Nature, nurture, and expertise: Response to Ericsson

Most scientists have moved beyond the nature vs. nurture debate to accept the importance of nature as well as nurture. However, in Ericsson's response to our research that shows the importance of genetic influences on the acquisition of expertise in reading, he does not address the implications of our research for his environmentalist hypothesis. Instead, he dismisses research on expertise at any other level than the "less than a handful of individuals with the very highest levels of performance," which limits research to case studies. In this brief reply, we argue that his intransigence obscures many interesting empirical questions about the nature and origins of expertise, and that genetically sensitive research offers many useful insights into the roles of both nature and nurture, and especially their interplay.