Gregory Clark: commitment

Transcript context

…Before we move to questions, I’ll just note, Greg is in the process of producing a new book. I believe the title is, For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls: Genetics and Social Life in England, 1600 to 2025. Before I turn it over to the crowd, would you like to just say a few words about your next book? I know you’ve covered some parts of it already. Yes. The next book has been, unfortunately, 10 years in production because it depends on assembling this very big database: detailed genealogy of people over 300 years in England. I was really motivated by this question of, to what extent does genetics actually determine social outcomes? This book does a detailed study of all the predictions of a genetic model. It looks at things like, does birth order matter? Does gender matter? Does your mother better predict your outcomes compared to your father? Does family size matter? If your parents die, does that influence your life course? What about your grandparents? Can they interact? The conclusion in all of these studies is, we’re mainly the product of our genetics and randomness. Randomness is a huge component as well, and that’s why I say, amazingly, we seem to, in a society like England, for 300 years have largely lived in a meritocracy. What would be the characteristics of meritocracy? It would be a society where genetics and randomness would be the only forces that really mattered. That’s what the new book then is all about. One message to this is, don’t spend a lot of time with your children. It doesn’t matter. [laughs] Greg Clark, thank you very much. [applause]…

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