by Robin Landry

Created on: November 13, 2009

Sometimes the power of the human brain is astounding. How is it that, especially as we age, the random facts that we have learned in school suddenly reappear in our minds but we cannot for the life of us remember the name of a co-worker sitting behind us?

This happened to me as I was considering the debate question, "Are We Products of Our Environment?" For some odd reason, this phrase jolted my memory and caused me to recall a research paper I had written for a 100-level Geography course from my undergraduate days, now some nearly 30 years ago. My professor gave me a book on the work of

Thomas Griffith Taylor from which I prepared a class presentation.

Griffith Taylor's career was marked by a definite "jack of all trades" quality. Mainly a geologist, Griffith Taylor was somewhat of a world explorer as well, participating in an expedition to Antarctica in 1911. Griffith Taylor's most controversial work, however involved his theories regarding the interplay between environment and the development of racial and cultural differences. This supposed interconnection between the physical environment and the psychological and intellectual attributes of the inhabitants of any given geographic area came to be known as environmental determinism.

By the 1950s, the theory of environmental determinism had been almost completely discredited as racist and far too simplistic in its attempt to explain the development of culture and human behavior. The problem seemed to be that the theory relied too heavily upon the connection between physical environment and behavior. For example, Griffith Taylor and other noted scholars of the day proposed the idea that people who lived in tropical climates were lazier, more relaxed and more prone to sexual promiscuity than those who lived in areas with more variable temperature patterns. The underlying theory was that survival was not as difficult in the warm, tropical environment so the inhabitants were not motivated to work as hard. The problem, however is that the theory seemed to completely ignore other relevant factors such as genetics, social environment and free will.

But was the theory of environmental determinism abandoned too quickly? Despite some of the more obvious limitations of the antiquated theory there do appear to be several modern examples of behaviors, values, etc. being shaped by environment and circumstances.

One fairly well known case was the experiment that Riceville, Iowa schoolteacher Jane Elliott conducted with her

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