I agree that biologists and sociologists need to get their acts together to determine the effects of environmental stress on our behaviour (Nature 490, 143; 2012). You mention Francis Galton as the first to define its terms, but this discussion was going on long before his and Charles Darwin's time.
'Environmental determinism' has been an issue for at least 2,500 years. For example, it was discussed by Hippocrates and Strabo, by the Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun in his fourteenth-century book Muqaddimah and by the French philosopher Montesquieu in his political treatise The Spirit of the Laws in 1748.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
CONTRIBUTIONS Correspondence may be sent to correspondence@nature.com after consulting the guidelines at http://go.nature.com/cmchno.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vereecken, F. Environmental stress seen since antiquity. Nature 491, 333 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/491333e
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/491333e