What is the nature versus nurture debate about?
Q: What is the nature versus nurture debate about?
A: The nature versus nurture debate is about the causes of differences between people. It looks at how much of a person's traits and behavior are due to their inherited genes and biology (nature) or from events or experiences that happen during life (nurture).
Q: Who suggested the phrase 'nature versus nurture'?
A: The phrase 'nature versus nurture' was suggested by the Victorian polymath Francis Galton. He was influenced by Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
Q: How long has this debate been going on for?
A: This debate has been going on since before Shakespeare wrote about it in The Tempest, which was published in 1611. Even before that, English schoolmaster Richard Mulcaster wrote about it in 1582.
Q: Does nature or nurture have more influence over a person's traits and behavior?
A: Both nature and nurture play interacting roles in development, so both have an influence over a person's traits and behavior. Many modern psychologists and anthropologists consider any contrast between them as naive because they see it as an outdated state of knowledge.
Q: Did John Locke believe humans got their 'mind' from nurture?
A: At first sight, John Locke seemed to think humans got their 'mind' from nurture (the tabula rasa or blank slate theory), but he was only concerned with how we acquire knowledge from sense data rather than our overall make-up.
Q: What does heritability mean?
A: Heritability refers to the extent to which something is inherited genetically - this includes traits of behaviour and character.
Q: Does this debate apply only to humans? A: Though the public debate is all about humans, these principles apply to any living thing - plants as well as animals.
