Critically and creatively - Essay Example

Intelligence as a product of nature and nurture In this context the three terms: intelligence, nature and nurture are intertwined. Intelligence is the ability of the mind to obtain knowledge and to apply it into practice whereas nature can be termed as a fundamental quality or feature of something and nurture is to be able to bring up a child by giving it support and encouragement during the early stages of development. Child development is affected by biological and environmental factors. All these influence the Child’s behavior in one way or another.

As children grow up, they more and more choose, adjust and create their own experiences and it is somehow based on the genetic propensities. Genetic influence on the intelligence of a child becomes more distinct during child development. The genes inherited from the parents affect the verbal abilities and the non-verbal abilities. Similarly, nurture also affects child development because every child has got his/her own likes and dislikes. All guardians are supposed to watch their children grow up in order to help them foster their strengths or their talents (Cosmides, Pg.74). Intelligence can also be developed in a child, for example, when low performing children in schools are encouraged to work hard for success, nurture of intelligence becomes applicable.

For that reason, intelligence can be viewed as the combination of the two factors nature and nurture because the instructions to achieve human cognitive abilities are passed to the child through the genes and as the offspring grows up after birth, the cognitive abilities are also influenced by the environmental factors around it like; nutrition, the health of the infant, the culture and the social economic status which contribute to the infants capability of being successful in the environment.

Work citedCosmides, Leda, and John Tooby. "The modular nature of human intelligence." The origin and evolution of intelligence (1997): 71-101.