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This article is incomplete without mentioning that the universe may be deterministic despite quantum theory producing only probabilities and that free will may be an illusion and thus the universe being deterministic means that "nature", necessarily indistinguishable from "nurture," as all nurture would be carried out deterministically, would "win" this debate with 100% nature being responsible for all human behavior. Someone please incorporate this point into the article. Foober 10:10, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think this should be incorporated here. Perhaps you should create a separate article for that, which could then be referred to here. Crusio 10:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
"Much of current thinking tends to discount the notion of genetics as valid in determining subjectively qualified traits, such as intelligence or personality. "
I've been reading about this lately. Popular thinking is very much soaking up all the "gay gene!", "cancer gene!", "alcoholic gene!" headlines, but while genes can give a predisposition to things such as heart disease, they're not a map of the future. There's been recent research into the intelligence of young children that found that children of middle-class families were smarter than their working class counterparts at a very young age (something like 2 years IIRC). This was not attributed to genes, but rather the environment they grow up in. -- Tarquin 13:41 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)
I cut the following paragraph, which misleads people about biology:
The problem is clear in the example: height certainly does manifest itself over time as one ages. But insofar as height has a "natural" component, it is' present at birth in the genome. It is just that whatever genes code for height do not manifest themselves immediately. But they are there at birth.
The real problem with using height as an example of something that is "nature" but not immediately manifest at birth is that height is of course determined by "nature" and "nurture," or, if you prefer, genes and environment. this is the whole point of Boas's important studies on height; height is clearly highly heritable, but children of immigrants to the US had much higher average adult heights than their parents, presumably because of better nutrition in the US.
I believe nature is best understood as things that are indeed innate (present at birth) as long as we recognize that things that are present at birth genetically may manifest themselves over time. How else are we to distinguish a physical feature like height (that heritable part of it) from physical features like scars -- which appear later in life and do mark the body noticably, but which are clearly not "natural?" Slrubenstein
Well, unless you are a Lamarckian, I think you would have to add at least one sentence -- and cut the second sentence. Slrubenstein
Removing another problematic paragraph:
I don't see much "accuracy" in this paragraph. Specific trouble spots:
-- Ryguasu
You miss the point completely, sometimes, dont you Ryg;) But the statement was brief and any confusion was to be expected. I wrote it after thinking about the nature of the NVN debate as being really just a misnomer - for what, you say?
Simple - at whatever stage of science man is at, his understanding of natural phenomenae is not complete and as such, most specific attempts to tie cause and effect are mistated - at two points in the argument:
--- Sv
I admit that the relationship between "man" and "nature" is an interesting and complex question, though I am less clear on how this readily applies to "nature versus nurture". If "nature versus nurture" frames a conflict, it does so not between "nature" and "man", but between the organism's "nature", on one hand, and the situation in which the organism grows and develops, on the other. Thus I fail to see how any of this is a subtopic of "man mastering nature", or why the latter applies to this particular article.
As for your first point, if you wish me to understand it, you'll need to clarify your vocabulary; I have no idea what you mean by "knowledge of a natural phenomenon, well enough to compare it to an effect." In particular, I don't understand the nature of or motivation for making a distinction between "natural phenomena" and "effects", or what it would mean to "compare" the one to the other. Perhaps I would understand if I'd read some of the authors that have influenced you? -- Ryguasu
sigh. ill work on it. dont have time now. manana..- Sv
I've reordered everything and added some section headings, in hopes that this may make it easier to make the article less redundant and more coherent. Comments are of course welcome.
Also removing this for now:
If this is true, it should be trivial to specify how I would measure the perceived validity of the scientific method given whether people in a given time and place were more in the "nature" camp or the "nurture" camp. It is not obvious to me how this it would done. (It's also not obvious how you easily measure whether people are leaning more towards nature or more towards nurture.)
This may well be the case, but I think it's the subject for another article. -- Ryguasu
Rygu, with all due respect, this article is a mess in progress; any attempt on my part anyone else's to reorder it now would be useless.
Though,in your defense, NVN is really just a euphemistic misnomer for a discussion which carries far too much pretense and assumption in it anyway. Your edits seem to be on the right track toward rendering this article less a reflection of active discussion and more a record of some past confusion. Excellent work.;) - Sv
Sv, I agree that this article is far from ideal. But are you saying an article called "nature versus nurture" cannot possibly be fruitful in any sense? If so, please make a case for its deletion. If not, please either make explicit, constructive comments (say, indicating how I am systematically removing "active discussion" - apparently a good thing - from the article) or stay out of this. Vague expressions of pessimism aren't going to help anyone. -- Ryguasu
"excellent work" = pessimistic. hmm. -- Sv
issue_ comment_ Shaj Miah discuss_variable_ Nature Vs. Nurture
static_ Personal Insight; FROM Physical, Emotional-Intellectual && Spiritual entitiy. temp_restruct_issue_ "Nature AND Nurture". -non vs.
point_ Nurture couldn't have taken a place without Nature_we would even exist right now to even speak && Nature couldn't have taken a place without Nurtures Consciousness.
Subject_ (Mulfunctions, Inheritance, Infections, Accidents, Inhalation- environment, Pesonal/Social Attitude-psycology, mentality/State of Mind Development)
Desease is an internal malfunction. I couldn't say much about it; possible millions of ways of why, when or how it could have occured. It also depends on genes; injury, food comsumtion && psycological conditions that may interrupt basic gene state development/adaptation interrupt.
Food is power. Bangladesh is a place where food isn't properly distributed; therefore why people die from mal-nutrition. Most people are happy with minimal things && live a good life without any major complaints or fuss. Having an open heart helps. Being cold, harsh, mean, doesnt help personal development -that goes against personal grain. Love helps everything; it may cure major psycological issues.
There's no such thing as gay genes. You may know that you may have gays in the family; but that's just knowing and believing. Gaism is inherited from ancient culture, sexual abuse, verbal abuse and other supressions. Where an indivual may dig in and justify it from history. Who wouldn't want a male figure to be dominent. We're a social icon of getting things straight; where we are phycally, mentally and emotionally strong. Overtime; it becomes a mentality of gays who are unble to intake social motor functions to function with others or find it boring, silly from disgust. You may call it rebel or being normal in culture.
Addiction may be inherited; then again it depends on what you were taught; or personaly believed and proceeded. I'd say don't preassue youself with anything that isn't an issue. Remember, alcohol was illigal. Now it being free; you have to make your own choice. It's up to a person to control themselves. They may experience withdrawl; at that time it may be good to get into sports, track, drawing, writing and other means of self expression.
Childhood Development is the most important part of the root of the mind. You may always change your ways; cut denial; accept and adapt; when you feel comfort; you may proceed. One bear step at a time for grizzleys. User:Unixmiah
Hey, Unixmiah - do you always throw around your school papers like this? You should at least put your name under it, in the form of -- ~~~~ . And frankly, those parts of the essay that are not trivial are very much improvable - your assumptions about gay people for example are hardly based on any facts, are they? Anyway, next time you want to make a contribution, a) do bother not just to copy your school essays, but come to the point relevant to the article, and b) sign your entries. -- AlexR 15:51, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
i dont believe in nature. genenics determine our makeup not our life does not mean it cant be changed. how we look, from head to toe may be determined by genetics but genetics are being altered daily. some animals grow faster today than 80 years ago. such as chickens which has been modified to satisfy demand. so nature is nurture. its pure systems, as long as the system maintains certain rules, it stays the same. same as in maintained. for example- people become fat if they eat loads of fatty foods and do no excercise. if they ate a healthy diet and worked out, they are likely to be slim. this is my opinion, fact or not does not matter to me because both nature and nurture are theories in their nature. why school teaches it is by far a waste of time and such as many other theories taught. user:{realcooldude2004}
maybe we don't want to offer "interactional" as a category under the uncomplicated cases section. the title "interactional" is not quite right--everything is interactional--and the cases listed are far from uncomplicated. -- Rikurzhen 05:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
also, AFAIK, height and skin color show >90% heritability. -- Rikurzhen 06:29, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
The section on a child being able to learn every language equally requires some qualification which I'll add in later. Dyslexia and other disorders interfere with some languages more than others, and the pattern can be significant. Language learning generally involves a spoken and written component and a dyslexic who has difficulty with Chinese may be fine with English and vice-versa. It's not a big beef but later I'll insert a comment on how people without notable language impairment should be able to learn any language equally. -- Davril2020 16:59, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
It would be nice to see subsections to the Advanced techniques part, with a paragraph on calculating hertiability (and the importance of unique environmental variance), another for allelic association studies, another for quantitative trait loci mapping etc. Maybe Advanced techniques would be better titled something like Modern techniques... Pete.Hurd 01:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey Lulu, and everyone else. Now that I look over that table some more, I like it less. Eye colour is highly heritable, with estimates ranging from .80 (Brauer & Chopra 1978 Anthropol Anz 36:109-120) to .99 (Zhu et al 2004 Twin Res 7:197-210; Posthuma et al 2005 Behav Genet DOI:10.1007/s10519-005-9007-x), but that doesn't mean that MZ twins are always concordant for eyecolour. At the other end of the table, while choice of which religion to follow is "environmental", attitudes towards organized religion show decently large heritabilities (Olson et al. 2001 J pers Soci Psych. 80:845-860). I think that table really over-simplifies issues, those triats might better be discussed rather than treated as slapped up there as pat answers. What do you think? Pete.Hurd 21:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
As someone who has very recently been re-labelled from "biologist" to "psychologist" and is just catching on to the taxonomy of psychologists let me say, "social psycologists" is a way more restrictive term than I had thought. I like social psychologists, some of my best friends are social psychologists, and not that there's anything wrong with that ;-) these folks lie far outside that realm. Vernon has done some really nice stuff on the heritability of different forms of aggression.
I have some figures (copyrighted unfortunately, scanned from a textbook) that I use in class as part of the intuitive explanation of the math behind heritability. I'll send you copies and see if you think it's worth the effort of making new versions of for WP. Pete.Hurd 09:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I've re-worked one of those figures (how much re-working is required on data figures to clear copyright infringment on the original?). I'm thinking that a second figure, showing graphically the effects discussed below on one trait alone (spatial reasoning or scholastic achievement would be good candidates) might make it all the more clear, but at the risk of enforcing the "two buckets" view.
Cheers, Pete.Hurd 18:46, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm thinking that something similar to this, but that included adopted siblings as well would be even better to illustrate the concept. We would need to invent the hypothetical traits and numbers, but that doesn't seem bad necessarily, as long as we're clear that we're illustrating a concept rather than presenting a specific empirical result.
Trait A (whatever it is) shows a high sibling correlation, but little heritability (M/D/A are close to each other). Trait B shows a high heritability, with strong MZ correlation, middling DZ correlation, and weak adoptive correlation. Trait C shows a slight heritability, but little sibling correlation to start with (i.e. mostly individual environmental different and/or random variation). These patterns are purely stipulated, but then, fixating readers on one particular correlation in one particular study doesn't enhance the conceptual point anyway. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
exactly, that 1-MZ is a really powerful point, MZ!=1 even for eye colour... points all well taken Pete.Hurd 22:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey Lulu, I've been thinking about a nice graphical way to distinguish the "two buckets" view from true enlightenment, and I havn't gotten very far. The following two figures sort of get a bit of the intuitive feel cross, I think, but I'm not super happy with them...
There's been some progress lately on fixing heritability, and User:Samsara might be a good person to ask for input on this as well. I'll ask him if he has time to help. Pete.Hurd 06:12, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
The WP article on Judith Rich Harris is a stub and no article has been written about her book The Nurture Assumption [1], but you might want to keep her "Group Socialization Theory" in mind when crafting descriptions about the meaning of nontrivial e^2 and low c^2 in this article:
-- Rikurzhen 03:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
The "Misc" section looks delete-able to me... Pete.Hurd 06:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if this has been addressed, but in the table displaying a list of entirely nature versus enirely nurtured traits, there are no citations.
I don't know if you're aware, but the opening statement is the exact same as the beginning paragraph to this article at Answers.com (I don't know who copied who, but I'd suggest rephrasing?)
"[These interactional traits are, in a sense, "complexly determined"]"- This a mere word invention, (What If I want to call it "not-completely determined")- I will remove, it's not properly objective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.248.97.99 ( talk • contribs)
That thing about being influenced by genes determing a person's intelligence by 80% makes absolutely no sense. The article doesn't even source it and defies logic. It's proven that there's a point in someone's life, usually from 11-13, that, in a sense, a person's brain hardens, where all the basic and integral parts of a person's psyche are most ingrained. Not to say that their psyche can't be affected throughout their life, but that bit about 80% is insanity. How could heritability studies tell how genes from thier parents could pop up so much later? How could genes really pop up that much later? It's an impossibility, that bit should be removed. I've studied heritability extensively and that part is plain junk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.196.153 ( talk • contribs)
Alright, here's where I got the thing about solidification: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-intervention.htm
I really don't agree with a whole lot of that site but could you please explain to me how traits could pop up late into adulthood and go as high as 80%? Please, explain. This would mean that a person's intellectual development and psyche would change drastically only in the early years of adulthood. Oh wait.... I think I misunderstood it. Is this reffering to the idea that the genetic contribution of intelligence to a person's descendents is about 80% of the parent's intelligence at adulthood? That would actually make sense, I think the article should clarify that too. I guess I mistook it for biological determinism, sorry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.196.153 ( talk • contribs)
Oh! Yeah, I get it now, thanks for clarifying.
Wait, actually, I have another question- does this also indicate the idea that a person with this heritability level of 80%, will produce offspring with 80% of their intelligence determined by the parent or what?
Oh, I see. I think that's something that should be revised in the article, because the current version is rather vague and might make some people think similarly to my first conclusion or my recent question.
Wait, I still don't get what you mean there. Does what you say refer to what I said about a person's offspring having 80% of their intelligence determined by their parent's genetics?
Uh, hello?
Ok, going in accordance with this, I have one, last question:
Is a person's intelligence, on average, determined 50% by genes and 50% by environment, or what? Also, do the environmental gains on a person's IQ translate into heritable IQ?
Ok, thanks for answering anyway. But in your opinion, what would you say is the average contribution to someone's intelligence in terms of environment and genetics?
The History section discusses the impact of science on society, but not the impact of engineering. While the science of behaviorism is in its infancy, and as such has not yet given rise to noticeably useful behavioral engineering, note that in other areas of conflict between science and various cultural or religious orthodoxies, the trend has been for society to be won over almost precisely when science gives rise to engineering which delivers more in the way of desirable benefits than the pre-existing orthodoxies were delivering. If this pattern holds in the future, we might predict, for example, that if a scientific theory of human behavior gives rise to a therapy which cuts recidivism among criminals to zero, at far less cost than the current criminal justice system, the benefits to society and to the former criminals themselves would probably cause people either to abandon their previous orthodox beliefs (which were not even as effective as prisons for preventing crime), or to modify their orthodox beliefs so as to accommodate the newly demonstrated scientific reality. Every religious world view is subject to revision (not to mention schism), as demonstrated by large segments of Christianity, which have famously reversed or adjusted their positions on such issues as slavery, geocentrism, and usury, and are now in a gradual struggle to liberalize their views on divorce and homosexuality. As another example, it is fashionable for Muslim radicals who claim to reject what they consider to be godless Western values to pose for photos with the AK-47 as a prop. The AK-47 easily overcomes its origin in an officially atheistic country because it is a demonstrably excellent light infantry weapon. In any case, during the early stages of a scientific discovery, when scientists are merely challenging orthodoxy without doing anything that makes people feel better than the existing orthodoxies make them feel, then of course the layman is going to have a problem with the new ideas (when they are merely troubling as opposed to useful), because the average person tends to judge the truth of ideas according to how they make him feel. Teratornis 18:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC) Pete Hurd get a life you nerd
Just a small thought on the history of the nature-nurture debate. Anybody notice that it is almost exclusively behavioral characteristics that generate this debate, but not morphological characters, such as body lenght and such? Also, the debate concerns almost exclusively Homo sapiens, not other species. Crusio 22:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
this article give undue weight to the influence of genetics or Nature. If it is a debate then both sides need to be heard. for example
this is POV because it does not quantify how many important human traits and how partial or "how mostly" they are genetic. Muntuwandi 15:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The reason why the article gives such weight to genetics,is because, quite frnakly, nature kicks nurture's ass in most twin and adoption studies. To state this is a scientific way: The portion of the variance for most traits (like adult IQ and the Big 5 Personality Traits) that can be attributed to heritability (i.e., the effect of genes) is substantial, while that portion attributed to the effects of family environoment (i.e., those effects shared by two siblings reared in the same home) is often negligible. I do not see anything controversial about this from a scientific point of view (hundreds of twin and adoption studies confirm this), so I removed the banner. Although the "nurture" component often turns out to be a big dud, all traits are at least partially heritable.
Boab
20:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually, Boab, some scientists do wonder why h2 estimates in human studies turn out so high. In most studies of animal behavior, h2 is much MUCH lower. And in the latter studies, one does everything porssible to "boost" h2: rear all animals in an environment that is as standardized as possible, for instance. I didn't really agree with Muntuwandi's comment, but I don't agree with yours either. If you have access to it, read "Beyond Nature and Nurture in Psychiatry" edited by Jim McCabe (Informa Healthcare Publishers). There's an interesting chapter in there suggesting that because of their very design, human behavior genetics studies are bound to underestimate the effects of shared environment and, hence, overestimate h2. Crusio 22:22, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
The Polgar "experiment" is hardly "famous", except maybe in chess circles. Classic examples of empirical research into this topic would include things such as the Tryon (1940)/Cooper & Zubek (1958) experiments, but these are already covered under the Gene-environment interaction article, where they belong. Which raises the biggest problem with the addition of the Polgar paragraph, that it's totally out of place, explains nothing about the subject, and wrong in spirit. The topic of this article is explaining the concept of the "Nature versus nurture" debate, and why it is now viewed as a completely muddle-headed distinction. Adding this example, which takes the question at face value, simply shows that the editor either doesn't understand the article, or perhaps more likely, hasn't read it. The experiment might be worthy of mention in László Polgár related articles, but to include it here just shows that, whatever they know about chess, the Polgars don't know up from down when it comes to behavioural genetics. That's why I reverted the edit. Pete.Hurd 16:21, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
This article is extremely biased in favor of the hereditarian position. On the heritability of IQ, it cites just ONE source, that being Bouchard- and this study giving a ridiculously high heritability- .86! Most twin studies show an average heritability of .50, and the hereditarian position typically gives a range of .70-.80, not the nearly .90 given here. Who put this garbage together? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.68.182 ( talk) 20:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I guess I did misread it, sorry- still, why is there such a lack of direct details on average heritabilities of IQ on this page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.68.182 ( talk) 03:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Same commenter here- I know alot about behavior genetics, but either way, it should be considered on how this article gives such scant details. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danube07 ( talk • contribs) 04:47, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
It is impossible for nurture (upbringing) to determine PHYSICAL traits. The first sentence is absurd to the extent that it includes this reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JackStoneIsRight ( talk • contribs) 03:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
"many modern psychologists consider the question naive - representing an outdated state of knowledge." How many? Is there a consensus? -- Coching ( talk) 04:06, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in those issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk) 02:57, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Good work here on discussion of heritability estimates. In many respects, this article has the best discussion of the concept of heritability among the several Wikipedia articles that mention the concept. I'll read the section carefully several times as I delve into sources on the issue that I hope to use as a basis for updating the other articles on Wikipedia that mention heritability. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk) 22:13, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I believe it's a bad idea to give the rectangle quote from Donald Hebb such prominence. Rather than illustrating a single cause fallacy, it actually makes a fallacy by implying you can't identify independent contributions of genes vs. environment. Indeed, you can distinguish the two with pretty good resolution using behavioral genetic method, and eventually with great resolution using genome scans.
The rectangle metaphor is flawed because, if you had a "population" of rectangles, you could indeed see whether variation in area was caused more by height or by width, using the same methods already used in behavior genetics.
I'm not against including this in the article, but I just want to note that it make a contentious, and in the view of many professionals who study the nature vs nurture question--false, view. Thus, I think we should move it down into the Scientific Approach section, where it can be discussed/critiqued.-- Babank ( talk) 22:21, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
Huh? What theory is referred to in the first sentence? I can't understand this section, and the very term "debunking" is rather inflammatory.It does have a reference, apparently on primate behavior. While I can see the connection to the issue, normally people are talking about human behavior in this subject. Should this section just be deleted? Robertmacl ( talk) 20:07, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
This article is incomplete without mentioning that the universe may be deterministic despite quantum theory producing only probabilities and that free will may be an illusion and thus the universe being deterministic means that "nature", necessarily indistinguishable from "nurture," as all nurture would be carried out deterministically, would "win" this debate with 100% nature being responsible for all human behavior. Someone please incorporate this point into the article. Foober 10:10, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think this should be incorporated here. Perhaps you should create a separate article for that, which could then be referred to here. Crusio 10:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
"Much of current thinking tends to discount the notion of genetics as valid in determining subjectively qualified traits, such as intelligence or personality. "
I've been reading about this lately. Popular thinking is very much soaking up all the "gay gene!", "cancer gene!", "alcoholic gene!" headlines, but while genes can give a predisposition to things such as heart disease, they're not a map of the future. There's been recent research into the intelligence of young children that found that children of middle-class families were smarter than their working class counterparts at a very young age (something like 2 years IIRC). This was not attributed to genes, but rather the environment they grow up in. -- Tarquin 13:41 Jan 2, 2003 (UTC)
I cut the following paragraph, which misleads people about biology:
The problem is clear in the example: height certainly does manifest itself over time as one ages. But insofar as height has a "natural" component, it is' present at birth in the genome. It is just that whatever genes code for height do not manifest themselves immediately. But they are there at birth.
The real problem with using height as an example of something that is "nature" but not immediately manifest at birth is that height is of course determined by "nature" and "nurture," or, if you prefer, genes and environment. this is the whole point of Boas's important studies on height; height is clearly highly heritable, but children of immigrants to the US had much higher average adult heights than their parents, presumably because of better nutrition in the US.
I believe nature is best understood as things that are indeed innate (present at birth) as long as we recognize that things that are present at birth genetically may manifest themselves over time. How else are we to distinguish a physical feature like height (that heritable part of it) from physical features like scars -- which appear later in life and do mark the body noticably, but which are clearly not "natural?" Slrubenstein
Well, unless you are a Lamarckian, I think you would have to add at least one sentence -- and cut the second sentence. Slrubenstein
Removing another problematic paragraph:
I don't see much "accuracy" in this paragraph. Specific trouble spots:
-- Ryguasu
You miss the point completely, sometimes, dont you Ryg;) But the statement was brief and any confusion was to be expected. I wrote it after thinking about the nature of the NVN debate as being really just a misnomer - for what, you say?
Simple - at whatever stage of science man is at, his understanding of natural phenomenae is not complete and as such, most specific attempts to tie cause and effect are mistated - at two points in the argument:
--- Sv
I admit that the relationship between "man" and "nature" is an interesting and complex question, though I am less clear on how this readily applies to "nature versus nurture". If "nature versus nurture" frames a conflict, it does so not between "nature" and "man", but between the organism's "nature", on one hand, and the situation in which the organism grows and develops, on the other. Thus I fail to see how any of this is a subtopic of "man mastering nature", or why the latter applies to this particular article.
As for your first point, if you wish me to understand it, you'll need to clarify your vocabulary; I have no idea what you mean by "knowledge of a natural phenomenon, well enough to compare it to an effect." In particular, I don't understand the nature of or motivation for making a distinction between "natural phenomena" and "effects", or what it would mean to "compare" the one to the other. Perhaps I would understand if I'd read some of the authors that have influenced you? -- Ryguasu
sigh. ill work on it. dont have time now. manana..- Sv
I've reordered everything and added some section headings, in hopes that this may make it easier to make the article less redundant and more coherent. Comments are of course welcome.
Also removing this for now:
If this is true, it should be trivial to specify how I would measure the perceived validity of the scientific method given whether people in a given time and place were more in the "nature" camp or the "nurture" camp. It is not obvious to me how this it would done. (It's also not obvious how you easily measure whether people are leaning more towards nature or more towards nurture.)
This may well be the case, but I think it's the subject for another article. -- Ryguasu
Rygu, with all due respect, this article is a mess in progress; any attempt on my part anyone else's to reorder it now would be useless.
Though,in your defense, NVN is really just a euphemistic misnomer for a discussion which carries far too much pretense and assumption in it anyway. Your edits seem to be on the right track toward rendering this article less a reflection of active discussion and more a record of some past confusion. Excellent work.;) - Sv
Sv, I agree that this article is far from ideal. But are you saying an article called "nature versus nurture" cannot possibly be fruitful in any sense? If so, please make a case for its deletion. If not, please either make explicit, constructive comments (say, indicating how I am systematically removing "active discussion" - apparently a good thing - from the article) or stay out of this. Vague expressions of pessimism aren't going to help anyone. -- Ryguasu
"excellent work" = pessimistic. hmm. -- Sv
issue_ comment_ Shaj Miah discuss_variable_ Nature Vs. Nurture
static_ Personal Insight; FROM Physical, Emotional-Intellectual && Spiritual entitiy. temp_restruct_issue_ "Nature AND Nurture". -non vs.
point_ Nurture couldn't have taken a place without Nature_we would even exist right now to even speak && Nature couldn't have taken a place without Nurtures Consciousness.
Subject_ (Mulfunctions, Inheritance, Infections, Accidents, Inhalation- environment, Pesonal/Social Attitude-psycology, mentality/State of Mind Development)
Desease is an internal malfunction. I couldn't say much about it; possible millions of ways of why, when or how it could have occured. It also depends on genes; injury, food comsumtion && psycological conditions that may interrupt basic gene state development/adaptation interrupt.
Food is power. Bangladesh is a place where food isn't properly distributed; therefore why people die from mal-nutrition. Most people are happy with minimal things && live a good life without any major complaints or fuss. Having an open heart helps. Being cold, harsh, mean, doesnt help personal development -that goes against personal grain. Love helps everything; it may cure major psycological issues.
There's no such thing as gay genes. You may know that you may have gays in the family; but that's just knowing and believing. Gaism is inherited from ancient culture, sexual abuse, verbal abuse and other supressions. Where an indivual may dig in and justify it from history. Who wouldn't want a male figure to be dominent. We're a social icon of getting things straight; where we are phycally, mentally and emotionally strong. Overtime; it becomes a mentality of gays who are unble to intake social motor functions to function with others or find it boring, silly from disgust. You may call it rebel or being normal in culture.
Addiction may be inherited; then again it depends on what you were taught; or personaly believed and proceeded. I'd say don't preassue youself with anything that isn't an issue. Remember, alcohol was illigal. Now it being free; you have to make your own choice. It's up to a person to control themselves. They may experience withdrawl; at that time it may be good to get into sports, track, drawing, writing and other means of self expression.
Childhood Development is the most important part of the root of the mind. You may always change your ways; cut denial; accept and adapt; when you feel comfort; you may proceed. One bear step at a time for grizzleys. User:Unixmiah
Hey, Unixmiah - do you always throw around your school papers like this? You should at least put your name under it, in the form of -- ~~~~ . And frankly, those parts of the essay that are not trivial are very much improvable - your assumptions about gay people for example are hardly based on any facts, are they? Anyway, next time you want to make a contribution, a) do bother not just to copy your school essays, but come to the point relevant to the article, and b) sign your entries. -- AlexR 15:51, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
i dont believe in nature. genenics determine our makeup not our life does not mean it cant be changed. how we look, from head to toe may be determined by genetics but genetics are being altered daily. some animals grow faster today than 80 years ago. such as chickens which has been modified to satisfy demand. so nature is nurture. its pure systems, as long as the system maintains certain rules, it stays the same. same as in maintained. for example- people become fat if they eat loads of fatty foods and do no excercise. if they ate a healthy diet and worked out, they are likely to be slim. this is my opinion, fact or not does not matter to me because both nature and nurture are theories in their nature. why school teaches it is by far a waste of time and such as many other theories taught. user:{realcooldude2004}
maybe we don't want to offer "interactional" as a category under the uncomplicated cases section. the title "interactional" is not quite right--everything is interactional--and the cases listed are far from uncomplicated. -- Rikurzhen 05:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
also, AFAIK, height and skin color show >90% heritability. -- Rikurzhen 06:29, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
The section on a child being able to learn every language equally requires some qualification which I'll add in later. Dyslexia and other disorders interfere with some languages more than others, and the pattern can be significant. Language learning generally involves a spoken and written component and a dyslexic who has difficulty with Chinese may be fine with English and vice-versa. It's not a big beef but later I'll insert a comment on how people without notable language impairment should be able to learn any language equally. -- Davril2020 16:59, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
It would be nice to see subsections to the Advanced techniques part, with a paragraph on calculating hertiability (and the importance of unique environmental variance), another for allelic association studies, another for quantitative trait loci mapping etc. Maybe Advanced techniques would be better titled something like Modern techniques... Pete.Hurd 01:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey Lulu, and everyone else. Now that I look over that table some more, I like it less. Eye colour is highly heritable, with estimates ranging from .80 (Brauer & Chopra 1978 Anthropol Anz 36:109-120) to .99 (Zhu et al 2004 Twin Res 7:197-210; Posthuma et al 2005 Behav Genet DOI:10.1007/s10519-005-9007-x), but that doesn't mean that MZ twins are always concordant for eyecolour. At the other end of the table, while choice of which religion to follow is "environmental", attitudes towards organized religion show decently large heritabilities (Olson et al. 2001 J pers Soci Psych. 80:845-860). I think that table really over-simplifies issues, those triats might better be discussed rather than treated as slapped up there as pat answers. What do you think? Pete.Hurd 21:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
As someone who has very recently been re-labelled from "biologist" to "psychologist" and is just catching on to the taxonomy of psychologists let me say, "social psycologists" is a way more restrictive term than I had thought. I like social psychologists, some of my best friends are social psychologists, and not that there's anything wrong with that ;-) these folks lie far outside that realm. Vernon has done some really nice stuff on the heritability of different forms of aggression.
I have some figures (copyrighted unfortunately, scanned from a textbook) that I use in class as part of the intuitive explanation of the math behind heritability. I'll send you copies and see if you think it's worth the effort of making new versions of for WP. Pete.Hurd 09:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I've re-worked one of those figures (how much re-working is required on data figures to clear copyright infringment on the original?). I'm thinking that a second figure, showing graphically the effects discussed below on one trait alone (spatial reasoning or scholastic achievement would be good candidates) might make it all the more clear, but at the risk of enforcing the "two buckets" view.
Cheers, Pete.Hurd 18:46, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm thinking that something similar to this, but that included adopted siblings as well would be even better to illustrate the concept. We would need to invent the hypothetical traits and numbers, but that doesn't seem bad necessarily, as long as we're clear that we're illustrating a concept rather than presenting a specific empirical result.
Trait A (whatever it is) shows a high sibling correlation, but little heritability (M/D/A are close to each other). Trait B shows a high heritability, with strong MZ correlation, middling DZ correlation, and weak adoptive correlation. Trait C shows a slight heritability, but little sibling correlation to start with (i.e. mostly individual environmental different and/or random variation). These patterns are purely stipulated, but then, fixating readers on one particular correlation in one particular study doesn't enhance the conceptual point anyway. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
exactly, that 1-MZ is a really powerful point, MZ!=1 even for eye colour... points all well taken Pete.Hurd 22:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey Lulu, I've been thinking about a nice graphical way to distinguish the "two buckets" view from true enlightenment, and I havn't gotten very far. The following two figures sort of get a bit of the intuitive feel cross, I think, but I'm not super happy with them...
There's been some progress lately on fixing heritability, and User:Samsara might be a good person to ask for input on this as well. I'll ask him if he has time to help. Pete.Hurd 06:12, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
The WP article on Judith Rich Harris is a stub and no article has been written about her book The Nurture Assumption [1], but you might want to keep her "Group Socialization Theory" in mind when crafting descriptions about the meaning of nontrivial e^2 and low c^2 in this article:
-- Rikurzhen 03:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
The "Misc" section looks delete-able to me... Pete.Hurd 06:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if this has been addressed, but in the table displaying a list of entirely nature versus enirely nurtured traits, there are no citations.
I don't know if you're aware, but the opening statement is the exact same as the beginning paragraph to this article at Answers.com (I don't know who copied who, but I'd suggest rephrasing?)
"[These interactional traits are, in a sense, "complexly determined"]"- This a mere word invention, (What If I want to call it "not-completely determined")- I will remove, it's not properly objective. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.248.97.99 ( talk • contribs)
That thing about being influenced by genes determing a person's intelligence by 80% makes absolutely no sense. The article doesn't even source it and defies logic. It's proven that there's a point in someone's life, usually from 11-13, that, in a sense, a person's brain hardens, where all the basic and integral parts of a person's psyche are most ingrained. Not to say that their psyche can't be affected throughout their life, but that bit about 80% is insanity. How could heritability studies tell how genes from thier parents could pop up so much later? How could genes really pop up that much later? It's an impossibility, that bit should be removed. I've studied heritability extensively and that part is plain junk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.196.153 ( talk • contribs)
Alright, here's where I got the thing about solidification: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-intervention.htm
I really don't agree with a whole lot of that site but could you please explain to me how traits could pop up late into adulthood and go as high as 80%? Please, explain. This would mean that a person's intellectual development and psyche would change drastically only in the early years of adulthood. Oh wait.... I think I misunderstood it. Is this reffering to the idea that the genetic contribution of intelligence to a person's descendents is about 80% of the parent's intelligence at adulthood? That would actually make sense, I think the article should clarify that too. I guess I mistook it for biological determinism, sorry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.196.153 ( talk • contribs)
Oh! Yeah, I get it now, thanks for clarifying.
Wait, actually, I have another question- does this also indicate the idea that a person with this heritability level of 80%, will produce offspring with 80% of their intelligence determined by the parent or what?
Oh, I see. I think that's something that should be revised in the article, because the current version is rather vague and might make some people think similarly to my first conclusion or my recent question.
Wait, I still don't get what you mean there. Does what you say refer to what I said about a person's offspring having 80% of their intelligence determined by their parent's genetics?
Uh, hello?
Ok, going in accordance with this, I have one, last question:
Is a person's intelligence, on average, determined 50% by genes and 50% by environment, or what? Also, do the environmental gains on a person's IQ translate into heritable IQ?
Ok, thanks for answering anyway. But in your opinion, what would you say is the average contribution to someone's intelligence in terms of environment and genetics?
The History section discusses the impact of science on society, but not the impact of engineering. While the science of behaviorism is in its infancy, and as such has not yet given rise to noticeably useful behavioral engineering, note that in other areas of conflict between science and various cultural or religious orthodoxies, the trend has been for society to be won over almost precisely when science gives rise to engineering which delivers more in the way of desirable benefits than the pre-existing orthodoxies were delivering. If this pattern holds in the future, we might predict, for example, that if a scientific theory of human behavior gives rise to a therapy which cuts recidivism among criminals to zero, at far less cost than the current criminal justice system, the benefits to society and to the former criminals themselves would probably cause people either to abandon their previous orthodox beliefs (which were not even as effective as prisons for preventing crime), or to modify their orthodox beliefs so as to accommodate the newly demonstrated scientific reality. Every religious world view is subject to revision (not to mention schism), as demonstrated by large segments of Christianity, which have famously reversed or adjusted their positions on such issues as slavery, geocentrism, and usury, and are now in a gradual struggle to liberalize their views on divorce and homosexuality. As another example, it is fashionable for Muslim radicals who claim to reject what they consider to be godless Western values to pose for photos with the AK-47 as a prop. The AK-47 easily overcomes its origin in an officially atheistic country because it is a demonstrably excellent light infantry weapon. In any case, during the early stages of a scientific discovery, when scientists are merely challenging orthodoxy without doing anything that makes people feel better than the existing orthodoxies make them feel, then of course the layman is going to have a problem with the new ideas (when they are merely troubling as opposed to useful), because the average person tends to judge the truth of ideas according to how they make him feel. Teratornis 18:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC) Pete Hurd get a life you nerd
Just a small thought on the history of the nature-nurture debate. Anybody notice that it is almost exclusively behavioral characteristics that generate this debate, but not morphological characters, such as body lenght and such? Also, the debate concerns almost exclusively Homo sapiens, not other species. Crusio 22:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
this article give undue weight to the influence of genetics or Nature. If it is a debate then both sides need to be heard. for example
this is POV because it does not quantify how many important human traits and how partial or "how mostly" they are genetic. Muntuwandi 15:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The reason why the article gives such weight to genetics,is because, quite frnakly, nature kicks nurture's ass in most twin and adoption studies. To state this is a scientific way: The portion of the variance for most traits (like adult IQ and the Big 5 Personality Traits) that can be attributed to heritability (i.e., the effect of genes) is substantial, while that portion attributed to the effects of family environoment (i.e., those effects shared by two siblings reared in the same home) is often negligible. I do not see anything controversial about this from a scientific point of view (hundreds of twin and adoption studies confirm this), so I removed the banner. Although the "nurture" component often turns out to be a big dud, all traits are at least partially heritable.
Boab
20:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually, Boab, some scientists do wonder why h2 estimates in human studies turn out so high. In most studies of animal behavior, h2 is much MUCH lower. And in the latter studies, one does everything porssible to "boost" h2: rear all animals in an environment that is as standardized as possible, for instance. I didn't really agree with Muntuwandi's comment, but I don't agree with yours either. If you have access to it, read "Beyond Nature and Nurture in Psychiatry" edited by Jim McCabe (Informa Healthcare Publishers). There's an interesting chapter in there suggesting that because of their very design, human behavior genetics studies are bound to underestimate the effects of shared environment and, hence, overestimate h2. Crusio 22:22, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
The Polgar "experiment" is hardly "famous", except maybe in chess circles. Classic examples of empirical research into this topic would include things such as the Tryon (1940)/Cooper & Zubek (1958) experiments, but these are already covered under the Gene-environment interaction article, where they belong. Which raises the biggest problem with the addition of the Polgar paragraph, that it's totally out of place, explains nothing about the subject, and wrong in spirit. The topic of this article is explaining the concept of the "Nature versus nurture" debate, and why it is now viewed as a completely muddle-headed distinction. Adding this example, which takes the question at face value, simply shows that the editor either doesn't understand the article, or perhaps more likely, hasn't read it. The experiment might be worthy of mention in László Polgár related articles, but to include it here just shows that, whatever they know about chess, the Polgars don't know up from down when it comes to behavioural genetics. That's why I reverted the edit. Pete.Hurd 16:21, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
This article is extremely biased in favor of the hereditarian position. On the heritability of IQ, it cites just ONE source, that being Bouchard- and this study giving a ridiculously high heritability- .86! Most twin studies show an average heritability of .50, and the hereditarian position typically gives a range of .70-.80, not the nearly .90 given here. Who put this garbage together? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.68.182 ( talk) 20:08, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I guess I did misread it, sorry- still, why is there such a lack of direct details on average heritabilities of IQ on this page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.103.68.182 ( talk) 03:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Same commenter here- I know alot about behavior genetics, but either way, it should be considered on how this article gives such scant details. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danube07 ( talk • contribs) 04:47, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
It is impossible for nurture (upbringing) to determine PHYSICAL traits. The first sentence is absurd to the extent that it includes this reference. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JackStoneIsRight ( talk • contribs) 03:41, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
"many modern psychologists consider the question naive - representing an outdated state of knowledge." How many? Is there a consensus? -- Coching ( talk) 04:06, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in those issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk) 02:57, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
Good work here on discussion of heritability estimates. In many respects, this article has the best discussion of the concept of heritability among the several Wikipedia articles that mention the concept. I'll read the section carefully several times as I delve into sources on the issue that I hope to use as a basis for updating the other articles on Wikipedia that mention heritability. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk) 22:13, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
I believe it's a bad idea to give the rectangle quote from Donald Hebb such prominence. Rather than illustrating a single cause fallacy, it actually makes a fallacy by implying you can't identify independent contributions of genes vs. environment. Indeed, you can distinguish the two with pretty good resolution using behavioral genetic method, and eventually with great resolution using genome scans.
The rectangle metaphor is flawed because, if you had a "population" of rectangles, you could indeed see whether variation in area was caused more by height or by width, using the same methods already used in behavior genetics.
I'm not against including this in the article, but I just want to note that it make a contentious, and in the view of many professionals who study the nature vs nurture question--false, view. Thus, I think we should move it down into the Scientific Approach section, where it can be discussed/critiqued.-- Babank ( talk) 22:21, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
Huh? What theory is referred to in the first sentence? I can't understand this section, and the very term "debunking" is rather inflammatory.It does have a reference, apparently on primate behavior. While I can see the connection to the issue, normally people are talking about human behavior in this subject. Should this section just be deleted? Robertmacl ( talk) 20:07, 31 December 2011 (UTC)