...Biological Determinism 1. According to the author of the article "All in the Genes?", there is no intrinsic causality between genetics and intelligence. The author analyses different aspects of biological determinism, and supplies many examples, which illustrate aspects of this problem that are being discussed since the time when these ideas became popular. He does not agree with biological determinist that the intellectual performance of a person depends on genes inherited from his parents. There are a lot of different theories about intellectual capabilities. All these theories reflect different points of views, depending on the period of time the authors of these theories lived. The author argues for the theory that in the nineteenth century , artificial barriers in social hierarchy prevented people from achieving higher intellectual performance. In the end of XX century, in most places these barriers were removed by the democratic processes, and nothing artificial can stand between the natural sorting process and social status of the people. These changes can not be considered as historical because the age of democracy is just two hundred years , and the time when inequality between classes and between people was a natural situation is almost as long as the history of the world . The author insists that there is no connection between environmental differences and genetics. In support of his idea the author state that any Canadian student can...
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... 2 Without conducting any research, I realize that I have never really thought about the subject of nature vs. nurture. By knowing a little of what the controversy is about, I am able to ask myself the right questions to complete my thoughts and come to a proper opinion. Usually I am an extremist by going with one side and not lingering with thoughts in the middle. However, this is a subject that does not deserve one end. By looking and observing those around me, many may notice that people share similar traits. Some traits are the result of nature and others are the result of nurture. There is no 50:50 ratio that is involved in the deciding factor of how much of each side contributes to the individuals we are today. Because biological factors and conformity are two different subjects, there is no scientific way to measure an accurate ratio of nature to nurture. Instead, I believe that each and every person is the product of 100 percent nature as well as 100 percent nurture. As my boyfriend and I are out to lunch, I throw my thoughts at him about nature vs. nurture and he makes me realize that tofu is a great example of both nature and nurture. He asks me how I am able to eat something so bland and tasteless. I tell him that tofu does have sort of a creamy nutty taste to it and is delicious plain uncooked. However, when tofu is cooked, it conforms to and picks up the flavor of the food or sauce that is being cooked with. “Tofu or bean curd is a food made by coagulating...
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...Rampage Killers Rampage killers are different from everyday murderers, they feel for some reason that they are invisible within society and they want to do something to change that and make their mark or they simply just don’t think that living is worthwhile anymore. They are a special breed of killers because there are many different factors that need to be present for them to kill. The nature vs. nurture theory is no more and it is said that for someone to because a rampage killer every factor has to be aligned. These supposed factors would be biological, social, behavioral, genetic/chemical, environmental, age/gender, maternal care, school, emotional needs, and behavior modification and rehabilitation. These are a lot of factors to consider but when you think about them it they all interconnect in some way. The biological factor teams up with the chemical/genetic factor in a way. In the video they looked deep into the brains of violent criminals to see how the brain differs in functions of circuitry and arousal. They one circuit that they looked at in depth was the circuit that connects the prefrontal cortex to the amygdala. Whenever a threat is received the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex should work together to assess the threat and decipher what to do about it. If the threat isn’t significant the amygdala should send a message to the prefrontal cortex to tell it to calm down, but if the message isn’t getting sent/received the threat remains real and the prefrontal...
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...necessarily correct. The term sex is a biological term that refers to the physical differences between males and females. If sex is the term that encompasses male or female, then what exactly is gender? Gender is a psychological term that refers to the awareness and reaction to the biological term of sex. It also is a term that can construe more than one meaning. Gender is determined by biological, psychological, and sociological factors. Gender consists of three elements: gender role, gender identity, and sexual orientation or preference (Kenyon, 1994-2006). Gender role, is defined as the outward manifestations of personality that reflect the gender identity. Basically, it occurs when someone adopts the masculine or feminine behavioral traits that are associated with each sex. Gender role is manifested within society by observable factors such as behavior and appearance (Ghosh, 2009). Gender identity refers to a person’s personal sense of whether he or she are male or female (or rarely, both or neither). Gender identity, in nearly all instances, is self-identified, as a result of a combination of inherent and extrinsic or environmental factors (Ghosh, 2009). And sexual orientation or preference is whom a person is physically and sexually attracted to. In this paper the topics of discussion will be the interaction between hormones and behaviors in addition to how these interactions affect determining gender identity. It will also explore the biological factor, and how it influences gender...
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...Homosexuality, Nature vs. Nurture Western Governors University Homosexuality, Nature vs. Nurture Nature versus nurture is one of the most enduring debates in the psychology world today. These debates have been studied and reviewed for many years, with only hypotheses formed, no clear conclusions have been met. In the middle of the debates is human behavior, whether they are learned or inherited remains unanswered. Intelligence, ability, or even personality remains under scrutiny whether these traits are learned or predetermined by specific genes. Physical characteristics can be contributed to hereditary, i.e. eye color or hair color. When referring to nature, it is assumed that what and who we are, as humans, comes in a natural state or inherited. In other words, we are going to be who we are without the influence on how we were raised and matured in our environment. On the other hand, nurture is viewed as what or who we are as a result of our influences and our environment or surroundings. Homosexuality is one of the hottest topics today. One of the reasons for the popularity is the current debate on same sex marriage, along with homosexual human rights campaigns going on in today’s public arena. More so either this “behavior” is by choice or predetermined by genes. The Studies One of the best research in this area is on identical twins. Howard Gruber, the director of the Institute for Cognitive Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, reviewed and quoted two...
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...Nature Nurture D 1 http://s2.hubimg.com/u/3627189_f520.jpg(1 August 2011) Some scientists like George Howe Colt think that people behave as they do according to genetic predisposition this is known as the nature theory of human behaviour. Other scientists believe that people think and behave in certain ways because they are taught to do so, this is known as the nurture theory of human behaviour. For Nelson Mandela in his childhood stage he was able to build a house for himself, looking after cattle, playing different types of games. This allowed him to exercise helping him physically in his childhood stage, so I think you are not born strong but you train yourself to be strong which is nurture. From the earliest moments of life, the interaction of heredity and the environment works to shape who children are and who they will become. While the genetic instructions says that a child inherits from his parents which may set out a road map for development, the environment can impact how these directions are expressed, shaped or event silenced. The complex interaction of nature and nurture does not just occur at certain moments or at certain periods of time it is persistent and lifelong. Clearly, social and emotional development can begin as early as birth, but these developments tend to be primordial and limited until the child is no longer a toddler. This is the period when children begin to develop the abilities to interact with others. These interactions can range...
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...Junbing Chen Word Count 2012 100247094 Oct 18 2014 The Contradiction between Determinism and Free Will: To What Extent Are Humans Free? Recently, the issue of free will is much concerned to a point where a wide discussion has been sparked. Free will, on any layer, has been considered as the ability of agents to make choices unimpeded by certain factors. It is obvious that humans have a strong sense of freedom, which leads people to believe that they have free will (Caruso 8). On the other hand, there is a scientific view assumes that physical world can be predicted by physical law including human consciousness, which is also known as determinism. Following those debates there comes a moral dilemma: How are we to assign responsibility for our actions if they are caused totally by external environment and passed events (Baer 128)? The underlying problem is, do humans actually have free will? If so, to what extent are humans able to control themselves? The fundamental controversy of free will and determinism, which represents the question of whether freedom of human mind exists, has been debated by numerous scientists and philosophers. This essay will firstly have a brief review on the arguments and viewpoints of free will and determinism of several philosophers, including Blatchford, Hospers and Taylor. Following this, it will compare those assumptions to each other. Finally, the essay will give the author’s own thoughts and debates on this...
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...a good set of morals, this is because it is our morals that help is to freely decide which decisions to make, and encourage us to act selflessly and ethically. Eventhough, we have the ability to exercise our free will in all manner of ways and make choices, do we always have free will ? I believe freedom to be the ability to make your own choices, which are not influenced by anyone else’s opinions or decisions, when faced with either a difficult or easy decision. Some philosophers believe that our ability to make free choices is an illusion which means that we are not free at all. Others state that there is something else beyond our understanding that may cause our actions to be determined. These theories can be linked to Determinism. Determinism says that there are laws that exist outside of our control that cause the things that happen-laws such as gravity. Scientific laws determine all our actions based on what has happened before. Previous events have consequences that may be determined and which in turn will cause more consequences. This can be linked to Aristotle’s teachings which stated that every action has some sort of cause and therefore an effect. Therefore we cannot help our actions when they have already been decided for us. In contrast, from a religious viewpoint there are mixed theories. The traditional Judeo-Christian view is that human beings are free, autonomous agents, responsible for their actions. A perfect example of this is Adam and Eve who...
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...Running head: PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHED TO ETHICAL DECISION 1 Philosophical Approaches to Ethical Decision-Making Donald McCoy Strayer University PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHED TO ETHICAL DECISION 2 Philosophical Approaches to Ethical Decision-Making The problem of freedom can be understood in two distinct meanings; however we will take a more philosophical approach (N.A Berdyaev, 2011). We will define the problem of freedom as choice of good and evil, which conquers and which they conquer not. Also in order to understand the problem of freedom we have to add Free will. Free will has as much to do with making choices and participating in actions as morality fitting into the equation (N.A Berdyaev, 2011). Morality dictates that we have freedoms to be moral and make moral decisions. The chances are if we were to remove free will form the equation then we could not be held responsible for our moral decisions. Another factor of the problem of freedom is responsibility, which is the direct path to freedom. This analogy puts it in to perspective the more freedom we have; the more responsible we are for it. When freedom is involved the words choice and free are synonymous of each other. You can’t have one without the other (Williams & Arrigo, 2008). One would state that we couldn’t choose if we are not free to do so. We would not do the word freedom justice unless we look at ethical decision-making. Freedom when discussed...
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...To Build a Fire Summary A man travels in the Yukon (in Alaska) on an extremely cold morning with a husky wolf-dog. The cold does not faze the man, a newcomer to the Yukon, who plans to meet his friends by six o'clock at an old claim. As it grows colder, he realizes his unprotected cheekbones will freeze, but he does not pay it much attention. He walks along a creek trail, mindful of the dangerous, concealed springs; even getting wet feet on such a cold day is extremely dangerous. He stops for lunch and builds a fire. The man continues on and, in a seemingly safe spot, falls through the snow and wets himself up to his shins. He curses his luck; starting a fire and drying his foot-gear will delay him at least an hour. His feet and fingers are numb, but he starts the fire. He remembers the old-timer from Sulphur Creek who had warned him that no man should travel in the Klondike alone when the temperature was fifty degrees below zero. The man unties his icy moccasins, but before he can cut the frozen strings on them, clumps of snow from the spruce tree above fall down and snuff out the fire. Though building a fire in the open would have been wiser, it had been easier for the man to take twigs from the spruce tree and drop them directly below on to the fire. Each time he pulled a twig, he had slightly agitated the tree until, at this point, a bough high up had capsized its load of snow. It capsized lower boughs in turn until a small avalanche had blotted out the fire. The man is...
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...The first one is the libertarian free will, which believes that humans have free will and their choices are not predetermined [4].The second one is the hard determinism, which believes that human free will is an illusion and every event in the universe in predetermined by laws of nature. In other words, nothing other than what happened could have occurred [5]. The last perspective is the compatibilist, and that standpoint combines both free will and some type of determinism by which the existence of an omniscient god could be plausible. This perspective is held by many theists as it supports the principle of reward and punishment which is basic in religions. The main aim of this paper to discuss whether we have free will and consequently responsible for our choices or...
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...Critically consider arguments for free-will in psychology (30 marks) One argument for free-will comes from the psychological argument, which suggests that people have a subjective sense of free-will and all people are able to make their own free choices about their behaviour. Evidence for this comes from Dr. Johnson in the 18th Century who sustained the idea that ‘we know our will is free, and there’s an end on ‘t’. (A01) However, a counterargument towards the psychological argument is that simply feeling that you are free does not mean that this is true. Skinner claimed that free will was an illusion – we think we are free, but this is because we are not aware of how our behaviour is determined by reinforcement. Freud also thought that free will was an illusion, because he felt that the causes of our behaviour is unconscious and therefore still predictable. (A02 ) In contrast, Valentine (1982) claims that this subjective sense of free will is tenable (reasonable). It is something that can be studied and thus shown to be true, e.g., attitudes towards free will have been found to increase with age and are also more common in individualistic cultures such as the USA and UK where personal responsibility receives greater emphasis. (A02 ) Another argument for free will in psychology derives from the ethical argument. This states that if an individual’s behaviour is determined by forces beyond their control, then the individual cannot be held responsible for their...
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...Introduction to Personality PSY/405 December20, 2010 Abstract There are all types of intelligence that influences many different areas of an individual’s personality in so many different ways. The fact that intelligence can sometimes be considered as a part of personality. These issues of personality have been debated over time. Some of the main points are to bear in mind for that both intelligence and personality is a prominent of individuals many differences. Therefore, personality cannot be so easily defined in individuals. Therefore, personality can be referred as our many attempts to capture and to summarize all individual essences. Personality therefore is known as personality, in which this is the science for describing and for understanding individuals. After saying this, personality is also known as a coring area of studies for different types of psychology. So putting these together within intelligence, these topics of personality can have a constitution for most of the significant areas of individual’s differences within studies. Introduction to Personality There is not a chance for two people to be exactly the same and not even identical twins are the same. Some individuals are anxious, some individuals like the idea of risk-taking; some individuals are phlegmatic, some individuals are very high-strung; some individuals are very confident, some individuals are very shy; some individuals is very quiet, and some individuals is loquacious...
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...The tension between free will and destiny: Which one is more powerful? ‘I would say that there are three main questions: One, do people have free will? Two, is determinism true? And three, are free will and determinism compatible? ’ Throughout history, human beings have always tried to be the ones who have the power to rule their own lives. However, there exists a debate which questions whether that is really possible or not. In other words: are human beings capable of deciding what to do with their lives or is there a greater force that rules over our destiny? The Oxford English Dictionary defines destiny as ‘that which is destined or fated to happen to a particular person, country, institution, etc. (…).’ Consequently, this term is opposed to free will, defined as ‘the power of an individual to make free choices, not determined by divine predestination, the laws of physical causality, fate, etc. (…).’ Human beings have thought of these antithetic concepts as something to worry about since the beginning of civilization. Because of that, playwrights have taken them into consideration when writing different plays all over the years. This essay seeks to explore the tension existing between the concepts of destiny and free will in the world of drama through the study of language as well as the analysis of character and situation development. In order to carry this research out, I will take Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (429 BC) and Dr Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (1604) as the...
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...determined by environment and genetics? (M.U.S.E, 2010). In my perspective, freedom is the ability for a human being to act as desired, in other words having self-determination and no restrains. In society, individual’s rights are protected by the first amendment of the constitution, which gives freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and so on. However, there are laws that humans must abide by to prevent consequences. Human behavior has been influenced by the environment and genetics to a certain degree, however, every individual is a unique mind or as I call “a different world”, it all depends on an individual perspectives and reactions to certain circumstances. Socrates: What is the definition of determinism? Grislen: Determinism consist that every event has a cause; therefore if human actions are to be considered events, then, all choices made are determined by cause and not free will. Nothing in life is predetermined, the choices we make in life is the only one that can alter our future. Socrates: What is the definition of free will? Grislen: The philosophical term of “free will” consists of the capacity of humans to choose from a course of actions among various alternatives. Humans act as desired, therefore we have self-determination and no restrains. All humans acting with free will must also assume full responsibility of their actions. Socrates: Do you agree that every event has an explanatory cause? Grislen: Yes, I agree that every...
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