Jump to content
Main menu
Main menu
move to sidebar
hide
Navigation
Main page
Recent changes
Random page
Help about MediaWiki
Special pages
Niidae Wiki
Search
Search
Appearance
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Create account
Log in
Pages for logged out editors
learn more
Contributions
Talk
Editing
Free will
(section)
Page
Discussion
English
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
Tools
move to sidebar
hide
Actions
Read
Edit
View history
General
What links here
Related changes
Page information
Appearance
move to sidebar
hide
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
===Genetics=== Like physicists, [[biologist]]s have frequently addressed questions related to free will. One of the most heated debates in biology is that of "[[nature versus nurture]]", concerning the relative importance of genetics and biology as compared to culture and environment in human behavior.<ref name="Pin">{{Cite book |last=Pinel |first=P.J. |title=Biopsychology |publisher=Prentice Hall Inc. |year=1990 |isbn=88-15-07174-1}}</ref> The view of many researchers is that many human behaviors can be explained in terms of humans' brains, genes, and evolutionary histories.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=DeFries |first1=J.C. |title=Behavioral Genetics |last2=McGuffin |first2=P. |last3=McClearn |first3=G.E. |last4=Plomin |first4=R. |publisher=W.H. Freeman and Company |year=2000 |edition=4th}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Morris |first=D. |title=The Naked Ape |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1967 |isbn=0-385-33430-3 |location=New York}}</ref><ref name="Dawk">{{Cite book |last=Dawkins |first=R. |title=The Selfish Gene |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1976 |isbn=88-04-39318-1 |location=Oxford}}</ref> This point of view raises the fear that such attribution makes it impossible to hold others responsible for their actions. [[Steven Pinker]]'s view is that fear of determinism in the context of "genetics" and "evolution" is a mistake, that it is "a confusion of ''explanation'' with ''exculpation''". Responsibility does not require that behavior be uncaused, as long as behavior responds to praise and blame.<ref name="Pink">{{Cite book |last=Pinker |first=S. |title=The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature' |publisher=Penguin |year=2002 |isbn=0-14-200334-4 |location=London |page=179}}</ref> Moreover, it is not certain that environmental determination is any less threatening to free will than genetic determination.<ref name="Lew">{{Cite book |last=Lewontin |first=R. |title=It Ain't Necessarily So: The Dream of the Human Genome and other Illusions |publisher=NYREV Inc. |year=2000 |isbn=88-420-6418-1 |location=New York}}</ref>
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to Niidae Wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see
Encyclopedia:Copyrights
for details).
Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Search
Search
Editing
Free will
(section)
Add topic