Manolis Kellis

Basically, again, as parents, we spend enormous amount of energy trying to fix, quote unquote, the nurture part, trying to get them to share, get them to be kind, get them to be open.

get them to trust each other, like, you know, like overcome the prisoner's dilemma of, you know, if everyone fends for themselves, we're all gonna live in a horrible place.

But if we're a little more altruistic, then we're all gonna be in a better place.

And I think it's not like we treat our kids differently, but they're just born differently.

So in a way, as a geneticist, I have to admit that there's only so much I can do with nurture, that nature definitely plays a big component.

So I'm going to talk about regression.

Why do we call it regression?

And the concept of regression to the mean, the fact that when fighter pilots in a dogfight did amazingly well, they would give them rewards.

And then the next time they're in dogfight, they would do worse.

So then, you know, the Navy basically realized that, wow, or at least interpreted that as, wow, we're ruining them by praising them.

And then they're going to perform worse.

The statistical interpretation of that is regression of the mean.

The fact that you're an extraordinary pilot, you've been trained in an extraordinary fashion, that pushes your mean further and further to extraordinary achievement.

And then in some dogfights, you'll just do extraordinarily well.

The probability that the next one will be just as good is almost nil because this is the peak of your performance.

And just by statistical odds, the next one will be another sample from the same underlying distribution, which is going to be a little closer to the mean.

So regression analysis takes its name from this type of realization in the statistical world.

Now, if you now take humans, you basically have people who have achieved extraordinary achievements.

Einstein, for example, you would call him, for example, the epitome of human intellect.

Does that mean that all of his children and grandchildren will be extraordinary geniuses?