We're all just products of our environment

by onacruse 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Nathan Natas

  I don't want to be presumptuous here, but does everyone understand the "unspoken" portion of the subject line?

  Unless I am wrong -- and please don't hesitate to smack me down if I am -- Craig is refering to the longstanding "Nature or Nurture" debate.

  Are we all just products of our environment?

  We can't be, as demonstrated by the multiplicity of genetic diseases. Here's a list of some of them from Yahoo:

  Achondroplasia Achromatopsia Acid Maltase Deficiency Adrenoleukodystrophy

  Aicardi syndrome Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome

  Apert Syndrome Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia Ataxia Telangiectasia

  Barth Syndrome Blue Rubber Bleb Nevus Syndrome Canavan Disease Cri Du Chat Syndrome

  Cystic Fibrosis Dercum's Disease Ectodermal Dysplasia Fanconi Anemia Fibrodysplasia

  Ossificans Progressiva Fragile X Syndrome Galactosemia Gaucher Disease

  Hemochromatosis Hemophilia Huntington's Disease Hurler Syndrome Hypophosphatasia

  Klinefelter Syndrome Krabbes Disease Langer-Giedion Syndrome Leukodystrophy

  Long QT Syndrome Marfan Syndrome Moebius Syndrome Mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS)

  Nail Patella Syndrome Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus Neurofibromatosis

  Niemann-Pick Disease Osteogenesis Imperfecta Porphyria Prader-Willi Syndrome

  Progeria Proteus Syndrome Retinoblastoma Rett Syndrome Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome

  Sanfilippo Syndrome Shwachman Syndrome Sickle Cell Disease

  Smith-Magenis Syndrome Stickler Syndrome Tay-Sachs

  Thrombocytopenia Absent Radius (TAR) Syndrome Treacher Collins Syndrome

  Trisomy Tuberous Sclerosis Turner's Syndrome Urea Cycle Disorder

  von Hippel-Lindau Disease Waardenburg Syndrome Williams Syndrome

  Wilson's Disease

  I'm not a doctor, and frankly I don't know what most of these diseases involve, but the important point is that NONE of them are a result of the environment (nurture); no one got the disease from a toilet seat or from drinking a potion; no one "signed up" for them, saying, in effect, "Yeah, give me some of that there Huntington's Disease - I want to go crazy before I reach the age of 40."

  Now, if diseases - an obvious defect - can be inherited, isn't it reasonable to think that more subtle gradations of variance from THE IDEAL can occur as a result of genetics (nature)? Of course it is.

  But there is hope!

  Because man has a rational mind, he is able, given time, to understand the causes of even these genetic diseases. We are approaching (not in our lifetimes, perhaps, but not too far off) an age where inherited deficiencies can be treated and cured -- not by the action of some imaginary invisible Sky King in New Jerusalem 90210, by by the dedicated effort of workers in the fields of science and medicine.

  Religionists would have you believe that these people are inherently "sinful," "imperfect," and inclined toward Satanic services of all sorts, yet our only real hope for a better future is with these workers in science and medicine, not with some imaginary sock puppet.
• 

  Larry

  Gumby - No need to nick-pick or speak in behalf of someone else.

  Like I said, opinions don?t amount to a hill of beans - b/c of this quote

  "Epistemology--We "know what we think we know."

  da Vinci - "The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions."

  I?m not talking about the people who have power to enforce their opinion on others, or people who follow other peoples opinions, I?m talking about opinion as they stand on their own. Opinions are not absolute, we think they are but they really aren?t.

  Plato - "True opinions are a fine thing and do all sorts of good so long as they stay in their place; but they will not stay long. They run away from a man's mind, so they are not worth much until you tether them by working out the reason. Once they are tied down, they become knowledge, and are stable."

  It?s only an opinion, relax.

  Peace - LL
• 

  DanTheMan

  I am a believer in determinism, but the environmental and genetic factors that influence our behavior could never be known to the degree that it would be possible to predict behavior in any given situation with total accuracy, so we'll never know if humans have a non-substantive will or soul that makes choices, so the nature vs. nurture, free-will vs. determinism debate has plenty of shelf life left.
• 

  Realist

  non-substantive will or soul that makes choices

  actually as long as you don't believe the brain is capable of producing a force that can move molecules (i would love to see prove of such a force!!!) there is no room for free will or free choices.

  so we are nothing but the combined product of our atoms...which arrangement are determined by genetics AND outside influence.
• 

  Corvin

  Corvin... I think there are genetics there, for sure. But also, our environment is a heck of a lot more than just who are parents are and where we grow up. Our environment is every single thing that touches us: our teachers, our friends, what we read, what we see. No two people have the exact same environment, unless they are literally joined at the hip.

  Excellent point! I use to know that . . . I just forgot is all
• 

  Satanus

  Now, scientists claim that genes can be turned on by the environment. This study was based mainly on rats.

  a Canadian researcher has found out how it can also trigger profound changes beneath the skin -- how a caregiver's touch can physically alter a baby's genes. McGill University's Michael Meaney

  Many scientists now accept that a mysterious dance between genes and environment determines who we become.

  Their work is with rats. But his team has just begun a $4-million, five-year study that could be the first in the world to confirm that it also applies to humans.

  There are two different kinds of rat mothers -- those that lick their pups a lot and those that don't. Dr. Meaney found that, under provocation, the high-licking mothers' offspring produced less of the stress hormone cortisol. They are more stable individuals that are not as easily panicked.

  Picture half a dozen rats in a cage, eating. Dr. Meaney claps his hands loudly, and all the animals freeze. Some rats almost immediately go back to gobbling their food, realizing that the researcher doesn't pose a real threat. But others will remain immobilized for up to 10 minutes, and may never go back their lunch. The difference? The timid rats are the offspring of mothers who didn't lick them much.

  How can licking make that much of a difference in personality -- is it due to their genes, or the way they were raised? The answer is both. In essence, the high-licking moms produce changes in their babies' DNA. Their pink tongues somehow flick on the same chemical switch that turns genes on and off in a developing embryo.

  In the fetus, this process -- which scientists call methylation -- allows development of the brain and organs to proceed in an orderly fashion. In the baby rats, the high-licking mothers somehow switch on a gene that restricts the production of cortisol. The low-licking mothers do not, so their pups produce much higher levels of the stress hormone.

  Cortisol helps prepare the body to deal with a threat -- such as the possibility that a clapping researcher means them harm. In short bursts, it can save an animal's life. But over the long term, a heightened stress response has been linked to diabetes, heart disease, mental illness and other serious ailments in both humans and lab animals.

  "We have now studied that particular gene down to the level where we know what maternal care is doing to turn it on or off," says Dr. Meaney.

  a group of depressed and pregnant women in Hamilton. Mothers suffering from severe depression often have trouble bonding with the children and tend not to respond as quickly to their cues.

  "Some don't bond, some don't bond well. Some of these moms will do the instrumental things, but not the affectionate things. They will feed, bathe, change [diapers]. But there is nothing on their faces," says Dr. Meir Steiner, a McMaster University researcher. "Some women are so irritable, they cannot tolerate the behaviour of the baby, the noise, the crying. They say they want to crawl out of their skin."

  New rat studies in Dr. Meaney's lab certainly offer hope that there will be a difference. Researchers have found that poor maternal care means that a number of genes in the brain involved in memory don't get activated. But if you take those rats -- including those who are past puberty -- and put them in an enriched environment, the genes are turned on.

  "You really, literally can reverse it," he says.

  Not only that, but if you have a female rat pup born to a low-licking mother removed to live with a high-licking surrogate mother, she will become a high-licking mother when she grows up. On the other hand, if a high-licking mother is subjected to high stress, she will pay less attention to her offspring.

  theglobeandmail

  Neglected rat babies the world over can take heart.

  SS
• 

  dh

  i think so yeah, but i also think that every mind has a unique way of processing the environment it's in, therefore the same environment will be dealt with differently by different minds, i also think those same minds in different environments will use the same style of thought process to deal with it it.

  what i mean is that i think the innate nature of a person is the way their brain/consciesness/whatever, processes things, i think this does not change regardless of environment, but that the actions and subsequent reactions and consequences that happen as a result of choices made by that brain/consciesness/whatever go on to shape the person, like an education, the brain learns, but its nature does not change.

  falling dominoes.

  that's my 2p, not sure if it was very clear tho.

  .
• 

  onacruse

  Along the lines of what SS posted:

  There has been for some time (about 10 years) an increasing amount of investigation into what "generates" genetic structure...there is even some evidence that 'moral determination processes' might simply be the result of hard-wired neurological structures, which we can't individually escape, no matter how hard we might try.

  I submit that, in that case, we're still just products of our environment, however chemical and cosmic-ray-impacted the temporal result might be.
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  outbutnotdown

  To answer your question as accurately as I can... are we "just" products of our environment.......? NO!!

  But to put a percentage to it we are probably about 80% products of our environment, 10% products of our genes and about 10% products of our "free will".

  My very beautiful 6 year old son was upset because, (after playing baseball, soccer, hockey and basketball for about 5 hours with him today), it was time to stop playing and go to bed. The whole experience/(environment) for him today was great and genetically he must like to be active like his daddy.... ..... But if I didn't take an extra few minutes and explain to him that "it sometimes sucks to stop playing, but that's only because we had SO much fun while we were playing... and we will have even more fun playing tomorrow" and instead I had of reacted with my first instinct... (since I was a little tired and grumpy myself)..... that "he is never happy"... then he would have likely used his FREE WILL to lose respect for daddy a bit and the environment he would remember and GO TO BED ON would have not been good.

  My point is that we should not just passively allow ourselves to think that WE ARE a product of our environment, without using our FREE WILL to sometimes revolt against what we feel is unfair. Fifty years ago and less we used to believe that sparing the rod was HARMING a child, because they needed DISCIPLINE. We have come a long way in growing as humans, even recently, and may we all remember that we are, to a great extent products of our environment, and for those of us here who were lucky enough to escape from a very negative environment......(that religion)... we have the benefit of seeing the POSITIVE and NEGATIVE effects of it and we can see a perspective that others are not able to.

  Brad