Case Study Of Nature Vs. Nurture Debate

Where are two people with practically identical genes found? In identical twins of course. The most scientifically accurate way of testing the impact that genetics have on a person’s beliefs, actions, personality, and other characteristics is through rearing a set of identical twins in two separate environments. Identical twins have the potential to become exactly the same person because they have almost the exact same genetic makeup. Discovering this was a total breakthrough for scientists studying the “Nature vs. Nurture Debate”. There are many stories of twins raised in completely different environments who, when reunited, are found to have almost the exact same personalities, preferences, and habits. Case studies of twins reared apart reveal …show more content…
Believe it or not, behavior was once thought to be almost entirely genetic; for example, if the parents spoke Spanish, the child spoke Spanish and there was nothing that they could do about it. Language-speaking ability was thought to be tied to mouth and vocal cord structure (which was inherited from the parent), as well as many other factors that turned out to be irrelevant. Specifically, this theory was disproved by the “massive experience of immigration to North America” that “demonstrated that these linguistic differences, although familial, are nongenetic” (Griffiths). This is due to the fact that when these immigrants arrived, many of them caught on to the English language and had little to no problem speaking it thus disproving that mouth and vocal cord structure had an impact on what language(s) a person could speak. Now, behavior was also thought to be genetic for the longest time because, in general, the parent’s behaviors and the child’s behaviors were the same. This was without taking into account social and cultural factors that can be transmitted to and placed upon children just as easily as genes. Behavior supposedly “unlike many physical traits, can be directly transmitted from parents to offspring, independently of genes” through the environment that a child is brought up in (White). It is the whole “monkey see, monkey do” scenario. This is called social learning; it was discovered a long time ago so it is unclear as to why it was not taken into account while researching the heritability of behavior. Regardless, it is now known that environmental differences result in the development of different behaviors. While language and behavior are not entirely dependent on genetics, there are some traits that are almost entirely due to the environment in which a person was brought up