Nature vs. Nurture

Ahhh, the old nature versus nurture argument. It seems to go back and forth -- there's kind of a cycle to it. Forty years ago, the experts leaned toward nurture; then about twenty years ago, they started swinging toward nature, especially with all the advances in the field of genetics. It goes to and fro... Whenever I read the nature vs. nurture debate, what always comes to mind is what I learned in my college genetics courses -- the interaction of the environment with the genotype...which is known as the phenotype. The example one of my professors used was this: if you take a pine tree and plant it in the desert, it will still be a pine tree...but it will be short instead of tall. The environment (the desert) is acting upon the genetic makeup of the tree (the genotype). It is so easy for me to see both environment and biology interacting within my son. There are many facets of his personality that reflect both of his birth parents, yet there are just as many facets that come directly from his mom and dad. They are so intertwined that it would be difficult to sort them all out, what traits he inherited from who. It's almost like God took genes from all four of us and mixed them together...and our beautiful son was the result.