Blog #1--written shamefully late

The nature side of the "nature vs nurture" debate has always seemed like a bit of a cop-out to me. I feel it obvious that not every aspect of a person's personality is determined by society, but pinning all social ills on genetics downplays the actual consequences of having a society where inequality runs rampant. Now, while I'm probably going to spend most of this trying to argue with Pinker, he makes some very good points. One of my favorites is his point about child-rearing and environment vs genes. Essentially, since the parents who provided their genes to the child is also the one providing them the environment for their upbringing, it is easy to confuse environmental factors and genetic ones. For example, if a child is spanked at home, they are more likely to grow up to be violent. However, the parent who does the spanking is clearly more prone to violence, and they passed those genes on to their child. 

I like that argument because there's no clear answer. While the spankings aren't doing the child any good, we don't have a good way to tell if the spanking or the genes cause violent behavior later in life. Of course, looking at adopted children, as Pinker does, helps shine a light on that, but there are many social issues that factor into adoption as well, such as race and gender and sexuality. And that, at least in my opinion, is where the argument for genetic determinism begins to falter. Race, class, sexuality, and gender are all large parts of our individual personalities, and not one of them can be attributed to biology (well at least three of them can't--race, gender, and class. I haven't studied sexuality enough to have an informed opinion). There is no genetic basis for race. It is determined by how those around you, and society as a whole, perceives you. Despite this, it makes up a large part of our identity, partially because of the importance placed on it by society. You can't ignore race as a component of both personal identity and structured society.

I really have no place in the "science wars". I'm not a scientist. I study geography, which, at most, is a "social science". The study of how people interact with each other to form society, and how that society interacts with places. The science behind Pinker's argument is probably sound (not that I would know), and he makes many logically good points. As a whole, it's very believable. I guess as a "social scientist", my role in the science wars would be to advise against taking an either-or approach to this question. Undoubtedly, my parents gave me my sweet tooth, and my increased chance of addiction to cigarettes, and my taste in recreational drugs, and my just-bad-enough eyesight. However, society has taught me my race and my gender. Those things wouldn't exist without a society.