Shlain, nature-versus-nurture debate

"The contentious nature-versus-nurture debate:"

"There is no gene-controlled inheritable trait that cannot be altered by the environment. Similarly, the genetic makeup of the organism can overcome the influence of the environment. Each factor can affect and alter the other. Humans enter the world as a work in progress. In some cases, the culture or environmen
t into which the a person is born more strongly determines his or her responses to the vagaries of life, and sometimes responses are more influenced by the genes he or she has inherited. Nature/nurture is not an either or duality but, rather, represents a both/and type of complementarity."

Leonard Shlain, M.D., Sex, Time and Power, p. xvi.

Science in understanding policy

November 1, 2008

Name:__________________

What does he mean?

What evidence in your chapter supports or elucidates the alleged complementary affects of hard and soft inheritance?

Hard inheritance is the genome where the genotype of the chromosomes is expressed as a phenotype.

Soft inheritance is acquired traits that creatures pass on by means of mimicry or imprinting and the capacity to adapt traits in new and different conditions.

Keller Chapter: ______________

Evidence for not sure Evidence against

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