Academic Analysis of Why Nature and Nurture Won’t Go Away Homework Help

Academic Analysis of Why Nature and Nurture Won’t Go Away

Number of sources: 1

Topic: Academic Analysis of Why Nature and Nurture Won’t Go Away

Type of document: Essay

Academic Level:Undergraduate

Number of Pages: 4 (Double Spaced)

Category: English

Language Style: English (U.S.)

Writing Style: MLA

Order Instructions:

Okay, now the serious writing begins, but do not toss aside the valuable lessons in summarizing and exemplifying you?ve recently completed. You will find it impossible to perform a strong Academic Analysis if you do not fully and accurately understand the text you are analyzing; for a fair number of us, recent performance indicates, writing an accurate summary remains a challenging task. As well, you cannot effectively support an Academic Analysis without clear and specific examples. Some of us learned of late that vague and general claims come more quickly to our pen tips. First, read ?Why Nature and Nurture Won?t Go Away? by Steven Pinker (found online; just Google by name and title). Then, taking into account thesis, audience, exigence and support in his essay (and yours!), analyze his argument. At this point in the semester you are not to argue your view on the issue (if you even have one yet); you are only to take apart his argument and see how it is put together. You should, however, have a view (claim) about how well he presents his argument (i.e. this should be an evaluative analysis not just a summary analysis). You?re aiming for at least 1000 words. Analyze how Logos and Pathos are used in his essay. Analyze these two parts of his essay using specific examples from his essay. There should be an intro (with a thesis statement) paragraph, body paragraphs, and a conclusion paragraph. The conclusion should NOT summarize the essay. Leave the readers with something to think about but don’t go off on a new tangent. Your essay should read like an essay with its own thesis and support, and its own sense of audience and exigence. DO NOT CITE ANY SOURCES. NONE SHOULD BE NEEDED FOR THIS ESSAY

=======

Name:

Professor:

Course code:

Date of submission:

Topic: An Academic Analysis of the Debate of Nature and Nurture by Steven Pinker

Is there a distinct line in the influence of the environment on a person’s behavior or is behavior the outcome of a person’s genetics? This question is what forms the core part of the debate of “nature vs. nurture” as some scholars try to draw a distinction between “innate”and “nurture”. A person’s belief on a wide range of topics is thought to be affected by a combination of the environment and heredity factors. A variety of questions about human behavior have been put forward to try to understand the origins and the motivations about behavior. Can violence and drug abuse in teenagers be attributed to the treatment they received when they were toddlers, or is man born selfish and aggressive that necessitates the needed for law enforcers and a strong market economy, or could peace and cooperation just occur by chance that would lead to spontaneous socialism to thrive? Such questions that elicit strong emotions give the drive to the debate on “nature” and “nurture”.

The competing motives in humans are responsible for the drive in different circumstances therefore; we cannot classify human behavior collectively under any circumstances. The brain being a complex neural organ is affected by learning and accommodates the learning process through growth and the neuron circuitry. Genes on the other hand influences behavior as they play a crucial role in the growth of the brain. Jose Ortega’s proposition that man has no nature but only has history became a popular doctrine in the twentieth century, which was adopted in behavioral psychology and social constructionism sciences which referred to the mind as a “blank slate”. Social mobility cultural change and immigration could change the inborn differences in talent and moods of individuals. A blank slate mind is believed not be racist, prejudiced and sexist and also traits such as greed and aggression did not stem from the “nature” of man.

However, the sciences of the brain, genes and evolutions has made it difficult to defended the theory of “blank slate of the mind” as cognitive science has justified that there must exist complex inborn mechanisms for learning and culture to be possible. This has been proved by the evolutionary psychology that psychological traits are better adapted to the demands of evolution than the current environment the individual is in. moods have been shown to occur early in someone’s life and continue to remain constant through one’s lifetime according behavioral genetic scientists and these individual differences can be traced back to nature (genes).

Nurture, which includes learning, must be accompanied by nature, the innate circuitry. Nature is likened to a program that allows input of information from the five senses of the body, processes these information to produce new actions and thoughts. This is likened to the talent of acquisition capacity of a language and the infinite ways of expressing oneself through language. Therefore the generalization that all humans are selfish is inappropriate as competing motives experienced in different circumstances are as a result of the complex interactive system of the human mind. Also ones genealogy does not directly affect behavior, but has an influence on the growth of the brain’s circuitry.

Scientists today refute the two doctrines of the mind being a “blank slate” and also that biology is the destiny of humankind. They argue that nature and nurture cannot be separated as they are all a “some of each”. Behavior can therefore be attributed to the intricate interaction of both the environment and heredity. The distinction between the two aspects has been made obsolete by modern science as it has been shown that even though there are different effects of a given set of genes in different environments, the effects can be cancelled or reversed in a given environment. These therefore proves that there is no significant permanent constraints to behavior caused by genes as genes respond to environmental signals, therefore it becomes meaningless to separate the two.