2. Essay Draft ( Hakan )

Nature or nurture which one is more effective on human development. It is an important question for humanity. Philosophers have been searching for the answer, but they have not agreed on one point yet. For example , Charles Darwin' s theory, which is accepted as the basis for evolutionary theories, set up on heredity. In other words, nature has a crucial place on human development. On the other hand, in twentieth century people pointed an other point, they said that human can be formed; they argue that environment is more important.



Charles Darwin support hereditarian viewpoint. During his researches, he realized that genes affect human development. ( Atkinson et al., 1999, pp. 12-13 ) People' s body shape or their character, for example, would depend on their genes. In the same way as considering somebody' s parents skin colour, child' s skin colour can be known. If the parents are white, also their children will be white. Genes effects also can be seen on other features, for example, on human intelligence, psychological behaviours. [but whether this fact is supports nature or nurture is not clear - that's the question.]



On the other hand, in the twentieth century some people supported the opposite idea. This environmentalist approach started to become more popular. Environmentalists like John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner claimed that one human can be fully formed. If necessary practices are done in correct way, they can have a wholly new character. ( Watson and Skinner, 1930,p.104 as cited in Atkinson et al. 1999, p 12 ) Their opinion is so interesting, they just focus on nurture. Without looking the infant' s genes, they claim that they can grow up any healthy infant in any form that they want. [unclear]



B. F. Skinner was one of the most important and dominant American psychologists. He defended the nurture and he improved the operant conditioning theory. ( NNDB, 2010 ) He did some tests on animals to demonstrate his theory. He thought that if you are conditioned to do something and if you get a present at the end of your behaviour, you will keep doing. For instance, if a newborn infant do regular walking practices, he can start walking early. ( Zelazo,Zelazo & Kolb, 1972 as cited in Atkinson et al. 1999, p13 ) Or if a newborn infant do speaking practices with his parents and get some present when he make sounds like speaking, he can start to speak earlier. ( Kagan, 1979 as cited in Atkinson et al. 1999, p13 )



Parents often say that their children' s behaviours start to change when they start to school. In my opinion, since they enter a new environment, their behaviours start to change. They are influenced by their teacher or students. They want to have an important role in this social group. But only environment is not enough to change. For example, lot of students want to be most succesful student in the school or most popular student of the school. But few people can do that, because also the genes' role is important. So this a combination of genes and environment.

To conclude, if you consider that they already born with speaking,visual or hearing ability genes affect cannot be ignored. On the other hand, when you think that people behaviours can change in different social groups, definetly you see environment effect. In my opinion, there is not only one answer to this question. Nature and nurture, both of them have a direct effect on early human development.
References

1- Atkinson et al. (1999) Hilgard' s Introduction to Psychology, (13th ed). Forth Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
2- NNDB tracking the entire world, B. F. Skinner; 18.10.2010 available at: http://www.nndb.com/people /297/000022231/