Nature v Nurture

[Pra]

I'm curious to see what you guys think is more important in determining a person and his/her status in life. Is it nature, or is it nurture?

[Kscott]

Clearly both.

[Pra]

Indeed.

[carl-the-conqueror]

it depends on what:

iq two twins seperated at birth, one was educated well, and was fairly prosperous, the other missed school due to her adoptive fathers ilness, she had an i q 25 points lower than her counterpart (i read this in a school text book a while back)

on the other hand

a psychologist (though was sued for child abuse later) tried to make a boy into a girl (you probably know the story, so i wont go into detail),and failed

[hulahooplolli]

I don't get the reason of the psychologist story, is that the one about the boy named Dana....not trying to be mean, just wondering

[carl-the-conqueror]

I don't get the reason of the psychologist story, is that the one about the boy named Dana....not trying to be mean, just wondering

that might be it, yeah

[I Have a Clever Name]

Personally, I believe the circumstances of a child have a far larger impact on its intelligence than his/her genetics - provided they aren't suffering from a syndrome or deformity. Imagine if a child was utterly illiterate and had no grasp of mathematics - would she be percieved to be intelligent? Not really. She wouldn't think as we do, using language, she couldn't formalize her ideas and they would be basic, concerned purely with survival. This also raises the question - what is intelligence?

As for the person's status, well, it should be obvious that if somebody is fathered by a King as opposed to a lowly farmhand then their potential life prospects improve considreably.

[hulahooplolli]

I agree, and I think intelligence is measured on how much you know, the desire to know more, and your ability to comprehend more.

[I Have a Clever Name]

I agree, and I think intelligence is measured on how much you know, the desire to know more, and your ability to comprehend more.

Which is of course very difficult to quantify. Some others would disagree with you also, and say that intelligence is the ability to learn more - having nothing to do with knowledge itself. IQ tests are one of my pet hates because they focus on Symbolic Logic - valued by those who invented the damn test in the first place. It doesn't take into account any other forms of intelligence e.g emotional intelligence, and how can an illiterate or innumerate individual take part? Its a flawed system, but convenient, and so its perpetuated.

[Silver Guard]

I personaly fail utterly at IQ tests, my scores have been 74, 89 and 124. However, when I went to a phsychiatrist (don't ask why) he guessed at me having an IQ somewhere in the 130s - low 140s. I agree that IQ tests are a bit mixed up to say the least... unless I so indeed have an inferior level of intellience...
I personaly find it very difficult to differneciate between common sence and intelligence, I have varying amounts of both depending on my mood and the time of day. However, both over-rule nature
But surely, it can be said, nature determines your intelligence
And those who say it are right, if common sense is seen as intellect. However, nurture can remove any form of intelligence present, or nuture it into something greater, but it has its restrictions, a retarded person (I mean this by the medical terminology) will never be classed on the same level as Einstein, yet the retard may be able to recognise the emotion of a person by their walk, or their stance, speach or facial expression, is this not a form of intellect? It is a form that can only be taught by contact with others, if he had never seen anouther person this ability cannot have fostered.
Nature provides the foundation, nurture the result

[Marcellus Trajanus]

I for myself had pedagogics lessons at school and have seen many interesting cases where children were conditioned in many ways and how extreme the outcome could be. What I have learned from three years of sitting in those lessons was that a young child is a chest full of possibilities, in positive and negative ways. If you take the "positive road" the foundation is important. Understandably you'll completely fail turning a physically handicapped new born into a genius though it's not difficult to do other way round.

Concluding to measure if either nature or nurture is more important might be concerned depending on which phase you settle your interest, both have an influence.

[Lee1026]

I personaly fail utterly at IQ tests, my scores have been 74, 89 and 124. However, when I went to a phsychiatrist (don't ask why) he guessed at me having an IQ somewhere in the 130s - low 140s. I agree that IQ tests are a bit mixed up to say the least... unless I so indeed have an inferior level of intellience...
I personaly find it very difficult to differneciate between common sence and intelligence, I have varying amounts of both depending on my mood and the time of day. However, both over-rule nature
But surely, it can be said, nature determines your intelligence
And those who say it are right, if common sense is seen as intellect. However, nurture can remove any form of intelligence present, or nuture it into something greater, but it has its restrictions, a retarded person (I mean this by the medical terminology) will never be classed on the same level as Einstein, yet the retard may be able to recognise the emotion of a person by their walk, or their stance, speach or facial expression, is this not a form of intellect? It is a form that can only be taught by contact with others, if he had never seen anouther person this ability cannot have fostered.
Nature provides the foundation, nurture the result

He is telling you want you want to hear instead of the truth. A IQ of 140 would mean that you are in the top 0.01% of humanity in intelligence. By definition, IQ is supposed to be a normal distrobution with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 10. Do the math from there.


However, on the nature vs nuture argument, it is probably a very good idea to look beyond the extreme cases and look at corrolations and the such. According to the book "Freakonomics", the grades of people who were adopted at birth corrolate better with the amount of education that their biological parents had then with their adoptive parents. That makes a strong arugment for nature being on top. However, in cases where nutition is not sufficient, then it is clear that nuture matters. For example, the average height of Chinese men shot up by a good 5 to 10 cm after the nation can eat properly in the last few years.

[Trey]

BOth, but I think nurture is a little bit more important because that is where we get our mannerisms, etc.

[MoROmeTe]

I tend to favor the idea that our genes and our evolutionary past really account for much more in our self than our growing up and social situation does... Dawkin's really had me convinced with his "selfish gene" concept...

[Mathias]

I think intelligence mostly has to do with nature. If you go to a good school, you will only seem smarter because you know more and you are better to formulate your thoughts and ideas, but neither of those has to do with intelligence. Doing brain exersices like sudoku and solving math problems and whatnot may only make you slightly quicker, but not drasticly change your intelligence. People are born with a set amount of intelligence which can only be decreased, but not increased. Of course I have absolutely nothing to back up my theory and Im just pulling this out of my ass (not literaly) and saying stuff thats sounds logical to me.
I think intelligence is the abilty to learn things and understand advanced things and how fast you can think (find solutions to problems, solve mathematical problems etc.) and other things I cant think of right now. Knowledge is merely a tool to utilize your intelligence at its full potential.

[I Have a Clever Name]

Well, lets think about this from another perspective. Why would you bestow somebody with the mental predicate 'clever' or 'intelligent'? Because of their ability to convey that intelligence, ultimately. We must base our understanding of another's mindset on observation - you cannot truly know an individual as you know yourself automatically via consciousness. The other party's usage of language. Giving a detailed speech on theoretical physics, making pertinent observations in daily life or solving an advanced mathematical problem - all of these would encourage us to label them subconsciously as intelligent. Just as we all tend to label Grim as a world class spammer on account of his large number of posts.

If a child were devoid of any human contact, or had very negligent parents, they would be illiterate and innumerate, unless they somehow devised these functions on their own accord. Nature would bestow them with intelligence.. but what does that actually mean without language and mathematics to formalize thought? The ability to learn these required abilities quickly? But is this really intelligence? A child attempting to learn language at a later age is at a severe disadvantage regardless of how intelligent they would otherwise be percieved to be at that age, should they be in possession of these vital skills under ordinary circumstances. A child needs to be nurtured in order to grasp the foundation for all advanced thought.

Just throwing my ideas together here - feel free to obliterate them without mercy.

I tend to favor the idea that our genes and our evolutionary past really account for much more in our self than our growing up and social situation does

On the whole, I'd agree. Intelligent specimens will always survive - but is that base intelligence really intelligence, or does it have to be formalized through parental guidance from an early age (which is of course nurture)?

[ENSAIS]

The original question is "what you guys think is more important in determining a person and his/her status in life. Is it nature, or is it nurture?"

CLearly nurture. It entails socio-economic forces, education, etc... which have a high correlation to status in life.

Now this pre-supposes no gross differences in Nature. Be born with a severe handicapp and you will be a dependent all your life--no status for you, and education, etc will be focuses on basic functionality rather than social dominance of your surroundings.

I think that in North America, the relative universal access to foods sufficient for mental development, the relative lack of cullings of the human populations by diseases, etc has changed the nurture elements of sustaining class [status] to access to education.

I noticed at a private university the number of persons doing really crappy work but getting passing grades [and the resulting diploma and status-check for the rest of their lives] because daddy was paying the exhorbitant university bill.

Once we begin educating, I think it is harder and harder to perceive differences in nature unless they are extreme [the gender defined differences, or differences in an extreme prodigy]. Education and socio-economic differences are easy to perceive, especially if we are measuring via "status".

ENSAIS

ENSAIS

[Denny Crane!]

They have proven clearly that violent traits can be inherited as well as various other studies like homosexuality has genetic roots therefore it is clearly a mix of both nature, nurture and environment and you cannot quantify the gravity of each and which has a greater effect.

Peter

[ENSAIS]

El Guapo,
I'm surprised you haven't been more active in Black Prince's New Testament thread...
unless maybe he wore you out in previous similar threads?