There are two important general insights about the nature/nurture-debate. The first is: It's often difficult to distinguish between them because our genes are made to interact with the environment their bodies happen to find themselves in, and interactive effects are difficult to disentangle. Also, in human psychology, no observed phenomenon has one single cause. The concept of "cause" itself may not be entirely appropriate; what we have are circumstances that makes a certain outcome somewhat more probable. Which is, of course, exactly how genes work; by affecting the probability of certain development in their organisms.
A wise developmental psychologist I know said it like this: We are 100% nature and 100% nurture.
The second is insight is: It's not a normative question. If a certain trait, like a preference for staying at home, should be found to have a genetic predisposition... Well, I have no reason to believe it does, but if it did, that still wouldn't mean that this is the way it _ought_ to be. "Genetically predisposed" doesn't mean "good", it doesn't mean "inevitable".
The question of how we should make the world we want to live in, should be decided altogether on other grounds than the nature vs. nurture-debate.
But, on a final note, knowing how the world works is usually helpful if one wants to change it. There _are_ some reasons to believe that genes related to gender does predispose for certain differences in behavior, because the genders are different in the way they make children, a factor closely related to how our genes got the way they were. If the-world-we-want-to-live-in is one where these differences does not restrict people's lives on the societal level, we need to know about them in order to counteract them.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-05-25 11:58 am (UTC)There are two important general insights about the nature/nurture-debate. The first is: It's often difficult to distinguish between them because our genes are made to interact with the environment their bodies happen to find themselves in, and interactive effects are difficult to disentangle. Also, in human psychology, no observed phenomenon has one single cause. The concept of "cause" itself may not be entirely appropriate; what we have are circumstances that makes a certain outcome somewhat more probable. Which is, of course, exactly how genes work; by affecting the probability of certain development in their organisms.
A wise developmental psychologist I know said it like this: We are 100% nature and 100% nurture.
The second is insight is: It's not a normative question. If a certain trait, like a preference for staying at home, should be found to have a genetic predisposition... Well, I have no reason to believe it does, but if it did, that still wouldn't mean that this is the way it _ought_ to be. "Genetically predisposed" doesn't mean "good", it doesn't mean "inevitable".
The question of how we should make the world we want to live in, should be decided altogether on other grounds than the nature vs. nurture-debate.
But, on a final note, knowing how the world works is usually helpful if one wants to change it. There _are_ some reasons to believe that genes related to gender does predispose for certain differences in behavior, because the genders are different in the way they make children, a factor closely related to how our genes got the way they were. If the-world-we-want-to-live-in is one where these differences does not restrict people's lives on the societal level, we need to know about them in order to counteract them.