Just a Random Thought….

Nature Versus Nurture

It’s like the never ending battle when we talk Nature vs. Nurture in the animal kingdom- especially when we are talking about dogs. However- (((Warning! ::Spoiler Alert!!::))) as I was siting down watching Jurassic World with my 11 year old- it seems as if the argument has been answered, well- a version of the answer, Hollywood style that is…

RaptorBabiesChrisPratt

Alright- it’s no secret I’ve always been a fan of the Jurassic Park franchise. I like the idea of movies showing just how wrong things can go when humans try to play God and each and every Jurassic movie does that.

From birth, the gang of Raptors worked with the Owen Grady, a Velociraptor expert and trainer- its obvious that the closeness was an important fact because during the movie, when discussing the connections or lack of connections between humans and dino’s Owen comments:

“I was there the moment they were born, I was imprinted on them…”

 Towards the end of the Jurassic World, you notice an internal struggle with in the ever deadly raptors. The struggle between nature and nurture. Do they chomp on the man who raised them, respected them, trained them and took care of them or….. do they try to protect him?

(((Warning!! ::: if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want to know- stop reading now and come back AFTER you’ve seen the movie!! If you don’t care ten please continue!!:::)))

Now, I’m not saying they didn’t kill anyone because they did and at least one was a well deserved blood bath- but what’s interesting is who they didn’t kill and the fact that it was a conscience choice to NOT kill them. Is this Hollywood’s way of telling us that genetics and environment can play a part in animal/human interactions?

“Studies of more than 14.5 million twin pairs across 17,804 traits from 2748 publications, they found variation for human traits and diseases was 49 per cent genetic (nature), and 51 per cent due to environmental factors (nurture).” -University of Queensland scholar Dr Beben Benyamin combined with Dutch researchers for a meta-analysis of more than 14.5 million twin pairs 2015

When it comes to dogs- studies show the something similar:

 “It is critical to remember that both genetics and environmental influences play an important role in the behavioral development of dogs.  Through both responsible breeding and  raising it will be possible to produce puppies that will successfully integrate into our lives.”

Although, one who have to wonder if environment plays a even bigger role? As humans evolved- so did dogs. Humans breed dogs for a job but they also shaped the emotional stabilities of their dogs  When I read about the fatal wild dog pack attacks on reservations-  I don’t see how people can’t tell how environmental/nurture or lack of played a large part. Does nurture somehow counter balance genetics? Do both play a equally important part in having a healthy stable animal?

Proof shows us that the myth “It’s all how you raise them” is wrong when discussing how a dog will ne 100% of the time but what it does show is the myth “it’s all how you raise them” is a small part of  a ever evolving dog. When you have poorly bred dogs whose genetics are a mix and match of instability and place them in a environment that feeds the genetic instability- it’s no shocker that the dog is a hot mess- BUT proof shows us that when you take the same dog and remove them from the poor environment- those same dogs somehow are able to balance out some of those genetic instabilities. I’m not saying those dogs won’t have issues but are those issues workable? Absolutely- the Vicks dogs are a great example of that and they are not the only ones.

Sometimes nature triumphs over nurture and sometimes nurture triumphs over nature but we see its always a tug of war, but honestly- what can you expect from animals? The fact that dogs have evolved to the point of not looking at us like prey tells me that the internal balancing act is real and it was great to see the very visual tug of war in such an iconic movie- not to mention it highlights just how wrong it can go when you stomp on mother nature and create things that should never be created in the first place…. :::coughcoughtoadlinecoughcough::: Capture

Seriously… what could have gone wrong with that offspring?

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s