The Nature/Nurture Debate

[Daeval]

At first this made sense as a decent experiment, and then I realized it's kind of a chicken and the egg issue...  What if Child A's scumbag parents were only scumbags as a result of their environment?  Likewise about Child B's great parents.  Without making any unscientific assumptions, how would you tell when you got a set of genes that were prone to "good" vs. "bad" things?

 

I guess you'd have to find people with traceable genetic tendencies, like a family history of depression or something.  And even then it seems like it would be tough to tell what's what if each successive generation was raised by the previous.  Weirdness..

I doesn't make an iota of difference if the scum parents' grandparents weren't scum. You only need a pair of crap parents. It doesn't matter how they got crap. It is painfully obvious which people are just unbelievably horrible and skanks. You see loads of scum every day. Who should under no circumstances have children.

 

I agree, it is quite hard to see which parents should be in the experiment, but I think finding the scum couple would be pretty easy. Just spot a detestable couple and use them.

But see, this brings us back to square 1. Are the scum parents scum because of their genes, or because of their environment? Because if it's not their genes, they aren't going to pass any "scum" genes on to their kids, and the experiment of seeing how "scum" genes do in a "good" environment is ruined.

 

Chicken. Egg.

[shin_nihon_kikaku]

It makes NO difference how they became scum. We would be trying trying to prove which makes a difference in the new children. Who cares how they became crap (I'm repeating myself, but that's because I'm trying to drill it into your head).

 

It just seems like you don't understand what I said before.

 

I'll list it very basically:

crap parents look after good kid

 

Good parents look after crap genes kid.

 

See who turns out best.

 

 

How can grandparents affect this experiment in any way what so ever? It doesn't matter if the crap parents are crap because of their genes or upbringing. Just the fact that they can't look after children properly is the be-all and end-all.

Edited September 21, 2004 by shin_nihon_kikaku

[Daeval]

It makes NO difference how they became scum. We would be trying trying to prove which makes a difference in the new children. Who cares how they became crap (I'm repeating myself, but that's because I'm trying to drill it into your head).

 

It just seems like you don't understand what I said before.

 

I'll list it very basically:

crap parents look after good kid

 

Good parents look after crap genes kid.

 

See who turns out best.

 

 

How can grandparents affect this experiment in any way what so ever? It doesn't matter if the crap parents are crap because of their genes or upbringing. Just the fact that they can't look after children properly is the be-all and end-all.

Drill all you want, you're missing the entire function of genes here.

 

How do you determine who your "crap genes kid" is without determining if he has "crap genes?"

[shin_nihon_kikaku]

How do you determine who your "crap genes kid" is without determining if he has "crap genes?"

What is that last sentence supposed to mean?

 

Anyway, genes and upbringing are unimportant for the new parents who are going to look after these kids. If the bad parent is a child beater or something, does it really make any difference if it was the genes that made him scum or his parent's raising him wrong?

 

You are going too far into the genes and upbringing of the parents who would be affecting the outcome of the children. There is no need.

 

The experiment makes sense, but you don't.

[OverlordMondo]

"Been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding." - LIT

 

Most children are raised by their biological parents, which means it's probobly a combination of the two, though if I had to choose, I'd say environment had more to do with it.

 

Even if they're raised by foster parents or something, foster parents tend to be the "holy" set of parents that don't allow you to do anything, which is just as bad, if not worse, then parents who are alcoholic and beat you for no reason. I see my parents as better than most, but still not perfect, and far from the average. Yet most people would look at me and assume that I'm a depressed suicidal dude who writes poetry about death. Those people are pricks.

[Skythe]

Don't you mean the other way around?

No.

[shin_nihon_kikaku]

though if I had to choose, I'd say environment had more to do with it.

Me too.

[shin_nihon_kikaku]

Don't you mean the other way around?

No.

Surely you understand that genes (nature) alter your physical appearance and the environment (nurture) alters the mental side...

You have mixed up.

Edited September 21, 2004 by shin_nihon_kikaku

[Gryph]

You do realize that the condition of the grandparents and previous generations is also important because that's how genetics works. Sure for the nurture part going back to parents is okay, but to use just parents to try to figure out the nature part wouldn't work. That why scientists are always on the lookout for large families who span several generations.

[Skythe]

Surely you understand that genes (nature) alter your physical appearance and the environment (nurture) alters the mental side...

You have mixed up.

No I didn't mix my post up cuz it was about behavior not apperaance. Your attempt at correcting me to your point of view is void.

 

Since someone decided to use Gattaca as an example. There's an old black and white film that I will use but sadly I can't remember the title. Basically, it's about a young girl who kept killing random people for no reason at all because of her genes that affected her mental state while growing up in a rich/clean neighborhood which gave her nice/innocent look thus no one believing she could do such a thing. I saw this film thanks to my PSYCHOLOGY CLASS!!!

[shin_nihon_kikaku]

At first this made sense as a decent experiment, and then I realized it's kind of a chicken and the egg issue...  What if Child A's scumbag parents were only scumbags as a result of their environment?  Likewise about Child B's great parents.  Without making any unscientific assumptions, how would you tell when you got a set of genes that were prone to "good" vs. "bad" things?

 

I guess you'd have to find people with traceable genetic tendencies, like a family history of depression or something.  And even then it seems like it would be tough to tell what's what if each successive generation was raised by the previous.  Weirdness..

I understand what you were getting at now. I was only considering that it didn't matter how the parents who were to raise the children, got how they were (good or bad people).

 

I didn't realise that you were talking about how you would find the children with the definite bad genes because when I came up with this far-fetched experiment I wasn't thinking about that. It could never be a real experiment and was all hypothetical so I didn't go into how you could 'make sure' that the children in the experiment had the genes they were supposed to have. There would be many more problems that would arise to call into question the purity or accuracy of the test. So hypothetically, you would agree that, if it could all work as it was supposed to, the upbringing would affect the outcome far more?

Edited September 21, 2004 by shin_nihon_kikaku