There are many good reasons to support the nurture theory, though I can only outline two here. The first reason is the Flynn Effect, named for the psychologist who pinpointed the phenomenon. The second has to do with individual socioeconomic status.

The Flynn Effect is the overwhelming worldwide IQ increase over the last several decades. In 1932, the average IQ was 100; 110 was considered intelligent. By 1997, however, the average IQ had climbed to 120, with 130 classified as intelligent. If we know anything about evolution, micro- or macro-, we know that it takes a very long time for such a drastic change to occur. It shouldn’t happen in 65 years.

What caused this jump in IQ, if not nature? Why, it must be nurture! In the past century, the boom of knowledge about healthy eating, child rights and education has revolutionized the way we treat children. No longer do our sons and daughters work in factories or fields instead of going to school. No longer do our tots go days without eating. And thank goodness, no longer do our spawn eat potatoes meal after meal after grueling meal. Today’s kids study till 18, eat all types of vegetables, and beg money from Mom and Dad rather than working. The environment in which today’s children are raised has improved drastically. They’ve been given the tools (green beans, a pencil and a law against working before 16) to go further than any child before them. And where does nature come into this? Well — it doesn’t.

The second reason nurture is the more vital developmental process is socioeconomic. I’ll focus on America, though this could be applied across the globe. There are three major classes — upper, middle, and lower. The majority of the upper class attends your Harvards, most of the middle class goes to your Houghtons, and the lower class is lucky to mix a GED in with the criminal records. A sweeping generalization, but bear with me.

Now look at the genetic makeup of each class. A large portion (81%) of the upper class is…you guessed it — white! The middle class has nearly the same percentage of all races as the population, but the lower class has higher percentages of blacks (21%) and Hispanics (13%). According to the nature argument, these groups are in their position because genes determined their intelligence. That stinks of eugenics to me. Not all proponents of nature are eugenicists, but the implications about race and intelligence are frightening.

How can the classes be explained by nurture? Many members of the lower classes have been oppressed in myriad ways, like being displaced into vastly different cultures, and their environment has done little to help them reach their greatest potential. The middle class has not faced such opposition; if individual members have, they’ve overcome it. Meanwhile, their environment allows the upper class to devote more time to studies, politics, the arts, etc. Their surroundings — nice homes, private schools, country clubs — make it remarkably easy to reach their full intellectual potential.

Silver spoons, ladies and gentlemen, have nothing to do with DNA.

Any and every human being is a complex, miraculous creation. As any dating-site spokesperson will tell you, there are innumerable aspects to any person’s personality, all of which can be adequately expressed by a picture and a short paragraph.

This complexity develops from a dizzying array of factors, both internal and external, the interaction of which eventually weaves the tapestry of a human life. While it would be absolute folly to ignore the input of external, artificial affects, the fact remains that the natural aspects of a person’s constitution are the more important.

In order to explore the dominance of nature over nurture, it’s vital to consider where to draw the line between the two. For the sake of this argument, nurture’s realm can only extend to the arena of the senses. In other words, we’ll consider a human being to be like a computer. In this example, the “nurture” component would be the programming. Education, beliefs, language, television, radio — these are what make up the realm of nurture. The hardware itself, and the electricity that causes it to run and function properly, is nature.

The human machine is admirable on a number of levels. However, which aspect of humanity has been most lauded in story and song historically? Our plasticity. Call it whatever you’d like — mastery over the elements, triumph in the face of adversity, what have you. Evolutionary theory has classically been based on the ability of an organism to adapt to its surroundings, but man has been the world’s only creation able to bend that rule back upon itself on a large scale, drastically changing his environment to suit himself.

Given the enormity of cultural differences among societies that have accomplished amazing feats individually and collectively, we clearly cannot consider mere cultural programming the key to unlocking the secrets of humanity’s greatest accomplishments. The Middle Eastern cultures that brought into being the Great Pyramids differed a great deal from those who constructed the equally Great Wall of China. The society which oversaw the manifest destiny of the United States resembled only in passing the same nation that first landed men on the moon.

All these people were different in culture, were different in color, and were different in education, beliefs, and values. The only concrete similarity shared among these vastly disparate peoples is the 1.2% of their genomes that differs from that of a chimpanzee.

The soul. The breath of G-d. Self-actualization. Whatever it is that makes us think, “What if?”

It is that aspect of humanity which has birthed the cultures, societies and ideas that have so radically changed the world over the past six millennia.

Not the other way around.