This blog post explores the question of whether human nature is determined by genes or whether culture and nurture have a greater impact. We’ll look at the arguments for both points of view and analyze the complex factors that shape us.
There are a lot of creatures in the world. Among them, humans are the only ones who can think differently from other creatures and live in organized societies using language and tools. Individual human beings are related to each other to form families, which become societies, which grow in size to form the world. In the process of living in a society, culture arises. Culture is an attempt to escape the natural state and realize a certain purpose or ideal of life. Culture refers to the process of behavior or lifestyle that is acquired, shared, and transmitted by members of a society, and the material and spiritual income generated from that process. Culture, including rituals, language, customs, religion, learning, art, and institutions, is something that no other living creature has. As such, culture is directly related to human growth and development. If we look at the process of a newborn baby crying at birth, acquiring language and knowledge through education, and then growing up and becoming self-aware by expressing their thoughts, we can say that it is culture that actually determines a human being. The theory that claims this is called cultural determinism.
However, some people question the idea that culture defines us. They argue that humans, like other creatures, have inherent biological traits that determine who they are and how they behave. In other words, humans follow their physical nature. The theory that organizes these arguments is biological determinism. The debate over whether it’s nature or nurture that defines us, whether biological determinism or cultural determinism is correct, has been going on for a long time. It’s a topic of conversation and research for many people. The nature of this debate is that there is no definitive answer. This is because we don’t have a complete understanding of how nature and nurture affect us. In this article, we’re going to talk about cultural determinism, or the idea that nurture shapes us. We’ll learn more about cultural determinism and examine why it makes sense as opposed to biological determinism.
According to the dictionary definition, cultural determinism is the theory that an individual’s behavior is almost entirely determined by the culture he or she belongs to. It was proposed by French sociologist Emile Durkheim and his school. Unlike Émile Durkheim, there are also those who refer to cultural determinism from a cultural anthropological perspective, rather than sociological. Alfred Louis Kroeber argued that culture is a self-sustaining entity that transcends the individual, and that the individual is powerless in the face of culture. James L. White also argued that culture as a system of symbols is extrinsic and irreducible to the individual. This determinism of culture can be seen in the process of human infant development.
We are born to parents and begin to grow up in the culture of the family, which is where the importance of nurture, or cultural determinism, comes into play. Depending on the kind of family you grow up in and the kind of parents you have, you will have different characteristics. A program on South Korean broadcaster SBS, “My Child is Different,” provides numerous real-life examples of how nurture shapes us. The program begins by showing a child’s problems. The child and parents are then shown a pediatric expert hired by the program. After analyzing a few days of observation cameras, the expert meets with the parents and tells them that the child’s problems are due to poor parenting. The program then ends by showing the parents how to change their behavior, which in turn changes the child’s behavior. Of course, just because one TV show, and one expert, says something doesn’t mean it’s right. But one thing is for sure: the program shows the impact of nurture on human beings through the unadorned realities of many real families, not actors or actresses following a script.
Would biological determinists agree with the above examples that nurture shapes us? Richard Dawkins, a professor of biology at Oxford University, is one of the most prominent advocates. In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins argues that genes determine human behavior, that reproduction is a behavior already programmed into our genes, and that love is a way to leave more genes. Based on this definition, it could be argued that the children’s behavior was also predetermined. Whether they have violent tendencies or voracious appetites is already determined by their genes, and while we can expect to see some positive changes with nurturing, the underlying cause is nature, not nurture.
However, as mentioned above, the argument that our genes, or biology, determine who we are commits the reductionist fallacy. Reductionism is the attempt to explain complex and abstract ideas or concepts in terms of single-level, more basic elements. According to Richard Dawkins, organisms act in order to perpetuate their species, or in other words, to preserve their selfish genes. However, he goes further and attempts to explain these biological behaviors in terms of social values that make us good or bad. Opponents of biological determinism argue that there is no conclusive evidence to explain all of human behavior in terms of genetically driven biological behavior.
Next, let’s take a look at the examples that proponents of biological determinism give. Their favorite example is identical twins. Identical twins have identical genes and show similarities in basic human behaviors, such as the way they think and tend to behave, which is the basis for biological determinism. But do they exhibit exactly the same biological behavior? No, they do not. While we can see some influence of genes on human beings, it is not conclusive proof that nature determines human beings.
I want to use more scientific evidence to show that the claim that genes define us is not correct. According to the results of the 2001 Genome Project, humans have between 20,000 and 40,000 genes, not much different from non-human animals, and far fewer than the 100,000 predicted. This fact shows that genes do not correspond 1:1 to human traits. It also leads to the conclusion that if a single gene can’t even determine physical traits, it’s impossible for it to determine more complex and extended human behavior. American biologist Richard Lewontin argues that genetic determinism is wrong by pointing to three features about genes. First, the process by which genes are expressed is autonomous. Second, the genes that make up an individual interact with each other during expression to produce new, previously unrecognized properties. Genetic diseases are an exception because a single gene determines the trait, but otherwise, the interaction of genes leads to the emergence of physical characteristics. Third, the process of gene expression is constantly subject to external influences, which can lead to new expression processes. The above-mentioned reductionist fallacies can be refuted by the characteristics of these genes. In particular, the last feature is the basis for showing that there are some differences between identical twins.
In fact, the debate about whether it’s nature or nurture that makes us who we are is pretty much settled today. The current consensus is that it’s not either/or, but rather the interplay between genes and culture that makes us who we are. Along with this conclusion, some question whether the distinction between nature and nurture is even correct. Biologist Evelyn Fox Keller argues that the nature-nurture debate is meaningless and that we should recognize that they are not binary concepts, but rather factors that influence and are influenced by each other. American evolutionary biologist Paul R. Ehrlich agrees that the debate is pointless, and even that the question is silly. Nevertheless, this article has outlined the idea that nurture has a greater impact on humans than nature. As I said, the research is far from complete, and the lines between nature and nurture are not always clear, so different interpretations can lead to different conclusions. Therefore, I have come to the view that humans are determined by cultural determinism rather than genetic determinism.
