Chapter 14: Nature and Nurture Within The Epigenetic Paradigm

​I refer to myself in this chapter as a water lily like in Claude Monet’s famous painting of water lily’s in a pond, whose roots go into the water instead of the earth. Here is a video that describes his technique and palette demonstrated in the famous Monet gardens:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JTazf7tH44
When I found my birth family and realized all the similarities we shared, I began wondering how that information was passed on. The nature and nurture debate is especially pertinent for adopted children who find their birth families. The social and cultural construction of our identity is not just influenced by our nurturing adopted families. Other factors come into play.
Our family story or family memoire, became an interesting case study for me to examine with the lens of a social scientist. I was intrigued as I discovered all the personality traits, handwriting similarities, political convictions, child birthing and rearing practices, favourite books, colors, and jewellery shapes that connected me to my birth family’s preferences. I pondered the question, “How had I integrated so much of who they were even though I was raised by another family?”.
When I began reading about epigenetics, I realized that this emerging paradigm could offer scientific explanations for what I had perceived. The patterns that were running through us, our biological connections and lines of inheritance, had been acting on me from a distance.
In this blog I share articles about epigenetics so that readers can better understand how epigenetic research is changing how we understand transmission. The epigenetic paradigm explains how our environment and perceptions bring out our DNA’s expression.