Re:Genomic Analyses of Modern Dog Breed Development
by vanderZwan on Thursday July 06, 2017 @09:23AM
(#14710179)
Note that you're answering a different question than the original comment in this chain: "can we breed for human traits, including intelligence?" versus "is the behaviour of dogs/humans/animal species AS THEY ARE RIGHT NOW more skewed towards nature or nurture?"
Nature/nurture is not a yes/no question, but one of ratios. Nurture inherently reflects the ability to learn things that are not innate - so the more intelligent a species is, the more room there is for nurture.
With that in mind, arguing that any other species is more skewed towards nature than nurture compared to humans is stating the obvious, comparable to saying "because of genetics you cannot train a dog to grow up to become an elephant."
This however does not state anything about what that nature/nurture ratio is among humans.
Nature/nurture is not a yes/no question, but one of ratios. Nurture inherently reflects the ability to learn things that are not innate - so the more intelligent a species is, the more room there is for nurture.
With that in mind, arguing that any other species is more skewed towards nature than nurture compared to humans is stating the obvious, comparable to saying "because of genetics you cannot train a dog to grow up to become an elephant."
This however does not state anything about what that nature/nurture ratio is among humans.