I basically just made it up.Human characteristics generally have a basis in some mix of nature and nurture (or DNA and memes if you prefer). Topics like the above are dangerous to discuss because if it can be interpreted that one is putting just a little too much emphasis on nature (for example that the contribution of nature/DNA is non-zero) then one can get in a lot of trouble.
I sometimes wonder if the study of biology and particularly genetics is going to be shut down in the future. The problem is that it's seemingly increasingly at odds with social science. Biologists are finding more and more correlations between genes and human traits like intelligence and various behaviors via Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) and are starting to propose mechanisms for the genetic basis of those traits while Social Scientists clearly assert that what biologists are finding simply cannot be correct.
Perhaps not all of biology will be banned - just those topics that have to do with things like intelligence, behavior and identity. Nonetheless, it seems like we might be headed for a different sort of Creationism - not one that's deity based, but rather social science based.
30 comments:
I read this last night and laughed all the way through it -- Richard Pryor's quip about who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes kept flashing across my eyes.
I've often marveled how the same people can be fundamentalist Darwinist evolutionists when squaring off against big bad religion and indignant social constructionists about race and gender. I think biologists today have to steer clear of research into racial and gender genetic differences and focus on promises of curing disease, increasing crop yields, etc. Otherwise, they could be lynched in the campus quad, and besides, nobody wants to fund that kind of research today. Being an evolutionary geneticist while working for a liberal woke institution demands some deft sleight-of-hand.
This tension first exploded years ago when E.O. Wilson of Harvard introduced sociobiology to the world and ended up facing angry mobs. It's recounted in this wonderful essay by Tom Wolfe from 1996. The science is dated, but the philosophical tensions that still plague the controversy are presented brilliantly and hilariously. A gem for sure.
Wolfe is an original and a national treasure. His accounts of dippy hippy culture are timeless and hilarious.
You are being a spoil sport asking that scientists concentrate their efforts on improving the human condition and leave off preaching. The former is very hard work often leading to failure and the latter easy and fun.
Years ago the nurture/nature discussion was in full bloom and quite a few people in our demographic on the nurture side decided to prove they were right by adopting babies and nurturing them along with their genetic offspring.
As it turned out, we were in a small college town in Vermont in the late 70's-80's when two of these nurture families were brought up short. Their experiment proved the obverse -- that nature rules despite good intentions. In one of the cases, the adopted boy who was an average student while his genetic siblings were academic stars went off to seek his fortune in the non-academic world with the blessing of his adoptive family while the other, a 17 year old girl who was failing student running with a wild crowd, was given back to the state as incorrigible. Her genetic siblings were also brilliant scholars who won many prizes, etc.
I know this proves nothing and there are probably many success stories of nurture coming out on top, I just haven't heard about them.
erp:
I'm no fan of Chomsky's politics but he's a brilliant linguist and he pretty much established that genetic evolution can't explain language development. If you take a nine-year old from a remote Amazonian tribe with a primitive language and put him on the fast track to Oxford, he may well win all the English prizes. Nurture wins on that subject. Also, what about the well-known observations that the sons of alcoholic abusers have a good statistical chance of following Dad's exemplary model. Genetics? Colour me very unconvinced.
The incomparable David Berlinski once called Nature vs. Nurture the longest running academic lawsuit in history. Years, even decades, go by with one having the clear advantage among the brights, but then the scientific culture shifts before the court can pronounce final judgment and the odds suddenly change. It's a very bitter, never-ending fight, but the one thing both sides agree on is they have no time at all for that irksome intervenor called Free Will. They both mock her mercilessly, but she's the one who gets the most cheers from the crowds when they all emerge from court at the end on the day.
But you know, as with religion v. secularism, we should thank our lucky stars the lawsuit is never resolved. When the genetic evolutionists win the pot, you get the Nazis. When the social constructionists drown out the competition, we learn that a gruesome murder by a black gangsta in South Boston was entirely caused by slavery and that we should be talking reparations, not prison. As to Free Will, she's a very popular and sympathetic character when everybody else is ganging up on her, but she can be awfully brutal when she is given the keys to the kingdom.
Peter,
My very windy point is that while Mendel identified genetics in 1822 and people have used it to create bigger and better produce and pork chops, at the time I speak of, the idea that genetics make us humans what we are as well, was thought of as something reeking of the Third Reich, not as far away then as it is now.
The young girl who was returned to the state as defective merchandise was a couple of years ahead of our son at the local high school, so we knew her slightly as a lovely girl not able to please her Math Professor father and Linguistics Professor mother, so she did what unfortunately a lot of us do when confronted with an impossible task, she acted out.
I've missed discussions here at GG's and hope Bret gets motivated to write some more.
BTW - My internet access has gone flooey (sorry for the technical jargon), so I never know which of my alternate egos will show up with comments. My tech support guy was here yesterday for several hours and left scratching his head -- I'm guessing that's not a good sign. :-)
Peter wrote: "I think biologists today have to steer clear of research into racial and gender genetic differences and focus on promises of curing disease..."
Except for the minor detail that biologists today are starting to have unshakeable evidence that treatment of disease can be greatly enhanced by understanding the underlying genetics of the patient and that those same genetics certainly split along the lines of biological gender (XX vs. XY) and in at least some cases split along the lines of race.
erp wrote: "[Peter is] being a spoil sport asking that scientists concentrate their efforts on improving the human condition..."
Please define "improving the human condition." Why do you think that scientists "preaching" is objectively any less likely to improve things by some definition than actual science?
Peter wrote: "The incomparable David Berlinski once called Nature vs. Nurture the longest running academic lawsuit in history."
Cute. But not quite right, because the debate during my adult lifetime has been (nearly) 100% Nurture vs. Some of Both Nature and Nurture.
Peter wrote: "When the genetic evolutionists win the pot, you get the Nazis. ... "
I think you have that backwards. There are ALWAYS Nazis (in this case those who would happily murder large numbers of people they don't like). The genetic evolutionists simply give them an excuse and the Nazis search out folks like genetic evolutionists for said excuse. Would the Nazis be able to commit the same crimes against humanity without the excuse? Of course they would (in my opinion).
In all your examples, it's all about power, plain and simple. Nietzsche got it right I think, but in a different way than you mentioned. I think his "Will to Power" concept was spot on.
BTW, I've never seen the free will debate the way you (and Skipper on the other side) do. Maybe I'll do a post on that topic - it should be safe enough.
For the same reason that hiring people who can write grants rather than people who can do scientific research is less likely to improve things, i.e., solve problems of disease, etc., other than the grant writer's bank account.
Not sure about your question? If this isn't what you're asking, then I don't get it.
[OP:] Human characteristics generally have a basis in some mix of nature and nurture (or DNA and memes if you prefer). Topics like the above are dangerous to discuss because if it can be interpreted that one is putting just a little too much emphasis on nature (for example that the contribution of nature/DNA is non-zero) then one can get in a lot of trouble.
Depends on the characteristic. For example, almost all men have deeper voices than almost all women. Almost all men have more lupine facial features than women; conversely, almost all women are more neotenous.
All that has to be down to DNA.
And it isn't particularly dangerous to discuss those things, because they are so bleeding obvious that contesting them would be a fools errand.
But step very far away from that, and it's best to have cover close by. For instance, try investigating the hypothesis that men and women respond to male and female voices differently, and in ways that advantage men over women in leadership roles, and vice versa in nurturing roles. To do so would invite accusations of reinforcing gender stereotypes, despite the very real possibility that at least some "stereotypes" are effects, not causes.
The fundamental problem is the tension between freedom and equality, between individualism and marxist class analysis.
Asserting that inequality is inherent and ineradicable threatens putting progressives out of business.
They hate that.
You reminded me of the Duck Dynasty kerfuffle. A source of abiding amazement for me is that the left has no idea how totalitarian it is.
[erp:] Years ago the nurture/nature discussion was in full bloom and quite a few people in our demographic on the nurture side decided to prove they were right by adopting babies and nurturing them along with their genetic offspring.
Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate doesn't come down squarely on the nature side, but it does give the nurturists a good kicking. Progressives hate him in the same way they hate, say, Heather MacDonald. With emotion, absent reason.
Skipper, many factors are involved in child rearing, but we start with a bundle of genetic material and apply love and encouragement, etc. and most times it works out to another complete human being who will rinse and repeat.
Other factors interrupt that simple formula, but the same people who may even work at examples of genetic tampering contend(ed) that humans are somehow "different."
It's amazing, yet true that these folks also continue to support lefty (they go by so many names, I'm not sure of the current politically correct word) ideas even though evidence is clear they are counterproductive and downright dangerous.
[Peter:] I've often marveled how the same people can be fundamentalist Darwinist evolutionists when squaring off against big bad religion and indignant social constructionists about race and gender.
Case in point: third wave feminists. They are all about evolution from the neck down, and are creationists through and through the other direction.
This tension first exploded years ago when E.O. Wilson of Harvard introduced sociobiology to the world and ended up facing angry mobs. It's recounted in this wonderful essay by Tom Wolfe from 1996.
Coincidentally, I just finished reading Bonfire of the Vanities a few days ago. For the first time. I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to it — he is a brilliant writer. It has aged very well. However, I wonder if any publisher would touch it were it to be offered up today.
The essay, for the most part, reads as if it could have been written in the last year. Not so sure about the IQ Cap, or reading people's thoughts via machine, but the rest is still spot on, because nailed the philosophical issues.
[Peter:] I'm no fan of Chomsky's politics but he's a brilliant linguist and he pretty much established that genetic evolution can't explain language development.
Yes, he is a brilliant linguist, but I don't think he proposed what you think he did.
Rather, he argued humans have a genetic propensity to form languages, there isn't any ur-language, and the evolutionary leap wasn't particularly large. Further, language isn't used just for communication with others, but rather is perhaps the major component of self-awareness, it could well be that once the capacity for language developed enough to significantly enhance self-awareness, it was so adaptive that it was very strongly self-reinforcing.
If you take a nine-year old from a remote Amazonian tribe with a primitive language and put him on the fast track to Oxford, he may well win all the English prizes. Nurture wins on that subject.
Also, not sure on that. Nature endowed the nine-year old with the capacity for language. Nature also is not uniformly distributed in the ability to manipulate language.
So if that child went on to win all the English prizes, the fact that the prizes happened to be for English is down to nurture, but then that child would have won in any language that awarded prizes for facility in that language.
[Bret:] BTW, I've never seen the free will debate the way you (and Skipper on the other side) do. Maybe I'll do a post on that topic - it should be safe enough.
I semi-regularly listen to Sam Harris's podcasts. (While reliably progressive, he isn't uncritical of progressivism. He suffers from stage 4 TDS, and — being unable to distinguish subjective from objective truth — is relentlessly critical of religion. While also swallowing Global Warming/Climate Change/Disruption/Crisis/Emergency completely whole. Go figure.)
He is absolutely certain that free will cannot exist, that physics dictates how your brain will respond; there is no mind-brain duality.
That is a difficult argument to refute. After all, the existence of free will is seemingly dependent upon the existence of that duality. However, if the "mind" is simply part of what the brain does, then there is no duality, and all our thoughts and actions are the consequences of the brain machinery working.
And certainly free-will in a strong form can't exist. Try changing your favorite color, song, or food. Even those these are all completely arbitrary things, and instances of each have in and of themselves no inherent differential value, you can't will yourself into changing your preferences.
But Harris's position seems a pure case of scientism. No one has scarcely the slightest notion how the brain works — so on what basis does he maintain what it can't do? Worse, taking him at his word leads to some very dark places, indeed.
[erp:] Skipper, many factors are involved in child rearing, but we start with a bundle of genetic material and apply love and encouragement, etc. and most times it works out to another complete human being who will rinse and repeat.
I think it is almost certainly true that the horror shows we call our inner cities are largely down to fatherless children.
What does that say for nature v nurture?
Skipper, fatherless families In the context of inner cities are anti-nurturing. The whole structure of family is missing, not only the father. I think nature is on the job and kids adopted into loving supportive families in the main do well.
[erp:] Skipper, fatherless families In the context of inner cities are anti-nurturing.
Nurture, in the sense of Nature v Nurture, is a noun, not a verb.
In that sense, the debate is whether what one brings to the table matters more than how the table is set.
IMHO, that depends a great deal on what the table is. As I noted above, in some cases, what one brings is absolutely determinative, and no amount of setting will change things significantly, if at all.
Fatherless families are real world test case. It seems obvious that, with regard to life outcomes, Nurture that includes a resident biological father produces better outcomes than Nurture that doesn't have that feature.
As everyone here knows, I jump straight to apoplexy at the incontinent slinging of "racist."
A tendency that seems almost exclusive to progressives.
Almost, but not quite.
Does this show Tashida Tlaib to be a racist?
I happen to think she is easily loathsome enough, and almost certainly subscribes to some nasty forms of groupism.
But I think this particular invocation of "racist" is every bit as stupid as when progressives do it.
Hey Skipper wrote: "A tendency that seems almost exclusive to progressives."
Which tendency? The jumping straight to apoplexy? Or the incontinent slinging of "racist"? :-)
I think there's a hint of a grain of truth to what she's saying. I have a much harder time telling the difference between non-white faces versus white faces. Perhaps that makes me (yet more) racist, but I think it's inherent (nature!) that a given someone is able to discern between faces that look similar to them than faces that are radically different. So to request that blacks operate equipment and otherwise be involved in criminal lineups involving blacks is iffy, in my opinion, but not beyond the pale.
[Bret:] I think there's a hint of a grain of truth to what she's saying. I have a much harder time telling the difference between non-white faces versus white faces. Perhaps that makes me (yet more) racist ...
And that is the crux of the problem, right there.
Objective reality cannot be racist, sexist, whateverist.
It is objectively true that where there are fewer differences, distinction is more difficult. That is a fact. Acknowledging that fact cannot be racist.
Which amplifies ingrained experience. I think it a safe assumption that blacks find it easier to distinguish among caucasians than vice versa. That doesn't make blacks racist anymore than the inverse makes whites racist.
Another fact: the darker the surface, the less light is reflected. The less light, the less information.
A recent fad in the Oppression Olympics is implicit bias. "Researchers" discovered that people required more time to assess the attitude of a person's picture if the person was black than not black.
There are two explanations for this. The one chosen: non-blacks are racist. The other: black faces, on account of physics, convey less data than less black faces do.
Reality bites.
In this regard, I think Ms. Tlaib is both correct, and not in the least bit racist.
Related to the nature v nurture debate.
And what can happen when you contradict progressive orthodoxy.
Sgt. Friday was ahead of his time with his demand for:
Just the facts, ma'am.
Back in the day, scientists observed without interfering, but I guess that didn't prove the preconceived conclusion, so we have the French farce of anthropological antics in the jungle. I wonder what modern science would have made of Newton and his apple experiment?
I sent the article to my daughter who was an anthropology major and her subject was the Yanomamö for an opinion.
Also, I've read the hoopla about fires in the Amazon is bogus as the fires are an annual occurrence and that this year's fires weren't remarkably different from other years and are, in fact, on the light side.
It's eerie when so little that is brunted about in the media and academe can be taken as serious or even factual. I repeat, save your old reference books, text books, etc. They will be invaluable to coming generations.
BTW - If all the women were penned into enclosures where men could grab one whenever they wanted and then walk away happy, peace would reign supreme - I think they're called harems. Those old pashas and sultans were way ahead of science.
I sent the article to my daughter who was an anthropology major and her subject was the Yanomamö for an opinion.
I read Noble Savages, and thought it an excellent book.
I'd be interested in hearing your daughter's take.
I took an anthro class my freshmen year in college — 1973. Shot through with marxist bollocks.
The concept of the noble savage is as much nonsense as the rest of the lefty dogma. If we evolved from the lower animals as I believe we did, there is nothing noble as we would define the word about their survival techniques.
The people whom we erroneously called, Indians, who were here when we arrived were not noble nor savage and neither are Amazon aborigines. They created a way of life that works for them and to criticize them because it differs from ours only in style, is bizarre.
He is absolutely certain that free will cannot exist, that physics dictates how your brain will respond; there is no mind-brain duality.
Yes, there are quite a few bien pensants who claim to believe similarly. Biologist Jerry Fodor is another who likes to beat that drum at conferences. I find it very hard to understand how they can really believe it deeply and fundamentally. I accept that they are enough of hard line "scienticists" that the argument that every essence of our being screams out that we have some measure of it cuts no ice with them, but surely they must see that our lives and beliefs are sheer incoherent nonsense without it and that none of their progressive platitudes make any sense. Plus what about the reductionist dilemma all dogmatic determinists face? If everything that comes out of Sam Harris's mouth and brain is a product of physical forces he doesn't control, what possible reason is there to pay the slightest attention to anything Sam Harris says?
You are right that free will is not an absolute, but who believes that or ever did? One doesn't need to be a modern scientist to see that we are formed in part by heredity and upbringing. Some materialist determinists like to conduct cutsy experiments that "prove" whether we drink orange or grapefruit juice at breakfast is not a matter of fee choice, but that's a straw man if there ever was one. Even the old Christian doctrine of free will held that we can rise above our nature and nurture, but not easily and not unaided. To posit the debate as Free Will versus Nature or Nurture is a distortion because one side isn't trying to deny the existence of the other.
I really hope Bret does that post on free will.
Peter wrote: "I really hope Bret does that post on free will."
I'm working on it. Don't expect anything great - y'all have put waaaaaaay more thought into than I. The main purpose will be to start a hopefully fun discussion.
Hey Skipper wrote: "I think it a safe assumption that blacks find it easier to distinguish among caucasians than vice versa."
Umm, that's at best an unsafe assumption. I'm under the impression that we can tell the difference between people who look like us (our tribe) better than between people who look radically different. In that case, whites are better at distinguishing between whites and blacks are better at distinguishing between blacks. The evolutionary purpose is that our tribe consists of people who look similar, yet we have to be able to distinguish between members of our tribe, but it doesn't matter as much for those outside the tribe (other is other).
[Bret:] Umm, that's at best an unsafe assumption. I'm under the impression that we can tell the difference between people who look like us (our tribe) better than between people who look radically different. In that case, whites are better at distinguishing between whites and blacks are better at distinguishing between blacks.
Yes, but that wasn't my assumption. Rather, it is this: in a test measuring the accuracy of distinguishing among faces of the other race, blacks will do better with white faces than vice versa. I'd also bet that is true of most non-Europeans compared to Europeans.
Why?
More variation. Hair among Blacks has very little variation compared to whites; same for eye color. Why shouldn't we expect more distinct markers to make distinguishing more accurate?
[Peter:] Yes, there are quite a few bien pensants who claim [free will cannot exist]. Biologist Jerry Fodor is another who likes to beat that drum at conferences. I find it very hard to understand how they can really believe it deeply and fundamentally. I accept that they are enough of hard line "scienticists" that the argument that every essence of our being screams out that we have some measure of it cuts no ice with them, but surely they must see that our lives and beliefs are sheer incoherent nonsense without it and that none of their progressive platitudes make any sense.
I find it easy to understand how they believe it. The brain, just like every other part of your body is a completely material entity, subject, at the most essential level, to physics. With that as the entering argument, as it pretty much must be for atheists, no other conclusion is possible: there is only the brain, any thought that there is a "mind", aloof from physics, directing the brain, is pure illusion.
A strong position on free will (we can choose to change our mind on anything to any degree we desire) is easy to refute. And, certainly, there are chemicals that will change how we think. Brains on testosterone have much different characteristics than those not on it. We can't choose to surmount that barrier.
But ...
I just bought a new car, which I don't need in the first place, never mind it being new instead of used. I "chose" (or at least I think I did) among many options and colors. I just don't see how a purely mechanistic invocation of the brain gets there, other than as an exercise in circularity.
Chomsky's theories of language may not ultimately stand the test of time, but it seems they must refute the all-brain-and-no-mind position.
Almost every sentence I have typed in this comment is completely unique in the history of the universe. I could have typed the same ideas in a variety of ways so great as to approach infinite. If I was to hit cmd-a, cmd-x, I couldn't retype them in their current form. That would seem to require some explanation beyond what brain and nothing more can provide.
Pinker's The Blank Slate is an excellent book, and not just because progressives hate it. It shows there are clear limits to what we can think, but we also aren't just automatons.
Ironically, progressives must believe in a mind-brain duality, even though they don't know it.
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