Bid Farewell to the Nature vs Nurture Debate
The nature vs nurture debate date’s back to Aristotle and Plato but now a research team from the University of Iowa published a document calling for the “Nature vs Nurture” debate to be tossed out, saying it reigned for centuries partly because of convenience and intellectual laziness.
Lead author Psychologist John Spencer says “People have tried for centuries to shift the debate one way or the other, and it’s just been a pendulum swinging back and forth. We’re taking the radical position that the smarter thing is to just say “neither” – to throw out the debate as it has been historically framed and embrace the alternative perspective provided by development systems theory.”
Development systems theory maintains that genes are expressed at every point in development and influenced or affected at all times by environmental factors, like diet, environmental toxins, parental behaviour and socioeconomic status of a family.
You can argue that this means of course that it is both nature and nurture but I agree that this statement is far too simple for the complexity of how genes and environment interacts to shape a developing child.
And so, we move on to argue the finer details of how not getting that favorite toy for Christmas is going to affect your child genetically.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090720163723.htm
