Religion Leading People Astray in the Nature Nurture Debate

I spoke with someone the other day about nature vs. nurture. She was approaching the argument from a particular religious standpoint so she took the position of nurture being the most important. I think that her belief stems from the idea of God being just. For God to be just, people must have freewill (the ability to choose right from wrong) before they can be justly punished. If we have freewill the only thing that can set us off track is bad environment/nurturing. Of course, I could be giving her undeserved credit for being consistent. She may just be one for confabulation, or maybe I am?

I do not want to digress too far, but I happen to disagree with any notion of freewill. It is odd to me that religious people accept the idea of freewill; as Max (a scholarly friend) has often pointed out, God’s omniscience and therefore omnipotence rest upon the idea that we do not have freewill. Max and I, like good scientists or Calvinists, are determinists. Nonetheless, many religious people believe that we have freewill which means that we cannot be biologically determined to behave in a certain way, so it then follows that nurture must supersede nature.

I then pointed out to her that they are both important, and depending on the issue one may be more important than the other. I explained to her some of the results of twin studies and how certain traits seemed to have stronger biological components.

She then said in her mind, "facts smacts you can prove any ol' thing with the facts," and changed talking points. She then said aloud, “If environment causes any change at all in a behavior or trait then environment is the most important.” I did not quite get it at first, but after thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that she meant that environment is the only thing we can control so genes and inheritance do not matter as much.

Finally, I think that it is a silly debate. People can argue back and forth about which is more important, but they work together. Whether one can be manipulated and the other cannot they are together. It is like saying that the Earth is more important than the Sun to life on this planet because we have some control over the Earth.