The debate over whether Albert Einstein’s genius was genetic or the result of environment and education touches on the age-old question of nature versus nurture. In this article, we’ll compare the perspectives of nurture and genetic determinism, and highlight the impact of nurture on human behavior and personality.

Introduction

We might wonder whether Albert Einstein was a genius by nature or by nurture or environment. It’s worth debating whether his intelligence and creativity were due to genetics or to a specific upbringing and environment. This leads to the question of whether his children are also geniuses. The discussion of genius is always an interesting one, and it’s an important starting point for exploring the roots of human talent and ability. In this regard, the “nature vs. nurture” debate has been at the center of philosophical and scientific discussions for a long time, and it’s a very complex question to answer.
If everything is genetically determined, then the importance of human values such as education, morality, and ethics would fade. Conversely, if everything is nurture, then individual effort and responsibility would be ignored. The issue of nature versus nurture is difficult to argue in favor of one side or the other, which is why it deserves further discussion. In this blog, we’ll look at the nurture and genetic determinism perspectives, respectively, and highlight the powerful influence of nurture on human behavior.

Human nature can be changed by the environment (nurture theory)

First, let’s look at the importance of nurture through an anecdote from the Ethical Essays by the Greco-Roman philosopher Plutarch. “Lycurgus’s puppies were not of the same species. One puppy had the blood of a house dog, the other of a great hunting dog. Lycurgus trained the inferior one to be a hunting dog and the superior one to be a house dog. Later, seeing them behave as they had been tamed, Lycurgus said that it was the result of upbringing, not the influence of heredity.”
In this quote, Plutarch is arguing that nurture and training play an important role, regardless of bloodline. This is a concept that can be applied to humans as well, suggesting that human nature can be altered by our environment.
Plutarch’s argument was later reinforced by the British empiricist philosopher John Locke’s concept of the “blank slate”. Locke believed that the human mind is like a blank sheet of paper with nothing written on it, and that it is filled in through experience. He used this concept to argue for nurture, the idea that human character and behavior are shaped by nurture. This idea also influenced the theories of American behaviorist psychologist John H. Watson. Watson drew on Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov’s theory of conditioned reflexes and believed that human personality can be changed through training. The concept of conditioned reflexes stems from experiments that showed that if dogs were repeatedly fed by ringing a bell, they would later salivate at the sound of the bell alone. All of these theories emphasize that nurture plays a huge role in shaping human behavior.
Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud also supported nurture theory, arguing that childhood experiences have a profound effect on the human mind. Nurture theorists argue that if we are completely determined by our genes, there is no point in education. And the fact that the Human Genome Project revealed that humans have only 30,000 genes only strengthens the argument that genes alone cannot explain who we are. Based on the small number of genes, they interpret that environment and nurture play a more important role in human development.

Human personality is innate (genetic determinism)

On the other hand, genetic determinists support the idea that human personality and behavior are innate in nature. For example, American psychologist William James argued that human behavior is more intelligent than that of animals because humans have more instincts. Inspired by Charles Robert Darwin’s theory of evolution, James believed that the human mind evolved like the rest of the body, and that innate instincts played an important role in this process.
Genetic determinism can also be found in the work of linguist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky argued that humans are born with the ability to speak, and that this ability is genetically determined, not learned. He attributed this innate ability to the fact that children can produce sentences they’ve never heard before. Thus, Chomsky used the example of human language ability to argue that genetic factors determine important human traits.
Genetic determinists also use empirical research to support their claims. For example, in his book Blank Slate, evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker argues that it is wrong to overestimate the influence of nurture on human behavior. He emphasizes the importance of heredity by citing studies that show that identical twins raised in different environments are more similar in personality, intelligence, and habits than adopted children raised in the same environment.
There are many other experiments and studies that support genetic determinism. In particular, Brenda’s case is a strong argument for genetic determinism. Dr. John William Money claimed that the gender identity of a child who underwent sex reassignment surgery could be determined by nurture, but the results were disastrous. The case remains one of the strongest supporters of the idea that human personality and identity are innate.

Conclusion

The nurture vs. nature debate is still an inconclusive issue. Rather than concluding that either nature or nurture determines who we are, recent research suggests that these two factors interact to shape our personality and behavior. However, nurture still has a huge impact on human beings, and it allows us to develop. Brenda’s story shows the negative consequences of nurture that ignores nature, so we can say that balancing nurture and nature is an important factor in human development. While taking nature into account, we shouldn’t overlook that nurture can play an important role in determining human behavior.