Let's end the debate of nature vs. nurture

Genes can learn too

Two writers that I consistently read in NEWSWEEK are Sharon Begley, who writes on science, and Anna Quindlen, whose bi-weekly back page op-ed rotates with the wish-we-were-still-in-the-1980s political blatherings of the increasingly irrelevant George Will.

Quindlen is perhaps the quintessential writer for the Obama era: Optimistic yet realistic, a feminist who doesn't parade feminism like a badge of honor, a white woman who can still speak to the minds and hearts and experience of both genders and all skin colors, someone who communicates with intelligence yet is understandable by a broad cross section of readers

Begley deals a lot with mind/body issues — her passion — and forces us to question prevailing concepts of human limitation. The article below, which I plan to use in my freshman composition class at Minnesota State University Mankato, is a good example:

When DNA is Not Destiny

Experiences can silence genes or activate them. Even shyness is like Silly Putty once life gets hold of it.

Sharon Begley
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Dec 1, 2008

"Personality must be accepted for what it is," Oscar Wilde counseled. "You mustn't mind that a poet is a drunk." We'll defer to Wilde on the debt that literature owes to booze, but he was definitely on shakier ground in implying that a man's personality is what it is and will remain what it is until he is cold in the ground. Although that belief has found support in both casual observation (people seem to retain the same basic personality from childhood) and science (neuroticism, risk-taking, resilience, ruthlessness, social awkwardness and more have been linked to genes, which, as we all know, don't change), it suffers from a basic fallacy. Really, people, can we start recognizing that just because something does not change doesn't mean that it cannot change?

Consider this thought experiment. You measure the blood pressure, heart rate, weight and other aspects of cardiovascular health of thousands of coach potatoes year after year. The numbers hardly change, so you conclude that they're unchangeable. Unfortunately, you neglected to test whether a little thing called aerobic exercise might change them. So it is with personality. Just because it seems stable over the years doesn't mean it's immutable. Instead, maybe we just haven't identified what changes it. And that goes for genes, too: with the growing recognition that experiences can silence genes or activate them, it is clear that even traits under genetic influence are in play.

The article is continued here.