Humans... nature vs nurture?

Question

have the human species evolved in to what we are now naturally! or have we been nurtured in to what we have become!

half of me thinks 50/50

but to honest looking at western life its hard to belief that anything about humans is natural except the part about survival!

your thoughts?

Answer 1

We simply don't know enough about ourselves and the world we live in to be able to answer this conclusively.

One can argue that nurture is part of nature. All the "unnatural" things around today is part of nature because that is our nature. All the technology we have is developed by us humans because it is in our nature to do so.

We nurture ourselves to naturally evolve. Nurture is part of natural selection.

Answer 2

I believe that it is a little of both but I would lean more towards nurturing.  Evolution does take hundreds of years to happen but we can see natural occurring changes like the declining need for wisdom teeth.  Yet on the other hand things like life expectancy have greatly increased because of our intellect in different fields like biology.

Also if you were to look at a man 1,000 years ago and compare the changes with a man now I would say you would see many more differences than to compare a man from 100,000 years ago with a man from 99,000.  I would credit this to the great increase of human intelligence of the past millenia.

Answer 3

I think we are born with certain genetic traits that are shaped by our environment. There are certain genetic things that we do as humans that wouldn't be different no matter where or when we were born. So yea, i'd say it's 60-40 (40 being genetic).

Answer 4

this is an age old quandry and something that still doesn't have any definitive answer......

The general consensus is that man has a nature - naturally - and that dimensions of that nature are defined and moulded by the nurturing of social values and policies and beliefs......

However in order to better understand how that nurturing has the effect it does one has to understand the nature of man.....

and this is the quandry we are always in ... What is the Nature of Man?

If you look at the basics of our make up we are a combination of molecules - complicatedely put together - and water..... as are just about every 'living' thing .... therefore is our existence - and therefore our 'nature' - defined purely on the fact that we are 'living'? or is there something more that defines our 'nature'.....is there something or things inherent in our 'nature' that sets us apart from other animals in the animal kingdom? and are those 'things' inherent in us or as a consequence of our nurturing, our socialisation?.....

I am still not sure of any definitive answers and so to make my life easier I have opted for the belief that there is a basic 'nature' upon which Nature herself has created differentiations and aberrations - which nurturing - both parental and societal - have shaped and influenced to create the individual outcome we see in the individual person.....whether I'm right or not or whether you agree or not is not debatable - it's my opionion and belief that best fits my thinking .....

you may have other opinions and other beliefs .... and that's ok......

The whole thing revolves around nature -v- nurture - the nature of man ....and Philosophy has spent centuries trying to get to the bottom of this ..... a great book that may help (or add fuel to your fire!) is a book called 'SOPHIES WORLD' - where all the major philosophical theories are simply set out as a story of meetings and interractions with the great Philosophers in the history of man ..... I suggest you read it to give you a better and wider insight to the various philosophical thinkings ... and even more questions than answers!  

Answer 5

I think it was an old teacher who once said to me that the question of nature vs nurture was more like multiplication than addition. You can make 42 by adding (e.g. 21 + 21 or 13 + 29) or you can make 42 by multiplication (e.g. 6 x 7 or 21 x 2).

Well, I thought it was quite illuminating.