Nature vs. Nurture in Intelligence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Nature vs. Nurture in Intelligence - Essay Example He went on to analyze biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias, and became convinced that talent in science, the professions, and the arts, ran in families. This suggestion became know as eugenics, "the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or repair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally." Galton wanted to speed up the process of natural selection, stating that: "What Nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly". Galton was convinced that "intelligence must be bred, not trained". Such arguments have had massive social consequences and have been used to support apartheid policies, sterilization programs, and other acts of withholding basic human rights from minority groups. In the heyday of eugenic IQ testing in the 1920s there was no evidence for the heritability of IQ. It was just an assumption of the practitioners. Today that is no longer the case. The heritability of IQ (whatever IQ is!) is now a hypothesis that has been tested - on twins and adoptees. The results really are quite startling. No study of the causes of intelligence has failed to find a certain and often substantial heritability. What varies from study to study is the amount that can be attributed to heritability. Evidence in favour of "nurture" "Give me a dozen healthy infants & my own specific world to bring them up in, & I'll guarantee to take any one at random & train him to become any type of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant, chef & yes, even beggar & thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors." - John B. Watson, 1924 This was a famous quote in the heyday of behaviorism, when the child was considered to be a 'tabula rasa' (blank slate) onto which anything could be sculpted through environmental experience. This would be a 100% environmental view, but virtually no psychologists would accept such an extreme position today. So, what can we say about nature vs. nurture as causal determinants of intelligence A conservative, seemly safe position is that: "In the field of intelligence, there are three facts about the transmission of intelligence that virtually everyone seems to accept: 1. Both heredity and environment contribute to intelligence. 2. Heredity and environment interact in various ways. 3. Extremely poor as well as highly enriched environments can interfere with the realization of a person's intelligence, regardless of the person's heredity" (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 1997, p.xi). 4. Although most would accept a causal role of genetics, the exact genetic link and how it operates is very far from being understood - another point that most psychologists would agree on. It is certainly not a single gene, but a complex

The Trouble with Scotland Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Trouble with Scotland - Essay Example The background score in this scene, just prior to the "They'll never take our Freedom!" Exhortation while not misplaced in terms of cinematography at that moment the musical choice does not seem to be evocative of the type of emotions that would rouse reluctant men to battle and death. Rather the total quality or we use an emotional tapestry of soothing memory and simple pleasures when one might argue that a harder-edged sound choice might better foreshadow the carnage to come. But one might argue that the message being portrayed by the particulars of the musical undercurrents in this scene being that for untrained men to rise up as one and engage in a peril-fraught, blood-soaked exploit of such deadly danger they require something other than themselves for which they are fighting. Even as Wallaces speech would seem to evoke personal pride within them, to spit in the devil's eyes. Asking them if they would truly trade all of the potential days and years of complacent old age for one chance, just one chance, to defy the great Martial might of England's professional army. Here we have a juxtaposition between the selfless need to fight for something greater, while at the same time asserting a piss&vinegar, devil may care disregard for mortality. The portrayal of the larger war against the British is structured during the film to grant a pivotal role to the French-born princess. (played by Sophie Marceau) integral to this war effort and to the film, on the whole, is the Princess's journey. Her transformation from Royal pawn of perpetually feuding nations bartered away as a living stamp of approval upon a flimsy peace accord between Britain and France - to become a traitorous, adulterous Queen. In the betrayal of her unwilling vows, she discovers the means to become true to herself; her personal journey of becoming.