3.2 THE NATURE VERSUS NURTURE DEBATEWhat is the balance between genetics (instinct or nature and learning (nurture) in shaping behavior? Few topics have wasted more emotional energy and created more futile academic fury than the question of behavioral plasticity. An extreme view holds that all animal (including human) behavior is instinctive, with little room for learning and flexibility of response. At the other extreme, some scientists argue that behavior is plastic, modifiable over a great range of possibilities, and that individual experience determines behavior. As is typically the case in such debates, the truth lies between the extremes.In the animal world, behavior can be envisioned on a continuum between learning and instinct. Depending on the behavior and in some cases, the individual, the explanation may (rarely) involve one of the ends of the continuum, or (more likely) any one of an infinite array Of intermediate locations along that continuum. The appropriate scientific goal is that of understanding the balance between genetic constraints and phenotypic flexibility in shaping the behavior of animals. It is this and not a squabble of extremes, that gives great insight into how evolutionary forces shape behavior
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