Birthmarked

- Nice titties.

- Knock it off!

Maurice, not now.

- It was a compliment.

- How much longer?

- Soon, sweetie.

- Mom?

- Quiet.

- I just want to ask a question.

Why does Luke have

such nice titties?

- I said knock it off.

(father):
Enough.

- Playful teasing

builds character.

Luke needs that.

Anything?!!

(cheerful music)

(narrator):
Doctors Ben Morin

and Catherine O'Neal

were on a scientific journey,

which began long before

they were even born.

Ah! (father):
Hey! (boys arguing)

(narrator):
Catherine O'Neal

was the only child

of two prominent physicists

who died tragically

in a helium explosion

when she was 12 years old.

She was raised

by her aunt Libby,

a prominent psychologist

and... beer aficionado.

- I think we owe them and we owe

ourselves a better country than that.

(narrator):
Ben Morin came

from a long line of scientists,

every single one more

successful than the last.

But as a child,

Ben had no affinity

for science.

He spent most

Saturday mornings

playing point guard

with the neighbourhood kids.

You okay, son?

Yeah, I'm fine.

Sport isn't your calling, son.

- But I almost had

the rebound.

- You're a scientist through

and through. It's in your genes.

Now, come on, let's get some ice

on that noggin.

I'm okay to play.

You are better than this.

(narrator):
Ben never played

basketball again.

- I'm not gonna tell you twice

now! Come on.

- And took his rightful place

in the family tree.

He focused on his schoolwork

and developed

a sharp scientific mind

and a healthy appetite

for success.

For years, his sex life

consisted of masturbating

to women's equestrian riding

on Sunday afternoons.

(fanfare on TV)

But he finally

found true love

when he met fellow PhD

student Catherine O'Neal.

They devoted their careers to proving

the ultimate power of nurture over nature

to finally answer

the timeless question:

Could we have been anyone

other than who we are?

- Maybe he needs some fluids, I don't know. What do you think?

- Yeah.

They enjoyed the prestige of

being university professors,

but were about to redefine

their measure of success.

(man):
For decades,

my foundation has invested

in scientific endeavour

of all kind.

And the one common thread I find

with all scientists

is the fundamental belief

that they can contribute

to the advancement

of humankind.

A noble conviction.

But most of us, myself included,

make very safe choices.

Yet aren't we always inspired

by the rebels?

The ones who lay it all

on the line?

The ones throughout history who dared

to believe that the earth wasn't flat.

The Darwins, the Einsteins

who were considered crazy

we now know

to be visionaries.

These minds only come around

every couple of generations,

so it's important

for all scientists to believe

that they possess the ability

to be one of the greats.

To be one of the rebels.

As scientists, it is your duty to teach

us to see the world a different way,

and to hopefully make our world

a better place.

And so, if you feel that you're

one of those revolutionary minds

that can think outside the box,

I am standing

in front of you today

to ask you to think

outside of that box too.

Thank you.

(narrator):

Randolph P. Gertz III

was the great-grandson

of Archibald Gertz,

who built an empire exporting linen

from Belfast in the 19th century.

Despite a strict Catholic

upbringing by his mother,

Gertz was lured

by the family fortune

and enjoyed

every penny of it.

After his father's death,

Gertz challenged himself

to take charge of his life

and created the Gertz

Foundation for the Sciences.

After years

of... debatable success,

he remained determined

to prove to the world

he wasn't a papa's boy.

Are they here?

(softly):
Yes.

- I think we might have

ourselves a winner.

(clock chiming in the distance)

Thanks for coming.

- Thanks for having us.

- You've met my personal

assistant, Ms. Phyllis Tridek.

- We did.

- I'll be right back.

- I gotta tell you,

of all the proposals I read,

yours really knocked

my socks off.

(Ben sighing with relief)

- Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Come. Let's hit the boudoir.

In 1920,

at Johns Hopkins University,

a Professor named John Watson

wanted to prove

that all emotions and behaviours

are learned.

So he had a baby,

known as Little Albert,

play with a white rat,

which the kid loved.

But Watson started

making a loud noise

every time the kid touched

the rat, and, eventually,

the baby became afraid

of the rat,

even when he didn't make

the noise.

- Watson successfully taught

the child to fear rats.

Conditioning 101.

(Gertz):
Hmm.

Essentially, uh, well,

Pavlov and the dog.

(Gertz):
Hmm.

With your help, we believe

we could actually prove this

on a much larger scale.

And unlike Watson, we'd foster

positive behaviours, not fear.

Our idea is very simple:

We want to raise

our soon-to-be-born child,

and two other kids,

contrarily to their genetics.

- Yeah, so...

so with your support,

we would very much like

to adopt Maya.

She's just been put up

for adoption

and comes from a long line

of dim-witted individuals.

- Hmm.

- Her parents were... simple people.

- Hmm.

- Very simple.

- Idiots?

- Yes. Idiots.

But we would nurture the smartest

little girl you've ever seen.

- Oh, she'll be smart as a whip.

- Ka-tch!

- And obviously, with your

generous support, we would adopt,

uh... Maurice.

Now, his ancestors were, uh...

angry, aggressive...

and in some cases...

Violent.

- Pretty violent, actually.

- Yeah.

- But we would...

we'd raise him to be a pacifist.

- Like Gandhi?

- Yeah, like the Mahatma.

- Hmm.

- And as you can see,

Catherine is very pregnant.

- I should pop any day, really.

- And we would raise our son

to be... an artist.

- So the son of two scientists

is gonna be raised as an artist.

Bingo.

- Thus proving

the power of nurture.

Double bingo.

- And you have no ethical

concerns about this?

No. Why should we?

I mean, it's no different

to most parents who, you know,

encourage their kids to play piano

or be doctors or super athletes.

- Yeah.

- And at the end of the day,

what matters most is how much

you love your kids, right?

And we're gonna give our kids

every ounce of love we got.

- And... and more importantly,

we will prove

that everyone has the potential

to become anything.

- Any... I mean, anything.

- No one... Yeah.

No one is a prisoner of their

genetic heritage. No way.

- And you believe

you can pull this off?

- Indubitably.

- Absolutely.

Well, if that's the case...

...let's start

changing the world.

(Catherine sighing with relief)

- Well, thank you so much.

It's nice to be nice

As my momma once said

(narrator):

In the spring of 1978,

Ben and Catherine

quit the university

and moved to a cottage Ben

inherited from his father, Henry,

who had inherited it

from his father before him.

And Gertz hired them

an assistant.

- Sorry to disturb you,

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