metonymy4u

The way to synthesize the “nature vs. nurture” dialectic is not I think a by a change of terminology exclusively, but through improvements in education. I say this because, from observations of my students, I hypothesize that they are needlessly trapped in this ineffective dialectic as a result of not understanding contemporary models of biological development. If they did they would understand that every individual is seen (in such models) as 100% the product of both nature and nurture. They would understand that to speak of relatively invariant or “hard wired” traits is to refer to data about populations not individuals. They would understand the problems facing a species with such adaptability of behavior that such data often has limited reliability and validity. They would understand the challenges that face a species that transmits so much of its behavioral habits (biases) through language, over vast expanses of space-time, and in ways not remotely conceivable by the original actors, that maladaptation can spread like wildfire, as we have seen time and time again in the 20th century.