Nature or Nurture

[mellowyellow]

Nature or Nurture


Charles Manson three days before running away from Boy's Town juvenile facility, 1949

Three examples of the debate, both sides have merit IMO, although I tend to lean towards genes from parents/ancestors.

High Blood Pressure – is high blood pressure passed genetically from parent to child. Does a person acquire the risk of high blood pressure or become obese merely because the parent developed the same risk? Nature advocates argue that genetics have a high impact on obesity and high blood pressure. Nurture proponents point to the poor eating habits that cause obesity and the limited ability to regulate personal habits that lead to high blood pressure.

Champion athlete - When a professional athlete has a child that also becomes a professional athlete, is that nature or nurture. Was the athletic ability passed genetically through birth or was it a behavior learned through countless hours of repetition and practice.

Personality – how does a child develop their personality? Is it because of the genes inherited through the parents and their ancestors or learned behaviour from their environment.

 

[Jeni]

I think too many people want solid answers for items that simply do not have them.....
I have seen what i would call real life examples of each trait above.....

BP or Obesity is tied to lifestyle and eating habits..... a child can avoid the same fate if parent had these items..... maybe it is something to consider a family history but that is not a guarantee. I have seen obese kids in thin families and visa versa.

Perhaps if more would look and realize i may need to adjust behavior not just say "well parents had this so i have it case closed."

Some recent NOOM commercials they are teaching people their overeating was taught to them and NOT their fault... as long as your a victim and nothing is your responsibility...
I do not understand this as i have known many people who are not stuck in childhood patterns doing everything like what they saw etc. I have noticed many simply quit maturing at about JR high school level.... and just do the same and Expect a different result.

Champion athletes - there have been many kids of famous athletes who maybe had more skill or had better coaching and practice and surpassed their parent ........
there have also been many thinking their name would give them a chance but practice was not important and they fail to live up to the hope.

Personality - can be a combo of sense of humor your parents had but very often the influences ( good or bad) for teen to young adult have a lasting impression on a person.

 

[Alligatorob]

Nature or Nurture

Some of both.

Without his awful childhood Manson might not have been a serial killer, but then a lot of people with awful childhoods are able to overcome them and be good people. In fact some of the members of this forum may be good examples of that.

And not all serial killers had a bad childhood, Ted Bundy and Jeff Dahmer for example. See: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201212/the-making-serial-killer

Same with champion athletes, it takes a lot of natural ability, but that alone without a whole lot of training and focus is not usually enough.

 

[dseag2]

Mellowyellow, this is a great, thought-provoking post. Very hard to say.

I hope you don't mind if I take this in a different direction, but this is a question frequently asked about gay people. I am gay. My father was gay but married. One of his brothers also had a gay son. My partner is (obviously) gay and so is his brother. This really had nothing to do with nurture.

My mother and father suffered from depression and anxiety. I have as well. Both were OCD and clean-freaks. I am as well. My father was a "numbers" guy and had a good financial mind. I do as well, although it has never been something I've been interested in or have pursued. I had to get involved in finances when he passed away to manage his estate. It later became an important part of my career as I managed a budget for a sales team. So, I tend to believe nature as well in these cases.

 

[Nathan]

I am gay. My father was gay but married. One of his brothers also had a gay son. My partner is (obviously) gay and so is his brother. This really had nothing to do with nurture.

Interesting, it appears that your DNA lineage contains the Xq28 marker on the X chromosome that determines male sexual orientation.
My son is gay, and even though there was no early indication from his behavior growing up, I sensed it...guess I have always had gaydar.
I have no "known" relatives(other than my son) that are/were gay, of course they would be deep in the closet if they were.

 

[Marie5656]

I am reminded of the case f the Reimer Twins. Because of a botch circumcision, the ***** of one of the boys was severely damaged. The doc in charge, Dr Money, made the decision to reassign the gender of the boy..and told the parents to raise him as a girl. The boys never were told. When the "girl" found out, she decided to be reasigned to her birth gender. There is a good book on the topic called As Nature Made Him, Dr Money's plan was to study the boys and see how nature vs nurture factored in. David, who was reassigned, ended up committing suicide.

David Reimer - Wikipedia

 

[fuzzybuddy]

It's not either, it's both. Genetics provides the slate, but life experiences provide the writing. And as the individual ages, nurture and nature alter each other. It's an ongoing process.

 

[mellowyellow]

Mellowyellow, this is a great, thought-provoking post. Very hard to say.

I hope you don't mind if I take this in a different direction, but this is a question frequently asked about gay people. I am gay. My father was gay but married. One of his brothers also had a gay son. My partner is (obviously) gay and so is his brother. This really had nothing to do with nurture.

My mother and father suffered from depression and anxiety. I have as well. Both were OCD and clean-freaks. I am as well. My father was a "numbers" guy and had a good financial mind. I do as well, although it has never been something I've been interested in or have pursued. I had to get involved in finances when he passed away to manage his estate. It later became an important part of my career as I managed a budget for a sales team. So, I tend to believe nature as well in these cases.

I hope you don't mind if I take this in a different direction
Not at all dseag2, thank you for your thought-provoking comment.

 

[mellowyellow]

Interesting, it appears that your DNA lineage contains the Xq28 marker on the X chromosome that determines male sexual orientation.
My son is gay, and even though there was no early indication from his behavior growing up, I sensed it...guess I have always had gaydar.
I have no "known" relatives(other than my son) that are/were gay, of course they would be deep in the closet if they were.

Nathan, thank you so much for your info on Xq28, I had no idea it even existed.

Linkage between sexual orientation and chromosome Xq28 in males but not in females

We have extended our analysis of the role of the long arm of the X chromosome (Xq28) in sexual orientation by DNA linkage analyses of two newly ascertained series of families that contained either two gay brothers or two lesbian sisters as well as heterosexual siblings. Linkage between the Xq28 markers and sexual orientation was detected for the gay male families but not for the lesbian families or for families that failed to meet defined inclusion criteria for the study of sex-linked sexual orientation. Our results corroborate the previously reported linkage between Xq28 and male homosexuality in selected kinships and suggest that this region contains a locus that influences individual variations in sexual orientation in men but not in women.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7581447/