Another author also makes a case for nature over nurture.
Galton made an honest effort to justify his belief in nature over nurture with hard evidence.
Eli, in other words, wasn't ever meant to be a killer in the first place, and at long last nature is asserting herself over nurture.
MARGARET NICHOLS Jersey City As a sexuality researcher, I was dismayed to read Daniel Bergner's assertion that there is "a cultural and scientific trend, a stress on the deterministic role of biology, on nature's dominance over nurture".
Bryan Caplan, economics professor and father-of-three, whose new book says nature will always win over nurture, is an exponent of "serenity parenting", the belief that parents should stop hothousing their children.
Embracers of nature over nurture may sift through their 20,000 genes to find an explanation for personality traits thought to have a partial genetic basis — like early rising, risk-taking, shyness and addiction.
This search may reflect, as well, a cultural and scientific trend, a stress on the deterministic role of biology, on nature's dominance over nurture — and, because of this, on innate differences between the sexes, particularly in the primal domain of sex.
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Undine Spragg from Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country each received a mention for favouring adultery over nurture.
