Argumentative Essay

Nurture Beats Nature

Jane Watson

English 201

Professor Leslie Jewkes

2nd, December 2012

In the following essay, Nurture Beats Nature, we explore three in-depth cases of individuals whose lives had taken an unfortunate turn, but provided researchers and psychologists with a unique opportunity to examine the ongoing debate: Nature versus Nurture. Through exploration of these cases and the philosophies of historical characters such as John Locke, we can better understand how nurture plays a significant role in the environment/gene saga.

Jane Watson
Professor Leslie Jewkes
English 201
2 Dec 2012

Nurture Beats Nature

In today's psychological world, there are a number of areas that deal with a great amount of controversy, and one of the most hotly debated is the issue of nature versus nurture. Nature versus nurture examines the relationship between traits that are inherited and the environmental factors that surround us. What is each role in development? Nature refers to the characteristics that we inherit at birth which influence our personality, physical maturity, intellectual capacity and social interactions. Nurture involves the effects of the environment on our personality, physical maturity, intellectual capacity and social interactions. Through an intensive examination of people throughout history, it is easy to see that nurture beats nature.

The questions remain: How much of our personality is determined by the manner with which we are raised by our parents? What role does our childhood experiences play in who we become? According to Psychology in Everyday Life, Nature and Nurture begs the question: “How does our genetic inheritance interact with our experiences to influence our development?” (64) Does it simply come down to having good or bad genes, and all else doesn't matter so much? Perhaps it's some of both. In the text Psychology, scholars ask, “is a person like Hitler born that way, or did something happen to make him the person he was?” (251) After we study the case of Genie, it's easy to conclude that nurture has an absolute profound effect on what makes us who we are.

Genie is not the name of the girl who was discovered, but rather a name given to her as a representation of a 'feral child'. Genie spent nearly all of her first thirteen years of life locked in her bedroom at home. She is arguably America's best known case of a wild child, a child who experienced extreme social isolation by being strapped to a potty chair, where she stayed indefinitely, whether she was eating, sleeping or doing nothing at all. Genie had just entered her teenage years, but could barely walk, talk or otherwise behave normally. Genie was forced to be alone all the time, and had nothing to do, or anyone to talk to. A social worker discovered her, still in diapers. In the review of the book, Letters, the author wrote:

Genie was hospitalized in November 1970 at the age of 13, not because she did not speak, nor even because she had undergone abuse. It was because of the totality of her state of being. At the time of her admission she was virtually unsocialized. She could not stand erect, salivated continuously, had never been toilet-trained and had no control over her urinary or bowel functions. She was unable to chew solid food and had the weight, height and appearance of a child half her age. (New York Times Book Review)

Within Genie's isolated upbringing, she was neglected and abused by the hands of her father, and her mother did nothing to help in the welfare of their daughter. Once Genie was discovered, her father killed himself, making it impossible for researchers and scientists to question him about the circumstances. Instead, Genie's team of neurologists, linguists and psychologists were left with a puzzling case that might shed some light on the nature versus nurture debate. Genie was a unique chance to investigate the influences of these two forces. Genie's case gives light to the concept of “tabula rasa”, the idea that humans are essentially born a blank slate. Of course, this isn't new. The idea can be traced back to Aristotle.

The blank slate theory is most widely attributed to John Locke's, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, from the 17^th century. John Locke was a philosopher in the 1600's and believed nurture is everything. In Locke's philosophy, the idea is that the human mind at birth does not come preloaded with instruction and data. He wrote:

It is an established opinion among some men, that there are in the understanding certain innate principles; some primary notions, characters, as it were, stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul receives in its very first being, and brings into the world with it. It would be sufficient to convince unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposition. (12)

Our sensory experiences through life, rather, are what makes us the people we are. In fact, Sigmund Freud was also a proponent of nurture, and believed that one's character is more determined by upbringing.

At the time of Genie's discovery back in 1970, there was a debate brewing. Scientists declared that Genie was already mentally retarded at birth. If this was the case, then we could definitively say that Genie's nurturing had nothing to do with the state of her intellectual capacity and behaviors...but this is not the case. One of the members of Genie's team at the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, California, Susan Curtiss, claimed that Genie's mental age increased by one year every time she was tested, which is impossible of someone who is mentally retarded. If such be the case, nurture beats nature exponentially.

Genie, undoubtedly, is a fascinating and unsettling glimpse into what a human being is like without the strict structures of our society. Though wild children are not the only cases that bring up the nature versus nurture debate. According to the text, Psychology, authors Ciccarelli and Meyer state that the debate is “quite important. Are people like Hitler, the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy, and Timothy McVeigh (the man responsible for the Oklahoma bombing of the Federal Building) the results of bad genes? Or was it bad parenting or life-altering experiences in childhood?”

A close examination of serial killers will lend strong support to both behavioral problems due to upbringing as well as inherited traits. While it's difficult to rule one completely out, we are still left with the question of which one is more strongly attributable....genetics or environment? In the article Phenomenology and Serial Murder, Candice A. Skrapec writes, “There are many studies of individual serial killers that describe and seek to understand their behavior under the terms of an established paradigm.”

John Douglas, a former FBI Profiler, said that disorganized serial killers normally share a list of common characteristics. Of some of these, most notably, is a dysfunctional background. A dysfunctional background for a serial killer usually involves sexual or physical abuse, overbearing parents, alcohol and drug use and related problems. A classic example of a dysfunctional childhood in a serial killer is that of Ed Kemper, whose mother condemned him to the basement for fears he would molest his younger sister, despite the reality that he had never given his mother any reason to think this. He was just ten years old at the time, and was naturally confused and angry. In compensation he turned to fantasy. Brought on by continued isolation, Ed Kemper's fantasies grew worse. It's easy here to draw the connection between Kemper's poor childhood experience and his outrageous behavior later on in life. And not much later. He began criminal behavior at the age of 15 when he murdered his grandparents. We are left to wonder if Ed Kemper had been raised by two very loving parents who had never locked him in the basement, if he still would have killed his grandparents. Is there a murder gene? Each individual has the same capacity to kill, so what makes some kill, and others not?

A man named Bradley Waldroup was convicted of murder in what the NPR radio program's Morning Edition called a “war zone.” Waldroup shot the friend eight times and “sliced her head open with a sharp object. When Waldroup was finished with her, he chased after his wife, Penny, with a machete, chopping off her finger and cutting her over and over.” NPR states that it wasn't a question of “who done it? But why done it?” They claim the answer was found in Waldroup's genes. In what is no doubt compelling and fascinating evidence, but nonetheless not able to hold up in the court of law, is Waldroup's Mao-A Gene. The gene has been linked to 30 different criminal defendants, most of them charged with murder. A particular variant of this gene has been linked to violence, and Waldroup was found to “carry the high risk version of the gene.”

Can we now expect each baby to be tested for the Mao-A Gene and if present with the high risk kind, be automatically imprisoned? It certainly raises the question. In this particular case, psychiatrist Terry Holmes was called in to rebut the evidence. He said Waldroup's behavior “had little to nothing to do with his genetic makeup.” What isn't being discussed here as much, is Waldroup's abusive childhood. A bad gene is a bad gene, and we may all have some. But it must be turned on.

In 1874, Francis Galton said, “Nature is all that a man brings with him into the world; nurture is every influence that affects him after his birth.” The human body is born with 100 trillion cells, and within each cell is the backbone of who we are, strands upon strands of DNA, uniquely profiled to physically distinguish us from other people. DNA is made up of tiny chromosomes, consisting of genes, tiny units of heredity that is given to us from our parents. Within these genes we are not helpless victims, predetermined to act or behave any certain way. Behavior can be learned or un-learned, and it is largely shaped by what we see and are told.

Works Cited

Ciccarelli, Saundra K and Meyer, Glenn. Psychology. New Jersey: Pearson, 2006. Print.

Hagerty, Bradley Barbara. “Can Your Genes Make You Murder?” NPR.Org. N.S. Web. 2 Dec. 2012

"Letters." New York Times Book Review (1993): 35. Academic Search Premier. Web. 13 Dec. 2012.

Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. New York: Prometheus Books, 1995. Print.

Myers, David G. Psychology in Everyday Life. New York: Worth, 2009. Print.

Skrapec, Candice. “Phenomenology and Serial Murder.” Homicide Studies 5.1 (2001): 46-63. Print.