You're absolutely right. While I don't hold a PhD in phycology or neurology or child development I don't believe in superior/inferior intelligence or natural talent: take this as a totally unscientific gut feeling that I'm sticking to, unless an undeniable evidence (something other than surveys or Einstein brain scans) emerges.
In my previous post I just stated an observation but I forgot to add that I don't hold it as an explanation nor proof. In this particular case I believe that older siblings enjoy more freedom and have an opportunity to grow up faster since parents become pre-occupied with younger brothers/sisters, thus older kids grow up being more independent.
Interesting. I happen to gut feel nurture >>>>>>>>>>>>> nature, but I think nature plays a part too. It seems unlikely to me that we all have slightly different bodies, and those bodies are heritable to some extent, but our brains are wired consistently the same and/or not heritable.
But I do over to the nurture side of the equation more - the interesting part on more freedom and growing up for older siblings is interesting. Also supporting your idea, older siblings often take on more responsibility in family affairs too.
I lean on the nature side. I also feel like this is the dogma in "formal" neuroscience; it is hard for nurture to maintain favor when all you look at is whether some gene turned on or some phenotype expressed.
But, there is an area where it may be impossible to show either way, and you have a battle of religion. To see why this is the case, consider inherited fear responses (I forgot the actual term for this). You can, for example, probably train a goose to not fear an eagle-shaped shadow. There would be a measurable change in neuronal wiring, because the fear response previously paired to the pattern recognizers of eagle-shaped shadows is now inhibited or diverted. If this works, it is "nurture."
But to turn it around, the fact that you could re-train the goose would imply that plasticity was part of the equation. This is "nature." Then, there are parts where plasticity is simply never going to be part of the equation (without some extreme bioengineering): you cannot teach a modern goose to read, period.
So, to rephrase: it is possible to interpret all "nurture" phenomenon under an all-nature framework: it's simply a distinction of whether you are born with plasticity for certain domains of learning. This difference, which you can validly call nature vs. nurture, is meaningful in many contexts, but in my opinion is not so much a dichotomy than different ways of looking at the same thing.
I'm not all about predeterminism though; the important task to figure out what, why, how, and when circuits are plastic.
Comments
You're absolutely right. While I don't hold a PhD in phycology or neurology or child development I don't believe in superior/inferior intelligence or natural talent: take this as a totally unscientific gut feeling that I'm sticking to, unless an undeniable evidence (something other than surveys or Einstein brain scans) emerges.
In my previous post I just stated an observation but I forgot to add that I don't hold it as an explanation nor proof. In this particular case I believe that older siblings enjoy more freedom and have an opportunity to grow up faster since parents become pre-occupied with younger brothers/sisters, thus older kids grow up being more independent.
Interesting. I happen to gut feel nurture >>>>>>>>>>>>> nature, but I think nature plays a part too. It seems unlikely to me that we all have slightly different bodies, and those bodies are heritable to some extent, but our brains are wired consistently the same and/or not heritable.
But I do over to the nurture side of the equation more - the interesting part on more freedom and growing up for older siblings is interesting. Also supporting your idea, older siblings often take on more responsibility in family affairs too.
I lean on the nature side. I also feel like this is the dogma in "formal" neuroscience; it is hard for nurture to maintain favor when all you look at is whether some gene turned on or some phenotype expressed.
But, there is an area where it may be impossible to show either way, and you have a battle of religion. To see why this is the case, consider inherited fear responses (I forgot the actual term for this). You can, for example, probably train a goose to not fear an eagle-shaped shadow. There would be a measurable change in neuronal wiring, because the fear response previously paired to the pattern recognizers of eagle-shaped shadows is now inhibited or diverted. If this works, it is "nurture."
But to turn it around, the fact that you could re-train the goose would imply that plasticity was part of the equation. This is "nature." Then, there are parts where plasticity is simply never going to be part of the equation (without some extreme bioengineering): you cannot teach a modern goose to read, period.
So, to rephrase: it is possible to interpret all "nurture" phenomenon under an all-nature framework: it's simply a distinction of whether you are born with plasticity for certain domains of learning. This difference, which you can validly call nature vs. nurture, is meaningful in many contexts, but in my opinion is not so much a dichotomy than different ways of looking at the same thing.
I'm not all about predeterminism though; the important task to figure out what, why, how, and when circuits are plastic.