Arguments over whether education should be regarded as an innate biological process or as one of the acquisition have raged since the time of Plato and Aristotle, but they have been given some scientific grounding in recent decades by Darwinian concepts of evolution. Francis Galen, a cousin of Darwin who coined the phrase “nature versus nurture,” argued that both nature and nurture contribute to a person’s development. In his book, he concluded that both factors play a role in determining how someone develops into adulthood.
In psychology, the controversy has become polarized into behaviorism (nurture) versus cognitivism (nature). However, developmental psychology has tended to study the interaction between genetic inheritance and environmental influence. A way that psychologists can investigate this issue is through twin studies. Twins brought up together can experience similar environmental influences, whereas identical twins separated at a very early age provide a window into the effects that different environments have on the developing brain.
