Nature versus nurture

[matgb]

So, where do you stand on that one? Which matters more, upbringing, or genetics? Me, I've always been on the nurture side, don't really like the idea of genetic determinacy. Except, um, chris_dillow_fd has some worrying research that seems to point that nature is more important:

If genes were all that mattered, you'd expect the education of biological parents to affect children's outcomes whether they were adopted or not. If nurture were all that mattered, you'd expect biological parents' education to have no effect on the outcomes of adopted children.
So, what did they find? That biological parents' education mattered even for adopted children.

Not a huge difference, but a difference nonetheless. It may just be that who you are matters more than what you were taught. I await further study on this one, because it really does go against some of my more basic instincts.

Comments

[innerbrat]

I'm a big Nurture fan, with the HUGE caveat that I think they're both very important and shouldn't be oversimplified.

Of course, I know I'm biased towards nurture for political reasons. Nature arguments naturally lead towards eugenics, and eugenics makes me ill.

[matgb]

Yeah, see that's my issue, my politics says nurture is more important, but, well, the science geek in me sometimes pops up and says "actually" in a very annoying manner. Dave and Jennie make good points below though.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

He says he links to the study, but he links to a long list of studies; presumably one of them is the one he's talking about, but I can't find it quickly.

By the sounds of it, they're lumping things like quality of nutrition during pregnancy in with the genetic influence, not that this means their conclusion would necessarily be false.

[matgb]

Chris does that regularly. I just read an article. Here are fifty links related to said article, one of which is the one you want. I regularly just trust him if it's not something I'll actually understand myself, my BA background means scientific articles can go way over my head in the technicalities at times, it's why I have scientist friends and bloggers ou there; they translate good.

But yeah, hard to differentiate nutrition levels without actually following someone from conception, pretty impossible to do in anything but a totalitarian state though.

Interesting study though. Just, y'know, a bit scary.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

There's a chapter in Freakonomics says adopted children do worse, because biological parents don't put as much effort into a child they know they'll be putting up for adoption. I assume all the children in this study were adopted, though.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Ah well, daddy teaching human biology for thirty odd years has given me an insight into this debate as it's been happening.

Obviously, the simple answer is BOTH.

I think your genes give you the building blocks, the potential. Nurture is what you do with that potential. F'r'instance, your genes gave you long and dextrous fingers, but your life experiences have given you the skills with which to use them.

Cause and effect is a web, not a line.

[eldar.livejournal.com]

See below. Or, "yeah, what she said".

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I'm using this icon a LOT today... ;)

[eldar.livejournal.com]

Tell you what, I'll let you all know the outcome of my own version of the experiment in 20 years or so ;-)

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Mine's coming along nicely; but is it nature or nurture that makes her adore her cuddly Cthulhu, but have nightmares about the tooth fairy?

;)

[doccy.livejournal.com]

my own version of the experiment

Waait a sec... So, for scientific accuracy, you're having identical twins, and one's going to be adopted? Or are you having triplets so you can have a control subject?

;)

[matgb]

Yeah, I get it. Far too many science types on my friends list. Oh, wait, that's a good thing.

[matgb]

Cause and effect is a web, not a line.

I like that. But yeah, you're right, it's just the extent that worries me a little, idealist me says take an kid fromt he grottiest estates, put them into a decent home and they'll be ok after a bit.

But if the genes aren't there? Ouch.

And yeah, you're right, although it is ages since I actually played the piano...

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

idealist me says take an kid fromt he grottiest estates, put them into a decent home and they'll be ok after a bit.

Realist me says that a kid from the grottiest estates doesn't necessarily have less good genes. Look at my mum, and by extension, me. Just because my dad is posh... ;)

[fearmeforiampink]

Some will. But yeah, some won't.

And some people taken from mummy and daddys castle and put in the esates would still turn out smart and focused.

Nature definitely has its role to play - it's what you're made of. You need the nuture those blocks together, which is why many of the disadvantaged kids don't do well - poor schools. But we are not all, genetically speaking, created equal.

Take eidetic (aka photographic) memory. Damn handy, and much more of an inbuilt trait than a learnable skill. My Dad had it, and (along with good nuture and probably other good brain genes) as a result was scary intelligent to the point of breaking IQ tests and a polymath.

I have it to some extent, but a much less useful and complete version. But it's still damn handy at times.

[jackthomas.livejournal.com]

Nexus of weakly acting causal pathways.

And just because your born into a poor family on a council estate with less than average intelligence parents, or into a family with parents with higher iq doesn't mean you will adopt those traits. Likely, but not necessary. The human genome is a massively variable thing, and the very nature of evolution and reproduction means that mutations and changes creep in.

For what its worth genes play a huge role in setting up the basis for what society inflicts on us, both play a massive role. I don't believe in just genetic determinism. I believe in Universal Automatism, that every action in the universe is determined by the actions of other things. Doesn't make them predictable due to the sheer processing power required to predict.

[eldar.livejournal.com]

6 of one and Half A Dozen of the other is what I'd say. A child may be genetically predisposed to being intelligent (luck/biological parents/etc) but it is up to that child's guardians/environment/the child itself to fulfil the potential that nature has given it.

In other words, you can only nurture that which nature has given you in the first place.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

you can only nurture that which nature has given you in the first place.

Nicely worded!

[matgb]

He always was a smartarse. Weird LJ thing; went to primary school with Neil. Haven't seen him since we left secondary school. Got in contact via an LJ community his wife's on. Weird. Cool, but weird.

I like LJ.

[eldar.livejournal.com]

Now if only I could put my way with words to good use and finally knock out that first (proper) novel.

[matgb]

At least LJ gives you practice time on the writing; I'm a lot better at composing stuff now than I was a few years back. But novels? I leave that sort of thing to the imagination crowd, I'll stick with articles and rants, much more fun.

Witty shorts are the way to go to get attention these days; have a synopsis for a novel ready, but write lots of short stories that get peoples attention online or similar...

[eldar.livejournal.com]

I can't do short stories, and I certainly don't do wit. So it's 400+ pages of galaxy-spanning space opera or nothing, really.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

400+ pages of galaxy-spanning space opera

Oooooooooh I'd read that!

(I haven't got the attention span to write anything novel length, but I do like a good short story)

[matgb]

Oooooooooh I'd read that!

See, this is why I like you. OK, it's one of the reasons why I like you, but still.

Aside: have you read much/any Stross or Alastair Reynolds? Both very good at the galaxy spanning with actual science wot makes sense thing...

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I haven't. It's been AGES since I had a nice geeky boy to introduce me to such things.

* mutters darkly about people who never read *

[matgb]

Ouch. Yeah, um, remind me next time we're likely to meet up, I'll try not to bring the entire library.

Stross is the guy I mentioned in my previous post, very smart geeky bloke; his blog sometimes goes down and he puts up excuses to do with having messed up the kernel and other things that go way over my head...

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Bring the library; I have more room than you. If you clear out all your books, you'll have room to buy more :D

he puts up excuses to do with having messed up the kernel and other things that go way over my head...

Guh! Computer geekery!

* fans self *

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I like LJ too. Wouldn't have met you without it, for one thing. And yeah, I've run into people through friends of friends etc.

* smooches and skips off to prepare for appointment *

TTYL, handsome.

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

I fall firmly on the nurture side of the debate. It's not that I don't think genetics are important at all, but it doesn't explain everything. And it's also a really, really dangerous explanatory path to take.

I was just talking about this subject at lunch because John Hibbing (http://www.unl.edu/polisci/faculty/hibbing/hibbing_cv.html#pubs) is giving a talk here tomorrow. He's done a bunch of work on genetics and political behavior recently that pisses me off. (I'm much more a fan of the contextual arguments than things like genetic inheritance of political attitudes and orientations.)

[matgb]

Like we seem to have covered well in the comments, my politics says nurture is what counts, but, well, nature has to mean something. The 'both' argument seems to matter a lot.

Inheritance of attitude and voting preferences? Ouch. That would make no sense at all, can definately throw the nurture one straight back there, insular communities, etc.

Aside: Chris that I linked above is probably the best economics/public choice blogger in the UK, and while I do very rarely disagree with him, he's helped me clarify my views on a lot of stuff, you might be interested in his overall content.

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree that in much of life, it's both. (I tend to give that answer about a lot of things. My MA essay tries to bridge the institutions vs. social cleavages gap.) But when it comes to politics, I think it's a stupid argument at best and a dangerous one at worst.

Take social movements, as Lisa and I were discussing this afternoon. How would you use genetics to explain something like that? One minute, it's ok to repress blacks and then all of a sudden that's unacceptable. Well, not "all of a sudden", but definitely not long enough for it to be literal evolution. What changed? The social environment via the civil rights movement. One minute, women belong barefoot and pregant in the kitchen baking pie. The next, we have a female secretary of state. Nothing changed about the genetics of women, but society's attitudes toward women changed through women's lib blah blah.

And going down the nature path of explanations is downright irresponsible. Where do we draw the line? "It's not my fault; it was my genes." (They tried that defense in an episode of Law and Order SVU once. It was garbage then, too.) Genetics may cause certain tendencies, but the fact is, human beings have free will to make choices about their behavior. Often, those choices are based on contextual factors. "My genes made me vote Republican" is a cop out.

[davidnm.livejournal.com]

I'm probably saying nothing that anyone else hasn't already, but...

I suppose that genes play a role in personality, intelligence etc. isn't really a surprise. The brain, after all, is a physical lump of meat whose structure and properties have to be encoded somewhere in its cells for it to grow in the first place. However, that said, commonsense demands that nurture and personal choice must also play a role - after all, someone sat in a dark room for their whole life is never going to learn enough to be a genius, no matter how much innate potential they may possess. The question, really, is what the balance is on both components.

However, I do find myself wondering about possible unexpected-tangents from research into brain function ... after all, if we do find out precisely what affects or causes intelligence and personality and so on, then it may also make subsequently changing them possible. I seem to recall an article in New Scientist a while back, speculating on the social effects of a 'not-stupid' pill.

[matgb]

I'm probably saying nothing that anyone else hasn't already

Well, the not-stupid pill is good, and you're completely right that neglect would mess anyone up. I think ultimately I want to believe that everyone has equal potential, just different talents/proclivities, but this seems to show that what you're born with makes a huge difference to your potential as well.

I think I'd like some of those pills though.

[jantshira.livejournal.com]

i don't actually believe this, but surely there's an argument for saying anything which can be altered by means of physical manipulation of the brain tissue- which includes personality, intelligence, and possibly even political bias- is dependant on brain tissue, is dependent on cells, and therefore on genes.
on the other hand, there's no reason that a biological parent's *education* would matter, cos an education isn't genetic. It is itself a form of nurture- it's like saying if you cut off a mouse's tail, genetics says its children chould be born without tails. Nonsense.
i think the problems with all this type of research is that scientists instinctivly want to catogorize everything and everyone, whereas real life isn't that simple. People are so vastly different, saying 'people who did X are like Y' is always going to be a massive oversimplification.
Some old quotable person said if the human mind were simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it, which has got to be true