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Everyone isn't born equal, but everything we have doesn't solely come from genetics. Nurture plays a huge role in our development. Saying Natalie Portman is suc

Everyone isn't born equal, but everything we have doesn't solely come from genetics. Nurture plays a huge role in our development. Saying Natalie Portman is successful solely because of her DNA is wholly disrespectful to her hard work. She didn't get best actress and a masters degree by just slumming it because her genes did all the work. It's naive and ignorant to ignore nurture in the debate. A lack of Vitamin D or cholesterol can inhibit myelin growth, which notably in the womb causes a miscarriage or still-birth/brain dead baby. It's reasonable to assume that a lack of Vitamin D or cholesterol in a child's formative years is going to cause severe developmental problems. Natalie Portman has a degree and an oscar for one simple thing: She works hard. If she didn't work hard she might be a recognizable actress, but she'd be like a huge number of university enrollees in that they never get any degree. Genetics is a firm foundation, bad genetics can cause lots of problems. But only work is going to build a house, and only hard work is going to build you a mansion.

lwat 16y ago
If she didn't have the right genes to go with her hard work she wouldn't get anywhere either.
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  She'd have probably got somewhere average. Similarly if she had all the right genes and none of the hard work she'd have got somewhere average again. However, there's people who work way too hard to succeed and totally burn out. We have nature, nurture and random chance that create all of us. I wouldn't have said "life's too short" and moved country if I hadn't read a single book (The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin) that I have no clue how it came to be in my possession. My entire life is based on seemingly random chances. I met my wife via friends of friends of friends whom I originally met in a chat room. I got my dog (Dachshund x Jack Russell) by going to the SPCA when they were flooded with Labrador crosses and they had no terriers up for adoption, but she was getting taken out for a walk at that very moment. Our entire lives are quantified by our reaction to random chance. I had less odds of being where I am today than I have of winning the lottery, but why do the events of my life occur so but my lottery ticket is always going to be a dud for the rest of my life. It's the mixture of our nature and nurture that define who we are, by how we react to random occurrences. What random shit defined your life so far?
nostrademons 16y ago
There's a fair bit of evidence that hard work is itself genetic, and the ability to focus attention and delay gratification is largely due to certain brain structures. Those brain structures can be affected by genetics, by environment (eg. fetal alcohol syndrome results in a marked loss of impulse control later), or by practice, but not everybody starts from the same point. Anyway, your point gets into issues of free will and consciousness that philosophers have been debating for centuries. If everything has a cause, how can we say what we're actually responsible for, and how much is just a reaction to random chance? Perhaps consciousness is largely an illusion: the brain makes decisions based on firmly ingrained circuits that function at a subconscious level, and only later does that bubble up to the conscious level.
- Dn_Ab 16y ago
  Even if not everyone starts at the same point that doesn't mean they will continue to stay ahead. People operate under the assumption of a constant veclocity in development. And that development is non-inertial (in the physics sense). The rate of development function could well be logistic or with an asymptote or some like - removing that insurmountable gap implicit in so many statements. We may all end up near enough (for all practical purposes) at the same endpoint if we all worked hard and performed necessary rotations and frame changes given our situations. The brain is very malleable. There is also the fact that people start at different places for different areas and that chooses where they end up specializing. And there is probably some self-fulfilling prophecy going on that trains people to avoid smarty pants subjects which are vital for developing rigorous thinking. why is it a matter of pride to be terrible at maths and technical subjects? or the fact of growing up with certain teachers and society all but directly informing you that certain races aren't up for certain more mathy subjects. I can certainly attest to that stuff messing up your ability to keep on when things get difficult.

lwat 16y ago

If she didn't have the right genes to go with her hard work she wouldn't get anywhere either.

electromagnetic 16y ago
She'd have probably got somewhere average. Similarly if she had all the right genes and none of the hard work she'd have got somewhere average again. However, there's people who work way too hard to succeed and totally burn out. We have nature, nurture and random chance that create all of us. I wouldn't have said "life's too short" and moved country if I hadn't read a single book (The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin) that I have no clue how it came to be in my possession. My entire life is based on seemingly random chances. I met my wife via friends of friends of friends whom I originally met in a chat room. I got my dog (Dachshund x Jack Russell) by going to the SPCA when they were flooded with Labrador crosses and they had no terriers up for adoption, but she was getting taken out for a walk at that very moment. Our entire lives are quantified by our reaction to random chance. I had less odds of being where I am today than I have of winning the lottery, but why do the events of my life occur so but my lottery ticket is always going to be a dud for the rest of my life. It's the mixture of our nature and nurture that define who we are, by how we react to random occurrences. What random shit defined your life so far?

nostrademons 16y ago

There's a fair bit of evidence that hard work is itself genetic, and the ability to focus attention and delay gratification is largely due to certain brain structures. Those brain structures can be affected by genetics, by environment (eg. fetal alcohol syndrome results in a marked loss of impulse control later), or by practice, but not everybody starts from the same point. Anyway, your point gets into issues of free will and consciousness that philosophers have been debating for centuries. If everything has a cause, how can we say what we're actually responsible for, and how much is just a reaction to random chance? Perhaps consciousness is largely an illusion: the brain makes decisions based on firmly ingrained circuits that function at a subconscious level, and only later does that bubble up to the conscious level.

Dn_Ab 16y ago
Even if not everyone starts at the same point that doesn't mean they will continue to stay ahead. People operate under the assumption of a constant veclocity in development. And that development is non-inertial (in the physics sense). The rate of development function could well be logistic or with an asymptote or some like - removing that insurmountable gap implicit in so many statements. We may all end up near enough (for all practical purposes) at the same endpoint if we all worked hard and performed necessary rotations and frame changes given our situations. The brain is very malleable. There is also the fact that people start at different places for different areas and that chooses where they end up specializing. And there is probably some self-fulfilling prophecy going on that trains people to avoid smarty pants subjects which are vital for developing rigorous thinking. why is it a matter of pride to be terrible at maths and technical subjects? or the fact of growing up with certain teachers and society all but directly informing you that certain races aren't up for certain more mathy subjects. I can certainly attest to that stuff messing up your ability to keep on when things get difficult.