Home Page »
Philosophy and Psychology

Nature Versus Nurture

In: Philosophy and Psychology

Nature Versus Nurture Nature versus Nurture Psychology 101 The flight test director for Boeing and a drug addict living in a trailer have more in common than you might think; in this case they are siblings. The brothers are born from the same parents, raised in the same home, given the same opportunities, yet polar opposites of one another. Scenarios such as this pose the question of what makes a person who they are, their environment, or their genes. For centuries the controversy between nature and nurture has been argued among experts. The debate is whether environmental influences or genetic inheritance is responsible for our human makeup.
History of Nature versus Nurture From the thirteenth century researcher to present day, the nature nurture controversy is anything but a new topic, although techniques and biases may differ throughout the centuries. In the Beginning In 1874, Francis Galton, published his book English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture, which “lays partial claim to the nature versus nurture phrase” (Groff, 1998, para.1). Galton states nature and nurture, “separates under two distinct heads the innumerable elements of which personality is composed. Nature is all that a man brings with him into the world; nurture is every influence from without that affects him after his birth” (Galton, 1874). However, in 1911 a manuscript was found dating back to the thirteenth century which suggested the terms of nature and nurture as well. Previous to this, the philosophers Aristotle and Plato make the assertion of nature and nurture in the period between 428 B.C and 322 B.C. It is hard to speculate when this debate truly began. As the Pendulum Swings Though nature and nurture were speculated on, the debate did not become widely known until the 1800’s. The pendulum weighed more on the nature side of the debate until the early 1900’s due to men such as Gregor Mendel and his work on inheritance, as well as Charles Darwin and his theory of natural...