Customer Reviews

Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience, And What Makes Us Human

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have really enjoyed each and every Matt Ridley book and "The Agile Gene" is no exception - but for the fact that it is an identical 'word-for-word' copy of his book titled "Nature Via Nurture". I'm not sure why a publisher would release the same book under a different title (there is one very small notice on the left front of the cover stating "Previously published as Nature Via Nurture"), but I'm more upset that it's not a new Matt Ridley book than by being out the money for the price of the book and the special two day delivery.

So...great book, just don't shell out any money if you already read "Nature Via Nurture".

There has been a knowledge explosion in the biological sciences. So much has been discovered so quickly that it is hard to see how it all ties together. Matt Ridley manages to make sense of it. He has a storyteller's skill, throwing in just enough biographical details to bring the scientists to life, but not so much that it gets in the way of the science. He clearly knows his subject from both a scientific and a historical perspective. He does not over-simplify nor does he fall back on using jargon.

The thesis he puts forward, that nature and nurture are intextricably interwoven is undoubted. I believe he stops short of making the argument even more strongly. From a human standpoint, we can differentiate between "nature" and "nurture" but from the standpoint of the germ cell nature and nurture blend together. Is mitochondrial DNA nature or is it nurture? Surely we overstate the importance of the genetic "code" in the DNA. It can only be expressed because of all the other cellular components. So the distinction between code and non-code, and the individual and its environment is a lot blurrier than we suppose.

Matt Ridley has penned some of the best books on evolutionary science ever written. Nature via Nurture is at least as good, perhaps better than the best of his others, Genome and The Red Queen.

I am reviewing the Agile Gene, which is a reprint of Nature via Nurture (it is the identical book). The first part of the book gave me hope for some sort of middle ground where a popular scientist might acknowledge the complexity of how indirectly genes and biology affect human behavior (as opposed to the glib "gay gene discovered," "gene for aggression discovered" articles you see so often).

He did this-- his book acknowledges, for example, that if you do a twin study of families in middle-class America, you have indirectly limited the influence of the environment (by excluding more diverse cultures) and therefore the influence of genes on variability in a trait will be larger. The problem is, he then proceeds to completely ignore this informative, nuanced view when tackling the controversial issues that get people interested in the Nature-Nurture debate in the first place (gender roles, homosexuality, and mental illness for example).

Like so many science writers, he has little apparent knowledge of the humanities, social history, etc., and he holds his own preferred beliefs about human nature to a lower standard of proof than his opponents'. It is actually true that, as part of his defense of the idea of innate gender roles, he made reference to both the humorist Dave Barry *and* the popular work "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus." Don't get me wrong, I like Dave Barry, but he would be the first one to point out that he's not a scientific authority on cross-cultural gender studies!

Ridley claims that [American or British] men's focus on "things" over "relationships" is genetic, but this idea, combined with his bit on homosexuality, merely shows that he needs to travel more. In America, women have much gushier friendships than men-they have "girlfriends" but we aren't supposed to have "boyfriends"-but this is not true in most places. In Latin America and many parts of Asia, Africa, and southern Europe, it is normal for straight men to kiss each other, hold hands, sometimes even have rituals of commitment to their friendships, etc. This also challenges the "gay gene" hypothesis: if big chunks of what Americans call "gay" are considered to be "straight" throughout the rest of the world, what would the gay gene code for? Even if it coded strictly for sex, in Mexico the top boy is often considered straight, and plenty of people everywhere experiment outside their "official" orientation. What all of this shows is that even if you have a gene for something, language and culture get added to it to create the final meaning. Ridley even acknowledges this ("genes enable, they don't restrict") but doesn't follow his own theory to its logical conclusion.

In his section about the genetic basis of monogamy, he infers that because Margaret Mead failed to find a truly sexually libertine society in Samoa, they must not exist anywhere. (Mead was seeking a society without a taboo on premarital sex, which she could now find in any major American city.) He also assumes that all experiments with open marriage in Western societies had failed; if he had actually taken the time to look, he would know that people still practice open marriage today. Yes, some people have a lot of trouble with jealousy and give up on it, but others I have met find that open relationships are second nature to them. So, if Mr. Ridley had taken the time to talk to anyone from the cultures he claims cannot exist, he could have an interesting discussion about individual differences in sexual jealousy (genetic or environmental?). Instead, we simply learn that, in addition to not knowing where the social history section of the library is, Matt Ridley also does not know how to find subcultures on the Internet or check his local alternative paper for club meetings.

In an otherwise-well-written chapter, he says that schizophrenia genes might have survived natural selection because in another combination they can lead to inventiveness. Well and good, but another reason these genes could be passed down is because not all cultures see "hearing voices" as a bad thing-some even see it as a form of religious inspiration! Even among those cultures that do see it as bad, most cultures do not leave their ill members out in the woods to die. But in Ridley-land, our ancestors were apparently all American Republicans in gated communities who go on rants about the danger of socialized medicine!

I find it truly scary that this man has written a book called "Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature." He doesn't know the first thing about the diversity of human sexuality, friendship, or love. On the other hand, his book HAS awakened me to a new truth: maybe the problem with advocates of genetic sources of behavior isn't so much the fact that they believe that human diversity comes from genetic sources, as the fact that they base their theories on so little knowledge of what human diversity actually entails. Whether it's based on genes, environment, both, or neither, there's a whole lot more under the sun than is dreamt of in Matt Ridley's philosophy.

Matt Ridley has written a very good book on the origins of human behavior. It's worth reading two or three times just to keep all the information straight, unless you're one who just downloads what you read into your file cabinet of a mind. Well,... not I, this was difficult. In that other reveiwers here have gone into an adequate description of the book I'd like to assume a different tack. Why did Ridley follow up "Genome" with "Nature via Nurture?"

It seems that he's gone to great lengths to establish a postulate that genes are enabling forces that engage nature in some sort of a closed feed-back loop whereby they're switched on and off by yet other genes in response to the influences of outside events. This is fascinating and makes perfect sense. Yet we also learn of genes that govern our ability to pair-bond/ to form loving relationships, genes for agression vs timidity, genes for criminal behavior, genes for fear and courage, for intensity vs calmness, and a myriad of other behavioral traits, abilities and characteristics. Can these traits be changed by outside events?

We find that restraint is the lynchpin of culture, and it's that which separates us from the apes. We also learn that specialization and division of labor are unique to humans relative to animals who have to do everything for themselves. This all has a plausible ring to it does it not? Again and again we're told of all the different ways that genes/nature are coupled with nurture/environment until we become intellectually dizzy with all the permutations of information derived from history, science and societal differences. We learn of the countless ways genes can and do interact. It's a full bucket of information!

Then we get to the twin studies and the hereitability of traits and behavioral characteristics. This is fascinating. Identical twins have a far greater incidence of hereitible traits than fraternal twins. And, even if they've been separated at birth they show remarkable similarities in every way when they're reintroduced 35 years later, even when brought up in entirely different surroundings. Somehow the environmental side of the equation failed to switch those genes on and off in a way that would have radically changed their behavior in the interim. However, it's not politically correct to say this. After all, political correctness has always been the province of those on the Left who have made the claim that the perfect socialist man will result if inflenced with the proper environmental stimuli, from birth or otherwise. Ridley points out that this form of societal organization has resulted in gulags and mass murder, but that logic hasn't seemed to have affected the collective worldveiws of those who have what the author Thomas Sowell refers to as "the vision of the annointed." In any event, Ridley brings all of these competing theories into play while nudging his premise toward the middle of the political road. He does it well!

The book "Taboo", by a track and field guy whose name escapes me, goes into great length on the dominance that some racial groups have in certain sports and in certain track and field events. Thomas Sowell has written repeatedly about how different nationalities have become adept at different tasks or trades in different areas of the world. And, J.Philip Rushton has written extensively on this subject in his book, "race, evolution and behavior." Whether one agrees with these gentlemen or not their work deserves discussion. While Ridley eschews this radioactive info he does go into the work of Jane Goodall with the Chimps in Gombi. I believe that Ridley is acutely aware of this point of view, but that he's doesn't want to be pegged as a radical in favor of genetic determinism (and I don't believe that he is a radical). However, he knows that when one goes too far in favor of "nurture" as a deciding behavioral factor that one can be caricatured and more easily dismissed by the political enemies of ones position.

I'm hopeful that research will soon tell us what it is that makes it so common for humans to blind themselves from accepting new information into their old theories of how the world works; to tell us, how a man might change his belief system and subsequently his behavior patterns. When this feedback loop is established mankind will take a quantum leap forward. Ridley is a magnificent narrator in this endeavor and I look forward to his continuing tale with eager anticipation. The excitement is evident as new information flows into this on-going debate, and I agree with Ridley as he says, "it's the most profound intellectual moment in the history of mankind", truly a magic time to be alive!

Following on from Genome (which I've reviewed), I find Matt Ridley very easy to read.

Here he selects 12 'Hairy Scientists', some famous (eg Freud, Pavlov, Darwin), some not so famous, and weaves a wonderful story as he takes us through the highs and lows of their research & that of their contemporaries, bringing us right up to date with the Genome. With interesting anecdotes he brings each individual to life.

The 7 moral conclusions at the end were particularly useful, especially No. 2 "being a good parent still matters"

Given I'm now in the process of reading a similar book with some very poor illustrations, it was only afterwards looking back, that I see that I was entertained & educated without the need for any sketches or diagrams, and yet didn't feel cheated, deprived or confused.

You can be reasonably sure that any "scientist" who readily endorses Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist is inappropriately abusing his position to promote his political agenda.

Ridley laced his summaries of research with his personal values, more specifically fidelity, monogamy, anti-homosexuality, and the existence of moral absolutes. However, despite his unfounded and unsubstantiated claims, for which he uses circular reasoning and poor justification, the research summaries are interesting.

This book addresses the dichotomy between the thesis of nature and the antithesis of nurture by presenting convincing but not overwhelming arguments for their synthesis as the right approach. The author presents evidence which link traits to a biological basis, yet which show variation due to environmental influence. But it remains unclear if a meaningful nature/nurture delineation can be inferred anymore, which would still be helpful.

The prose and presentation is lucid. Not very heavy on the technical details. Recommended.

The history of this debate, recent findings, and anecdotes are fantastic. These make up the bulk of the book, and as a parent and teacher I learned a lot. However, his conclusions don't match well with what he is presenting. For example, his central premise explicitly puts nature and nurture on the same footing, but it is the gene that is the star of this book. Nurture is relegated to an ingredient in nature's machinery. This is 1 of his 7 moral lessons we are supposed to derive from the book: "snobs should emphasize nurture". He mentions the ostracism those on the nature-side face ...Perhaps the non sequiturs are his way of trying to avoid the same.

Until last week, when I started reading this book during the Christmas holidays, I had a low opinion of Sigmund Freud and Burrhus Skinner, founders of psycho-analysis and behaviourism respectively. I knew that what Freud considered "successful therapy" was misleading and up to a point criminal. I also took the view that no person with common sense can possibly believe that "the organism is a black box that need not be opened", as Skinner argued.

What makes reading "Nature via nurture" all the more so fascinating, therefore, is that the author allows those "great men", together with others such as Galton, De Vries, Pavlov and Durkheim, their moment of glory. Grant Freud the idea that there is a role for early experience in shaping the psyche. Grant Pavlov "the power of learning to reshape adult mind"; grant Durkheim the autonomous power of culture and society. Ridley places all these authors in their context, and sheds proper light on their findings. In the process, he proves that he is a balanced scientist who is not out for cheap publicity.

I have read quite a few of the most recent works in the field of nature versus nurture - I particularly enjoyed reading Dawkins and Pinker - but "Nature via nurture" is a must-read for anyone like me with a keen interest in this field without a background in biology (I studied economics).

Ridley is a former columnist for The Economist, which goes to show that his English style is extremely accessible.

Post scriptum - As an "outsider", I find it mind-boggling to read that the struggle between naturists and nurturists was so intense. Ridley's theory, that there is no such thing as an "either nature or nurture" and that there are plenty of feedback loops between the environment and the genes, is so common-sensical, that I deplore the fact that I did not study biology and be the first to "invent" this idea.