What I am thinking about this week.

[vvvvv]

The question of nature v. nurture is so problematic a binary as to be basically meaningless. It's a dead horse and it needs to be re-framed. A complex mind can be (and almost definitely is) designed to mesh with what is in nature (i.e. what it experiences)--and it can have an underlying structure without negating the possibility of free will. The

Comments

[vvvvv]

How momentous!

[jane_ire]

I didn't read the Time article, but I agree with you that a "one or the other" (nature or nurture) paradigm is problematic. It seems clear that both brain structure and environment work together to determine the individual's mental processing schema. To demonstrate the point:

I am currently reading a book about mitigating factors to capital trials called Guilty By Reason of Insanity. A psychiatrist and a neurologist study hundreds of inmates guilty of committing brutal murders. We're talking people who rape, torture and murder children. They (the doctors) discovered that in many cases each of the murderers is suffering from some form of neurological defect, or brain damage. In other words, their brains look different than "normal" brains. However, they stress that brain damage alone does not cause violent behavior. In fact, most individuals with brain damage do not exhibit violent behavior. So even though these brains look different it is not enough to cause certain behavior. Rather it is brain damage working in concert

[vvvvv]

Mm-hmm! It gets even stickier when you consider that experience (Or "nurtuer," or whatever you want to call it) can and does cause physical changes in the brain--so nurture informs nature at the most fundamental level. So the issue then becomes not only "is it learned or innate?" but rather "is it innate because it was formed that way at birth, or is it innate because x experiences changed the structure of the brain?" (or the way it processes information, percieves stimuli, etc.)

That probably made no sense, but the point is: There's just no way to dissect any of that out, and trying to do is is at best a waste of time and at worst dangerous science.

Sounds like a good book!

[vvvvv]

Also, I am Master of the Typo.

[jane_ire]

Yes, exactly! Nurture does inform nature and vice versa. The book is great if you can get past the fact that the author is obsessed with the fact that she went to YALE. ugh.

[stormy_brow]

*sigh*

Is it nature or nurture that makes people want to cling so desperately to binary logic?

Little joke there.

I'm not even a "qualified" scientist, and I've been of the firm belief that it's ALWAYS a combination of nature and nurture. Usually propensities in one direction may or may not be present, biologically, when one is born, but there are innumerable other variables as to whether those propensities ever come to fruition, or even are reversed in the opposite direction.

You say it better, though.

[vvvvv]

Yup. See also above re: experience causing physical (or biological, if you prefer) change, and There's Just. No. Way. Nature and nuture are inexorably intertwined, they impact and alter each other, and viewing at them as seperate forces (let ALONE and either/or) is just a colossal waste of time.

[161803]

Yes