"The future promises a detailed genetic dissection of personality, and it is hard to imagine that what we discover will not tip the scales of the nature/nurture debate more and more in the direction of nature—a frightening thought for some, but only if we persist in being held hostage by a static, ultimately meaningless dichotomy. To find that any trait, even one with formidable political implications, has a mainly genetic basis is not to find something set immutably in stone. It is merely to understand the nature upon which nurture is ever acting, and those things we, as a society and as individuals, need to do if we are better to assist the process. Let us not allow transient political considerations to set the scientific agenda. Yes, we may uncover truths that make us uneasy in the light of our present circumstances, but it is those circumstances, not nature’s truth, to which policy makers ought to address themselves."
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Atheists from the United StatesBiologists from the United StatesZoologists from the United StatesNobel laureates in Physiology or MedicineGeneticists
Original Language: English
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Chapter 13, “Who We Are: Nature vs. Nurture” (p. 395)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_D._Watson
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James D. Watson
James Dewey Watson (April 6, 1928 – November 6, 2025) was an American scientist, most known as one of the four discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule.
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