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Nature via Nurture/The
Agile Gene
This book chronicles a
new revolution in our understanding of genes,
recounting the hundred years' war between the
partisans of nature and nurture to explain how this
paradoxical creature, the human being, can be
simultaneously free-willed and motivated by instinct
and culture. The emerging truth is far more
interesting than a stale antithesis between heredity
and environment. Nurture depends on genes, and genes
need nurture. Genes not only predetermine the broad
structure of the brain; through the pattern of their
turning on and off they also absorb formative
experiences, react to social cues and even run
memory. They are consequences as well as causes of
the will.
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edition |
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US
edition |
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'Written with
insight, wisdom, and style throughout' –
Steven Pinker
'Bracingly intelligent, lucid,
balanced—witty, too' – Oliver Sacks
'Sets the modern terms for an ancient debate'
– Ian McEwan
'Profoundly intelligent and persuasive' –
John Cornwell
'Ridley’s enthusiasm for his subject is
contagious' – Los Angeles Times |
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