Nature vs Nurture

Jordan Freeman

Professor Ashley

English 145

4 March 2015

Nature versus Nurture

Why is it that certain things seem so easy for some people but impossible for others? In high school, I received fairly good grades without exerting much effort at all. When I arrived at college, however, I went from being one of the most successful kids in my classes to one of the students struggling to get by. Now, I’m starting to wonder how some of my peers make school seem so easy. Are their abilities predetermined or are there additional factors that go into it? Nature versus Nurture is a debate that was introduced many years ago and continues to be argued till this day. The Nature approach states that the way people are is completely natural and determined by genetics. The other side of this debate takes the opposite approach, contributing everything to the environment in which someone grows up. Is one of these factors more crucial than the other when it comes to academic performance or do they play equal roles?

While it is evident that genetics are the sole contributors to physical features, what impacts the mental aspects of people? One proponent for the nurture side of the debate is Greg Duncan. Duncan is currently a professor at UC Irvine and former President of the Society for Research in Child Development. In his article, “The Long Reach of Early Childhood Poverty,” he discusses the effects that growing up poor can have on students throughout their lives. Duncan explains there is “clear evidence emerging from neuroscience that demonstrates strong correlations between socioeconomic status and various aspects of brain function in young children” (Duncan 25). Through extensive research, Duncan is able to support this claim using an experiment that was conducted between 1968 and 1982. In the experiment, half of the families involved were given a 50% increase in income while the others remained the same. The findings from this study concluded that the kids in...