Nature Vs. Nurture Controversy

Essay by Sarahami729High School, 12th gradeA+, March 2004

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The nature-nurture controversy has been a long-standing debate among many philosophers, psychologists, and educators since the year 1800. (111) Nature and nurture both play important roles in why we are the way we are, but nurture which has ability to change and shape us into the adults we will grow up to be. I believe that nature is our foundation of who we are but it is the experiences that we go through in life that make us who we are. Experiences have the ability to change people. Genetics can also play an important role in who you are. Some people are born outgoing and aggressive but keep in mind that one experience could change that. Say someone who was very outgoing went through a traumatizing experience as a child, like there mother dying, and this person becomes very shy. This person now wants to shutout the world because of this experience.

We are much more affected but the experiences that happen around us then genes that we are born with.

One of the first people to argue this debate was British philosopher John Locke. His belief was that the human infant is born without knowledge or skills and that experience, in the form of human learning, etches messages on the blank tablet of the infant's unformed mind. Locke believed that humans develop by the stimulation that people receive as they are nurtured by experience and education. (112) He believed that children are learning by experiencing everything. If you give a child a good home with love they are more likely to grow-up to be a caring and loving person. If you give a child a home with violence and drugs and home with very little love it is unlikely that that child will grow-up to be as caring and...