This book discusses the nature - nurture debate as it relates to human intelligence.

There are so many good textbooks in the field of this sense the book is more comparable to modern human psychology that anyone producing a new one textbooks of 'harder' sciences such as physics and must have a good excuse, ready to explain his physiology. Theories are considered important, but temerity. Our reason for bringing together the various only theories that are scientific in the sense that they authors who have contributed the chapters of this continuously interact with empirically derived facts. book is a very simple one. Most textbooks are written Theories which seldom make contact with facts (e. g. just for future professional psychologists, i. e. for Jung's theory of archetypes) are generally ignored. students who are going to adopt psychology as their There is one other point about which we would like to be explicit. Textbooks often state different theories life's work, and whose main area of concentration is psychology. These students are, of course, a very im regarding a particular phenomenon, or set of phenom portant group, yet psychology is becoming more and ena, without giving any opinion as to which of these more important to professionals in other fields as well theories might be judged superior to the others.

Excerpt from Heredity and Environment in the Development of Men Ontogeny and Phylogeny - One of the greatest and most far reaching themes which has ever occupied the minds of men is the problem of development. Whether it be the development of an animal from an egg, of a race or species from a pre-existing one, or of the body, mind and institutions of man, this problem is everywhere much the same in fundamental principles, and knowledge gained in one of these fields must be Of value in each of the others. Ontogeny and phylogeny are not wholly distinct phenomena, but are only two aspects of the one general process of organic development. The evolution of races and of species is sufficiently rare and unfamiliar to attract much attention and serious thought; while the development of an individual is a phenomenon of such universal occurrence that it is taken as a matter of course by most people, something so evident that it seems to require no explanation; but familiarity with the fact of development does not remove the mystery which lies back of it, though it may make plain many of the processes concerned. The development of a human being, of a personality, from a germ cell is the climax of all wonders, greater even than that involved in the evolution of a species or in the making of a world. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Following his highly praised and bestselling book Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Matt Ridley has written a brilliant and profound book about the roots of human behavior. Nature via Nurture explores the complex and endlessly intriguing question of what makes us who we are. In February 2001 it was announced that the human genome contains not 100,000 genes, as originally postulated, but only 30,000. This startling revision led some scientists to conclude that there are simply not enough human genes to account for all the different ways people behave: we must be made by nurture, not nature. Yet again biology was to be stretched on the Procrustean bed of the nature-nurture debate. Matt Ridley argues that the emerging truth is far more interesting than this myth. Nurture depends on genes, too, and genes need nurture. Genes not only predetermine the broad structure of the brain, they also absorb formative experiences, react to social cues, and even run memory. They are consequences as well as causes of the will. Published fifty years after the discovery of the double helix of DNA, Nature via Nurture chronicles a revolution in our understanding of genes. Ridley recounts the hundred years' war between the partisans of nature and nurture to explain how this paradoxical creature, the human being, can be simultaneously free-willed and motivated by instinct and culture. Nature via Nurture is an enthralling,up-to-the-minute account of how genes build brains to absorb experience.

This book provides an analysis of the nature vs. nuture debate, arguing for an end to the 'either/or' nature of the discussions in favor of a recognition that environmental and genetic factors interact throughout life to form human traits.