Dissecting The Myths Of Merit And Meritocracy PART VIII

Dissecting The Myths Of Merit And Meritocracy

By Narendra Kumar Arya

15 January, 2013
Countercurrents.org:

Nature Vs Nurture:-

Once a journalist asked eminent behaviour psychologist Prof. Donald Hebb what matter most the nature or the nurture and his wisdom came in reply that it was similar to asking what feature of a rectangle contributed most to its area –length or width . 8 This binary phrase is credited to Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin ,led to research in biological domains which were based on his conviction that there was some degree of genetic attributable intelligence running through his family. He also laid down the framework of Eugenics. In this Nature Vs Nurture debate Nature represents human biological system specially emphasising genes and genetics; and nurture to environment and its various forms socio-economic conditions, education, social privileges or deprivations and almost everything outside the body of the individual. But interestingly to the amazement of the laymen and common stereotype , it be known that whatever is inherent in our genes or genetic programming is there is also influenced by the nurture since the impregnation of foetus itself till maturation at subsequent ages.” The nature side of this debate emphasizes how much of an organism reflects biological factors. But, on the other hand genes are activated at appropriate times during development and are the basis for (organism)……The nurture side; on the other hand, emphasize how much of an organism reflects environmental factors. In reality, it is most likely an interaction of both, genes and environment, nature and nurture that affect the development of a person. Even in the womb, genes interact with hormones in the environment to signal the start of a new developmental phase. The hormonal environment, likewise, does not act independently of the genes and it cannot correct lethal errors in the genetic makeup of a fetus. The genes and the environment must be in sync for normal development. Similarly, even if a person has inherited genes for taller than average height, the person may not grow to be as tall as is genetically possible if proper nutrition is not provided. Here too the interaction of genes and the environment is blurred. It has been suggested that the key to understanding complex human behaviour and diseases is to study genes, the environment, and the interactions between the two equally . ” 8

In recent years, our knowledge about the working of the brain have changed drastically given the technological devices. The concept of brain plasticity has gained quite a place. “Most contemporary psychological models reflect largely outdated ideas about how the biological system develops and what it means for something to be innate. Thus, contemporary models of brain development challenge the foundational constructs of the nature versus nurture formulation in psychology. The key to understanding the origins and emergence of both the brain and behavior lies in understanding how inherited and environmental factors are engaged in the dynamic and interactive processes that define and guide development of the neurobehavioral system.” 10 Again genetic makeup of an individual or even group is not a closed condition. It has history of millions of years and thus all the biological information. Genes are not expressed things of a few hundred years. Gene is defined as "not just one single physical bit of DNA…[but] all replicas of a particular bit of DNA distributed throughout the world". 11 Simply put, Genes are coded instructions for making everything the body needs, especially proteins. Human beings have about 25,000 genes. For example, the gene, called Boule, is responsible for sperm production and it is oldest gene around 600 million years old. 12 At other place In  River Out of Eden , Dawkins further refined the idea of gene-centric selection by describing life as a river of compatible genes flowing through geological time. Even a hard core liberal scholar Francis Fukuyama opines that genetic factors at individual level might influence intelligence but racial based differences seem biologically untrue because from evolutionary point of view when races of mankind separated ,it hardly witnesses genetic variance, and their average group heritable intelligence is distant possibility . 13

Plasticity of the Brain

As recently as the late 1980s the human brain was considered to be a sort of biological computer that, as one scientist put it, "secretes thoughts the way kidneys secrete urine." We now know that the brain is much more malleable and fluidly organized than the analogy to computer hardware suggests, and that it changes with every perception and every action. Over the past decade compelling evidence for neuroplasticity has come from studies of the blind by Alvaro Pascual-Leone, now a professor of neurology at Harvard University and Boston 's Beth Israel hospital.

In the early 1990s Pascual-Leone and his colleagues at the National Institutes of Health showed that as blind adults learned to read Braille, the region of the somatosensory (touch-sensitive) cortex responding to input from the reading finger greatly enlarged. In 1996 the researchers made a more startling discovery: Input from the sensitized finger was lighting up not only the somatosensory cortex on the side of the brain, but parts of the visual cortex near the back of the brain as well.

“In fact, neuroscientist David Eagleman of Baylor College of Medicine argues that the unconscious workings of the brain are so crucial to everyday functioning that their influence often trumps conscious thought. To prove it, he explores little-known historical episodes, the latest psychological research, and enduring medical mysteries, revealing the bizarre and often inexplicable mechanisms underlying daily life.” 14

Is Merit Propaganda?