Nature vs Nurture $1.69 AUD
Category: Ideas & Concepts
The phrase ‘nature vs. nurture’ refers to a long-standing debate about the importance of heredity and environment in shaping who we are. It asks whether our personality, our behaviour and our sexuality are primarily the result of genetic or social influences. The debate is central to us as human beings. Perhaps this is because it essentially asks: ‘who are we?’ and ‘why are we who we are?’
For centuries the ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate has raged. And it has been central to a wide variety of disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, psychology and genetic biology. Initially, the debate existed mainly within philosophical circles. As far back as 300 BC, questions were already being asked. Plato contended that we are all born with a set of ideas and that our environment shapes us only marginally. It was much later, though, that the argument really heated up. In the seventeenth century, René Descartes took a similar position to Plato. He argued that we all have innate ideas that determine our experience of the world.
