# Has the nature-nurture issue been definitely settled in favor of nature? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 9, 2008, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152 "2008-10-09T13:03:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/1 "2008-10-09T13:03:24Z")
Is it now a proven fact that heredity plays a more important role than environment in determining individual human personality, psychological characteristics, and mental abilities? Because that’s what [John Derbyshire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Derbyshire) is saying in [this](http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2U5YTJiMzhjNDNhZTcwZGYyZjcyMzQyZWNmNjJjN2E=) _National Review_ article referenced in the OP of [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=486994) Pit thread. The interesting thing is, though, he’s not saying it like a climate-change skeptic would stake out his position, defensively and acknowledging the majority of the scientific community supports the contrary position; rather, he is speaking of it as a fact which is well-established and noncontroversial among scientists in the relevant fields, but otherwise is not widely known purely because the extrascientific media and social-political environment discourage attention. Is that so, or is dude living on another planet from the rest of us? ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/2 "2008-10-09T13:48:43Z")
Everything I’ve been reading says that nature and nurture are so intertwined and interdependent that you can’t decide for one or the other. (This would mainly be books written for the layperson to explain complicated science stuff like the study of genetics.) So I might be totally wrong, not being a geneticist or anything, but it sounds suspect to me. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/3 "2008-10-09T13:48:51Z")
BTW, in case I didn’t make it clear: This is mainly about race. Same subject as [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=264439) old thread. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/4 "2008-10-09T14:05:32Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is it now a proven fact that heredity plays a more important role than environment in determining individual human personality, psychological characteristics, and mental abilities? Because that’s what [John Derbyshire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Derbyshire) is saying in [this](http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2U5YTJiMzhjNDNhZTcwZGYyZjcyMzQyZWNmNjJjN2E=) _National Review_ article referenced in the OP of [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=486994) Pit thread. The interesting thing is, though, he’s not saying it like a climate-change skeptic would stake out his position, defensively and acknowledging the majority of the scientific community supports the contrary position; rather, he is speaking of it as a fact which is well-established and noncontroversial among scientists in the relevant fields, but otherwise is not widely known purely because the extrascientific media and social-political environment discourage attention. Is that so, or is dude living on another planet from the rest of us? I don’t know the answer to your question, but I do know that the answer to the nature/nurture question is not some number which is etched in stone like the gravitational constant. e.g. “it’s 60% nature, 40% nurtrure.” As more and more efforts are made to prevent children from growing up in a lousy environment, one can expect that the percentage of differences due to nature will increase. If it was 40/60 100 years ago, it might be 60/40 the other way today. On the other hand, if you believe that inequality has increased over time, then the proportions may have changed in the other direction. > [@](#): > > This is mainly about race. In that case, I think it will be difficult for you to find out if there is any scientific consensus and if so, what that consensus is. In case you haven’t noticed, there is a bit of a taboo against hypothesizing or arguing that natural mental abilities are not distributed evenly among races or ethnic groups. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/5 "2008-10-09T14:13:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > … he is speaking of it as a fact which is well-established and noncontroversial among scientists in the relevant fields, but otherwise is not widely known purely because the extrascientific media and social-political environment discourage attention. Is that so, or is dude living on another planet from the rest of us? Well, there’s obviously intense political pressure to conform to liberal orthodoxy in racial matters, and liberal dogma insists that there is no important genetic difference between the races. When James Watson offered a dissenting view on race and genetics, there was a firestorm which resulted in his resignation from his position at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Here is what Watson said: > [@](#): > > I have always fiercely defended the position that we should base our view of the world on the state of our knowledge, on fact, and not on what we would like it to be. This is why genetics is so important. For it will lead us to answers to many of the big and difficult questions that have troubled people for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. > …Since 1978, when a pail of water was dumped over my Harvard friend E O Wilson for saying that genes influence human behaviour, the assault against human behavioural genetics by wishful thinking has remained vigorous. > > But irrationality must soon recede … science is not here to make us feel good. It is to answer questions in the service of knowledge and greater understanding. > > …We do not yet adequately understand the way in which the different environments in the world have selected over time the genes which determine our capacity to do different things. The overwhelming desire of society today is to assume that equal powers of reason are a universal heritage of humanity. It may well be. But simply wanting this to be the case is not enough. This is not science. > > To question this is not to give in to racism. This is not a discussion about superiority or inferiority, it is about seeking to understand differences, about why some of us are great musicians and others great engineers. (from the Wikipedia article on Watson.) Reasonable people would not have reacted so vehemently. If a scientist of Watson’s prestige can be punished for deviating from political correctness, what hope do the rest of us have? Clearly there are many in the scholarly and scientific community who want the subject to be taboo. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/6 "2008-10-09T14:18:16Z")
“Race” as a meaningful concept genetically is mostly debunked. Fairly little travels in any significantly correlated way with the superficial and cultural characteristics that get defined as “race.” Genetically that is. So if this has to do with race, then, no. If this has to do with broader nature-nurture, damn, we’ve had how many of these GDs before? Many many many twin studies (mainly comparing similarities and differences between identical and fraternal twinships) document that most of the variation between individuals is genetic in nature. Pinker’s _Blank Slate_ is a good review. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/7 "2008-10-09T14:29:35Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > “Race” as a meaningful concept genetically is mostly debunked. The crowd in the [discussion thread](http://www.haloscan.com/comments/raldanash/928624882255820213/?src=hsr#2564551) linked to Derbyshire’s article ain’t got that memo. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/8 "2008-10-09T14:32:03Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > In that case, I think it will be difficult for you to find out if there is any scientific consensus and if so, what that consensus is. In case you haven’t noticed, there is a bit of a taboo against hypothesizing or arguing that natural mental abilities are not distributed evenly among races or ethnic groups. There is “a bit of a taboo,” I’m sure, regarding the flat-Earth theory and creationism, but that does not imply either is worthy of more attention than it gets. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/9 "2008-10-09T14:42:07Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > There is “a bit of a taboo,” I’m sure, regarding the flat-Earth theory and creationism, but that does not imply either is worthy of more attention than it gets. That’s because those questions have been settled. The problem of nature vs. nurture is still very much up in the air. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/10 "2008-10-09T14:42:56Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > That’s because those questions have been settled. The problem of nature vs. nurture is still very much up in the air. Even WRT innate, hereditary IQ differentials between races? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/11 "2008-10-09T14:47:47Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The crowd in the [discussion thread](http://www.haloscan.com/comments/raldanash/928624882255820213/?src=hsr#2564551) linked to Derbyshire’s article ain’t got that memo. Well your op did specify among the serious scientific community. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/12 "2008-10-09T14:49:13Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Even WRT innate, hereditary IQ differentials between races? Yes, pretty much. Myself, I take no position on that subject, as the arguments on neither side satisfy me. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/13 "2008-10-09T14:57:22Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Yes, pretty much. Myself, I take no position on that subject, as the arguments on neither side satisfy me. But you think serious scientific research on the matter is stifled by a “taboo”? What do you base that on? ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/14 "2008-10-09T14:57:29Z")
Ok I had to read the article before commenting, but according to the article: > [@](#): > > Barack Obama was raised in an atmosphere of “cultural Marxism.” His mind was set that way, and he retained the essential precepts of the creed into adult life, as his close association with somewhat-more-than-cultural Marxist Bill Ayers illustrates (as of course do Obama’s remarks quoted above). Obama would fill his administration with cultural Marxists like himself, whose attitude to human-sciences research is the one spelled out by Edward O. Wilson in his book On Human Nature. Come on now. Close association with Ayers? Obama doesn’t have a lcose association with Ayers, serving on a board with him doesn’t make him a conjoined twin. However, as for the **OP** - The new cultural paradigm in nature/nurture research is looking beyond the biology of human development to a more transpersonal approach, looking at human development in a more spherical light, not soley concentrating on the body but integrating all human dimensions (body, instincts,heart, mind, and consciousness) into a fully embodied model of development. This makes sense because we are not simply products of our western educations, we are products of genetics, spirituality, cultural influences, societal influences etc…etc… Ken Wilber looks at the more Integral Approach to human development, a sort of revisioning of what we thought we knew into a more contemporary picture of human development. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/15 "2008-10-09T15:06:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But you think serious scientific research on the matter is stifled by a “taboo”? What do you base that on? Well, I gave the example of James Watson’s dismissal from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. In the article you cited, Derbyshire offers the following incidents: > [@](#): > > While those sociobiology wars were going on — while E.O. Wilson was having a jug of ice water dumped over his head at an AAAS symposium by people shouting “Racist Wilson you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” (1978); while Art Jensen looked set fair to be kicked out of the AAAS altogether following agitation by Margaret Mead et al. because of his 1969 paper on group differences in I.Q.; while Stephen Jay Gould was assuring his readers that “Human equality is a contingent fact of history” (1985) and Richard Lewontin was celebrating “the funeral of reductionism” (1983); while Charles Murray was being profiled in the New York Times Magazine as “America’s most dangerous conservative” (1994) — while all that was happening, research results were steadily trickling in, building up the water pressure behind the nurturist dam. I would add as well the incident in which the president of Harvard was driven to resign because he suggested in an address to the faculty that there might be significant, biologically determined differences in the behavior of men and women, and the vehement reaction to The Bell Curve. Obviously there are many people in the academic world who want the subject to be off-limits. ---
**Author:** ![WF\_Tomba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/16 "2008-10-09T15:08:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is it now a proven fact that heredity plays a more important role than environment in determining individual human personality, psychological characteristics, and mental abilities? Because that’s what [John Derbyshire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Derbyshire) is saying in [this](http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2U5YTJiMzhjNDNhZTcwZGYyZjcyMzQyZWNmNjJjN2E=) _National Review_ article referenced in the OP of [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=486994) Pit thread. To respond directly to Derbyshire’s assertion, I will quote what he says in that NR article: > [@](#): > > The dust of battle has pretty much settled now, in science departments if not in the popular press, and nature is the clear victor. Name any universal characteristic of human nature, including cognitive and personality characteristics. Of all the observed variation in that characteristic, about half is caused by genetic differences. You may say that is only a half victory; but it is a complete shattering of the nurturist absolutism that ruled in the human sciences 40 years ago, and that is still the approved dogma in polite society, including polite political society, today. So genetics accounts for “about half” of observed variation, eh? Yes, Mr. Derbyshire, I do say that is only a half victory. What people used to think 40 years ago is totally irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/17 "2008-10-09T15:21:10Z")
The most recent book I read on the matter, The Blank Slate by Pinker, indicated that it was suprisingly (to me) 50-50 on the genes/environment front. What Pinker thought people would find surprising was that parental influence was not found to be a direct significant factor in the “environment” sense. That seems kind of obvious to me, but then I’m not a parent with a vested interest in my own sense of importance. In any case… race? How would environment affect race? Are you asking whether the environment or genetics is what is responsible for superficial variation in human appearance? I don’t understand how the nature-nurture debate has anything to do with “race.” ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/18 "2008-10-09T15:35:26Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Reasonable people would not have reacted so vehemently. If a scientist of Watson’s prestige can be punished for deviating from political correctness, what hope do the rest of us have? Clearly there are many in the scholarly and scientific community who want the subject to be taboo. As noted at length in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=440637) that was posted at the time, the “violent” reaction was not really within the scientific community; the separate (and not really vehement) negative reaction within the scientific community is based on the fact that he has participated in zero studies of the issue andin this case made some fairly stupid off-hand remarks just before he addressed an audience at a museum. He is also (despite is reputation in the popular (not the scientific) press), not highly regarded within the scientific community. J. Phillippe Rushton (who, unlike Watson), actually does “investigate” the issue of race still gets published regularly. No one is really shutting down examinations of “racial” issues; the evidence simply does not support any of the pro-racial speculation. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/19 "2008-10-09T15:40:50Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Reasonable people would not have reacted so vehemently. If a scientist of Watson’s prestige can be punished for deviating from political correctness, what hope do the rest of us have? Clearly there are many in the scholarly and scientific community who want the subject to be taboo. As noted at length in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=486542) that was posted at the time, the “violent” reaction was not really within the scientific community; the separate (and not really vehement) negative reaction within the scientific community is based on the fact that he has participated in zero studies of the issue andin this case made some fairly stupid off-hand remarks just before he addressed an audience at a museum. He is also (despite is reputation in the popular (not the scientific) press), not highly regarded within the scientific community. J. Phillippe Rushton (who, unlike Watson), actually does “investigate” the issue of race still gets published regularly. No one is really shutting down examinations of “racial” issues; the evidence simply does not support any of the pro-racial speculation. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2008, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/20 "2008-10-09T15:57:04Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > In any case… race? How would environment affect race? Are you asking whether the environment or genetics is what is responsible for superficial variation in human appearance? I don’t understand how the nature-nurture debate has anything to do with “race.” No, the issue is whether there might actually be something to [scientific racism,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism) i.e., the idea that the differential in IQ bell curves observed between white and black Americans (and the differential **is** there, that’s well-established and not at all controversial) is partly or primarily due to hereditary differences in mental ability between the races. See [Race and intelligence.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_IQ) The public-policy implication, of course, is that public money spent to help African-Americans fully develop their minds and overcome their environmental handicaps through improved education, nutrition and health care is wasted, because their mental potential is ineluctably limited by heredity. That was strongly implied in [_The Bell Curve._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve) Which is probably the reason RWs keep coming back to all this like a dog to its vomit. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152.md?page=2)