Topic: An Academic Analysis of the Debate of Nature and Nurture by Steven Pinker

Introduction

Is there a distinct line in the influence of the environment on a person’s behavior or is behavior the outcome of a person’s genetics? This question is what forms the core part of the debate of nature vs. nurture as some scholars try to draw a distinction between innate and nurture. A person’s belief on a wide range of topics is thought to be affected by a combination of the environment and heredity factors. A variety of questions about human behavior have been put forward to try to understand the origins and the motivations about behavior. Can violence and drug abuse in teenagers be attributed to the treatment they received when they were toIDlers, or is man born selfish and aggressive that necessitates the needed for law enforcers and a strong market economy, or could peace and cooperation just occur by chance, or would that lead to spontaneous socialism to thrive? Such questions that elicit strong emotions give the drive to the debate on nature and nurture.

The Logos and Pathos of a Blank Slate Mind

The competing motives in humans are responsible for the drive in different circumstances therefore; we cannot classify human behavior collectively under any circumstances. The brain being a complex neural organ is affected by learning and accommodates the learning process through growth and the neuron circuitry. Genes on the other hand influences behavior as they play a crucial role in the growth of the brain. Jose Ortega’s proposition that man has no nature but only has history became a popular doctrine in the twentieth century, which was adopted in behavioral psychology and social constructionism sciences which referred to the mind as a blank slate. Social mobility, cultural change and immigration could change the inborn differences in talent and moods of individuals. A blank slate mind is believed not be racist, prejudiced and sexist and also traits such as greed and aggression do not stem from the nature of man.

Logos and pathos of evolutionary psychology

However, the sciences of the brain, genes and evolutions have made it difficult to defended the theory of blank slate of the mind as cognitive science has justified that there must exist complex inborn mechanisms for learning and culture to be possible. This has been proved by the evolutionary psychology that psychological traits are better adapted to the demands of evolution than the current environment the individual is in. Moods have been shown to occur early in someone’s life and continue to remain constant throughout one’s lifetime according behavioral genetic scientists, and these individual differences can be traced back to nature (genes).

Nurture, which includes learning, must be accompanied by nature, the innate circuitry. Nature is likened to a program that allows input of information from the five senses of the body, processes this information to produce new actions and thoughts. This is equated to the talent of acquisition capacity of a language and the infinite ways of expressing oneself through language. Therefore the generalization that all humans are selfish is inappropriate as competing motives experienced in different circumstances are as a result of the complex interactive system of the human mind. Also ones genealogy does not directly affect behavior, but has an influence on the growth of the brain’s circuitry.

Logos and pathos of holistic interactionism

Scientists today refute the two doctrines of the mind being a blank slate and also that biology is the destiny of humankind. They argue that nature and nurture cannot be separated as they are all a some of each. Behavior can therefore be attributed to the intricate interaction of both the environment and heredity. The distinction between the two aspects has been made obsolete by modern science, as it has been proven that even though there are different effects of a given set of genes in different environments, the effects can be cancelled or reversed in a given environment. This therefore proves that there is no significant permanent constraints to behavior caused by genes as genes respond to environmental signals. Therefore, it becomes meaningless to separate the two as it hinders the development of productive research. This can be show by the holistic interactionism that portrays the causation direction of interaction of genes and behavior can go both ways. However, to understand a complex interaction only happens if we breakdown the interaction to the individual components and how they interact. This goes against the doctrine of interactionism that prohibits the disentanglement of both heredity and the environment.

Logos and pathos of social constructionism

When man is born, he has no instincts, and all that he is has been learned in the course of his life from culture and the environment. This is proved in social constructionism which states that emotions, behavior patterns are as a result of social constructions. Biology is said to have failed to provide insight to human behavior and the mind for example in the case of homosexual and heterosexual men and women. Lewontin, Kamin, and Rose asserted in their book Not in Our Genes that for human nature; the only sense was it was in nature to construct its own history. Therefore the brain’s capabilities are innumerous and there is no single predisposition to any particular behavior. There has been correlational evidence between the mode of a child’s upbringing and behavior for example frequently spanked kids become more violent in future while authoritative parents have well behaved children. Other researches have shown that violence is learned and is treated as a public infectious disease as it becomes contagious, a reason that explains crowd behavior and violence.

Some of each is false. Logos and pathos

The doctrine of some of each is also not true. This can be shown by the example of the question of why do Spaniards speak Spanish or Chinese speak Chinese? According to some of each we would say that each have genes that make it easier to learn the language when they are exposed to their language. This is untrue as the uptake of a language by children is the same regardless of their race. Even though genetics would predispose someone to learn a language, they do not however predispose them to a specific language. That’s why different countries speak differently because of the environment or in some cases the opposite is found true. The environment affects genes and the expression of the genes is a result of learning. This shows that genes are turned on by a variety of signals including temperature, hormones, neural activity among others. The effects of sensitive gene expression make it possible for learning to happen. The learning is later stored as skills and memories in the brain and these changes require the response of the genes to the neural activity.

Conclusion

Therefore the question arises if to rethink the equation of nature (genes) and nurture (everything else apart from genes), if we were to focus on the scientific definition of genes. Would that change this relationship, and if so how?

Works cited

Steven, Pinker. Why nature & nurture won’t go away. Daedalus 133(4). (2004): 5-17 doi: 10.1162/0011526042365591 21Sep.  2012.