# 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:** 5\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/141 "2008-10-15T12:52:05Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Chief Pedant, do you really want to bring the tarnished history of medical practice into this debate? The way that doctors over decades have persisted in methods and practices that were either unproductive or actively detrimental because that was just how the profession did things then? > > You blew it when you persisted with a definition of nurture based on the time adults spent in undergraduate education. Dude, that’s not _nurture,_ that’s _training_. And you either cannot or will not recognize the distinction. Can you clarify for me the difference between “training” and “nurture?” > [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Instead of dealing with the major flaws in your argument, you talk tough. “In medicine ( a discipline for men, not boys!) we deal with real (though not definable by any recognized scientific process) racial differences! Aargh! I may not be up on the latest peer reviewed studies, but I can kick your ass, boy! How do ya like them apples?!” In the interest of civility, I’d appreciate it if you put quotes attributed to me only around text which I actually wrote. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2008, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/142 "2008-10-16T08:01:11Z")
It seems to me that training in college would fall into the category of “nurture” as that term has been used in this thread. Moreover, I don’t see the point in drawing the distinction between “nurture” and “training.” By the way, **Belowjob** do you agree that this claim: > [@](#): > > Afro-descent children of British West Indian immigrants to England exhibit a temporary gap that lasts only until they acculturate is not supported by the actual article on which it is based? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2008, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/143 "2008-10-17T13:58:29Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I think you’re still mixed up about this. Yes, phenotypic traits such as dark skin and curly hair are mostly caused by genetic factors. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they indicate anything meaningful about shared genetic kinship. > > Yes, I understand that it **seems** intuitively natural to assume that similarity of appearance probably correlates with closeness of genetic kinship. After all, that’s what we’re used to seeing in our own close genetic kin: we tend to look more like our siblings than like our cousins, and more like our first cousins than our fourth cousins, and so on. So if we have light skin, and we see two other people with dark skin, we naturally assume that they probably have a closer genetic kinship with each other than either of them has with us. > > **But that common-sense assumption has been TESTED by DNA analysis and found to be scientifically UNRELIABLE with regard to “racial” categories.** That’s the point I keep trying to get through to you. > > It’s not that I don’t agree with you that it’s natural and logical to assume that racial phenotypic similarity reflects a shared genetic heritage. It’s just that according to scientific testing, this reasonable, logical, common-sense assumption turns out to be largely **UNFOUNDED** , just like the reasonable, logical, common-sense assumption that the earth is flat. What I have seen is the assertion that the amount of genetic diversity is similar among (and between) all populations. This is a different assertion from the assertion that given races don’t share a common heritage for the genetic underpinning of the particular phenotype that typifies their “race,” and I do not disagree that race is a very crude proxy for genetic “purity” so to speak. I have not found the genetic diversity argument particularly compelling given the current state of genomic mapping, but in any case the amount of diversity is not the issue. The issue is whether or not two groups are equally represented for the expression of a particular gene regardless of how intimately connected they are with respect to diversity in general. One might create a cohort, for example, of all humans with trisomy-13. It’s not a compelling argument against a genetic basis for intelligence differences in Down v non-Down Syndrome cohorts to point out that in all other respects both Down and non-Down groups are equally genetically diverse. May I clear up a point? Do you assert that, because “black” or “white” represent cohorts which have equivavlent genetic diversity, observed differences between self-described blacks and self-described whites is unlikely be genetically-based? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2008, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/144 "2008-10-17T21:41:06Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Why is this an important question? Why do some seem to have so much invested in arguing that “race” is a meaningful genetic cohort with implications for intelligence? See post #20. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2008, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152/145 "2008-10-18T02:14:04Z")
(by **DSeid** ): _“Why is this an important question? Why do some seem to have so much invested in arguing that “race” is a meaningful genetic cohort with implications for intelligence?”_ (in reply): > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, the issue is whether there might actually be something to 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. > > 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. Which is probably the reason RWs keep coming back to all this like a dog to its vomit That’s one way of looking at it, but there is an opposite way. If we want to get to a just society, among our considerations needs to be a mechanism via which we can smooth out what might otherwise be markedly differential representation among various cohorts. We won’t create a perfect system but we can hope to get closer to a system which embraces all of us and is as inclusive as possible. There was a time when women had a great deal of trouble qualifying for being firemen. They were genetically less capable–as a group–of meeting standardized strength criteria. What did we do? We didn’t pretend the criteria (say, lifting weight X up a number of stairs) was irrelevant. We didn’t argue there was no difference. We said, instead, “This group is important enough not to be left out. Moreover, there is more to being a firefighter than lugging weights up stairs. Let’s see what we can do to become more inclusive.” In the long run, policy based on incorrect premises is often bad policy. There is, in fact, already a concern that blacks will suffer if race-based affirmative action is replaced by socioeconmic-based (opportunity-based) affirmative action. I referenced earlier a cite pointing out that wealthy blacks score worse than poor whites on the SAT, for instance. It’s not so much an argument that race is a meaningful genetic cohort as it is an argument to say that IF a “race” underperforms because the criterion in question is nature-based (whether or not that cohort is a “genetic cohort” or not) and IF all members of all “races” deserve an equal place in the human family, then we need to take whatever steps necessary to help effect that. The danger of creating policy based on the assumption that all races have equivalent genetic-based ability is that there is no appeal for those who have had equal opportunity but unequal success. In the short term an appeal could be (and is often) made that every unequal success between two given cohorts–races in particular–must be the result of racism and bigotry. But if the “all races must be equal genetically” premise is wrong, this is already destructive, blaming nurture where nature is at fault. And in the long run (if there are real differences in the distribution of some genetic-based abilities) such an approach would leave a legacy of failed programs and continued disparate success rates. We did not argue that women were as genetically strong as men or that the notion there was a strength difference between men and women was incorrect and outdate sexist thnking. We argued that they brought other qualities to the table and that specifically including them was valuable. There may come a day when race is no more. As I look around the US and the World, such a day seems yet a long way off. Let us hope that equality of opportunity for all does not have to wait that long. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-nature-nurture-issue-been-definitely-settled-in-favor-of-nature/467152.md?page=7)