nature versus nurture debate

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nature versus nurture debate The common description of the controversy over the relative importance of heredity (nature) and environment (nurture) in the causation of human behaviour. The debate has been particularly important in certain fields of sociology, including education (with a focus on the heritability of intelligence), crime (with, for instance, dispute over the idea of an inherited criminal personality), and gender divisions (with heated debate over the importance of biology to observed differences in male—female behaviour).