... both monozygotic (MZ) and Dizygotic twins, brought up in shared and non-shared environments. Most researchers now agree that both heredity and environment contribute to intelligence, heredity and environment interact in various ways and that extremely poor, as well as enriched environment can interfere with the realisation of a person's intelligence, regardless of his or her heredity. Although there are many problems in investigating this topic, these basic assumptions suggest that genes infact do play a very significant role in the development of behaviour. The question, however, now becomes 'how much does either contribute?' The nature/ nurture debate dates back as far as the seventeenth century. With philosophical thinkers such as the John Locke, who believed that at birth the human mind is tabula rasa, a 'blank slate' that is gradually filled with experience. On the other hand, the French philosopher Rene Descartes, was a seventeenth century nativist who believed that ...

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