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NATURE_OF_THE_WALLS
March 7, 2003
I'm tremendously skeptical of
genetic determinism, though
largely that's a result of my When E. O. Wilson hit the scene back
upbringing. in the 70s with claims of founding a
new field called "sociobiology", the
When I was a teenager popular accounts I read of this
environmental determinism was material gave me the impression that
all the rage, and the genetic it was serious bullshit.
determinists were tarred
darkly with the racist brush. Looking back on it,
I no longer trust that
impression... when you
My high school social psych get any where near
teacher insisted human talking about this kind
beings had no identifiable of subject, the
biological instincts, with discussion gets so
one exception: sucking in politicized that it gets
infants. really difficult to get
at the truth.
Now currently, people seem
to *love* biological Consider Dawkins...
explanations for behavior. There was a the
cliche of a few Dawkins fans like
years back of to quote Dawkins
I personally feel referring to the to his critics
like I have no deep latest movie without revealing
knowledge of the actresses as the source.
current state of the "hormonally
evidence in the charged". The critics are
nature-nurture generally
debate. Standards of physical surprised to
beauty have changed find that they
But if it's really much too rapidly to agree.
true that there's all be explained by any
this great evidence kind of biological
for the "nature" evolution, and they
side, then I was sold vary considerably
a bill-of-goods by from culture to
seventies pop-science. culture, but these
two pieces of
And if seventies information will
pop-science led me *not* sink into the
astray, it could be popular consciousness.
the current state of
the art has similar
problems, eh?
If you're going to talk
about biologically
determined aspects of human
behavior, in order to have
any hope of making any sense
you have to limit your
claims to the inheritance of
fairly subtle, complex
aspects... (or less charitably,
perhaps "vague and
We don't inherit a quality, ill-defined").
we inherit a capacity for a
quality. We don't have
determined behavior, we have
tendencies toward certain
types of behavior.
I was reading a recent article in "Science News" that
mentioned in passing that there were a number of twin
studies that showed inherited capacity for intelligence.
My first thought: "Whoa, they've
got twin studies data now? That
pretty much settles it."
My second thought: "What if a
bunch of the women putting
twins up for adoption have
also been doing drugs with an
adverse affect on fetal
development? They could just
be measuring an inherited
stupidity, and not a
genetically inherited one at
that."
I would actually
need to look at
the details of
these twin
studies...
You can't trust second
hand information in this
field at all...
December 14-17, 2002
If you happen to be a scientist
with an interest in investigating
the biological component of human
behavior, I certainly hope you get
your AAAS grant, but it often
strikes me that people exaggerate
how important the issue is.
Some people want it
to be "nurture"
because that
supposedly makes it
more flexible, but
is it really?
From a practical point of
view you're pretty much
stuck with whatever
nurture you've got, and The nurture of the
changing it just isn't current generation
that easy. may have determined Consider the problem
the way the next you have if you've
On the other hand, generation will be determined that all
some people want it nurtured. you need to do to fix
to be "nature", some social problem
because that means is to change the
that it's fixed, way children are
and out of our raised.
control.
All you have to
But even if there do is engage in
is a strong a massive public
"nature" component education
to human behavior, (And if it turns campaign,
it's pretty out that you convincing all
clearly not as didn't *really* the parents that
tightly wired and know better, then they don't know
rigid as say, bird you start over what they're
nest-building and try again, doing, and that
behavior. right?) you know better.
To paraphrase
Richard Dawkins: Just because a cultural
"Anyone who is trait is "environmentally
capable of using a determined" is no reason to
condom is capable presume it's going to be
of going against easy to change.
the will of their
genes."
If it were demonstrated that
men are biologically inclined Any way you look at it,
to violence, would that mean re-engineering humanity
we should pre-emptively throw is a nasty problem...
all of them in jail?
Or would you be inclined
to something more like
the notion that we need Nature is not destiny,
to learn to resist and nurture is not freedom.
rise above our natural
tendencies?
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