Nature, Nurture, and …. ?

We’ve been having this discussion for at least 100 years.  How is it possible that two siblings with essentially the same DNA and the same home environment can be such different people?

In the 18th Century, British philosopher John Locke proposed his theory of tabula rasa, “blank slate,” suggesting that, when we’re born into this world, we bring with us exactly zero in terms of what will later become our unique selves. Few if any of us believe that today.

But what precisely do we believe?

Spiritualists assert that each individual has its own “basic personality,” perhaps deriving from our past lives.

Biologists who specialize in this arena are investigating epigenetics, the concept that we have genetic information that causes elements of our genome to either be expressed or not.

Many questions remain.