ABSTRACT
Whether engaged in thought or action, human beings are biological organisms exploiting a largely cultural environment. Their psychological development joins three great levels of organization—the genetic, the cognitive, and the social— into a single pattern of causal interaction. For any aspect of human development, it is appropriate to ask the degree to which a behavior reflects an intrinsic biological nature, a mediating cognitive process, a shaping cultural factor. All researchers agree for instance that at a rather trivial level we are constrained by our biological make-up. Few dispute that a lack of wings effectively bars us from aerial competition with hummingbirds and dragonflies. But controversy arises when we dig deeper and ask what role, if any, biological factors play in specifying the particulars of thought and in the differences observed among individuals and among societies with respect to social behavior. A number of investigators have asserted that biology is irrelevant to such enterprises (e.g., Bock, 1980; Harris, 1979; Sahlins, 1976; Trigg, 1982). Though biological constraints may exist, they are more or less constant across all individuals and cultures, producing a uniform potential for cognitive development overlain by the effects of social learning. The interaction of biology with mind is nil.
