Though, I Really Want To Take Psychology

This post will not really be based on any scientific fact or knowledge, largely because I'm neither a biologist nor a psychologist nor a sociologist nor... I'm a mathematician, and how people work isn't exactly my area of expertise. That being said, I'm going to try to bring whatever I can to this topic, and that's a discussion of how much I think (based solely on my own conjecture) one can affect the other and whether or not they're both really important.

Having a genetic predisposition toward some kind of trait seems about as solid as the wording implies. You're going to have a lot of feelings steering you toward one track, but there could be other factors in your environment that may push you toward something else entirely. I think that these factors are the ones that end up mattering. Every time I've met a set of twins, they've been very distinct people, and that's because of the variation in their experiences. I haven't done extensive research into twin studies, so I won't get into that here, but my guess would be that anything indicating a trend would do so with a fairly weak correlation. I mean, by weak, I really just mean no more than 85%, but still.

When it comes down to it, while the distinction between whether nature or nurture determines a particular factor is relevant in understanding how a person got to be who they are, I'm not sure that it's a meaningful distinction in trying to understand who they are. I've heard people that try to imply that traits determined by nurture can't be innate and unchanging features of a person, and this just seems a little... blatantly incorrect. Most of these arguments have been in the context of sexual orientation, so I'm not really sure about how well it applies in other specific aspects, but I do believe that it's possible for characteristics of a person to be unchanging and determined by nurture rather than nature. This isn't to say that all major aspects of a person work that way, just that it's possible for some.

I'm not entirely sure that I actually said anything, but hopefully it'll kick off the discussion for this week in a way that'll lead to other interesting ideas from people that might be more informed on the issue.