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Nature Vs Nurture

Decent Essays

Galton, unlike the previous philosophers who have postulated nature and nurture as a “versus” battle, stated that both the nature and the nurture play a role in human development of traits. However, Galton’s line of questioning of “how much” of nature or nurture affects our trait development has also been rendered faulty, as recent research have proposed that there is a symbiotic relationship between the biological factors and environmental factors, where nature and nurture are constantly cooperating and interacting with each other to produce both biological and behavioural traits. This is a revolutionary discovery that could finally be the solution to this long-standing ‘nature vs nurture’ debate. This proposed solution is known as epigenetics. …show more content…

However, there are some recent studies showcasing epigenetic alterations at work in humans as well. Regarding early life experiences, Project Ice Storm discovered that prenatal maternal stress can have broad epigenetics effects on the unborn child’s genome which could persist to adolescence and adulthood, and that researches have also provided evidence that the likelihood of a myriad of chronic illnesses and behavioural disorders in adulthood could stem from prenatal and postnatal environmental factors (Jirtle & Skinner, 2007; Cao-Lei et al., 2015). Also, a study on the childhood abuse victims who later committed suicide and non-childhood abuse victims who also later committed suicide discovered that the abuse victims had portrayed some stress-linked epigenetic profiles (McGowan et al., 2009). Regarding later life experiences, a monozygotic twin study discovered that twins are indifferent in their early-life gene expression yet substantial variances are portrayed in the epigenetic profiles of more mature twins (Fraga et al., 2005). These studies represent how an individual’s environmental surroundings can influence their epigenome which clearly demonstrates the nature-nurture

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