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Here are the arguments:

Nurture
“Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man,” said the 15th century Spanish knight turned priest Ignatius Loyola. Scientists who support his argument point to children who at a young age were mistreated by their parents and kept in isolation. In most cases their brains fail to develop normally. In recent weeks, the “Oprah Show” shone a spotlight on a ten-year-old girl called Danielle Crockett who was found in her mother’s Florida home at the age of seven surrounded by squalor and wearing nothing but a diaper.

She was covered with flea, cockroach and mosquito bites and was unable to walk properly, use the bathroom, chew, eat solids or communicate. Danielle has since been adopted by a loving couple but although doctors say tests show her brain is normal and she has no physical disability, she may never be able to talk or function. The psychologist who has been treating her Dr. Kathleen Armstrong says 85 percent of the brain is developed in the first five years of life. “Those early relationships, more than anything else, help wire the brain and provide children with the experience to trust, to develop language, to communicate. They need that system to relate to the world.”

Similarly, so-called ‘feral’ children who were abandoned and brought-up by wolves display the characteristics of their wild foster parents. One example is the story of Amala and Kamala two Indian children raised by a she-wolf until they were rescued by a priest in 1920 and taken to an orphanage. The girls walked on all-fours, bared their teeth, panted, and preferred to eat raw meat. There are many such stories which seem to prove that human behavior such as walking, talking, interacting socially and even washing one’s face is learned, unlike animal behavior which is predominantly instinctive.

In 2002, a British television company Pepper Productions decided to launch a televised social experiment called “Second Chance” that involved a disturbed teenager from a rough neighborhood who had been expelled from school and spent his time on the fringes of criminality. After gaining permission from the boy’s mother, the company paid for the boy to attend a private school in the countryside for three years at the end of which he excelled in academic studies and also at rugby. Now popular and confident, the lad expressed his disgust at his former life and was set to take 10 GCSE examinations.

Many in the nurture camp dislike the idea that genetics determines intelligence because this implies that some children have a natural advantage over others less genetically gifted. One academic sought to dispute that by teaching his daughters of average intelligence to become grand masters at chess.

Nature
A controversial book written by the late Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray titled “The Bell Curve” argues that intelligence is largely (40% - 80%) genetically inherited and is variable along racial lines; an assertion which received a heated academic backlash leaving the authors open to accusations of racism.

Studies carried out at the University of California on 10 pairs of fraternal twins and 10 pairs of identical twins enabled the researchers to distinguish between genetic and environmental factors. They discovered that the frontal area of the brain and those areas governing language showed a 95 – 100 percent correlation among identical twins, suggesting that their personal experiences and learning played “a negligible role in shaping” their abilities.

Identical twins Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein who were born in New York were co-opted by a secret nature versus nurture research project that began in the 1960s. The women had been separated from each other as infants and adopted out. In 2004, Paula received a phone call from the adoption agency and learned that she had a twin living in Paris who was searching for her. They eventually met-up for the first time at the age of 35 and spent hours in a New York café catching up with each other’s lives.

Much to their astonishment, despite the fact they grew up with different families and in different locations, they were very similar. “It’s not just our taste in music or books, it goes beyond that,” said Paula. “Since meeting Elyse, it is undeniable that genetics play a huge role – probably more than 50 percent.” Out of concern for public disapproval, the study has never been published. Instead, it has been sealed and handed to Yale University with instructions that it cannot be opened until at least 2066.

In recent times, the nature argument has been strengthened by advances in genetics. Scientists say they have found a gene they call Neurod2 or the ‘fearless gene’ that determines whether or not a person is willing to take risks. Others have announced their discovery of genes related to attention-deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, manic depression, autism, addition, extroversion, introversion, novelty-seeking, aggression, gambling, impulsivity and anxiety. And it is undisputed that a person’s potential for contracting certain illness such as cancer is accentuated by their genes.

Behavioral geneticist Dean Hamer of the US National Cancer Institute who has co-authored the book “Living with Our Genes” writes that his researchers have demonstrated beyond a doubt that genes are the single most important factor in distinguishing one individual from another.

“Whether anyone thinks it’s a good idea or not, we will soon have the ability to change and manipulate human behavior through genetics,” he writes. He believes that parents will one day be able to design their own babies to ensure they are healthy, intelligent and talented, which many people will find unethical if not frightening.