OzballO

What makes a human being who he is?

I personally believe it is the persons environment that determines who they will be in life. I do believe that genetics has an affect on a person's disposition but it's the surrounding environment that will determine the type of person they will be. (kinda redundant but work with me)

SgtJoo

Classic nature vs nurture debate?

It's both to be honest. Your genetics (nature) plays a part in who you are yet environment (nurture) does as well. I'm not entirely sure which has a bigger role though, in my opinion they're pretty similar.

__________________

Voodoo

I believe nature to be the overriding factor. One of my philosophy teachers in high school showed this to the class when we were talking about this exact same thing. It also cropped up a bit in biology.

Minnesota Twin Family Study - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (take everything from wikipedia with a grain of salt however)
The study has been going on for quite some time now since I feel the data are indicitive of nature or genetics to be the dominant influence.

__________________

My YouTube Channel

SgtJoo

Correlation is not indicative of causation.

I have to take that study lightly. However, I heard about the study as well during my class on Psychology.

__________________

SWWAcoma

There is a really good book on the topic called "All God's Children" (Amazon.com: All God's Children (9780380728626): Fox Butterfield: Books). If you ever come across it its a great read. Basically in a cliff note version it begins by studying the culture of violence in America, specifically the south pre-Civil War era. Once the basis for why there seems to be a history of violence is created it follows one particular family from generation to generation and shows how every single male member of the family has a history of violent crimes.

At times the male children were taken and placed in "good environments" where they showed signs of improvements, but at the end of the day they always resorted to a life of crime.

In essence, what the study gets at is that it's a little bit of both...that the environment that the family was placed in for so long eventually led to an evolution of their genetic makeup (if that makes sense). Basically, since the family consistently grew up surrounded by violence they had evolved to survive in those situations, and even when taken out of those situations the human will still go to "what feels normal".

Really awesome book. It doesn't read like a science study/case at all.

__________________