Nature vs. Nurture-Which is more important?
You got your green eyes from your mother, and your freckles from your father. But where did you get your thrill-seeking personality and talent for singing? Did you learn these from your parents or was it predetermined by your genes? While it’s clear that physical characteristics are hereditary, the genetic waters get a bit more murky when it comes to an individual’s behavior, intelligence, and personality. Ultimately, 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.
Which do you think is more influential in how a person is?
Which is more important, good genes or good upbringing?
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I think that nurture is more influential because people change everyday. They change their behavior because of rules.
I think that both nature and nurture are both very important because everything about you makes you, you. If you can sing well, better than anyone else in all the generations of your family, then you couldn’t have gotten it from your genes. You can also tell that it is not your genes because you can change your singing and make it better by practicing. You can tell that your looks are from your genes because it cannot be changed naturally.
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I think that nurture is more influential because if you are born with genes that say you are average at basketball, and in your upbringing, you play basketball everyday, you’ll become better than average.
I think that both are important because your genes give you your natural features like your facial features, your hair, your height and weight, and your abilities or talents. But your upbringing can help you discover those things. Upbringing can also teach you things that weren’t in your genes and also make you better in things already in your genes.
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:55 pm
I think the person is more influenced by the people they live by because if you hang around bad people eventually you’ll do something bad. So I think when people say it is a disease to do something bad, I would say, no it isn’t because you had a choice to do it and don’t tell me that your genes had anything to do with it because it didn’t.
I think good upbringing is the reason for many good people doing good things because it not your genes that make you do things, it is your choice, just like I said in the other paragraph.
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:55 pm
I think that nurture is more influential because if there were two sisters put up for adoption and one sister is adopted by a kind, loving, hard working family:) and the other sister is adopted by a mean, lazy family:(, which one do you think will end up kind? Yeah, just what I thought, the one adopted by good people.
I think that it’s better to have bad genes and a bad upbringing than good genes and a bad up bringing because usually your upbringing overpowers your genes when it comes to behavior. Say you had the genes to be a drug addict but you were raised to know that drugs were extremely bad for you. You would most likely stay away from drugs. That’s why I think that nurture overpowers nature.
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
I think that the upbringing is more influential than genes because your genes are dying, like they reproduce every 3 weeks or so, so they could change to the environment and make you like the environment that you are living in. For example, just like in the Mainland you don’t get a tan because it’s cold.
I think that good healthy genes are more important because maybe they won’t die and you won’t need the good upbringing.
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:37 pm
I think that nurture is more influential because the genes aren’t always right. If your genes say that you are going to be dumb and have mental disabilities and you come out fine, then your genes are sort of lying. All I am saying is you don’t know until it happens because no one can actually know the future besides God who controls the future.
I think both are important because your genes give you your hair color and other things. It also gives you a sort of individuality in looks so no two people are the same, even twins. But if it were up to me to choose genes or upbringing, I would choose upbringing because I don’t care if we look alike but we all have different talents to tell us apart.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:32 pm
I think upbringing is more influential because, for example, there isn’t a gene for singing. So, if your mom teaches you how to sing (or Barney
) when you were young, most likely you’ll be a good singer. I agree with Kyle because say your eye genes are Bb. The doctor says you are going to have brown eyes but, you are born with blue eyes. So, like Kyle said, genes can lie sometimes.
I think nurture is more important because if you’re the best singer in all of your family then it couldn’t be genes, right? Besides, if everyone looked alike, we would still have talents and that would show who was different.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:50 pm
I think that your upbringing is more influential because if you are brought up in a mean and nasty environment, you will be mean and nasty but no one really likes mean and nasty people. You won’t get anywhere in life acting in a bad way.
I think that upbringing is more important because if you are brought up in a good environment, you will be good, and if you are brought up somewhere with good singers, you probably will be a good singer.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:22 pm
I think that your upbringing is more influential because if it was not your father that was very good at soccer or it was not your mother that was good at soccer either, then who was it? It’s not in your genes because neither your mom or dad was good at soccer. For example, when my dad met my stepmom and my stepsisters played soccer, I decided to join AYSO. I used to practice soccer with my younger sister all the time. Then I got really good so we decided to join HYSA and take it one level higher. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t all depend on your genes for you to know what you are going to become.
I think good upbringing is more important because if your friends always stole from the store and you always hung out with them, you would know better because you were brought up in a good environment.
January 24th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Which do I choose to think is more influential, good genes or good upbringing? I think good upbringing because if something gets invented after you’re born, your mother or father haven’t had any experience with it, so it’s not very likely they have a gene to be good in that activity.
Also, good upbringing is like you being trained, then something gets invented, and the thing that you trained to help work is the new invention. An example is “living and dying”. When you are awake, you might run into a situation that makes you hurt or kills you. When you are asleep or not in control of your body, you won’t like roll down into the street or anything. Dying is not an invention but living helps you to die. This can’t be reversed. The invention can’t help the thing you trained because you’re in the past. It could happen in the future but not in the past. Dying can’t help you live because dying is the opposite of living. But it works the other way around. Dying can help you live in the future because when you die, you are going to most likely to get another life as another animal or something. You can’t stay in total darkness forever.
But, genes that you got from your parents on one thing can help you work an invention too. It’s not always good upbringing.
What I think is more important is good genes. There could be a gene for staying awake or having a disease that would kill you. You can’t be trained to be awake or to have a disease. You could catch a disease but you can’t decide whether you want a disease or not unless you use gene technology to fix it.
It could be that me playing speed helped me type.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I think that upbringing is more influential to a human being. One reason is when you are young, you are influenced by many things in the world and some of those things are what make you unique.
To me, I think that your good genes are more important than your good upbringing because you start out with your genes and you will have them for all your life from beginning to end, unlike your upbringing.
January 24th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I think upbringing is more influential. Mr. Chung talked about synapses and how they can always change when you are younger. So if your upbringing was good then you should have good synapses which means good habits.
I think that both good genes and a good upbringing are equally important. If you don’t have good genes, then you might have mental or physical disabilities, but if your genes are good, then you will be smart and active. If you don’t have a good upbringing, then you will be taught bad things and do bad things, but if you do have a good upbringing then you will be a good boy and make good choices.
January 25th, 2009 at 7:54 am
I think that nurture is more influential than nature. I think this because you could be born with genes that are supposed to be good at football but if you never practice you won’t get better. But if you practice everyday, you will get better at it.
Genes and upbringing both play an important role in your life, but I think that it’s better if you have a good upbringing because even if you have good genes, they can be changed by your upbringing. If you have twins one of them could be really good at football, the other one could really suck at it. But I would want to have good genes and a good upbringing, rather then good genes and a bad upbringing.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:20 am
‘Ilikea, it doesn’t matter if you have good or bad genes!!!!! Your upbringing determines if you are good or bad.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:25 am
I think nurture is most influential than nature because I can sing well because my dad is always singing and I hear it most of the time. While he is singing, he plays Hawaiian music on full blast so the whole house can hear the music. Another story is Ms. Bright was tone deaf until she started to practice and practice, and now she is a music teacher.
At this point in my life, I would have to say good upbringing because if you have “bad” genes, your good upbringing will overpower the bad genes because your upbringing will become your paradigm. Hence, I think good upbringing is better than good genes.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:30 am
I agree with Spencer!
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January 25th, 2009 at 10:51 am
I think nurture is more influential because if you have bad genes, but your parents are strict and teach you how to have good manners, then you’ll know right from wrong and you’ll most likely be a good kid. If you live in a good community, then you’ll most likely be a good kid.
I think both are very important because your genes give you good talents, like my dad was a good baseball player. I found this out because of my upbringing when my dad pushed me hard in baseball. Another reason why good genes is important is your genes make you who you are. You don’t have the same genes as anyone else. They may be very similar, maybe you’re not even a percent away because if that little percent is there, it is the difference from a person from a rabbit.
January 25th, 2009 at 11:14 am
I think that nurture is more influential because if you were brought up in a bad environment then your perspective of the world wouldn’t be as positive as if you had grown up in a good environment with love and support. Thus, it depends on your life experiences.
I think that both nature and nurture are important. Just look at Michael Phelps. His genetics made him a good swimmer but support from his family helped him discover his talent. If his family didn’t support him, he might have never discovered his talent in swimming. But what made him an exceptional swimmer was his genetics.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I think that nurture is more in influential because you could be born with really bad parents and still end up being a good kid. That is because there is change, did you ever hear the phrase people can change? I think that anyone can change at any time of the day. There mind could just click and they could change into a different person.
I think that both nature and nurture are good because with nurture, you can change in a good way and with nature you could just be good at something because you have the genes. Take my grandma for instance, she knew how to play the piano right after a couple lessons. She was so good because her own grandma could play very well.
January 26th, 2009 at 10:03 am
I believe that nurture is more influential than nature because your family is always telling you to do the things that they want you to to do to become a good person when you grow up and not end up in prison.
Good genes is also important because no matter where you go or what you do, you can’t escape your genes.
January 26th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
I think nurture is more influential because if you were raised in a bad environment, you might get involved in things like drugs or gangs. If you were raised in a place where everyone around you takes responsibility for their actions and sets good examples, you could be very successful in your life.
I think nature and nurture are both important because sometimes people are different than the people around them because of their genes. Sometimes if being a little taller is in your genes but you slouch because of your environment, then you could become a shorter person than you were supposed to be.
January 26th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
I think that there both really important. For example, if you wanted to be a really good football player, you could have the genes and the talent to play really good football. But if you don’t have the talent to do it, maybe you could be taught from Terrell Owens or Tom Brady, and you might still be really good at football without the talent.
The reason that I’m a little on the genes side is because if you grow up in a bad place that has drugs and gangs, who knows? Your genes could be stronger and overcome your environment.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
I think that both are very influential to how someone turns out, but if I had to pick one, I would have to say genes are a little more influential. Here are some examples I know of.
One example is my little twin brother and sister. They were both raised in the same environment, but they are two totally different people and characters.
That’s the case for all of my siblings and also my cousins. Some are quiet, some are loud, and some are very athletic, but they were all raised the same.
Another reason why I think genes affect you more is its something that you yourself can’t change because it’s just a part of nature.
January 26th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
I say they both are influential but I feel nurture is more important because even though you are born with a weakness, I think you still have a chance in your life to make the best of it or overcome it.
Furthermore, I feel that good upbringing is more important than good genes because you may be raised somewhere that can bring the best of a different part out of you if you have opportunity to practice. On the other hand, if you are in a bad area with bad influences, then you will probably follow these influences.
February 2nd, 2009 at 8:47 pm
I feel that good upbringing is more important because you can have a very healthy child and the environment that they are in might be terrible. For example, your child could be in a place where there is lots of smoke and smoke is bad for your lungs. The baby might have bad lung problems in the future where it will be hard for him to breath.
I think that nature is also influential in a person because two people could be brought up in the same exact way and one can be completely different from the other like twins. Twins do not act exactly the same and can have very different personalities.