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Surprising Science

Nature v. Nuture, No More

“Talking about nature and nurture as separate, clear-cut forces is far adrift from the complexities of developmental science.” The New Scientist on an aging view of development.
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“The factors involved in development are many: nucleic acids (DNA/RNA), metabolites and proteins; nuclear and cytoplasmic factors; genetics and environment. Recognition that their influence cannot be disentangled goes back a long way. In 1932, in Nature and Nurture, geneticist Lancelot Hogben wrote: ‘Genetical science has outgrown the false antithesis between heredity and environment productive of so much futile controversy in the past.’ And everything we have learned since has only underscored the fact that the entanglement of developmental processes is from the start immensely intricate.”

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