“Nature Via Nurture” covers an amazing range of fascinating material, bringing us up to date on recent discoveries in genetics, neuroscience and psychiatry as well as animal and human psychology.

The nature versus nurture debate is one of the oldest issues in psychology. The debate centres on the relative contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development.

Whether or not human beings are genetically inclined toward particular kinds of actions, those dispositions have evolved in the complex web of nature and nurture. That fact makes morality just as ...

What were the contributing factors that led to our development? In classic philosophical and psychological literature, there is what is known as the nature versus nurture debate.

Key points Scientists who focus on understanding human development often deride the nature-nurture debate, claiming it is wholly misguided.

Ridley's survey of what is known about nature-nurture interactions is encyclopedic and conveyed with insight and style.

It’s a continuous feedback loop, in which neither nature nor nurture is a fixed entity. At other times, the nature-nurture feedback loop may be more pernicious.

Perhaps the nature–nurture distinction itself is at fault. Pinker acknowledges that the human genome cannot possibly specify every connection among our neurons.