Dr James Goodwin

In 1993, two friends and colleagues of mine alighted from an internal flight in the heart of Siberia. The light was failing and the temperature plummeted as they wound their way from the landing strip into an endless forest. They were lost. Eventually, coming upon a wooden settlement, they found shelter with the village teacher, the only English speaker for many, many miles. Professor Bill Keatinge later confided in me that he had learned two lessons from this incident. On

Since John Locke wrote of ‘tabla rasa’ in his essay of 1690 and more recently Francis Galton of ‘Hereditary Genius’ in 1869, scientists, philosophers and social commentators have argued long and hard on the issue of Nature vs Nurture. It has been a polemic and inevitably a politicised argument. Through twin studies, behavioural genetics and other approaches, scientists have variously argued the proportion of our ‘genius’ which is due to either pedigree or poverty - or their i