Abstract
Keller explains the persistence of the nature/nurture debate by a chronic ambiguity in language derived from classical and behavioral genetics. She suggests that the more precise vocabulary of modern molecular genetics may be used to rephrase the underlying questions and hence provide a way out of this controversy. I show that her proposal fits into a long tradition in which other authors have wrestled with the same problem and come to similar conclusions.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Amundson R (2005) The changing role of the embryo in evolutionary thought: roots of evo-devo. In: Ruse M (ed) Cambridge studies in philosophy and biology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Gannett L (1999) What’s the cause? The pragmatic dimensions of genetic explanation. Biol Philos 14(3):349–374
Gottlieb G (1995) Some conceptual deficiencies in ‘developmental’ behavior genetics. Hum Dev 38:131–141
Gottlieb G (2003) On making behavioral genetics truly developmental. Hum Dev 45(6):337–355
Griffiths PE, Stotz K (2013) Genetics: a philosophical introduction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (in press)
Griffiths PE, Tabery JG (2008) Behavioral genetics and development: historical and conceptual causes of controversy. New Ideas Psychol 26:332–352
Jablonka E, Lamb MJ (2005) Evolution in four dimensions: genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic variation in the history of life. MIT Press, Cambridge
Johannsen W (1909) Elemente der exakten Erblichkeitslehre. Gustav Fischer, Jena
Kitcher P (2001) Battling the undead: how (and how not) to resist genetic determinism. In: Singh R, Krimbas K, Paul D, Beatty J (eds) Thinking about evolution: historical, philosophical and political perspectives (Festchrifft for Richard Lewontin). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 396–414
Lehrman DS (1970) Semantic & conceptual issues in the nature-nurture problem. In: Lehrman DS (ed) Development & evolution of behaviour. WH Freeman and co., San Francisco, pp 17–52
Lewontin RC (1982) Organism & environment. In: Plotkin H (ed) Learning, development, culture. Wiley, New York, pp 151–170
Lewontin RC (2000) The triple helix: gene, organism, and environment. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Linquist S, Machery E, Griffiths PE, Stotz K (2011) Exploring the Folkbiological conception of human nature. Philos Trans R Soc B 366(1563):444–453
Lorenz K (1957, 1937) The nature of instinct. In: Schiller CH (ed) Instinctive behavior: the development of a modern concept. International Universities Press, New York, pp 129–175. Original edition, Folia Biotheoretica 2
Mameli M, Bateson PPG (2006) Innateness and the sciences. Biol Philos 22:155–188
Meaney MJ (2001) Maternal care, gene expression, and the transmission of individual differences in stress reactivity across generations. Ann Rev Neurosci 24:1161–1192
Meaney MJ, Szyf M (2005) Environmental programming of stress responses through DNA methylation: life at the interface between a dynamic environment and a fixed genome. Dialogues Clin Neurosci 7(2):103–123
Morgan TH (1926) The theory of the gene. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT
Orr HA (2003) What's not in your genes. New York review of books, August 13
Oyama S (1985) The ontogeny of information: developmental systems and evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Oyama S (2001) Term in tension: what do you do when all the good words are taken? In: Oyama S, PE, Gray RD (eds) Cycles of contingency: developmental systems and evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 177–193
Oyama S (2002) The nurturing of natures. In: Grunwald A, Gutmann M, Neumann-Held EM (eds) On human nature: anthropological, biological and philosophical foundations. Springer, Berlin, pp 163–170
Robert JS (2001) Interpreting the homeobox: metaphors of gene action and activation in development and evolution. Evol Dev 3(4):287–295
Schneirla TC (1957) The concept of development in comparative psychology. In: Harris DB (ed) The concept of development. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, pp 78–108
Smith KC (2000) What is a genetic trait? In: Magnus D, Butcher A (eds) Contemporary genetic technology: scientific, ethical, and social challenges. Krieger, Melbourne
Stotz K (2006a) Molecular epigenesis: distributed specificity as a break in the central dogma. Hist Philos Life Sci 28(4):527–544
Stotz K (2006b) With genes like that, who needs an environment? Postgenomics’ argument for the ontogeny of information. Philos Sci 73(5):905–917
Stotz K (2008) The ingredients for a postgenomic synthesis of nature and nurture. Philos Psychol 21(3):359–381
Stotz K, Allen C (eds) (2008) Reconciling nature and nurture in the study of behavior. Philos Psychol, themed issue 21(3)
Tabery JG (2007) Biometric and developmental genotype-environment interactions: looking back, moving forward. Dev Psychopathol 19:961–976
Tabery JG (2008) R. A. Fisher, Lancelot Hogben, and the origin(s) of genotype-environment interaction. Rev J Hist Biol 41(4):717–761
Tabery JG (2009) Difference mechanisms: explaining variations with mechanisms. Biol Philos 24(5):711–723
Tinbergen N (1951) The study of instinct. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Turkheimer E (2000) Three laws of behavior genetics and what they mean. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 9(5):160–164
Turkheimer E, Goldsmith HH, Gottesman II (1995) Commentary. Rev Hum Dev 38:142–153
Waddington CH (1942) The epigenotype. Endeavour 1:18–20
Waddington CH (1952) The evolution of developmental systems. In: Herbert DA (ed) Proceedings of the twenty-eighth meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the advancement of science. A. H. Tucker, Government Printer, Brisbane, pp 155–159
Weaver ICG, Diorio J, Seckl JR, Szyf M, Meaney MJ (2004) Early environmental regulation of hippocampal glucocorticoid receptor gene expression: characterization of intracellular mediators and potential genomic target sites. Rev Ann NY Acad Sci 1024:182–212
West MJ, King AP (1987) Settling nature and nurture into an ontogenetic niche. Dev Psychobiol 20(5):549–562
West MJ, King AP (2008) Deconstructing innate illusions: reflections on nature-nurture-niche from an unlikely source. Philos Psychol 21(3):383–395
West MJ, King AP, Arberg AA (1988) The inheritance of niches. In: Blass EM (ed) Handbook of behavioral neurobiology. Plenum Press, New York
Acknowledgments
The author is supported under Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (project number DP0878650).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Stotz, K. Murder on the development express: who killed nature/nurture?. Biol Philos 27, 919–929 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-012-9343-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-012-9343-1