In this blog post, we will examine why the endless debate about genetics and environment continues, and present a new perspective that will help us escape from this fatigue.
Introduction
A, who had always struggled with math, was studying math in the classroom during break time to prepare for the college entrance exam. Suddenly, his friend B came over and said, “Hey, I saw on the news yesterday that math ability is limited by your innate abilities. So, no matter how hard you try, it won’t help.” At that moment, A’s classmate C refuted this statement. “What are you talking about? I have an older brother who got a 30 on his math test, but he studied hard for a year and got a perfect score on his college entrance exam. If you try hard, you can do it.” A couldn’t concentrate on his math problems because B and C were arguing in front of him. ‘What are they talking about? They’re annoying. They’re making me tired,’ A thought to himself.
We often see people around us arguing about nature versus nurture, just like student A did. What did we learn from this argument? In the end, nothing was gained from the argument. The answer to this debate has already been proven to some extent through experiments, and it is obvious that people will cherry-pick important factors to use in their favor. That is why we feel somehow exhausted after such debates. First, let’s look at some examples of debates about genetics versus environment that felt exhausting, and examine in detail why those debates were so exhausting.
Genetics versus environment: an exhausting debate
“The best men should be made to marry the best women, and the children born of them should be raised, but those who are not so should be discarded, and those who are incurably insane or naturally corrupt should be killed.“ – Plato, The Republic
”Successful people are those who find the environment they want. If they can’t find it, they should create it.” – Eric Sinoway, China
The two quotes may seem unrelated, but they are based on the premise of a conflict between genetics and environment. The first quote sees excellence as a human trait that is inherited and denies that it can be changed by the environment. The second quote presupposes that success depends on the environment and individual will rather than genetics. As can be seen in the two examples above, the tedious battle between genetics and environment in relation to factors that influence human characteristics such as personality and intelligence has been going on throughout human history.
With the establishment of the concept of genes through Darwin’s theory of evolution and Mendel’s laws of inheritance, the debate between genetics and environment began in earnest. According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, individuals born with characteristics that are advantageous for survival by chance can pass on those characteristics to the next generation through natural selection, while individuals with characteristics that are not advantageous for survival cannot. Darwin’s abstract concept of something that is passed down from generation to generation became a concrete gene that could be calculated mathematically based on Mendel’s experiments on 29,000 peas. As seen in peas, it was clear that genes had a significant influence on physical characteristics such as height, eye color, and hair color, but the debate was over which factor played a more important role in characteristics such as personality and intelligence. The nature versus nurture debate was intended to help us better understand ourselves and expand our academic knowledge.
However, as shown in the two quotations above, the nature versus nurture debate has also been used for other purposes. One of these is to justify eugenics in the past. The first quotation is related to eugenics. The first quotation states that excellence is hereditary and that inferiority cannot be corrected through upbringing, so only people with superior genes should live. Extending this argument, eugenics, founded by Francis Galton, aims to increase the population with superior genes and prevent the increase of the population with inferior genes. Eugenics is a discipline that can be justified by research results showing that human characteristics are determined by genes. This bizarre discipline was used as a basis for the German Nazis’ racial hygiene movement and the extermination of the Jews. However, if it is proven that the environment changes human characteristics and is more decisive than genetic factors, the arguments of eugenics will gradually weaken.
Another example is self-help books that claim that human limitations can be overcome through effort, as seen in the second quote. If human characteristics are determined more by the environment than by genes, the logic of self-help books becomes even more solid. This is because if humans change their environment through their own will, they will be able to acquire the characteristics necessary for success and ultimately reach their desired goals. However, just as the claims of eugenics lost their persuasiveness, if it is proven that genetic factors have a clear influence on an individual’s life, the dazzling messages of self-help books may become nothing more than empty words on paper.
The conclusion of this long and tiring battle is now more or less clear. With regard to human intelligence, twin studies show that heredity has a significant influence. In fact, according to research conducted in various countries around the world, intelligence is 50% influenced by heredity, 30% by family environment, and 20% by personal environment. Here, personal environment refers to an individual’s experiences outside the home. In addition, according to research by Adrian Raine, a world authority on neurocriminology, genes and the brain have a strong influence on criminality. According to these two studies, human characteristics are greatly influenced by genetics, but that does not mean that the environment has no influence at all. In other words, having good genes can make you outstanding, but there is still room for this to be changed by the environment.
Why the nature versus nurture debate is tiresome and how to overcome it
The reason why the nature versus nurture debate is tiresome is because, as seen in the two examples above, it is used for different purposes and is therefore unproductive. Genetics has a strong influence, but the environment also has the potential to overcome limitations. When interpreting this, it is up to the person arguing the case to decide which factor is more important. Eugenics argues that since genes determine 50% of intelligence, the population of races with superior genes should increase. On the other hand, self-help books focus on the 20% effect and argue that we can become superior and excellent through effort. Is this debate meaningful? If we use the two examples above as a basis for this debate, then it is meaningless.
The reason this debate tired us was because it was used to frame the idea that humans must be superior and always improve, rather than focusing on productivity. Let’s look at the two quotes mentioned above again. The first quote says that only excellent people should survive, so we must become excellent people in order to survive. The second quote only conveys a strong will, but again, we must succeed. Eugenics and self-help books, which are based on the idea that humans must be superior, have used the nature versus nurture debate to solidify their position and make us tired. Within the framework that we must be excellent and successful, we become obsessed with finding good genes or changing our environment through effort. In other words, the nature versus nurture debate has become a way to push us to continue to be excellent.
So, what should we do to escape this exhaustion? The answer is to get rid of the exhaustion of the debate. We must remove the implications that drove us in the debate and make it a debate for us. We must learn more about ourselves through the nature versus nurture debate and use this knowledge to our advantage. We must investigate how the environment and genetics influence various factors such as human diseases, self-confidence, and happiness, and ensure that the nature versus nurture debate is not used to push us to be better, but rather to lead us to a happier and healthier life. Only then can we escape the exhaustion of the nature versus nurture debate.
Take the current eugenics movement, for example. The eugenics mentioned above is a thing of the past, and modern eugenics has been reborn under the name “genetic counseling.” Genetic counseling aims to eradicate genetic diseases that were difficult to treat, based on the premise that human characteristics are determined by genes. Genetic counseling is one example of how the nature versus nurture debate can improve our health. Another example is child development psychology. Child development psychology is based on the premise that childhood experiences have a significant impact on an individual’s life and development. According to Furnham’s research, parenting styles in childhood have a significant impact on personality and self-esteem, which are related to individual happiness. Here, the nature versus nurture debate can bring us happiness. In this way, if we remove the message that we must become superior individuals from the nature versus nurture debate and focus only on the aspects that benefit us, we will no longer feel exhausted.
Conclusion
“Hey, both nature and nurture have an influence, so what’s the point of arguing about it? Because of you guys, I really messed up my math. I don’t know! Let’s go to the snack bar and buy some bread.” A, who had reached the limit of his concentration, said. B and C nodded in agreement. What we need to discover is that the nature versus nurture debate has been used as a basis for strengthening arguments, from the eugenics of the past, which held that humans must be perfect, to the self-help books of today. When used in this way, we will inevitably continue to feel exhausted. Only by removing the fatigue from this debate and using it in a way that is helpful to us can we find meaning in the debate. Now the meaningless debate is over, and only meaningful debate remains. The laughter of the three students echoed through the hallway.
