jing hongyuan's essay

Is it a real balance?

Subtitle: nature or nurture which will be more strongly influences in early human intelligent development

Introduction: It’s a hard thing to define that the question of nature or nurture which will have  more strongly influence in early human development is a philosophy question or a biology question. As it hard to define, the answer of  this question also make many people feel confused. This a real debate with this question, some people thought that there is a balance between nature and nurture to influences early human development. Sometimes it is a real good way for the question which can’t be answer by yes or no, but is it really a balance? This essay will give you some advice to chose which will more heavy than the other side in this question.

Main body: A newborn half-breed baby with black eyes form his mother, with a white skin form his father, but what about the intelligence? Many scientists thought that intelligence based on individual’s gene, but we can’t ignore the influence of the environment. Which will be more strongly to affect the early human’s intelligence, nature or nurture? Generally speaking there is a balance in this question both side have a equal influence. But is the balance  really equal?

Some people always consider that nurture is more important than nature at early human’s intelligence. Edison has said that” Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” this is a very famous proverb in Chinese lesson. The teacher often taught their student this sentence to let his student study hard, but we can always find that not every one who working hard will have a high intelligence. Basically speaking that your intelligence not bases on the environment where you live in, but it depends on your gene. It depends on your father or your mother, even your ancestor. "Even for IQ scores, traditionally one of the most controversial areas, a recent survey of over 1,000 scientists and educators indicates that most now believe that individual differences in IQ scores are at least partially inherited (Snyderman & Rothman, 1987)."

Someone think this question by this way, you have two bottles, one is bigger than the other one (this is different of nature). And if you use two different ways to fill these bottles, one is let the liquid flow rate a little fast, another is a little slow (this is different of nurture). But at last you will confused by this question, because you won’t know which bottle will have more water than the other, then you will think that nature and nurture can't be compared with. But this is a really ridiculous thing because human’s intelligence isn’t a bottle. And the nurture isn’t the liquid flow rate. “The old argument of nature vs. nurture has never really been won. We do not yet know how much of what we are is determined by our DNA and how much by our life experience. But we do know that both play a part.(Kimberly Powell)” There isn’t an equal in nature or nurture, so if you want find which will be more strong there always have a method.

Nature has a very strongly influence in early human’s intelligence, it will decide by your nature. Most people believe that a pair of intelligent parents will have clever son, most of this will be true. Base on that in genetics chromosomes will affect the children's intelligence, if both of father and mother have a good gene the baby probably have a good intelligence. If a baby have a good gene he will learn things more fast than others, then will find his intelligence will a little higher than the baby who just have a good environment but not a very genius one. "Children growing up in the same family are not very similar. Sibling correlations ate about .40 for cognitive abilities and about .20 for personality, and sibling concordances for psychopathology are typically less than 10%(Robert Plomin)".Use these instances we can find that at the same nurthur human's intellegence and psychopathology are different. so we can say that nature’s influence is a little strongly than nurture. Overall we can find that the balance isn’t always balanced, if you just have a good environment but don’t have a good talent, you won’t have a good intelligence. But if you have a good gene it will be more easily, if you want have a high intelligence. So maybe  nature have a little strongly influence in this question.

Reference: 
 Kimberly Powell http://genealogy.about.com/cs/geneticgenealogy/a/nature_nurture.htm

 Robert Plomin Environment and Genes February 1989 • American Psychologist