Social Darwinism

[Jeremy]

Quote:

How?

How could anyone ever know what red looks like to you, even theoretically?

Because how red looks to me is entirely describable by the brain processes in my head. I know that this is point on which we disagree, but I do not accept subjective as anything more than a linguistic term used to describe things based on how we see them, which is a lot easier than describing the actual processes going on, though it theoretically can be done.

[Katana]

I'm almost scared to enter this discussion, but here goes...

Originally Posted by JustGeoff

One cannot be 100% objective when dealing with human subjectivity. I am not biased against these sciences, I am just claiming that science has fuzzy borders. The only truly "hard" sciences are physics and chemistry.

I'm afraid that I have to agree with this one. I didn't sense that JustGeoff was making a value judgment in this argument (although I could be wrong). I have great respect for the social sciences, and I agree that the same, basic principles used in scientific method are applied. However, its about control. There is a degree of control loss that is inherent to studies involving human beings. It is difficult to impossible to recreate the exact conditions for each subject while this is quite achievable in physics and chemistry. It's the nature of the beast when one is studying human behavior. That doesn't render the findings any less valid or useful, but one should remember these limitations when evaluating the merits of a social science study. They will affect the conclusions of some more than others.

Originally Posted by JustGeoff

You reckon science is a method, do you?

Ever heard of Paul Feyerabend?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend

So I was curious and looked at the link. It sounds like it wasn't the scientific method that he objected to but the inability (or unwillingness) on the part of early scientists to strictly adhere to it. I'm sure that his views are more complex than that, and I welcome insight that others may provide.

I did object to one thing that was said, though:
He also thought that theoretical anarchism was desirable because it was more humanitarian than other systems of organization, by not imposing rigid rules on scientists.

As a fan of Ayn Rand, I don't respond well to arguments made on the basis of humanitarianism or altruism. I also do not see how the lack of "rigid" rules is more humanitarian, but, if he truly hates science or the scientific method (I couldn't tell which), I'm not surprised that he would feel this way.

[blutoski]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

Thank you for your reply, Blutoski. You raised many interesting points, but an easier way of determining whether the similarity between is caused by genes or shared womb conditions would be to compare the rate of similarity between normal siblings and fraternal siblings. While I don't know of any studies which show this, there is an interesting piece of data in Rushton's work.
"About 50% of identical twins with criminal records have twins with criminal records, while only about 25% of fraternal twins do." (Rushton, 29)

That still doesn't solve the problem, though. There are perfectly good explanations for why identical twins have high concordances that could be explained by genetics of appearance alone, rather than asserting the existence of genetics of character. Remember: they also look alike and are the same gender. They probably have the same peer pressure group, &c. Half of fraternal twins aren't even the same gender.

To give you a practical example: if identical twins were 7'2" tall, I'd say that there's a great chance that they'd both be basketball players, or that neither would. That one would, but not the other would be bizzarre. If they were fraternal twins, and one was a girl and one a boy, and they were very different heights, I'd say there was much less chance they'd choose the same sport.

Appearance plays an important role in character development, and monos have about as close to identical appearance as you can get. If one's ugly; they'll both be ugly. If one's fat; they'll both be fat.

Lots of uncertainty here, yet there's a tendency to jump to one favoured conclusion.

My impression over the years is that I'm seeing what Shermer referred to as the pet theory problem: suddenly, *an* explanation among many equals becomes *the* explanation, because the champion likes what it implies over the others.

Also: what's interesting is comparing fraternal twins to non-twin siblings... they're much more likely to have concordances in many study axes. This suggests many things, none of which have been isolated: are fraternal twins - who are exactly the same age - raised in a more similar way than their other siblings who were raised in different parenting fashions? (supporting evidence: the psychology of birth order and its predictable personality outcomes) Are fraternal twins more likely to bond with one another and share experiences, making their environment more similar?

Another set of studies is adoption studies. We find that the impact on personality and IQ varies with the amount of time with the biological family, to the point of becoming close to irrelevant if the adoption is at birth. Unfortunately, there aren't enough studies like this to have strong confidence in the finding.


There's just too many unknowns. I'm not saying that I know for a fact that there is no genetic component to personality - my personal bias is actually to believe this. What I'm saying is that it would be dishonest for me to say that the evidence is even remotely ready to make a case.

To some extent, this has confused and frustrated my friends. They do research to shore up their opinions, whereas I do research to get a grasp of the truth (and to finish a degree, and to write a book), but my conclusion was not what I had expected, nor was it what I wanted to hear. I was required to reverse my opinion.

I'm sort of motivated because my wife and I are from different races, I'm adopted, and one of my kids is adopted, and our appearances and personalities are all very different. Consequently, what society thinks of the inheritence of character and intelligence does impact me directly.

[Katana]

I just want to ask this:

Is there anyone that doesn't think that it's somewhat plausible that genetics may affect intelligence, personality, and, ultimately, some aspects of a person's behavior?

I'm not making value judgments, so don't go there. I'm just asking whether anyone would dispute the fact that this is at least possible.

[blutoski]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

Thank you for your reply, Blutoski. You raised many interesting points, but an easier way of determining whether the similarity between is caused by genes or shared womb conditions would be to compare the rate of similarity between normal siblings and fraternal siblings. While I don't know of any studies which show this, there is an interesting piece of data in Rushton's work.
"About 50% of identical twins with criminal records have twins with criminal records, while only about 25% of fraternal twins do." (Rushton, 29)

Further, I have some Rushton, and while I'm not sure what publication this ref is from, my abovementioned critique of the twin studies still stands: the identicals are self-selecting for similarity already. My confidence in any twin data from the Minnesota study is very low. There is no reason to believe these samples are representative, and so I'm not sure why the study keeps getting its funding renewed.

[blutoski]

Originally Posted by Katana

I just want to ask this:

Is there anyone that doesn't think that it's somewhat plausible that genetics may affect intelligence, personality, and, ultimately, some aspects of a person's behavior?

I'm not making value judgments, so don't go there. I'm just asking whether anyone would dispute the fact that this is at least possible.

Depends on what you mean by 'possible'. There are the pure Skinnerists who might say that it's possible, but they're pretty sure the evidence is that there are no examples. That is: it's possible, and it's also possible that monkeys could fly out of their butt, if this is a concession to possibility.

I think this is like many things: most people accept that both genetic and environmental factors have a role to play, but there are four camps: mostly genetic (Daltonists), mostly environmental (Skinnerists), a mix (eg: Pinker), and WeJustDon'tKnow (rare).

[Katana]

Originally Posted by blutoski

Depends on what you mean by 'possible'.

Give me a friggin' break. What the hell do you think that I mean by possible? How the hell many definitions of the word are there? I'm merely asking you to suspend your prejudice based on unsound assumptions/extrapolations of others. Why is it so hard to believe that this could be true even if those who have attempted to show have floundered? Don't discount the premise just because those exploring it have been foolish.

[blutoski]

Originally Posted by Katana

Give me a friggin' break. What the hell do you think that I mean by possible? How the hell many definitions of the word are there? I'm merely asking you to suspend your prejudice based on unsound assumptions/extrapolations of others. Why is it so hard to believe that this could be true even if those who have attempted to show have floundered? Don't discount the premise just because those exploring it have been foolish.

I'm a little surprised by your tone. If you read my post above, you'll read that my personal opinion is that people inherit some of their intelligence and character. If I were to suspend my prejudice, I would believe that there was no genetic component. So, you're not asking me to suspend my prejudice: you're asking me to indulge it.



Further, if you read my example in my immediate post, I think I spelled it out. But I'll change the example, for clarity.

Some people only give lip service to their opponent's point of view. Saying "I guess it's possible that this stupid idea could be true." So, technically, they're admitting it's possible, but any intelligent person can see through their statement to understand that no, they don't really. They're just saying it to sound broadminded.

My impression is that many Skinnerists say 'oh, it's possible that there could be some genetic component,' but when pushed to the wall, they'll admit that they don't really think there's a shred of evidence that this could be so. Consequently, I don't really believe they think it's possible.

[RandFan]

"Fools rush in..." So here goes,

1.) Evolution is a bottom-up process.
2.) Humans can think and solve problems form the top down.
3.) We can't easily escape evolution (humans will behave to a degree based on genetics).
4.) Human behavior is shaped by both genetic and environmental factors.
5.) Class is a human construct. There is no statistical genetic difference between humans based on class, race, etc.
6.) There is no evidence that the human gene pool is declining because we no longer reproduce based on natural selection.

To craft effective social programs (or not craft them) we need to take into account our biology and understand human behavior from an evolutionary point of view. We need to avoid seeing humans only in evolutionary principles. Evolution wasn't perfect and the human mind is capable of solving social problems without reverting to survival of the fittest.

[Jeremy]

Blutoski,

Again, I thank you for your highly insightful replies, and cordiality in a subject which so often degrades into a heated battle of egos.

Quote:

My impression over the years is that I'm seeing what Shermer referred to as the pet theory problem: suddenly, *an* explanation among many equals becomes *the* explanation, because the champion likes what it implies over the others

I am afraid that this is probably the case. Several years ago I read a book on the subject, and genetic IQ stuck out to me because it was the only one which had moral arguments against it, rather than scientific ones.

It is a shame that I had never been exposed to the logical objections which you have raised in your posts, probably because everyone else was too busy discounting it on ethical grounds. This has deeply shaken my confidence in hereditarianproven models, and while I still hold them preferable to environmental ones, I will no longer state them to be "proven fact which is resisted due to morality".

Thank you.

[Katana]

Originally Posted by blutoski

I'm a little surprised by your tone. If you read my post above, you'll read that my personal opinion is that people inherit some of their intelligence and character. If I were to suspend my prejudice, I would believe that there was no genetic component. So, you're not asking me to suspend my prejudice: you're asking me to indulge it.

You're right. I'm really sorry about how that sounded. I just read what I posted, and it definitely came across more harshly than I had intended.

Would you explain why you consider it prejudice to believe that there may be some influence of genetics (in addition to the environment) in aspects of personality and intelligence?

[UndercoverElephant]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

Because how red looks to me is entirely describable by the brain processes in my head.

Erm....how?

This claim is simply false. You can describe everything you could possibly want to about the brain processes in your head and you would have made absolutely no progress towards describing what red looks like to you. For all either of us would know, what you call red could be qualitatively identical to what looks blue to me.

[UndercoverElephant]

Originally Posted by Katana

I just want to ask this:

Is there anyone that doesn't think that it's somewhat plausible that genetics may affect intelligence, personality, and, ultimately, some aspects of a person's behavior?

I'm not making value judgments, so don't go there. I'm just asking whether anyone would dispute the fact that this is at least possible.

Of course it does. scr*w the politically-correct brigade. Genetics has a massive effect on IQ. Sure, if you are born in a very poor country and are never taught how to read then you are probably going to score poorly on an IQ test and it will have nothing to do with genetics. But anyone who says that IQ is all (or even mainly) nurture rather than nature is seriously mistaken, IMO. It is politically explosive, I know.

The situation is particularly sensitive with regard to the sub-saharan african population, which (thanks to the human genome project) we now know is about 5 or 6 times more genetically diverse (and the diversity can only be attributed to the presence of an older gene pool) than all the other populations on the planet. Not surprisingly, this information has not been widely publicised, largely out of fears of what would happen if it got into the hands of those sorts of people who would use it to oppress black populations. There is enormous resistance to this, but the facts speak for themselves. The entire population of this planet north of the Sahara is descended from one sub-group of africans who left that continent 40-70k years ago. It is even known that this group were coastal specialists who had learned how to adapt to a completely novel environment. They were the first to learn how to fish, the first to produce art (at Blombos, on the cape coast) and they spread up the east and west coasts of Africa and on into Europe, the middle east and the rest of the world. Meanwhile, life in the main body of the african continent continued largely as it had done for countless millenia beforehand.

Contraversial? Yes. But based upon science and a desire to confront the truth, not racism. None of the above is a valid basis for discrimination, and the generalisation does not apply in all cases. But anyone who claims that the whole of the human race is genetically equal is probably being motivated by politics and morality, not science.

[UndercoverElephant]

Originally Posted by Katana

Give me a friggin' break. What the hell do you think that I mean by possible? How the hell many definitions of the word are there?

Well, there's several versions of modal logic, all of which declare different relationships between "possible" and "neccesary" - not to mention "eventually", "formerly", "can", "could", "might", "may", "must"......

[blutoski]

Originally Posted by Katana

You're right. I'm really sorry about how that sounded. I just read what I posted, and it definitely came across more harshly than I had intended.

Would you explain why you consider it prejudice to believe that there may be some influence of genetics (in addition to the environment) in aspects of personality and intelligence?

I think because of its historical pedigree. People believed this long before we understood inheritence - it is a primitive belief with a modern following.

We are prejudiced to believe this from our ordinary exposure to our culture.

ETA: Also, a prejudice because I want it to be true.

[Jeremy]

Quote:

Erm....how?

This claim is simply false. You can describe everything you could possibly want to about the brain processes in your head and you would have made absolutely no progress towards describing what red looks like to you. For all either of us would know, what you call red could be qualitatively identical to what looks blue to me.

I don't feel that this is going to go anywhere, Geoff. You feel that there is something more to seeing red than the physical processes, and I do not. I feel that it is possible to completely describe me seeing red in physical terms. Light from a certain range of the spectrum enters my eyes, it is detected by cells able to discern the spectrum, this data travels down my optical nerve, and is interpreted by the completely physical processes of the brain to become the "experience of seeing red".

[UndercoverElephant]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

I don't feel that this is going to go anywhere, Geoff.

Yeah, but who is it who is saying something which makes no sense?

Quote:

You feel that there is something more to seeing red than the physical processes, and I do not.

No, I do not "feel" that. It is completely obvious.

You can go on saying "The experience of seeing red is just a brain process" till the sun explodes, and it will make no more sense then than it does now. I can keeping saying "Snow is blue" or "pigs fly" for the same period of time, and it would be no more true. Your argument is as follows:

Premise 1) Materialism is true
Conclusion 1) Minds are brains.
Conclusion 2) The experience of seeing red must be a brain process!

Unfortunately, since I (quite reasonably )reject "materialism is true" as a premise I am left with....

Conclusion) "I don't feel there is anything more to seeing red than a brain process."

....which is simply ridiculous. If it wasn't for your desire to defend materialism, you would not say this. Neither would you claim to have problems understanding what "inherently subjective" means.

We should stop here, because I am one step away from accusing you of intellectual dishonesty.

Quote:

I feel that it is possible to completely describe me seeing red in physical terms.

That's what you "feel"? Why do you "feel" something totally absurd?

Quote:

Light from a certain range of the spectrum enters my eyes, it is detected by cells able to discern the spectrum, this data travels down my optical nerve, and is interpreted by the completely physical processes of the brain......

(with you till this point...)

Quote:

to become the "experience of seeing red".

How do you "feel" that the physical processes "become" the experience of seeing red?

What you mean is:

"I cannot even bear thinking about materialism being false, so I am going to make whatever statement I can to defend it, regardless of whether or not what I am saying is rank absurd. I'm not going to think very hard about what I am actually saying, or whether it actually makes any sense, or whether I am using words like "feel" and "becomes" without knowing what they mean either - the bottom line is that physicalism must be true so anything which contradicts it, no matter how blindingly obviously true, must actually be false. Therefore, there are no things which are inherently subjective. What could that mean?"

Sorry, but I am sick of reading total nonsense written by supposedly intelligent people.

You "feel" that brain processes "become experiences". Righty ho. Good for you.

[UndercoverElephant]

Jeremy,

Perhaps I need to explain to you more clearly why you are getting the reaction from me that you got in the last post. My development was heavily influenced by the effect of having to go to Church every sunday and be asked to believe all manner of totally unsubstantiated, illogical nonsense. At the time, all I actually cared about was atronomy and dinosaurs. The result was that even from a very early age, I had no automatic respect for the opinions of adults. I was fully aware, from about 7 or 8, that large numbers of adults were capable of believing and saying things which were completely and utterly stupid provided they were doing so in defence of some cherished belief. During the following two and half decades I often wondered about what consciousness/mind could possibly be. If asked, I would have said "It's brain proccesses" or "It's information", or something along those lines. I would have said this simply because I had nothing else to say - the reasoning was quite clear: minds are something which goes on in brains, therefore minds must somehow be brain processes or brain information. However, at no point did I descend to the level of the rank absurdities of sunday school. If somebody had asked me "Do you understand what subjectivity means?" or pointed out that it was entirely possible that what I saw as red might be what somebody-else saw as blue then I would have told them that I did indeed understand what subjectivity means. I would never, EVER, have stood there and said something like "I really don't know what you mean by mind" or "I feel that subjective experiences are nothing but brain processes". I could not have done so without immediately realising that I was descending to the level of the sunday school lies in defence of cherished beliefs. Consciousness was deeply mysterious to me, even then. When I read things like what you wrote, it feels like sunday school all over again, except this time it is materialists telling themselves (and asking me to accept) ridiculous fairy stories in order to defend materialism. "Minds", they say, "what are they?" Bullsh*t. You know exactly what the difference is between the experience of seeing red and a physical brain process. So stop claiming you don't. This is not sunday school.

Thankfully, I have now finished the cognitive science section of my degree. I have spent the past academic year exploring the countless nonsensical physicalist accounts of consciousness. None of them come close to bridging the explanatory gap. They aren't even very effective fig leaves. By the end of the year, not one person in my class was still trying to defend them. The [search for the] truth does not begin with a conclusion around which all questions much continually re-arrange themselves. It begins with fearless questions. One of those questions is "Can I tell the difference between subjective experiences and physical brain processes". The answer to that question, unless there is something seriously wrong with you, has got to be "yes".

[Katana]

Originally Posted by JustGeoff

Contraversial? Yes. But based upon science and a desire to confront the truth, not racism. None of the above is a valid basis for discrimination, and the generalisation does not apply in all cases. But anyone who claims that the whole of the human race is genetically equal is probably being motivated by politics and morality, not science.

My thoughts as well. Nicely said.

I was trying to see whether anyone could get past the politics of it and, at least, acknowledge that it is scientifically plausible. It's not about politics (to me). As you said, it's about science, and that's what I'm interested in. I agree that one's genetic make up is only one component (and likely not the primary one) of who we are and how we think.

[Katana]

Originally Posted by JustGeoff

Well, there's several versions of modal logic, all of which declare different relationships between "possible" and "neccesary" - not to mention "eventually", "formerly", "can", "could", "might", "may", "must"......

[Katana]

Originally Posted by blutoski

I think because of its historical pedigree. People believed this long before we understood inheritence - it is a primitive belief with a modern following.

We are prejudiced to believe this from our ordinary exposure to our culture.

When you make assumptions about what research on the subject will discover (I'm assuming that we don't have all of the answers yet), then your assumptions will likely reflect your prejudice. I don't think that it is impossible to be impartial when you have no agenda other than finding the truth. If that is your motivation, then where is the prejudice?

Originally Posted by blutoski

ETA: Also, a prejudice because I want it to be true.

I'm curious. Why?

Sorry about the running stream of posts!

[blutoski]

Originally Posted by Katana

I'm curious. Why?

Biological causes suggest solutions can be applied quickly and easily.

Human causes, in comparison, are very difficult to remove.

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

I must start be apologizing for my extended absence from this thread. A vacation over the memorial day weekend left me in no mood to philosophize or debate science.

Dancing David and Rocketdodger,

What would be your answer to twin and adoption studies? Such studies suggest that IQ and personality are about 70% and 50% genetic, respectively. (Rushton, 28)

Were they placed into diverse socio economic groups or were the twins placed into the same SES. What are the levels of data in the study, do they involve how many twins. What kind of correlation are they refering to in the percentages. What society was the study done in? These are all relevant to any conclusions that there is a significant correlation. Could be interesting may be an artifact of the study.

Quote:

IQ generally correlates with income and social standing.

The last I saw the correlations were so low as to be probable chance, and if the test is designed by people who hold the cultural values of high SES then the IQ score would reflect those values as an artifact of the test. The IQ correlation between future earnings and collega graduation is statisticaly insignificant the last that I saw it presented.

Quote:

While adoption has a significant effect on IQ measured in childhood (being that high status/IQ individuals are generally adopters, and low status/IQ children the adoptees), the genetic component becomes more pronounced. (Ruston, 30)

On what basis do they draw that conclusion, what was the sample size, what diversity in the SES of the adopting families was there? Did the study include 'problem children' and 'unsucessful adoptions', what society was the study conducted in.

I am not saying that there might not be relevant results, but the ways that the data are gathered are crucial to thier validity.


Correlations below 68% are generaly the product of random chance.

Quote:

Data cited from Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective, by J. Philippe Rushton.

EDIT: Spellcheck'd

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

Because how red looks to me is entirely describable by the brain processes in my head. I know that this is point on which we disagree, but I do not accept subjective as anything more than a linguistic term used to describe things based on how we see them, which is a lot easier than describing the actual processes going on, though it theoretically can be done.

While Just Geoff's argument is irrelevant to the subject of science, because science assumes that the collective experience of humans can cross communicate.

There is an interesting point here:
1. We can not know what the direct perception of another individual is like, we can only compare the experience and see if there are common referants. There is always the gap between the symbol set used by seperate individuals.

2. there is a likely chance that even if we do have the same perceptual experience that what I see as green is what you see as red, and the same holds true for yello and blue, because we can't actualy know what the other person actualy sees. Know it is very likely that the perceptrual experiences are similar, due to the fact that the color value seen as green in the product of three of the color receptors minus the red, but they could be reversed in some individuals, they would likely see green as brown however because of the fact that green is the product of three receptor variants.

[blutoski]

Originally Posted by Dancing David

Were they placed into diverse socio economic groups or were the twins placed into the same SES. What are the levels of data in the study, do they involve how many twins. What kind of correlation are they refering to in the percentages. What society was the study done in? These are all relevant to any conclusions that there is a significant correlation. Could be interesting may be an artifact of the study.

This is one of the things that made me seriously doubt the weight of these results. The citation probably goes back to the Minnesota Twin Study, which is the largest of its kind in the world. The number of mono twins separated at birth and reunited and participating in the study is under 30 pairs. As mentioned, they self-select for similarity. This is not a smoking gun.