Understanding the Nature-Nurture Debate (Understanding Life)

There are arguably few areas of science more fiercely contested than the question of what makes us who we are. Are we products of our environments or our genes? Is nature the governing force behind our behaviour or is it nurture? While it is now widely agreed that it is a mixture of both, discussions continue as to which is the dominant influence. This unique volume presents a clear explanation of heritability, the ongoing nature versus nurture debate and the evidence that is currently available. Starting at the beginning of the modern nature-nurture debate, with Darwin and Galton, this book describes how evolution posed a challenge to humanity by demonstrating that humans are animals, and how modern social science was necessitated when humans became an object of natural science. It clearly sets out the most common misconceptions such as the idea that heritability means that a trait is 'genetic' or that it is a justification for eugenics.

Eric Turkheimer is a Clinical Psychologist and the Hugh Scott Hamilton Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Eric studies how interactions between genes and environments shape the development of human behaviour and has explored the scientific and philosophical basis of the nature-nurture debate for thirty-eight years. He is a past president of the Behavior Genetics Association (2012), a winner of the James Shields Award for Twin Research (2009), and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.