TED Talk #1: Your Genes Are Not Your Fate
In his TED talk, Dean Ornish suggests that human genes can be rewritten through behavior. According to Ornish (2008), healthy habits can positively affect one’s genetic code, with healthy eating, exercise, and positive thinking resulting in better oxygen and blood flow to the brain. Similarly, unhealthy behaviors can lead to genes being expressed adversely. Thus, to provide a different understanding of the issues raised in the video, nurture can affect nature. For example, I am personally interested in how healthy behavior can affect a predisposition for genetic disorders. Overall, the speaker addressed an important bio-psycho-social-spiritual developmental issue, arguing that behavioral factors and social conditions can affect such physical characteristics as genes. It would be interesting to explore further what genes can be altered through behavior and what cannot be, and, relating to the week’s topic, to what extent nurture can affect development.
TED Talk #2: Human Nature and the Blank Slate
In the TED talk entitled Human Nature and the Blank Slate, Steven Pinker argues that both nature and nurture shape people. Pinker (2003) believes that from an early age, children are affected by their parents, peer groups, culture, genes, and random events that may happen in their lives. Thus, the speaker raises the long-standing nurture vs. nature debate often evoked to examine human development. Personally, I am interested in how and to what extent random life events can impact development, as I realize that certain events in my life might have affected me in unpredictable ways. It would be interesting to discuss the importance random events have in one’s life, as the speaker believes them to be one of the most crucial factors in development (Pinker, 2003). Another question for discussion is how nature and nurture complement each other.
Additional Activity
Nurture vs. nature is a renowned debate that attempts to uncover whether human development and behavior are products of biological or social factors. I believe that both play a substantial role and a person’s environment has as strong an effect on their development as their genes. I also like the argument that nurture is nature and vice versa, as there is ample evidence that behavior can impact physical characteristics, specifically genes (Ornish, 2008; Rettew, 2017). Thus, nature and nurture are equally important for human development.
References
Ornish, D. (2008). Your genes are not your fate [Video]. TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. Web.
Pinker, S. (2003). Human nature and the blank slate [Video]. TED: Ideas worth spreading. Web.
Rettew, D. C. (2017). Nature versus nurture: 50 years of a popular debate. Clinical Psychiatry News.