The Biological Implausibility of the Nature-Nurture Dichotomy & What It Means for the Study of Infancy
By David J. Lewkowicz. 2011
61 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Since the time of the Greeks, philosophers and scientists have wondered about the origins of structure and function. Plato proposed that the origins of structure and function lie in the organism's nature whereas Aristotle proposed that they lie in its nurture. This nature/nurture dichotomy and the emphasis on the origins question has had a powerful effect on our thinking about development right into modern times. Despite this, empirical findings from various branches of developmental science have made a compelling case that the nature/nurture dichotomy is biologically implausible and, thus, that a search for developmental origins must be replaced by research into developmental processes. This change in focus recognizes that development is an immensely complex, dynamic, embedded, interdependent, and probabilistic process and, therefore, renders simplistic questions such as whether a particular behavioral capacity is innate or acquired scientifically uninteresting.
Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education, Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Marilyn M. Vihman
- M. Majorano
- Rory A. DePaolis
- David J. Lewkowicz
- Ross A. Flom
- Lorraine E. Bahrick
- Ferran Pons
- Daniel Swingley
In Education
In Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health
Citations in the corpus
- Early Experience & Multisensory Perceptual Narrowing (2014, background): “In terms of multisensory development, the twin theoretical concepts of ontogenetic limitations and ontogenetic adaptations are, in turn, based on a developmental systems view of development (Lewkowicz, 2011).”
- The Relationship Between Infants’ Production Experience and Their Processing of Speech (2014, background): “Many studies have investigated early perceptual development, particularly the decline in discrimination of non-native contrasts over the first year (e.g., Werker & Tees, 1984; Best, 1994) or what has come to be seen more broadly as “perceptual narrowing” (Lewkowicz, 2011).”