You’re not related to Greg Handel of Wisconsin, are you?

No one should think they can read the human genome and predict behavior. As far as I know, very few specific short passages of the genome have been linked to any particular behavior. The evidence, or suggestion if you will, that some personality features are linked to genes comes from longitudinal observations of others and self. The way in which genetics would be linked would be by comparing the genomes and personalities of many people. (This is the way genetic causation for certain cancers have been found.)

Another way is by animal models. I would cite the silver fox experiment in Russia. Silver fox are bred for their fur and are generally hostile towards their captors/caretakers. By selecting out animals that displayed ever so slightly less hostility and breeding them, they eventually produced a variety of silver fox that was much more dog-like; accepting physical contact (petting, for instance). The fox also lost their nice fur features and their ears became less erect. The key to these changes turned out to be cortisol levels: they were consistently much lower in the fox that had been bred for reduced hostility. This breeding program required many generations, and went on for something like 60 years.

I agree with you that the range and repertoire of behavior in humans makes drawing connections between genes and personality very difficult. The same goes for intelligence, memory, disease response to adverse environmental factors, and so forth.

the fox study is interesting as it is part of a range of studies, leading to the conclusion that a limited and identified set of genes are important to create domesticated phenotypes across different species, including humans. Humans, foxes and dogs all share certain adjustments in their gene expression to tame them and make them more social and female-like. Humans, dogs, cats and other species are all part of a single process that lead to the domestication of these different species that gathered around hominid settlements for food and safety. Bonobos too are thought to be undergoing a process of self-domestication.

Andrew never made the claim that Prof. Plomin was in favor of Prof. Murray's policy recommendations. — Walter Pound

If that's the case then perhaps he shouldn't quote these two passages right after another because that's exactly what the following seemed to imply:

DNA is the major systemic force, the blueprint, that makes us who we are. The implications for our lives – for parenting, education and society – are enormous."

"On the science, Plomin has previously expressed his support for Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s racial premises in their notorious 1994 book The Bell Curve "

Prof. Plomin doesn't disagree with you there either. — Walter Pound

I didn't say I disagreed with Plomin - I've only skimmed his most recent book, but it's not anywhere near as certain as he seems to suggest - but with what Andrew seemed to be saying.

You’re not related to Greg Handel of Wisconsin, are you? — Noah Te Stroete

No I am a big fan of The Composer G F Handel.

It would seem as though there is a bit of a knowledge gap in this thread. I am happy to answer any questions about genes. Behaviour and genes are definitely linked in a very straightforward way. In addition, the nature vs nurture is no longer a debate, we now know some things about the genome and it will only continue to grow with time. One of the simplest ways it can control behaviour is through the regulation of hormone levels. So I think that the best way to think about the human is not to make the human all that different from its mammalian cousins. A more distant relative would be something like E. coli. Essentially the nuclei of our cells are tiny machines that print instructions which allow other tiny machines to make proteins and other complicated molecules. The DNA encodes all of this stuff. In addition to storing the recipes including the recipe to replicate itself, the genes can be turned off and on in the sense of this instruction printing feature as a result of outside stimulus or stress.

What issue is that supposed to resolve?

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"The exponential fall in genome sequencing costs led to the use of GWAS studies which could simultaneously examine all candidate-genes in larger samples than the original finding, where the candidate-gene hits were found to almost always be false positives and only 2-6% replicate;[7][8][9][10][11][12] in the specific case of intelligence candidate-gene hits, only 1 candidate-gene hit replicated,[13] the top 25 schizophrenia candidate-genes were no more associated with schizophrenia than chance,[14][15] and of 15 neuroimaging hits, none did.[16] The editorial board of Behavior Genetics noted, in setting more stringent requirements for candidate-gene publications, that "the literature on candidate gene associations is full of reports that have not stood up to rigorous replication...it now seems likely that many of the published findings of the last decade are wrong or misleading and have not contributed to real advances in knowledge".[17] Other researchers have characterized the literature as having "yielded an infinitude of publications with very few consistent replications" and called for a phase out of candidate-gene studies in favor of polygenic scores.[18]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_heritability_problem

What I am seeking to show is that you can make a valid distinction between nature and nurture without it been an oversimplification. — Andrew4Handel

It's the opposite. Your distinction is an unnecessary complication.

I think you would have to be a determinism to believe nature could not be overcome. — Andrew4Handel

I am a determinist. I also believe that nature and nurture are one. So that makes me also believe that nurture can't be overcome either. You can't overcome BOTH your genetics or your upbringing. It makes you who you are. If not, you'd be something else.

Thanks for sharing.

Nature relies on environment to express phenotypes. In the human species, like in no other species including crows, Nature saved a good deal of pre-set guidelines that is info and occupies space in our DNA, by trusting the environment to complete our designs. The another great advantage, is that in that way the final product will be more adjusted to the actual, ever-changing ecological and social demands of a nomad and socially complex species. The pitfall is that what the snake gets from its blueprints, we need to take from the social womb; if the social womb is sick or poor, we do not mature well. We do not even learn to talk if the environment fails; that doesn´t happen to snakes, which hiss all the same whatever happens around them.

Nature relies on environment to express phenotypes. In the human species, like in no other species including crows, Nature saved a good deal of pre-set guidelines that is info and occupies space in our DNA, by trusting the environment to complete our designs. — DiegoT

Nature doesn't have goals, like trusting the environment to complete our designs. You imply that nature has a mind.

As I already told Andrew, genes are part of the environment. The other members of your species are made up bags of genes. These bags of genes are part of your social environment.

The another great advantage, is that in that way the final product will be more adjusted to the actual, ever-changing ecological and social demands of a nomad and socially complex species. The pitfall is that what the snake gets from its blueprints, we need to take from the social womb; if the social womb is sick or poor, we do not mature well. We do not even learn to talk if the environment fails; that doesn´t happen to snakes, which hiss all the same whatever happens around them. — DiegoT

This is a great example of how both nature and nurture (the environment) have equal influence on what we are now.

when feminists say that sex is a determined by society, they are right; but they aren´t right in assuming that is a bad thing. It is legitimate and necessary that the social milieu plays a part in the design development, or the biological basis is thwarted. So it´s not society VS "true natural self", or society VS whatever-I-want-to-be; the truth is that your inheritance is both genetic and cultural, and you need both to mature healthily. Feminists end up rejecting both natures, because they are crazy.

when feminists say that sex is a determined by society, they are right; — DiegoT

No, they aren't. Sex is determined by biology. The expected behavior of each sex is determined by society. No matter how hard they try, society can't make a man have a menstrual cycle, get pregnant, and have babies.

well yes, sexual identity is determined by biology, but behaviour needs society

no, behavior needs biology. Can you have behavior without biology? Being a social animal is part of your biology.

Sounds like many of you playing the semantic game of knocking down scare crows.

when feminists say that sex is a determined by society, they are right; but they aren´t right in assuming that is a bad thing — DiegoT

Yes but only because it is often defined as such in an awkward way. This principle is not uniform and some species can switch sexes (not just genders). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_hermaphroditism

Male behaviours and female behaviours are strongly linked to hormonal levels. So if you take a disease like polycystic ovarian syndrome, this becomes quite clear.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pcos/symptoms-causes/syc-20353439

Think about this...
1 - these women are often hairy in places they should not be.
2 - they are usually fat.
3 - they often do not have the ability to have children
4 - they can lose hair in places that women do not usually lose hair (balding))

How much do these women feel like the women that they see on the cover of magazines? Do they feel like what society tells them a woman is? So for every sex-specific hormone, run a plot of the hormone levels for men and women and look at the two distributions. I would imagine that you will get two offset normal looking distributions with different parameters. For many of these very potent hormones, you will have overlap. Those areas of overlap are areas where you would expect disparities between how someone perceives themselves with respect to how society perceives their sex/gender.

So you know how in the DSM 5, everything became a "spectrum disorder". The exact same principles can apply to sexes and genders. They have finally realized (by "they", I mean the medical profession; psychiatry mostly) that they cannot box people in such silly ways.

Feminism: they can say all they want but they do not dictate biology. I do not think it is possible to defend the position that society does not dictate gender stereotypes.

As I already told Andrew, genes are part of the environment. The other members of your species are made up bags of genes. These bags of genes are part of your social environment. — Harry Hindu

I agree with this position. I believe that the best way to view what "life" is, is to view it as entities that can reproduce and protect genetic upgrades. "anti-life" would be viruses. Everything else is just one thing... "life". bacteria is life, humans are life.. the divisions do not make sense to me. It would be bizarre to not think of all life on the planet just being self protecting genetic code.

This is a great example of how both nature and nurture (the environment) have equal influence on what we are now. — Harry Hindu

This claim would require quite a fair bit of justification (with data) to support. You would first need to come up with a metric to measure the relative contributions to even begin to utter the words which you have here spoken. If you were to be able to defend this statement in a peer-reviewed manner, you would probably win a Nobel Prize.

This claim would require quite a fair bit of justification (with data) to support. You would first need to come up with a metric to measure the relative contributions to even begin to utter the words which you have here spoken. If you were to be able to defend this statement in a peer-reviewed manner, you would probably win a Nobel Prize. — MarcRousseau

My point in the quote above that, was that nature and nurture are the same. If they are the same thing, then it makes no sense to say that there must be some distinction between them that we can measure.

Nature doesn't have goals, like trusting the environment to complete our designs. You imply that nature has a mind.: I don´t imply anything Harry Hindu, I used a personal language as biologists do to. Because we all know beforhand that nature has no mind (so far as we know); it´s like saying: "these clouds are promising" when you expect them to produce rain.

"anti-life" would be viruses" Well not at all MarcRousseau; viruses are very very important for life in all scales. They are as important as bacteria and I´m not sure that life could even happen without them. Consider for example, how the DNA molecule in each of your cells is a former macro-virus that infected ancient unicellular forms.

Hello Mr. Hindu,

My point in the quote above that, was that nature and nurture are the same. If they are the same thing, then it makes no sense to say that there must be some distinction between them that we can measure. — Harry Hindu

I do not think nature and nurture are the same at all. Humans, being a subset of "life", are both. If you think about Nature vs Nurture in terms of gene expression, this distinction between the two becomes rather hard to ignore. Nature is essentially what you were born with.. so it is precisely the genetic code included in your DNA from the point that you were born.

Nurture is the sum total of all physiological interactions with the environment. This includes every single thought you have had and all the food you have eaten, everything you have witnessed, how well you sleep, etc... everything. The nurture will increase or decrease gene expression according to need, provided that system which deals with the thing you are doing, has the capacity to make adjustments.

Nature and Nurture are distinct in the same sense that Yin and Yang in the taijitu symbol are separate: opposite forces within the same active system. Both nature and nurture are made of information, interacting with information. Nature is Yang, and Nurture is Yin. if you push dough through a tool to make spaghetti, the push of the dough is yang and the container with holes it has to go through to make the filaments is yin. Our genetic self is dough, our vital energy is the push, and our environment is the device with the shaping holes.

We can should think of DNA, bodies, personalities as static objects, but as phenomena that happen in time. This approach makes easier to understand how nature and nurture are the same process.

I add this picture for ilustration of the Yin Yang dynamics:

https://i.blogs.es/fff198/marcato/original.jpg

If this were the case, then we could raise elephants in a human society and they would become human. This obviously isn't what will happen, because an elephant's nature is such that it can't behave like a human. It is designed differently. Its nature is such that it prevents it from being affected the same way humans are by our social environment. In other words we would have equal outcomes for everyone, despite their genetic differences if they were simply raised in the same environment. This isn't the case. Nature is just as important as nurturing in the how an individual develops.

I like this idea. Thanks.

I think that just creating a child makes you ultimately responsible for that child. I think there is a lot parents can do before and after a child is born that influences outcomes.

It seems very easy to influence outcomes and I cannot see how genes can prevent an outcome being influenced.
The below video outlines some of the problems with behavioral genetics and twin studies.
For example identical twins separated at birth still shared the womb for 9 months and could be equally influenced by the mother biochemistry and her moods and so on.

I think part of this issue comes down to free will and volition so that we are not just driven by natural forces but can intervene.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0WZx7lUOrY

Hello Mr. Hindu,

This is not the case at all about genetics. You should think about what I have said a bit. The DNA we have and the DNA the elephants have is different. To be able to behave like us, they would need the capacity to make large brains as well as to make to have the right vocal chords etc... I do not think you can think of these things as simply as you are making it out to be. These processes are quite complicated actually and need to be understood from a biological point of view before attempting to reason about them in philosophical manner.

The twin studies you have mentioned are a really interesting example of nurture and nature playing together. These twins should have identical DNA and yet they do not look exactly alike. What is the difference? usually nurture.

I wish you all good luck in your quest for knowledge.