Quote Originally Posted by no_brains_no_worries View Post
I'm a firm believer in nurture over nature. Genetics may play certain roles (Michael Jordon's height) but conditioning is more important (I mean, he sucked at basketball but trained until he was the best).

Sorry for a really watered down example but I haven't read anything about genetics or nature vs. nurture in years (unless you count the novel Next.)
Sociology tells us how culture plays its role in shaping our personalities, prejudices, and interests.

Evopsych tells us why culture puts those pressures on us in the first place. Michael Jordan's height isn't the only thing that makes him a superior basketball player. He also has genes that give him better hand/eye coordination, better depth perception, faster speed, more agility, and so on. Michael Jordan wasn't born with a basketball gene, of course. That skill set may also have lent itself to him being a fantastic fighter pilot - except for the height, really. The point is that Michael Jordan is a great basketball player because of "nature" (DNA) and nurture (social pressure), but his high genetic fitness made it possible for the nurturing to have any effect. Many kids are "nurtured" into working at athletics or math or art by their parents or peers, but they cannot and will not excel if they aren't built for it.


editing to say that I'm not sure whether Michael Jordan actually has all of the aforementioned attributes, but a superior basketball player would need at least some of those things. The work and training he did to become a good player were instrumental, without doubt - my point is just that all the work in the world wouldn't have mattered if he didn't have the genes.