The New Nature vs. Nurture
Science is pulling the long-standing debate in strange directions.
By Steven Johnson
source: http://wired.com/wired/archive/11.03/start_pr.html
Ever since Hobbes and Rousseau started riffing on the state of nature and the noble savage a few centuries back, the nature versus nurture debate has been as much about politics as empirical research. Sure, scientists have their genome projects and their twin studies, and they talk a nice game about how extroversion or smoking is "20 percent heritable." But most people don't choose sides because the data convinced them; they lean one way or the other because their political views led them there - the patina of science just makes the biases easier to hide.
Which team are you on? Figuring that out used to be easy. Conservatives believed in the power of nature. If you rose to the pinnacle of society or sunk to its depths, you had only yourself to thank or condemn. Society, much less big government, couldn't change your fate. Liberals, on the other hand, saw nurture in everything: The idea of human nature was itself proclaimed an ideological fiction, a blame-the-victim lie dreamed up by racists and imperialists to justify oppression. Historical conditions, not biology, determined your station in life. Society made you, and if you didn't like who you saw in the mirror, better to remake society.
Lately, though, things have gotten more complicated. The political landscape is splintering into ever more precise ideological niches, even as technology and science muddy the nature-nurture waters. Knee-jerk reactions just aren't what they used to be. You'll find right-wingers who believe that (horrors!) nurture trumps nature, and lefties arguing that DNA is destiny (wha?). On the whole, this is probably good news. As Steven Pinker points out in his latest book, The Blank Slate, both Hitler's Final Solution and Mao's Cultural Revolution were dreamed up by extremists on either side of the divide. But with all this confusion breaking out, how are you supposed to score the debate at home? Here's a field guide to the leading players and their evolving preconceptions.
Religious conservatives: trending nurture. The Christian Coalition types, traditionally the core of the conservative camp, have been scrambling of late. After all, these days believing in biological determinism means signing on to the genomic revolution, which doesn't have a lot of patience for the idea that Earth is only 4,000 years old. Besides, if nature is everything and nurture is irrelevant, then why should anyone care about family values?
Economic conservatives: trending nurture. Although allied politically with the religious right, this band of Milton Friedmanites are almost too attached to evolutionary theory. Darwin is constantly invoked to justify the free market system: Rational self-interest is an innate strategy that capitalism simply reflects ("greed is adaptive"). The only problem is that in recent years, evolutionary theorists have shown again and again that the instincts for altruism and social cooperation are a logical outcome of selfish genes. Communal society is as much a part of our genetic inheritance as competition is, which means unfettered markets may be more an invention of culture than an expression of our underlying biology.
The Greens: trending nature. Their worldview has them reaching for a revolver at any mention of human nature. Yet green politics is predicated on the sanctity of the natural world as evolution shaped it. So why shouldn't humans have their own innate nature? After enough paeans to the spotted owl, some start to wonder why Homo sapiens doesn't get the same treatment. If there's no genetically inherent human nature worth preserving, then there's no reason to object to manipulating the genome.
Gay-rights activists: trending nature. For decades, the gay-rights camp rejected any genetic basis for homosexuality - being gay is not some kind of biological "condition." But new brain-imaging studies, suggesting that the brains of gay men are subtly different from those of straight men (no word yet on women), have energized a pro-nature faction. Being gay is in the genes, the new argument goes, and thus it's as "natural" as heterosexuality or left-handedness. So there's no point in blaming homosexuals for their preferences, or trying to change them, since their orientation isn't a matter of choice.
Feminists: trending nature. Here, too, a shift is in the works. The old guard maintains that the differences between the sexes are just offshoots of patriarchal culture - all nurture and no nature. Third-wave feminists are more nature-friendly: There are biological distinctions beyond simple anatomy. Scientists are building a more rigorous version of the "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" model; the better we understand our hormonal systems, the more powerful they seem. "Different but equal" is the new mantra. In other words: We're on estrogen, and we're proud!
Extropians: supernature. The futurists lining up to cryogenically freeze their brains or clamoring for genetic enhancements may have the most original take on the dispute yet. Genes dictate everything - including our species' tendency to experiment endlessly. So there's no reason to object to tinkering with our DNA or hacking our gray matter. It's only natural!
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Steven Johnson (www.stevenberlinejohnson.com) wrote about stopping loose nukes in Wired 10.11.
Science is pulling the long-standing debate in strange directions.
By Steven Johnson
source: http://wired.com/wired/archive/11.03/start_pr.html
Ever since Hobbes and Rousseau started riffing on the state of nature and the noble savage a few centuries back, the nature versus nurture debate has been as much about politics as empirical research. Sure, scientists have their genome projects and their twin studies, and they talk a nice game about how extroversion or smoking is "20 percent heritable." But most people don't choose sides because the data convinced them; they lean one way or the other because their political views led them there - the patina of science just makes the biases easier to hide.
Which team are you on? Figuring that out used to be easy. Conservatives believed in the power of nature. If you rose to the pinnacle of society or sunk to its depths, you had only yourself to thank or condemn. Society, much less big government, couldn't change your fate. Liberals, on the other hand, saw nurture in everything: The idea of human nature was itself proclaimed an ideological fiction, a blame-the-victim lie dreamed up by racists and imperialists to justify oppression. Historical conditions, not biology, determined your station in life. Society made you, and if you didn't like who you saw in the mirror, better to remake society.
Lately, though, things have gotten more complicated. The political landscape is splintering into ever more precise ideological niches, even as technology and science muddy the nature-nurture waters. Knee-jerk reactions just aren't what they used to be. You'll find right-wingers who believe that (horrors!) nurture trumps nature, and lefties arguing that DNA is destiny (wha?). On the whole, this is probably good news. As Steven Pinker points out in his latest book, The Blank Slate, both Hitler's Final Solution and Mao's Cultural Revolution were dreamed up by extremists on either side of the divide. But with all this confusion breaking out, how are you supposed to score the debate at home? Here's a field guide to the leading players and their evolving preconceptions.
Religious conservatives: trending nurture. The Christian Coalition types, traditionally the core of the conservative camp, have been scrambling of late. After all, these days believing in biological determinism means signing on to the genomic revolution, which doesn't have a lot of patience for the idea that Earth is only 4,000 years old. Besides, if nature is everything and nurture is irrelevant, then why should anyone care about family values?
Economic conservatives: trending nurture. Although allied politically with the religious right, this band of Milton Friedmanites are almost too attached to evolutionary theory. Darwin is constantly invoked to justify the free market system: Rational self-interest is an innate strategy that capitalism simply reflects ("greed is adaptive"). The only problem is that in recent years, evolutionary theorists have shown again and again that the instincts for altruism and social cooperation are a logical outcome of selfish genes. Communal society is as much a part of our genetic inheritance as competition is, which means unfettered markets may be more an invention of culture than an expression of our underlying biology.
The Greens: trending nature. Their worldview has them reaching for a revolver at any mention of human nature. Yet green politics is predicated on the sanctity of the natural world as evolution shaped it. So why shouldn't humans have their own innate nature? After enough paeans to the spotted owl, some start to wonder why Homo sapiens doesn't get the same treatment. If there's no genetically inherent human nature worth preserving, then there's no reason to object to manipulating the genome.
Gay-rights activists: trending nature. For decades, the gay-rights camp rejected any genetic basis for homosexuality - being gay is not some kind of biological "condition." But new brain-imaging studies, suggesting that the brains of gay men are subtly different from those of straight men (no word yet on women), have energized a pro-nature faction. Being gay is in the genes, the new argument goes, and thus it's as "natural" as heterosexuality or left-handedness. So there's no point in blaming homosexuals for their preferences, or trying to change them, since their orientation isn't a matter of choice.
Feminists: trending nature. Here, too, a shift is in the works. The old guard maintains that the differences between the sexes are just offshoots of patriarchal culture - all nurture and no nature. Third-wave feminists are more nature-friendly: There are biological distinctions beyond simple anatomy. Scientists are building a more rigorous version of the "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" model; the better we understand our hormonal systems, the more powerful they seem. "Different but equal" is the new mantra. In other words: We're on estrogen, and we're proud!
Extropians: supernature. The futurists lining up to cryogenically freeze their brains or clamoring for genetic enhancements may have the most original take on the dispute yet. Genes dictate everything - including our species' tendency to experiment endlessly. So there's no reason to object to tinkering with our DNA or hacking our gray matter. It's only natural!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven Johnson (www.stevenberlinejohnson.com) wrote about stopping loose nukes in Wired 10.11.
