Lord Of The Flies: Nature Vs. Nurture

Our society is responsible for aggression. Many people argue that aggressive people were born with a predisposition to perform violent acts, but that does not settle with many psychologists’ studies. Other people believe that violent people were made from exposure to aggression during childhood. Both of these perspectives represent points of a larger argument started by Francis Galton 150 years ago most commonly known as “Nature versus Nurture”. After 150 years, and the founding of a new branch of science, epigenetics, scientists now have viable proof that that nurture is more influential in the case of aggression because epigenetics show that environments are responsible for gene expression. Environments are responsible for the gene expression of many criminal behaviors, but most obviously aggression. In the case of the Lord of the Flies, the environment that the boys find themselves in is wild and unusual to them. Even some of the less violent and aggressive boys, Piggy, were willing to partake in the murder of Simon during a violent action (Golding). Piggy’s aunty and parents probably weren’t killers, so it was not hereditary that caused him to kill Simon. David Carpenter believes that, “Violent and anti-social behavior is usually

However, more recent events and research support that nurture is the main cause of aggression in humans. People are born to become something specific, but that end can be drastically altered by environmental factors. Also, nature could be more harmful to society than nurture if it were the cause of behaviors because innocent people would be judged as criminals just for the genetic makeup. Most importantly though, is that humans find some understanding to better control their actions because they are the most dominant species on earth and could easily ruin one another if we continue committing cruelties as we do