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Not sure why this is so hard to accept, why would evolution stop at the neck? Nobody has a problem with saying height is mostly genetic, yet say the same of int

Not sure why this is so hard to accept, why would evolution stop at the neck? Nobody has a problem with saying height is mostly genetic, yet say the same of intelligence and it's controversial.

corporateslaver 8y ago
I think a lot of our political ideologies are incompatable with biological determinism.
hydrox24 8y ago
> height is mostly genetic And yet until the industrial revolution, environmental factors were the dominant effect. Anyone could have been taller with enough nutrition. Genes are only ever expressed under certain environmntal conditions. The minimal condition for all of them is being alive. Malnourishment, or perhaps too much caffeine, amongst a hundred other things, all determine how our genes for height express themselves. Which is all to say, people are wrong when they say height is mostly genetic. It may be true enough under current social conditions though. I think the same problem applies to calling intelligence "largely" genetic.
- mysterypie 8y ago
  > Malnourishment, or perhaps too much caffeine, amongst a hundred other things, all determine how our genes for height express themselves. Not arguing your idea in general, but the caffeine example is probably a myth[1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/health/the-claim-drinking-coffee-can-stunt-a-childs-growth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/health/the-claim-drinking...
- iguy 8y ago
  "when they say height is mostly genetic ... under current social conditions" This is always what's meant. Perhaps it should be said more often... but nobody doubts that we can grow a bonsai. The interesting question is how much do different factors matter in our present environment (and again ideally one should specify, e.g. rich-country & above-poverty-line, not just 201X) and in environments we might reasonably hope to create.
xxxdarrenxxx 8y ago
People often say body or mind, but really it's all "body" . Not everyone has the same arm and leg strength, so why should each brain be the same. Reflex for instance, if u do an action long enough, it has been shown that a reflex curve grows in the brain, basically a "GOTO" in programming, which is a direct path. This directly increases performance, as can be seen in any sport, videogame or instrumentalist (music) This is "as muscle" as something can be. There's an overemphasis on the cognitive/sensory part of the brain, which i take hindrance in, especially with AI development. Motivation, Gut feeling, instinct, focus, excitement, persistence, self-motivation, annoyance, inspiration. I can list 100's of things, which hasn't even seen a single notion of being synthesized in AI, yet all these things, often not even aware, make us do what we do, and it's totally unknown how much of a factor they are in the grand scheme of our intelligence, and the ability to create/come to solutions by our own sentience. imagine we synthesis fear in machines. Fear is what often keep us motivated. Closely tied to loss, losing people in a natural distaster creates incentive to fix/prevent. However, this only logically applies if empathy is present. Without empathy, no incentive to fix some other's bullshit. I don't get why these things are so grossly overlooked in our way to create more sentient machines. It's all so tied together in the simplest of human actions, that leaving it out seems a very un-scientific thing to do. Evolution of the human is it's own prove on how well such a system can work when it relies both on cognition as well as emotion. Our mind only describes "how" we do what we do, but not "why" we do what we do. /rant
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lifeformed 8y ago
The controversy isn't about whether differences exist or not, but rather how strong those differences are, and how much we should factor them into society.

Not sure why this is so hard to accept, why would evolution stop at the neck? Nobody has a problem with saying height is mostly genetic, yet say the same of intelligence and it's controversial.

corporateslaver 8y ago

I think a lot of our political ideologies are incompatable with biological determinism.

hydrox24 8y ago

> height is mostly genetic And yet until the industrial revolution, environmental factors were the dominant effect. Anyone could have been taller with enough nutrition. Genes are only ever expressed under certain environmntal conditions. The minimal condition for all of them is being alive. Malnourishment, or perhaps too much caffeine, amongst a hundred other things, all determine how our genes for height express themselves. Which is all to say, people are wrong when they say height is mostly genetic. It may be true enough under current social conditions though. I think the same problem applies to calling intelligence "largely" genetic.

mysterypie 8y ago
> Malnourishment, or perhaps too much caffeine, amongst a hundred other things, all determine how our genes for height express themselves. Not arguing your idea in general, but the caffeine example is probably a myth[1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/health/the-claim-drinking-coffee-can-stunt-a-childs-growth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/health/the-claim-drinking...
iguy 8y ago
"when they say height is mostly genetic ... under current social conditions" This is always what's meant. Perhaps it should be said more often... but nobody doubts that we can grow a bonsai. The interesting question is how much do different factors matter in our present environment (and again ideally one should specify, e.g. rich-country & above-poverty-line, not just 201X) and in environments we might reasonably hope to create.

xxxdarrenxxx 8y ago

People often say body or mind, but really it's all "body" . Not everyone has the same arm and leg strength, so why should each brain be the same. Reflex for instance, if u do an action long enough, it has been shown that a reflex curve grows in the brain, basically a "GOTO" in programming, which is a direct path. This directly increases performance, as can be seen in any sport, videogame or instrumentalist (music) This is "as muscle" as something can be. There's an overemphasis on the cognitive/sensory part of the brain, which i take hindrance in, especially with AI development. Motivation, Gut feeling, instinct, focus, excitement, persistence, self-motivation, annoyance, inspiration. I can list 100's of things, which hasn't even seen a single notion of being synthesized in AI, yet all these things, often not even aware, make us do what we do, and it's totally unknown how much of a factor they are in the grand scheme of our intelligence, and the ability to create/come to solutions by our own sentience. imagine we synthesis fear in machines. Fear is what often keep us motivated. Closely tied to loss, losing people in a natural distaster creates incentive to fix/prevent. However, this only logically applies if empathy is present. Without empathy, no incentive to fix some other's bullshit. I don't get why these things are so grossly overlooked in our way to create more sentient machines. It's all so tied together in the simplest of human actions, that leaving it out seems a very un-scientific thing to do. Evolution of the human is it's own prove on how well such a system can work when it relies both on cognition as well as emotion. Our mind only describes "how" we do what we do, but not "why" we do what we do. /rant

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

lifeformed 8y ago

The controversy isn't about whether differences exist or not, but rather how strong those differences are, and how much we should factor them into society.