Episode 10.
Nature vs. Nurture

Question:

Key Points:

• Nature = Your DNA; Nurture = Your experience
• "Your Experiences" includes what people tell you
• Our brains are designed to remember stories; that's how we store information
• Plato was on the side of nature. He philosophized that people are predestined based on how they were born
• The truth is that we have free will and our choices matter
• In the 1800s, John Locke coined the term "Nature vs. Nurture"
• Locke was a proponent of the "Clean Slate" theory: genes don't matter, only experiences after birth
• Science has finally caught up with your intuition: both nature and nurture matter
• Identical twins can be used to see how much of something is based on environment/experiences
• Twins that grow up in the same house have a lot of the same childhood experiences, so a lot of the best studies are based on identical twins that are separated at birth
• Now, we are finally in the golden age of nature vs. nurture where science is studying how much is nature and how much is nurture
• Height is generally agreed to be about 90% based on genetics
• Note that this does not mean 90% of one individual's height is based on genes, it's 90% of height in the total population
• Reading disability, autism, Alzheimers, and schitzophrenia are all more than 50% genetic
• Alcoholism, bipolar disease, and hypertension are only about 50% genetic
• The experience that a baby gets in the womb has been shown to be very important to its future development