage?
Author of Blueprint Robert Plomin, geneticist at The Francis Crick Institute Güneş Taylor, author of The Essential Difference Simon Baron-Cohen and author of Superior Angela Saini lock horns.