Explaining the reason and background for a crime is the fundamental task for the police. With this process, people are divided into two groups; blaming nature as a key factor that leads individual to be criminals, or “nurture” as a major influence. Many people believe that the murderer’s impulsive and aggressive characteristics, unfortunately, come from genetic inheritance. However, nobody can deny that people can be educated by their own will, thus, contradicting the hypothesis that people should behave like a machine following the instruction of genes.
From one point of view, genetic inheritance does seem to be a factor that determines individuality. There is a quote, “Like father, like son.” In fact, Parents’ characteristics seem to have an influence on their child. Furthermore, scientists have revealed that identical twins have similar traits, even if they grow up in different environments.
However, who said that the nature of a human being overwhelms the impact of environment? Yes, as is often the case, Scientists, in fact, biologists. They made a hypothesis that genes determine a major part of human characteristics, thus, leading to an idea that there are certain genes that cause person to be aggressive or amicable. This is a dangerous point of view since this can lead to a thesis that genetically advantaged people who are better than those who have disadvantaged genes. This also will justify so-called “Elitism” or discrimination against the disadvantaged. The idea of biological determination is a narrow and a nave point of view.
On the contrary, the impact that surroundings and education have towards an individual’s growth development is amazing. Many scientific studies or crimes have shown that people actually need appropriate nurturing and education. In fact, competent criminal analysts or profilers say that most of the culprits who commit crimes are uneducated, suffered poverty or have grown up in bad conditions, leading them to be aggressive against the wealthy or even society at large. This leads to a conclusion that better policies of government, paying more attention to children who are economically disadvantaged could enable them to become students of high caliber, contributing to society. Not only confined in the examples of crime, but people do change according to the experience that they undergo and the schooling they get. For example, the happier family an individual has, the more amiable individual will be. There is no such thing as a fundamental reason for human being to be moral, amoral or born evil but only factors acquired by experiences and culture exist.
To sum up, there can be a small portion of biological reasons determining human characteristics. However, it is plain that a human being can change and adopt their behaviors or thoughts by learning in proper atmosphere. Nothing can distract a human being from being a sophisticated individual since humans have free will and volition in overcoming biological predisposition.
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