Reciprocal Interaction Between Organism and Environment The strict gene deterministic way of looking at genetics is oversimplified and unhelpful when it comes to understanding cognitive processes. The nature vs nurture debate is considered obfuscation, with genes and environment interacting dynamically and reciprocally. The genetic information is not the ultimate factor, as the organism actively mediates the interplay between genes and environment. Transcript: Speaker 1 Thank you very much. Very important question. And this is something that, as you already said, this I started as a geneticist, my master was a gen in genetics in these genetics actually. And this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot and actually the beginning of my book is stealing exactly with that topic. So, one of the things that I would like to start with is that I have very strong doubts about this strict gene deterministic way, it’s very simplified. And it’s especially unhelpful if we talk about the human brain or cognitive processes, because there we have so many cause factors that underlie the organism and the human mind. So this nature nurture that you’re to me is actually to my mind some sort of obfuscation, which has its historical roots in going back to the 17th century. It frames nature in this very simplistic way. We look at the DNA as if it holds the ultimate information. And on the other hand, you have this environment, which is completely separate from the organism. And as we know now, this is much more intertwined. So there is a dynamic interplay between genes and environment. And this interplay is mediated by the organism actually with its active involvement. So importantly, I would say there is like reciprocal interaction between organism and environment. (Time 0:01:50)