The Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education (JUNE), Spring 2004, 2(2):R10-R11

BOOK REVIEW
Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human
By Matt Ridley
2003 Harper Collins Publishers, 326 pages

Reviewed by William J. Pizzi

Department of Psychology, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL

!Some books are meant to be read for their taking the following examination: Write an essay
factual content, others for their ideas and inspiration. showing how the following topics can be integrated into
The best books combine facts with ideas, and inspire the one concept: imprinting, length of the second digit of your
reader to seek more answers. Nature via Nurture is just hand divided by the length of your fourth digit or ring
such a book! Matt Ridley is one of today’s best writers of finger (2D/4D ratio), GABA, neurotrophins, sign
popular science as he has demonstrated in this and his language, the Westermarck Effect. Such an exam
previous best selling book, Genome. question is likely to stir up your students and result in an
Nature via Nurture grapples with one of the express appointment with your Dean. Interestingly,
perennial questions that face all students of the life these are only some of the topics that Ridley weaves into
sciences; namely, what controls our behavior: genes or this chapter stimulated by Konrad Lorenz’s work.
the environment? In the second half of the twentieth This reviewer is left with the impression that
century it became fashionable to claim that scientists no there is a tsunami of progress in behavioral genetics on
longer believed behavior was all genes (genetic the horizon, and it is being driven by the genome project.
determinism) or all environment (radical Like most things intellectual the pendulum will have to
environmentalism). The problem with this simplistic swing back and forth several times before the picture is
generalization was that it merely shifted the proponents clarified. The first swing of the pendulum is likely to
of each position to debate proportions. One example is represent the influence of genetics on twenty first century
the continuous debate over the proportion of IQ that is neuroscience and psychology. Neuroscience has
controlled by genes versus the environment. The already accepted both genetics and environmental
proponents of a strong genetic theory would put the interactions as factors that influence behavior, as
proportion of IQ under genetic control as high as 80%, demonstrated by the stunning symposia on development
while the environmental theorists, faced with powerful presented at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the Society for
twin studies, have retreated to a 50 - 50 position. The Neuroscience. One has only to peruse a textbook like
debate is likely to continue until definitive data (unlikely in Gilbert’s (2003) Developmental Biology to be awed by
the near future) are produced by one side or the other. the advances in our genetic understanding of
One method of dealing with large, perennial development. Perhaps the most instructive message
questions is to reconceptualize them and then produce a here is that developmental biology was once seen as the
synthesis. Matt Ridley has made this the goal of his counter force to genetics, and both the symposia and
book, and no matter which camp you subscribe to his book mentioned above show how these two positions
synthesis is important. Ridley takes the statement that have become remarkably integrated.
behavior is not all genes or all environment and adds It appears, on the other hand, that Psychology
flesh to the idea. Nature via Nurture reviews many of the will have to be brought into the field of behavioral
important studies showing that genes and the genetics kicking and screaming. Psychology textbooks
environment interact with their influences going in both including introductory, developmental, abnormal, and
directions. Thus his claim, “The more we lift the lid on even physiological texts are perfunctory on findings from
the genome, the more vulnerable to experience genes genetic research. This is no doubt driven by two
appear....” historical influences in psychology; namely, the influence
Ridley employs a clever and educational of behaviorism and the identity conflict of psychology as
historical rubric; namely, building his book around the a biological versus a social science. There are
thinking of twelve scientific figures that appear in a consequences resulting from this reluctance to
fictional photograph taken at a scientific meeting in 1903. incorporate the genetic advances into today=s
They are: Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, William psychology. One has only to look at the areas of study
James, Hugo De Vries, Emil Kraepelin, Sigmund Freud, once considered the exclusive province of psychology
Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson, Emile Durkeim, Franz and which have now been taken over by other
Boas, Jean Piaget, and Konrad Lorenz. These men are disciplines. Two key examples of areas of research that
Ridley’s muses for twentieth century thought about the were once seen as “belonging to” psychology are
nature of man. Each chapter explores one of their ideas learning and memory, and mental illness. The bulk of
about the nature-nurture controversy. Konrad Lorenz research into these topics now resides in other
and his work on imprinting in birds are used to show how disciplines, such as genetics, neurochemistry, and
genetic programs can be modified by environmental pharmacology.
inputs. This chapter introduces the reader to the The readers of this publication are mainly
fascinating topics of critical (sensitive) periods of neuroscience educators who will want to consider Nature
development, plasticity, and instincts. Imagine giving or via Nurture as an educational tool. In fields such as ours

JUNE is a publication of Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) www.funjournal.org

 The Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education (JUNE), Spring 2004, 2(2):R3-R11 R11

with a high density of factual materials, the instructor is book. In my case, I did not like the use of the Genome
up against the old dilemma of not seeing the forest for Organizing Device referred to as the GOD. Personally,
looking at the individual trees. Ridley’s approach is an this is closer to my philosophy than you might think from
antidote to the problem of the marvelous encyclopedic the last sentence, but it will put off many of my first
texts for undergraduate biology and psychology courses. generation college-bound students who will mistakenly
Nature via Nurture will allow the reader to step back and think that science and religion are necessarily at odds.
consider the big picture. In an undergraduate reading Ridley’s musing that the genes for schizophrenia may
course I am happy to have an excited round table survive because they are somehow part of genius or
discussion among students following each chapter. My creativity had me searching for my eyebrows in my
class is made up of a mixture of psychology and biology receding hairline. In the end I was smiling because this
majors, and this allows me to have one student teach a is exactly why I find this book so useful -- it stimulates my
concept (e.g., gene promoters) to the others. The students and me to think and debate.
discussions are often spirited and allow me to emphasize !
critical thinking, the quality of evidence, and keeping an !R!E!F!E!R!E!N!C!ES!!
open mind about complex problems. Finally, if one !G!i!l!b!e!r!t! !S!F! !(!2!0!0!3!)! !D!e!v!e!l!o!p!m!e!n!t!a!l! !B!i!o!l!o!g!y,!! ! 7th edition.
wanted to expand a basic one credit hour reading course S!u!n!d!e!r!l!a!n!d!,! !M!A: Sinauer!.!
into a more advanced format, reading the original key Ohman A, Mineka S (2001) Fears, phobias, and preparedness:
papers cited by Ridley would offer a challenging Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning. Psych
Rev 108:483-522.
complement.
In the reading course, I asked students to pick
out the two data based studies mentioned in each
chapter that they found most compelling. The topics on
which there was a consensus will serve to give the
reader of this review a sense of the breath of topics
covered by Ridley. A unanimous selection was the
adopted-away twin studies as they pertained to mental
disorders. Equally fascinating to the students was the
Flynn effect which shows that average IQ scores are
increasing at approximately five points each decade.
Note how the first set of findings speaks to a nature
explanation is affecting mental illness, while the second
implies that the environment as affecting IQ scores. The
study that demonstrated the very essence of Ridley’s
concept was brought home by the work of Susan Mineka
(reviewed by Ohman & Mineka, 2001) in which she
studies a phenomenon called “prepared learning.”
Prepared learning is the concept that an animal is
genetically predisposed to learn some things more easily
than others. Mineka demonstrated this by studying fear
learning in monkeys. She was aware that laboratory
reared monkeys did not fear snakes, while wild monkeys
put snakes at the top of their fear scale. Dr. Mineka
realized that monkeys need to learn to fear snakes and
that this is probably done by observing other monkeys
react to snakes. This study gets complicated but the end
result is that young monkeys will learn to fear snakes if
they see an adult that is terrified of snakes. The next
question was whether the young monkeys would learn to
fear something like a flower if the adult shows an
exaggerated fear response to its presentation. The
answer is that they will not easily learn to fear a flower by
watching the adult react fearfully to its presentation. The
conclusion here is that this is an example a genetically
prepared learning, but also one that requires an
environmental experience to actually be learned. Other
topics of great interest were the findings related to brain-
derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and critical period
plasticity in vision, N-cadherin and cell recognition
allowing for synaptogenesis, and the possible role of the
FOXP2 gene in the origin of human language ability.
The reader will find many more mind-expanding topics in
this book.
Few, if any, things are perfect and the same can Copyright © 2004 Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience
be said for Ridley’s book. I am sure each of us will find a
www.funjournal.org
point or two to quibble with in this otherwise excellent