Why Identical Twins Don't Have Identical Brains | Kevin Mitchell | Escaped Sapiens #99

What determines who you become: your genes, your environment, or something else entirely?   I originally the answer lay in our environment and DNA, full stop. But it turns out there's a third ingredient. Our DNA doesn't hold enough information to specify all of the the various connections in our brain. In a certain sense the DNA specifies a charicature, and the process of development itself fills in the details. This process starts at conception, such that even two people growing with identical DNA and environment will nevertheless end up with different personality traits, intelligence, etc.   In this conversation I speak with Neurogeneticist Kevin Mitchel (Trinity College Dublin, author of Free Agents and Innate) about how our brains develop. He spells out the implications of the developmental process of the brain for our personalities, medical conditions, and intelligence, consciousness, and free will.   Correction: At 1:57:02, the claim about XYY syndrome and violence was misleading. Some studies have found a modest association with lower average IQ, but the evidence does not support XYY making someone inherently more violent. ►Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EohgJnp6bNQ&list=PLnE3V9mcAvmbGgs15Z0LkfHv0_1Hm5i9Z&index=1  ►Find out more about Kevin's work: www.kjmitchell.com ►Check out Kevin's books: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691173887/innate  https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691226231/free-agents