Alcoholism - nature or nurture?

摘要

George Best, God rest his splendid soul, died before his time, just as his mother had died before hers - of the complications of alcoholism. But was the connection nature or nurture? Did the young Best subconsciously start to pick up his bad drinking habits while watching his mother from the cradle, or did he simply inherit a bad gene or two? The question of what 'causes' any complex human trait can never be answered in terms of nature or nurture. Your phenotype (ie, what you look like and behave like) is the best your genotype can do with the environment you find yourself in. In other words, the 'gene' (or set of genes) for alcoholism doesn't make you an alcoholic - it merely creates a propensity for you to become one. Add that propensity to the kind of looks, connections and income that allow you to live the life of Riley for three decades, and you're more or less doomed.