Nature via Nurture

[Trekkie]

What a book... Matt Ridley begins, and my bet is there is plenty of useful mileage in this approach, to describe the effects of nurture through your life experience on the genes you were born with. It is a key to understanding and a declaration of responsibility - to yourself, your children, to your community. The way you and I behave, the way we treat our children and each other as a society, affects the expression of the genes we were born with and the characters we and others become. Is there a cause and effect to who we are? We are all of us both.

This otherwise excellent site reflects the traditional division - here we are in Psychology & Psychiatry as the alternative forum, Science and Nature, lists only Science Or Nature . Has anyone else read this book? Do you think psychology and psychiatry and science and nature, all play their part in shaping homo sapiens?

[Elfstar]

What is the book called? I have two sets of twins, one identical, one not. Nature vs nurture indeed. Ideal case study :D

[lloydk]

...

1. Is there a cause and effect to who we are? We are all of us both.

2. This otherwise excellent site reflects the traditional division - here we are in Psychology & Psychiatry as the alternative forum, Science and Nature, lists only Science Or Nature . Has anyone else read this book? Do you think psychology and psychiatry and science and nature, all play their part in shaping homo sapiens?

My first post on this Book Group Online - I just registered moments ago. I just began reading this book and appreciate it, as I have his Genome book.
Responding to:
1. If you go directly to the end chapters. 10 and the epilogue, you will see he invokes circular causality and an intimate symbiotic relationship of nature and nurture. The old nature-nurture controversy is a red herring used by Homo stramineus to avoid complex analysis. I forget who said: Simplify, but not too much. I think it was Einstein.

2. I envision the quartet of fields you mentioned as words we use as different lenses to understand as best we can the complex emergent behavior which is human being, that is being human from moment to moment.

I hope many others join in reflecting on the issues of this thread. Thanks for initiating it.