nature-nurture controversy

1. A traditional and long-standing disagreement over whether heredity or environment is more important in the development of living things, especially human beings.

Example Sentences

To scientists, however, the nature-nurture controversy is oversimplified.

Read more on Time Magazine Archive

But Herrnstein's supporters will agree with his insistence that the nature-nurture controversy is "simply not settled" and that investigation of racial differences should not "be shut off because someone thinks society is best left in ignorance."

Read more on Time Magazine Archive

Indeed, the Philoktetes might well be regarded as the first literary expression of what has been termed the "nature-nurture controversy," a debate that continues to rage in the closing days of the twentieth century.

Read more on Project Gutenberg