BleepingComputer.com: Nature vs Nurture

Just interested in your opinion on the age old question of nature or nurture.

Which do you choose?

What are the reasons for your choice?

Any other comments?

I would have to say a lot plays in both, some personality quirks are likely genetic, but many are shaped by the way we are raised and our environment. For example, a person growing up in the south is likely to have a southern accent. A person raised in a family that enjoys the outdoors is likely to enjoy hunting, camping, and outdoor sports, while someone raised in the big city is going to prefer spending time at the mall, a person raised on a ranch is likely to like to wear cowboy hats, while someone living in town would prefer a baseball cap. Anyway, just some observations.

Too vague of a question, In my opinion.

I'm kinda fond of

nurturing nature.

Not sure whether that helps with the converstaion though.

I guess I never really thought the two were mutually exclusive.

[quote name='groovicus' timestamp='1288142907' post='1991144']
I guess I never really thought the two were mutually exclusive.
[/quote]

Ditto

When I first saw the topic title, my first thought was it was a "spelling" question.

If this is an age old question, how the heck did I miss it and.........??

With regard to this "age-old question," I would suggest reading a bit about (1) twin studies as well as (2) epigenetics; Nature vs. Nurture is a bit too broad a category to discuss by itself. I would say that some things might be all nature, some all nurture, some mostly nature and less nurture (and vice versa), or about equal - imagine a scale of 1 to 8 where 0 is Nature and 10 is Nurture, and 5 is even. I do not meant to imply that I am highly knowledgeable in this kind of area, or that I read about it often or in detail; I just thought mentioning these ideas would be a good idea, as no one else has yet.

Sometimes, it is neither. Life experiences can be different. In twin studies, often they found the life experiences to be similar, which has a more profound effect than nature or nurture.

This post has been edited by Blathnat: 06 November 2010 - 11:31 PM

I should have specified that I tend to view "nature" as genetic factors/influence and "nurture" as environmental factors/influence; life experiences would be part of the latter in the categorization as I understood it. However, I failed to take into account the possibility of alternate classifications; as I said, I am not especially knowledgeable in "nature vs. nurture" nor do I intentionally read or think about it very often. *facepalm*

I understood what you were saying...I did a paper on this a many years ago and did a lot of research on identical twin studies (twins separated at birth, adopted by different families).

It's very interesting, and if you're ever bored, you should read up on it. From what I remember, there were totally eerie similarities with a lot of the twins. We've all read about the twins that go into the same business, marry wives with the same name, etc. and didn't even know that the other existed. I myself think that genetics have a heavier hand in our tendencies, but of course, you can't discount environment totally, either. Anyway, just my couple of cents.

I will have to bring up balance to this topic as almost everyone does to every topic. I've read articles that lead towards both, here;s what i think. Neuroscience has proven that human babies know how to walk when they are born. Though how they end up walking in their life depends on how they see others walking around them.

Also babies can begin by understanding that any language is a language but as they grow older they become more fine tuned towards the primary language spoken in the house. After this they don't recognize other languages even close to as much as they could. Babies as old as 3 months can do math (not in the traditional sense of the word), they notice when if there is one doll on a shelf and they see you add one they don't really care, but if they see you add one and there are three on the shelf they will become confused.

Basically your brain has plasticity. Your brains structure changes based on what you do in your life. London cab drivers have a larger hippocampus, the area of the brain associated with memory, than most people worldwide. I recommend you research these things for yourself. You will be amazed about some of the things modern neuroscience and biology has lead us to discover.

One final example before i go. A guy who works at an office for 5 years randomly goes out on a killing spree. The reason is linked to a part of his brain misfiring. So both nature and nurture are the case in these incidents.