ABSTRACT
Although discussions of the relative contributions of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ to exceptional performance can be traced to ancient Greece, scientific investigations began in the mid-nineteenth century largely resulting from the work by Charles Darwin and his cousin Francis Galton. Galton’s Hereditary Genius provided the stimulus for much subsequent work and was heavily influenced by Darwinian theory. Generally, much of this early work focused on the overall contribution of genes to human variability measured by a statistic called heritability (the proportion of variance in a population that is attributed to genetic factors). Although heritability remains an important factor in understanding biological influences on human performance, genetic research was irrevocably changed in February 2001 with the
publication of the human genome (Lander et al., 2001; Venter et al., 2001). However, to understand the importance of this contribution, we need to review some basic biology and genetics (Figure 2.1).
