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October 9, 1920 The same Saturday, October 9, 1920, evening, long before dusk, at about 4:30 or 5:00 p.m., we stealthily boarded the machan and anxiously waited there for an hour or so. All of a sudden, a grown-up wolf came out from one of the holes, which was very smooth on account of their constant egress and ingress. This animal was followed by another one of the same size and kind. The second one was followed by a third, closely followed by two cubs one after the other. The holes did not permit two together. Close after the cubs came the ghost — a hideous-looking being — hand, foot, and body like a human being; but the head was a big ball of something covering the shoulders and the upper portion of the bust, leaving only a sharp contour of the face visible, and it was human. Close at its heels there came another awful creature exactly like the first, but smaller in size. Their eyes were bright and piercing, unlike human eyes. I at once came to the conclusion that these were human beings. by The Reverend J. A. L. SinghMissionary,The Orphanage, Midnapore, India.
"Part of being a human is being brought up by humans. If you're not brought up by humans, are you completely human?" (Professor James Law, London's City University) What do you think?
Humans have probably have been around in their present form for 120,000 years. However, we only discovered language and became technologically creative as late as 40,000 years ago. So what were humans like before that? And what would we be like if the influence of our current society was not present?
Feral Children • Feral children are children who have spent much of their formative years in the wild, without any contact with other humans for a significant period of their lives. Cases of feral children are thankfully rare, but are of immense interest from a scientific and educational point of view. Feral children provide data which help to answer a number of questions: • How close is human nature to the nature of an animal? • What aspects of human nature are genetic, and what aspects are learned? • What does consciousness mean? • Could we learn how to speak to animals, or could we teach animals to speak to humans? • Studies of feral children in the past have lead to breakthroughs in the education of people with learning disabilities, and indirectly has lead to the development of sign-language and Braille.
Stories of feral children pop up every now and again in the media, but most stories are uncorroborated, and many are pure fantasy. However, there are a few cases which did occur in history which were the subject of intense scientific scrutiny. Kamala & Amala Kaspar Hauser Victor of Aveyron
It has always been thought that nurture played a significant part in the development of human beings — but exactly what part? Just to what extent can we attribute the development of human abilities and achievements to what we're born with or to the environment in which we're brought up? And what can the evidence from feral children tell us?
“The Noble Savage” During the European Enlightenment, Jean-Jacques Rousseau propounded the view that man is born pure (or, more accurately, does not do ill because of "the peacefulness of their passions, and their ignorance of vice") but is then corrupted by society — by nurture.
Nature versus nurture Feral children ought to be an excellent source of evidence in the continuing nature-nurture debate. Feral children cannot walk, talk, or socialise: they cannot show empathy with others... On the surface, therefore, feral children suggest that our upbringing is entirely responsible for giving us language, the ability to think and other traits. What happens in early childhood thus has a profound impact on the neurological development of the brain.
The role of nature Nature has a vital role to play too. Firstly, the brain is highly specialised — being specifically designed for many of the tasks it is called on to perform — even to the extent of having inbuilt mechanisms not just for learning language, but even for grammatical constructions. Secondly, genetic variations have a considerable affect on the intellectual abilities and other characteristics of human beings. For example, identical-twin studies show us that in some cases, autism can be triggered by nurturing — but only when nature has dealt out a particular combination of genes. Ultimately, we are the result of complex interactions between the environment and our genes. Q: Experimentation can be unethical, but how could you test nature v nurture on twins? In the end… Therefore… In conclusion…
Social behaviour Quite simply, feral children are usually entirely unaware of the needs and desires and others. The concepts of morals, property and possessions are alien to them, and they can't show empathy with other people. If brought up by animals, they don't even identify themselves as human, but probably regard humans as "the enemy". (from www.feralchildren.com/en/nature.php)
“When the child has adverse experiences — loss, threat, neglect, and injury — there can be disruptions of neurodevelopment that will result in neural organization that can lead to compromised functioning throughout life.” Dr Bruce D Perry, Childhood Experience and the Expression of Genetic Potential
Read the “Identical Personalities” article, then answer the questions on the next slide.
QUESTIONS 1. Do you think personality traits are primarily inherited or influenced by environment? What is your evidence? 2. Why do you think nature versus nurture is debated? Do you think it is possible to answer this question definitively? Why or why not? 3. Who might be most interested in resolving the nature versus nurture debate? What effect might a resolution have on our society? 4. If you were raising identical twins, what might you do to make sure that they were unique individuals? Explain your answer 5. Based on what you have learned, do you think it is possible to change your personality? Why or why not? If so, how would you go about making changes? 6. If you are not a twin, would you rather be an identical or a fraternal twin? Why? What do you think would be some of the challenges of being a twin? If you are a twin, write a couple of sentences about the experience. Is it fun? Difficult? If you have other siblings, is your relationship with your twin different from the relationship with your other siblings? If so, what makes it different?
