Nature and Nurture Controversy

Nature and Nurture Controversy

Nature and Nurture Controversy

Before and still after the rise of sociobiology in the 1970s, two ways of dealing with the biological side of human nature in the social sciences and philosophical anthropology can be distinguished. The view of nature and nurture in sociobiology and evolutionary psychology is and will remain a controversial issue within science. Since almost all fields of human activity can be situated in relation to the nature-nurture distinction, it is not possible to even try to give an overview of the state of the art of ongoing discussions in the fields of human intelligence, aggression, emotions, gender roles, life history, evolutionary esthetics, ethics, cognitive sciences, and so forth.

However, while most of the empirical insights of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology in all the named fields cannot be ignored, their importance and fruitfulness for a full-fledged understanding of human nature has to be evaluated on a case by case basis. There is no clear method to give a precise and general account of what in humans is mere nature and what can be attributed to mere nurture. Furthermore, all the important debates within the framework of Darwinism that have been mentioned affect the relevance and shape of socio-biological insights into human nature (Buller, 2005).

Since the second half of the 20th century, the concept of human nature has also become an important reference in the medical ethical debate, as it was in connection with trends in medicine, like the expansion of plastic surgery, and especially to the in vitro fertilization advances, and success with genetic analysis and gene therapy. In the 1980s, the American President's Commission asked whether gene splicing would for the first time make changes in human nature possible. The conclusion of the Human Genome Project, which led to further sophistication in the definition of genetic disease as well as increased results in the capabilities of influencing cognitive abilities through drugs ...