Posted by Dr. Bob on August 18, 2002, at 8:50:34
In reply to Genes PLUS environment: Environment?? « Randal, posted by Dr. Bob on August 18, 2002, at 8:41:38
[Posted by jay on August 18, 2002, at 4:13:44]
>
> Hi:
>
> I understand your frustration with the Nature/Nurture concept...and you certainly aren't the first to be so.
>
> The interplay between 'environment' and genetics is still far too complicated for us to have lengthy, absolute answers on. In the book 'The Noonday Demon', the writer Andrew Solomon(sp?) gives a good example. He was talking to a psychiatrist whose wife was an endocrinologist. The P.Doc's wife treats many kids for diabetes in which many of them come from poor and lower-class families. Of course, those kids live with the stresses that poverty can bring to a family, which can also shoot the kid's blood-sugar levels way out of whack...hence the susceptibility to diabetes. (This is a paraphrase from the book.) I have also been reading a fair bit lately about child diabetes and psychological state. It's very far from being some exact 'theory'..but it gives us something more to think about.
>
> OK..hang with me here. Levels of ADD and Depression also seem to be greatly impacting wealthy, as well as 'stable family' (and the two are *not* exactly co-related) children. Many don't have to face going a day without a meal, or feel the stress between parents having an argument over how to spend the last 15 dollars they have that week. (Again..please understand...I know "wealthy" parents argue..and many are dys-functional..etc.) I am sorta using a bit of a wide stroke here, but can you see where both Nature and Nurture can predominate?
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> I hope that makes sense...
>
> Thanks,
> Jay
poster:Dr. Bob
thread:28868
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020813/msgs/28869.html