‘ } STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER

40507 _

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305 « (415) 321-1200

July 6, 1971

STANFORD UNIvErstry SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Department of Genetics

Dr. Lewis R. Goldberg
Oregon Research Institute
P. 0. Box 3196

Eugene, Oregon 97403

Dear Dr. Goldberg,

Thank you so much for sending me the comprehensive progress
report of the ORI. Formidable:

It will take me some more time to adequately digest even this
overall summary. I am fascinated to find several different areas of
overlapping interest.

Attached is a list of the publications that I would be graseful
to receive according to your offer penned on the report.

I was particular pleased to note the current study on birth
order. I had dabbled in this some while ago in the belief that intra-
family variables were the only ones that could be completely isolated
from genetic factors and could help introduce more badly needed rigor
into nature/nurture analyses, It also seemed likely that most
environmentalists interpretations should imply a large weight to
birth order, or family constellation in general, as a determinant
of personality outcome,

The past literature on this subject is, as I need hardly
mention, quite unsatisfying, May I however call your attention to
a study by Peter M. Blau and Otis D. Duncan, "The American
Occupational Structure", 1968, which title might appear unpromising
for a bearing on this subject, I dabbled to some extent with the
same data file and in my own perusal was particularly impressed by
the second order dfect of birth order summarized on their pageA2.
This merely confirms our traditions of primogeniture; folk wisdom
would suggest that parent-offspring correlations would be higher,
or at least more stressed, for the first birth order than for later,
Important effects of birth order might be obscured if different strata
of parental influence were intermingled and confounded, I hope you
will have an opportunity to examine this question in the material
indicated as the subject of Mr. Shiman's thesis.

over

LY. J. P. KENNEDY, JR. LABORATORIES FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE, DEDICATED TO RESEARCH IN MENTAL RETARDATION
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY HEREDITY NEUROBIOLOGY DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE
Dr. Lewis R. Goldberg -2- 7/6/71

Some of the more intense effects are obscured by the rather
rough categories used in these analyses. They do show in the
original data, and you will not be surprised to find that physicians
run in families, As a recall, perhaps impervfeatly, there was quite
a strong birth order effect on that correlation but the numbers
necessarily start to thin out.

A somewhat similar kind ofcase has been made by Dr. Alan E. Bayer;
I believe he has reviewed his work in the International Journal of
Psychiatry 3:37, 1967.

I was intrigued by the abstracts of your papers on risk-perception
which is an area not given sufficient weight in public policy formulation
today - where a rather narrow economic, bayesian model is being persued
despite its psychological irrelevance to most citizens.

I look forward to continuing this correspondence after I had had
an opportunity to read some more of the publications listed,

   

  
 

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr