It’s said that environment helps shape one’s personality. But, a new study has now debunked this widely held belief, saying it’s all down to one’s genes.
Researchers at Edinb-urgh University claim to have found that genes play a greater role in determining key personality traits like social skills and learning ability than the way people are brought up by their parents.
For their study, the researchers analysed more than 800 sets of identical and non-identical twins to learn whether genetics or upbringing has a greater effect on how successful people are in life, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Twins are useful in such studies because almost all twins share the same home environment as each other, but only identical twins share exactly the same genetics.
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‘Dogs helped man flourish over Neanderthals’
London: Dogs may have helped early humans flourish over the Neanderthals, an anthropologist has claimed. According to Pat Shipman, dogs have been humans’ faithful companions for more than 32,000 years.
Around this time, the Neanderthal man — who had previously occupied present-day Europe for a staggering 250,000 years — became extinct.
He says these two facts may be related and it was humans’ close friendship with canine associates that tipped the balance in favour of modern man.
Shipman said the advantages that domesticating a dog brought for modern humans were extremely fundamental to evolution, the Daily Mail reported.
He analysed the results of excavations of fossilised canid bones from Europe, during the time when humans and Neanderthals overlapped. — PTI