So some people are born losers? And if they are born losers, it doesn’t matter what environment they find themselves in, they’ll still be losers?
Well, there are some people who are screwed by genetic disease, that’s true. If you’re born with Downs Syndrome or some such, well, you’re going to have trouble no matter what.
But aside from that? It isn’t exactly a secret that some people are smart, some people are dumb, some people are nice, some people are assholes. It’s a pretty strange notion that it will be explosive to find out that smart people are more successful on average than dumb people, and some people are born smart and some people are born dumb. And smart people tend–tend–to have smarter kids, and dumb people tend to have dumb kids. But two smart people aren’t guaranteed to have a smart kid.
It seems pretty likely that we’ll find dozens or hundreds of genes that contribute to intelligence, rather than 3 or 4. And we’ll also find that some of these genes that contribute to what we call intelligence don’t really code for “intelligence” they code for some protein with some vague role, but somehow the lack or presence of this protein causes some sort of statistical difference in IQ scores. Imagine an enzyme that affects how heavy metals are processed, and the affect that could have on IQ scores in various environments with various exposures to heavy metals.
*Our genes have no effect whatsoever on our actions, tastes, preferences, or beliefs.
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No effect at all?
*The researchers said the brain differences are structural and can be measured as variations in the size of specific regions of the brain that appear to be linked with each of the four personality types.
Brain scans that measure differences in volume down to an accuracy of less than one cubic millimetre found, for instance, that people defined as novelty-seeking personalities had a structurally bigger area of the brain above the eye sockets, known as the inferior part of the frontal lobe.
People with smaller volumes of tissue in this region displayed higher levels of timidity, approval-seeking behaviours and a greater tendency to seek gratification from external sources such as food or drugs, said Professor Annalena Venneri of the University of Hull.
“Reward-dependence” personalities stood out for having smaller volumes of tissue in the fronto-striatal and limbic areas of the brain.
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*The most prominent finding of behavioral genetics has been summarized by the psychologist Eric Turkheimer: “The nature-nurture debate is over. . . . All human behavioral traits are heritable.” By this he meant that a substantial fraction of the variation among individuals within a culture can be linked to variation in their genes. Whether you measure intelligence or personality, religiosity or political orientation, television watching or cigarette smoking, the outcome is the same. Identical twins (who share all their genes) are more similar than fraternal twins (who share half their genes that vary among people). Biological siblings (who share half those genes too) are more similar than adopted siblings (who share no more genes than do strangers). And identical twins separated at birth and raised in different adoptive homes (who share their genes but not their environments) are uncannily similar.
And here you go too far. You are a human being, not a chimpanzee, and the reason you are a human being is that you have human genes. If you were a chimpanzee you’d have a lot smaller brain than a human being, and the reason human beings develop large brains is genetic.
Whether we’ll see much difference between different human beings is another story. But to the extent there is such a thing as human nature, human nature exists because of genes. Since human nature has a lot to say about our actions, tastes, preferences and beliefs, genes have a strong affect on them. This is why you don’t like the taste of dogshit, but a housefly does.
I expect you’ll be surprised at the number of things which’ll turn out to have a genetic basis.
Fortunately such findings shouldn’t cause a crisis in the science, merely in the society that needs to figure out what to do with any unpalatable truths that might arise.
Bollocks, ITR. You’re right to cast suspicion on a claim that each and every human trait is heritable, but to entirely throw out the role of genetics in behaviour is just as foolish. Hell, it’s obviously foolish; as an incredibly obvious example, your genetics determine your bodily orientation. You have two legs (I assume). That affects your gait and movement style at the least. No hard evidence? There certainly are twin studies, adoption studies, and family studies, which do seem to show that there are - for some traits - genetic predispositions. Given that you quote that part - even give it a “damn straight” - suggests either you don’t actually care about what you’re reading aside from one conclusion that may be drawn which supports you, or you’re mightily confused about what your actual point is supposed to be. Or perhaps were tempted to go for a spot of hyperbole of your own.
That, every so often, there will be a news story on the magical new properties of a gene which certainly causes some trait or another is more the fault of journalists than scientists (though certainly some are to blame). “We may have found some genetic factor that grants a 10% greater predisposition towards trait x” is not as exciting a study as “Hey, this gene here? It makes you gay/religious/like pineapple!”. That you hear the sex and not the substance is because, as pointed out, sex sells. It seems a bit odd for Belowjob to argue that it is much more likely that the exciting, interesting findings, sexed up results, wil be published, then say that there isn’t any hard evidence being reported. It’s like saying you’ll pay $100 for a dog and then complain that no-one’s bringing you any cats to look at.
You link to your prior thread on evolutionary psychology - wherein you seemed to have little concept of the idea that there might be such a thing as a propensity rather than certainty until it was suggested to you. I think there’s probably good reason to link to it; certainly if nothing else I hope it’ll show others that while you may well not be wrong to cast some doubt on the field, that you are far from an novice on the subject.
So, you’ve read psychology journals, i’d wager, in order to get a rough idea of the similarity in and percentage of evolutionary psychologists who research the area. Saying that people who want to sell well and don’t care about the content so much have sold well is reasonable. What’s not so reasonable is to base the idea that because generally you tend to hear only of those people and their work, that there are few or none who have a more serious (or, at least, less money-focused) approach to the field. It’s a self-selecting group; of course we’re going to hear more about those who sell well, because they sell well. Likewise, if you offer $100 for people who bring you a dog, then you’re going to get a lot of dogs - but it would be silly to conclude that because people are bringing you less cats that people don’t have cats.
All people are born with various of sets of genes. Those genes determine their maximum potential if given an optimum environment. There are some people whose genes prevent them from being even minimally successful despite an optimum environment, so yes, some people are born losers. And of course it’s more likely that those who are born less genetically gifted get a sub-optimum environment to begin with for just the reasons you mentioned: Since intelligence is hereditary and correlates reasonably with success, it’s more likely a genetic loser is also an environmental loser–a double whammy.
It is for this reason that a just society needs to bend over backward to help provide the most nurturing environment possible for those who are born less gifted. They are likely to have been born into a tough environmental row to hoe on top of their genetic disadvantage.
While it’s a popular notion that intelligence must be very complicated and related to “dozens or hundreds of genes” I haven’t seen any research to that effect, and I’ll be curious to see how it turns out, at least for g.
The danger would come when defining what “good” means. We could easily manage to reduce genetic diversity if a lot of people suddenly want their kids to look like Megan Fox or ( :eek: ) Bill Gates.
Lemur stated this much more correctly. Intelligence seems loosely heritable. But we all know ( or at least I certainly do ) smart parents who have had dumb kids, dumb parents who have had smart kids and mixes of smart and dumb ( very loosely defined, obviously ) in the same family. While certainly some of this is likely to be by straight descent, there seems to be an awful lot of randomization thrown into the mix - as well there should be given as that’s the advantage of sexual procreation to begin with.
Some of what we call intelligence is undoubtedly influenced by the environment ( nutrition, cultural upbringing ), some of it is undoubtedly not. Even teasing how much of intelligence is genetic, how much environmental ( starting as early as the environment in the womb ) or a complex interaction between the two is horribly difficult. Saying flat out that “intelligence is hereditary” is oversimplifying to the point of obfuscating the issue. It’s not only not black and white ( no pun intended ), it might not even be strictly determinable at all.
teasing how much of intelligence is genetic, how much environmental ( starting as early as the environment in the womb ) or a complex interaction between the two is horribly difficult.
Yes, and there’s the mystery of the ‘non-shared environment’.
Look, it would be dead easy for me to alter your intelligence through environmental means. All it takes is an icepick slipped carefully behind the eyeball into the frontal lobe, and a little gentle stirring.
People have environmental events that affect their intelligence all the time. Strokes, seizures, malnutrition, lead paint, falling down the stairs, and on and on.
I know one really bright, gifted kid. At 7 he had a seizure, and forgot how to read, he spoke only slowly, and would get distracted and frustrated easily. It took him years to recover, and while he was able to be mainstreamed in school he never fully regained his capabilities.
Better yet, you could expose someone to toxins and/or deny them crucial nutrients in the womb.
You don’t even have to do something to them in an active way. You can just deny them the kind of stimuli that are needed to develop a given brain function. Never speak to them, never expose them to language, and they won’t be able to talk. Once the window for learning language use closes up, it simply won’t be possible to teach them to talk. It wouldn’t matter how potentially bright they were.
(This purely hypothetical, of course.) Find some way to disconnect a child’s optic nerve at birth, and reconnect it at age 12. The child probably will not be able to see in the way that we do, since the brain never had the chance to develop visual signal processing. At twelve, the window of opportunity for this development has probably closed for good.
In the world of classical music, it’s widely recognized that training must start at an early age for a person to reach the highest levels of mastery as an adult. If you want to play the cello like Yo Yo Ma, you have to start when he started, around age four. If you start at age 12, your chances of reaching the highest level of performance are much less, and if you start at 18, it’s simply impossible.
Long term musical training from an early age actually produces observable physical differences in brain structure.
None of this takes away from the fact that Ma almost certainly inherited amazing natural aptitude for music. We have all observed that people differ in musical ability, and that musical ability tends to run in families, and that it’s often correlated with mental ability in other areas. (Though this doesn’t account for idiot savants who can be brilliant musicians at the amateur level while being otherwise profoundly retarded.)
To put it more precisely, the maximum potential for an individual’s intelligence is limited by genes. Genetic studies will help sort out exactly how much influence the environment has, how much genes have, and how evenly the genes which influence the maximum potential for intelligence are dispersed.
When the genes are identified, it won’t be all that difficult to sort out, except perhaps by those who desperately want genes to not make much difference, and who therefore search endlessly for alternate nurturing explanations.
I suppose we can say it includes things like no head injuries, no malnutrition, no heavy metal exposure, no infectious disease exposure, no lobotomies, and so on.
It really would not surprise me if genetics tells us SOMETHING that we as human beings and a society don’t like. I’d imagine there are at least several scenarios that would fit that bill.
So, in that regard there is probably a crisis of one sort or another headed our way.
), it might not even be strictly determinable at all.