Are you a believer in Nature or Nurture?

[newbie]

I just thought that this would be an interesting topic . This is a common topic of debate in my Soc class as well as on TV, etc.

Do you believe that Nature (genetics) or Nurture (the environment, society, etc.) affects you more? Which aspect do you think has a greater effect on a person's personality?

I personally believe in Nurture. I think that society makes up who you are. Genetics can only do so much...while society is responsible for how you act, what you believe in, what you stand for, etc.

And, what about genetic counselors? Personally, I think that it's full of crap, and should only be used to get rid of illnesses and defects. If people were to use genetic counselors, society would only be full of perfect robots. How boring!

But there are excellent arguments and evidence for both sides. What do you think??

[This message has been edited by newbie (edited June 04, 2001).]

[newbie]

ON the other hand , if any of you all have seen the film Gattica (with hottie Ethan Hawke ), it proves that Nature prevails. (Society thought that this guy should become a janitor, and deemed him an outcast. However, Vincent prevailed, and rose through the ranks of Gattica.)

And, another character in Gattica, Jerome, was manifested from a genetic counselor. He was supposed to be PERFECT, yet, his hopes were ended with a car crash (fate), which left him paralyzed in the lower body.


[This message has been edited by newbie (edited June 04, 2001).]

[SH80]

Both!

[SuperXO]

Well, I think both, but I definitely think Nruture is a bigger part of it. Both are so important, but I think the effect nurture has on us is what makes us the "dominant" species on this planet and the most adaptable. I mean, look at ants or bees. They are almost pure Nature. LIke Newbie said, Robots. I think the higher you go on the evolutionary scale, the more influence you see Nurture have. Primates like monkeys and apes are really effected by Nuruture and their social circles. A lot more than, say, a snake.

But, then again, in a weird Catch 22, I think it is our Nature that enables us to be more influenced by our Nurture!!! So, it really is both, IMO!

[DGPhoney]

(ok here's my smart side, lol)
I'll have to agree with Super XO. I believe in both Nature and Nurture. I took Philosophy about 2 semesters ago, and we discussed something similar.
I believe in the Nature part being, Genetics can be so wacky. I mean years down the line, people always say oh you act like your great aunt, or your great grandmother or something along those lines . So genetics travel a long way.
Nurture, look at the differances between now and then, I mean just as short as 10 years ago to now. We respond to what goes on in the community, the enviroment, the news the whole thing . If something we used to do was cool for us then wecontinue to do it, but when time changes new studys come out, etc... and it's found unacceptable , un-healthy or whatever, we change our ways.
So I truly believe we are influenced by Nurture, by we are guided by Nature.
DGPhoney~

[Rudey]

Rousseau's first and second discourses are great readings on this. Most people wouldn't discount either though.

As for genetic counselors...it's a toss up on virtually every aspect of eugenics. The opinion in many places is that parents are to be given the choice in whether they want a child with a life-altering disease. Some people play up movies like Gattica. However, controlling most cosmetic features and athletic or intelligence abilities are beyond our control at this time. It's believed that certain human features don't have genetic links, and certain others are complex linkages (many genes regulate each other producing several phenotypes at once).

Oh and the girl (Uma Thurman?)in that movie wasn't bad herself

[KSig RC]

Well . . . since this is sorta related to what I wanna do, probably should drop my view . . . :

It's pretty well documented that genetic expression can help control many aspects of biology - even as far as behavior (alcoholism) and possibly even personality (schizophrenia, other diseases [loose connection sorry]) on a different level. However, for most of these, the gene isn't enough - there has to be some form of external stimuli to cause gene expression.

For example, if you look at genetic predisposition to alcoholism, well it's prett basic: if you never have a drink, it's fairly difficult to become alcoholic. If you're predisposed to addiction, in no way is it for sure that if you drink you'll be alcoholic. Also, you can acquire the disease w/out any genetic predisposition - although statistically it occurs less.

So . . . i guess the point is that I tend to extend this assay to most forms of nature/nurture arguments: certainly nature plays a gigantic role in every facet of a person, but expression of the genetics of the thing relies heavily on the 'nurture' side.

A good theoretical assay for this would be the fact that so many people end up thinking how similar they are to their parents when they've grown (ie the old "you sound like your mother" thing, etc). Combine this then with the fact that many biological children look like one or the other parent; in how many cases does this child ACT like the parent they more closely resemble? The connection isn't 100%, or 50%, or 0% - rather, you can perhaps loosely tie it in so that the parental influence (environment) combines with parental influence (biological) to create a hodgepodge (intensive technical lab term) of outcomes, all showing various degrees of these influences expressed - maybe the 'dominent' personality traits came from the other parent, or maybe just the fact that developmental years were spent with both parents as the primary environment, etc.

Ok i'm done - tough to express this viewpoint in the GC medium; hopefully this didn't suck!

Rob

[SH80]

If nature/genetics is dominant over nurture, I am in big big trouble!

[SilverTurtle]

I think I agree with just about everything that's been posted.

I think Nature is a big part of what your dispositioned to be like. However, it requires the proper Nurturing to guide you in that particular direction.

But what if you consider Darwin's "survival of the fittest" theory? It seems that the weaker would nurture the same traits/qualities in their offspring, while the strongest would nurture their stronger traits/qualities in their offspring. So is that nature, or nurture? I still think it's both.

As for the genetic counselors...we are a ways from being able to isolate and alter human genes to prevent diaseses. Particularly mental illnesses, which do seem to be somewhat affected by ones environment. While I'm not a scienties, I wouldn't think that one gene, or even one strand of genes, would be the sole factor in most diseases, so I don't know how effective altering DNA could be anyway. And the thought of choosing your child's traits is just scary.

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SilverTurtle

Phi Beta Fraternity: National Professional Association for the Creative & Performing Arts

[KSig RC]

Originally posted by SilverTurtle:

But what if you consider Darwin's "survival of the fittest" theory? It seems that the weaker would nurture the same traits/qualities in their offspring, while the strongest would nurture their stronger traits/qualities in their offspring. So is that nature, or nurture? I still think it's both.

Well . . . i would argue that most humans aren't subject to Darwinian natural selection, not in the way he envisioned it anyway.

Think about it: are humans selected for competitively? No - they're subject to different pressures etc, and we attempt to overcome genetic/societal/etc. shortcomings w/ modern medicine and the sort. Other animals that are disabled/diseased/defective genetically etc are selected out by natural selection, but humans with these sort of problems are aided by medicine. The only type of selection that still remains is social selection, and i think that all of us can vouch for the fact that there is very little 'fair' or even constant about this sort of selection.

Think of people who acquire advantages in life through being born into wealth, or a young man whose father gives him a job he doesn't deserve, and you can see what i'm saying here.

Modern man has replaced genomic evolution with scientific and intellectual advance. This can be seen in human population growth - there's no way that the natural holding capacity of the earth is at over 6 billion people; we have altered the environment to create this. So yeah - i think in this way the darwinian natural selection model has been removed in many ways from humans - the term "social darwinism" has negative connotation in the eyes of most people. So the nature/nurture argument, in terms of selection, can't rely on natural selection so much as it may use unnatural selection, or different selection, as the model - maybe?

Food for thought, i guess, to contribute to the argument.

[SuperXO]

I agree Ksig, which is exactly why I say Nature plays a bigger part for the more evolved species, most notably humans. "Smarter" species alwyas have the ability to more strongly manipulate their environment. This may be a result of millions of years of evolution (Nature), but it's passed down through Nurture (culture), which again is one of the most notable aspects of advanced species (primates, mostly).

[carnation]

As some of you know, we have a huge family and 5 of the children are adopted, all as infants. I used to think that "nurture" would be 99% of how they turned out. Thank the Lord,all our children are fabulous and super but I do notice little things like...

It's much harder to drag our biological kids out of bed in the morning than our adopted ones..

Our adopted kids can eat much hotter food than the others can..

Most of our bio kids are major daydreamers...

Our bio kids are hard workers and our adopted kids are extremely hard workers..

I could go on for a page but basically I'm saying that Mr. Carnation and I now believe that there's more to genetics than we used to think.

[newbie]

Very interesting, well-stated replies! Thanks guys! Keep em coming!

[Dionysus]

bump.

[Kevin]

How could it be one or the other?

To say that who we are is not a reflection of are experiences sounds a little silly...

It would also be naive to say that people are not also products of their genetic code.... Insane people aside (insane due to chemical imbalance) it's a well-known and highly studied fact (and this is just one thing) that attractive people are much more immediate than those that are not attractive. They have a higher self-concept, etc. Yes that is a situation where they were nurtured that way -- but only nurtured that way because the genes made them attractive.