Argumentative Essay

A wave of recent studies would have us believe that our destinies are shaped at birth. But is there more politics than science in this research?

Why do you act the way you do? Some folks blame their genes--for example, "He inherited his artistry from his mother and his alcoholism from his father." Indeed, in the last two decades, quite a few scientists have tried to prove that your soul is written on your DNA. But recently they've suffered big scientific setbacks--setbacks with major political implications, especially for those eternally warring factions: men and women.

Thanks to enthusiastic and uncritical media coverage of genetic theories of personality, everyone has heard of scientific "discoveries" that girls are innately less skilled at math than boys, that women's brains are built differently from men's and that women's brains occasionally go on the blink due to hormonal changes. In reality, there's serious doubt about the validity of each of these "discoveries." But the "discoveries" tend to make the front page, while subsequent disproofs tend to be buried deep inside the paper. So have (with some exceptions) recent refutations of efforts to link genes to a myriad of human behaviors--from femininity to manic depression, from IQ to alcoholism, from crime to dyslexia.

It's the latest twist in the "nature-nurture" debate: i.e., are you a product of your genes or your environment? As every Psych