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Steven Pinker's'The Blank Slate' explains it well. Western culture has a bias toward nurture explanations rather than nature explanations because admitting natu

Steven Pinker's'The Blank Slate' explains it well. Western culture has a bias toward nurture explanations rather than nature explanations because admitting nature affects people's perceptions of their abilities and our sense of agency as a culture. If all differences are culture we can fix them. That's why it becomes political.

astazangasta 11y ago
Pinker is full of shit on this subject. I remember his intro to psych lecture including an example of a how gendered thinking is hard-wired involving small boys playing with guns. Obviously an example of socialization; evolution did not teach anything to anyone about guns. There is a huge amount of sloppy thinking in this subject.
- shasta 11y ago
  Could you expound upon your definitely-not-sloppy thoughts on why boys obviously couldn't be predisposed to playing with weapons?
  - astazangasta 11y ago
    They could be; its just difficult to conclude that based on observing that they play with weapons, since obviously they must be taught what weapons are, and along with that who (men, women) should use them. Pinker makes little effort to account for such problems and often makes the "widely observed == genetic" fallacy.
  - neffy 11y ago
    Distaff side here. I loved playing with guns when I was a kid. My parents though thought they weren't suitable for girls, so they were quickly banned. So I made my own bow and arrow set, needless to say, that didn't last long in the suburbs. Then I finally got smart, and they never found about the slingshot. And I was enlightened.
- Retric 11y ago
  People have been using bows for 500+ generations and ranged weapons for even longer. That's plenty of time for a preference for ranged combat to show up (ed: become frequent). The Atoal is believed to be ~30,000 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower And spears are ~400,000 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amentum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amentum is rather hard to date, but it's simpler than an Atoal.
  - astazangasta 11y ago
    This is the kind of argument I am criticizing; "its possible based on our vague understanding of the evolutionary background and selection that this behavior is adaptive, therefore my speculation that this behavior is genetic and the product of evolution is correct."
    - Retric 11y ago
      That's not what I said. I said there was enough time, not that anything actually happened. Thus evolution did not teach anything to anyone about guns is not a supported statement. Also, a preference for guns may or may not be there. But, males having more accurate spatial reasoning due to ranged weapons, or hunting, and or fighting seems likely. The obvious alternatives are men developed better spatial reasoning due to very widespread cultural factors seems suspicious. Or women scarified spacial reasoning for some competing features. Anyway, the important thing is not to debate this stuff it's to actually test it. Until then it's all just hot air.
      - astazangasta 11y ago
        Based on my understanding of genetics this reasoning is very unattractive. 500 generations is the blink of an eye in genetic terms, certainly not enough to establish a pervasive biological truth that splits the whole species across gender lines; maybe you could drive a single variant to global fixation in that time, certainly not a whole host of them. We also know nothing about how strong the selection in question might be. We know nothing, in fact, to suggest that evolution is "likely" other than our own gut feeling that it must be. As for testing, that would be great. But it turns out that proving anything about human evolution is very hard, because most of the evidence is lost.
bonoboTP 11y ago
This is especially so in US culture. The "eveyone's responsible for their own fate" meme is still very strong there.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  Its the unspoken shadow of "the american dream"...
- swayvil 11y ago
  It's a sneaky kind of authoritarianism. Regular people are dismissed. Only the faceless, invisible authority is respected.
- zo1 11y ago
  I disagree. The opposite is ridiculously pushed from what I can tell of the online-manifestation of western culture. Rather, what I'd argue is the elephant in the room, is that it doesn't matter which of the two is the right answer. We should take responsibility for doing the right thing, regardless if our nature or our surroundings made us a certain way. Barring certain extreme cases, of course, such as mental illness and such.
  - bonoboTP 11y ago
    I wasn't talking about which one is right. It's just an interesting feature of American culture. The positive side is that people are proud of their successes, they are encouraged, every kid is told they can one day become President etc (obviously exaggerated, but the Tall Poppy Syndrome is not characteristic of the US). The stereotypical US things, like no universal health care, no tuition-free education, lax gun laws, mass incarceration, death penalty etc. are also a manifestation of this attitude. You must take care of yourself, you must protect yourself, if you make it then great! If you become a criminal, you become subhuman and can be executed and treated brutally by the police. If you become dirt poor, that's your fault, you can become homeless, there's no welfare. Now again, I'm exaggerating somewhat to emphasize what I mean. And yes I also know the historical origins of this mentality, and as I said, there are also positive consequences, like most major innovations and scientific discoveries coming from the US, the huge dynamic market where anyone can start a new company with manageable levels of bureaucracy (compared to most European countries) etc.
swayvil 11y ago
Another reason to favor nurture explanations is that nurture explanations carry less weight in an argument than nature explanations. There's no arguing with nature, it's the ultimate citation. But nurture means that you, or somebody involved, had a choice. So the buck stops at, rather than the faceless divinity of nature, a mere human. And those are much easier to dismiss. So we paint the opposing argument as arising from nurture rather than nature. And those arguments stick around and get cited. And a "it's all nurture" model develops.

astazangasta 11y ago

Pinker is full of shit on this subject. I remember his intro to psych lecture including an example of a how gendered thinking is hard-wired involving small boys playing with guns. Obviously an example of socialization; evolution did not teach anything to anyone about guns. There is a huge amount of sloppy thinking in this subject.

shasta 11y ago
Could you expound upon your definitely-not-sloppy thoughts on why boys obviously couldn't be predisposed to playing with weapons?
- astazangasta 11y ago
  They could be; its just difficult to conclude that based on observing that they play with weapons, since obviously they must be taught what weapons are, and along with that who (men, women) should use them. Pinker makes little effort to account for such problems and often makes the "widely observed == genetic" fallacy.
- neffy 11y ago
  Distaff side here. I loved playing with guns when I was a kid. My parents though thought they weren't suitable for girls, so they were quickly banned. So I made my own bow and arrow set, needless to say, that didn't last long in the suburbs. Then I finally got smart, and they never found about the slingshot. And I was enlightened.
Retric 11y ago
People have been using bows for 500+ generations and ranged weapons for even longer. That's plenty of time for a preference for ranged combat to show up (ed: become frequent). The Atoal is believed to be ~30,000 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower And spears are ~400,000 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amentum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amentum is rather hard to date, but it's simpler than an Atoal.
- astazangasta 11y ago
  This is the kind of argument I am criticizing; "its possible based on our vague understanding of the evolutionary background and selection that this behavior is adaptive, therefore my speculation that this behavior is genetic and the product of evolution is correct."
  - Retric 11y ago
    That's not what I said. I said there was enough time, not that anything actually happened. Thus evolution did not teach anything to anyone about guns is not a supported statement. Also, a preference for guns may or may not be there. But, males having more accurate spatial reasoning due to ranged weapons, or hunting, and or fighting seems likely. The obvious alternatives are men developed better spatial reasoning due to very widespread cultural factors seems suspicious. Or women scarified spacial reasoning for some competing features. Anyway, the important thing is not to debate this stuff it's to actually test it. Until then it's all just hot air.
    - astazangasta 11y ago
      Based on my understanding of genetics this reasoning is very unattractive. 500 generations is the blink of an eye in genetic terms, certainly not enough to establish a pervasive biological truth that splits the whole species across gender lines; maybe you could drive a single variant to global fixation in that time, certainly not a whole host of them. We also know nothing about how strong the selection in question might be. We know nothing, in fact, to suggest that evolution is "likely" other than our own gut feeling that it must be. As for testing, that would be great. But it turns out that proving anything about human evolution is very hard, because most of the evidence is lost.

bonoboTP 11y ago

This is especially so in US culture. The "eveyone's responsible for their own fate" meme is still very strong there.

digi_owl 11y ago
Its the unspoken shadow of "the american dream"...
swayvil 11y ago
It's a sneaky kind of authoritarianism. Regular people are dismissed. Only the faceless, invisible authority is respected.
zo1 11y ago
I disagree. The opposite is ridiculously pushed from what I can tell of the online-manifestation of western culture. Rather, what I'd argue is the elephant in the room, is that it doesn't matter which of the two is the right answer. We should take responsibility for doing the right thing, regardless if our nature or our surroundings made us a certain way. Barring certain extreme cases, of course, such as mental illness and such.
- bonoboTP 11y ago
  I wasn't talking about which one is right. It's just an interesting feature of American culture. The positive side is that people are proud of their successes, they are encouraged, every kid is told they can one day become President etc (obviously exaggerated, but the Tall Poppy Syndrome is not characteristic of the US). The stereotypical US things, like no universal health care, no tuition-free education, lax gun laws, mass incarceration, death penalty etc. are also a manifestation of this attitude. You must take care of yourself, you must protect yourself, if you make it then great! If you become a criminal, you become subhuman and can be executed and treated brutally by the police. If you become dirt poor, that's your fault, you can become homeless, there's no welfare. Now again, I'm exaggerating somewhat to emphasize what I mean. And yes I also know the historical origins of this mentality, and as I said, there are also positive consequences, like most major innovations and scientific discoveries coming from the US, the huge dynamic market where anyone can start a new company with manageable levels of bureaucracy (compared to most European countries) etc.

swayvil 11y ago

Another reason to favor nurture explanations is that nurture explanations carry less weight in an argument than nature explanations. There's no arguing with nature, it's the ultimate citation. But nurture means that you, or somebody involved, had a choice. So the buck stops at, rather than the faceless divinity of nature, a mere human. And those are much easier to dismiss. So we paint the opposing argument as arising from nurture rather than nature. And those arguments stick around and get cited. And a "it's all nurture" model develops.