Human Nature Human nature as generally understood covers behavior that is innate, not learned. You cannot change how your genes are encoded, though you can usually override their instructions as necessary—this is a large part of what civilization is all about. But when learning something “comes natural” the whole learning process becomes quicker, easier, and more durable. The accuracy with which genes transmit information is now well established and is a foundational concept for our understanding of evolution. We define life itself in terms of genetic descent. Nevertheless, where we used to see a sharp line between behavior that is transmitted genetically and that which is learned, or between nature and nurture in common parlance, we now see a zone, an area that exists in between like the intertidal area between land and sea. There is a good bit of research going on at present into how this zone between nature and nurture works. Biological evolution proceeds at a much slower tempo than cultural evolution, and efforts to change human behavior take a lot longer when that behavior is part of human nature. Most of us are fully aware of this distinction when applying it to individuals, but less so when dealing with whole societies. Mao Tse Tung tried to alter the human nature of a whole nation in a generation, with catastrophic results.
Posted on: Thu, 08 May 2014 13:39:32 +0000
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