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The key to thinking about nature versus nurture that I never see mentioned: If you believe in evolution, you have to believe in the genetic determinism of gene

The key to thinking about nature versus nurture that I never see mentioned: If you believe in evolution, you have to believe in the genetic determinism of genes. Sure, there is leeway for nurture, but a lot of people are holding contradicting opinions (they believe in evolution but not as much in "nature") because we as a society are hiding the truth of human determinism.

jimbob45 7y ago
Calm down there, Hitler. There's no conspiracy to hide any supposed truths of genetic superiority.
- 83457 7y ago
  I don't think he is saying what you think he is saying. I took it more along the lines of we (free society) want to believe that anyone can be anything if they are given the right opportunities in life from birth. Someone could mistakenly take that to an extreme about whole classes of people but that's not what the comment was about IMO.
- warent 7y ago
  This is a really terrible comment. It adds nothing of value and completely misses the point of the parent post apparently just for the sake of weakly transplanting an overused unfunny meme from outside the community. They're saying that people seem to fail to acknowledge how much our genes determine who we are because it can feel like a scary disconnect from free will.
- dang 7y ago
  This comment breaks several of the site guidelines. Would you please review them and stick to the rules when commenting here? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
lacker 7y ago
If you read a decent amount of genetics research, you usually end up discovering some conclusions that are politically unacceptable. Even a comment as bland as yours, you can see some people consider it Hitlerian. But at the same time plenty of people do read genetics research and perform cutting edge experiments that advance the state of the art. It is acceptable to do these things, as long as you use enough academic jargon that laymen and politicians can't understand what you're saying.
- ajross 7y ago
  You have an example of something politically unacceptable revealed via "genetics research"?
  - rpmisms 7y ago
    You can tell people's race by their DNA, meaning that there are genetic differences caused by race? Saying that is unacceptable in many spheres today.
    - bolzano 7y ago
      No, you can't because "race" isn't a useful or well defined term or object and doesn't apply (is incommensurable) to genetics. Worse it comes absolutely loaded with social and political implications. It doesn't describe anything we can really point to, but is just a highly charged, culturally variable label we place on a cluster of outward appearances (e.g. excess or lack of melanin, hair or eye color, height). You might be able to tell if a particular individual is likely to have a lack of melanin or blue eyes from DNA, but you can't say genetic differences are caused by race. That in the famous words of Pauli is not even wrong. It's a category error, and even if it were useful it also inverts the causality. We apply the label "race" to a cluster of possibly DNA influenced outward markers. We humans cause "race" and apply it to people. Not genetics. Using a poorly defined term like race in an argument like this is worse than just poor reasoning. It will confuse people at best and cause harm at worst. It's not unacceptable because people are afraid of the truth or something. It's unacceptable because it's incoherent, vacuous and empty. It adds nothing to the discourse.
dsr_ 7y ago
That's awfully simplistic. Evolution is simply three observable phenomena: first, living things carry genetic information; second, genetic information is rarely transmitted without any change to a descendant; third, a living thing that does not have descendants doesn't directly contribute their genetic information to any descendants. There's nothing there to "believe" in any more than you need to believe in gravity. Next, everything that happens to an organism that is not determined by genes is determined by the rest of the universe. That's pretty obvious. A really interesting aspect, though, is that genes can't do anything if they aren't being read and processed correctly. Reduce the supply of essential nutrients, and it doesn't matter how awesome your genes are, you're going to get a deficiency disease. Fill the environment with chlorine compounds, and you're going to get poisoned. Too much lead? Too much alcohol? Say goodbye to proper development. When it comes to humans, it's even worse. If you don't interact with them enough, they don't develop well. Language skill has a few years to develop properly -- without society, humans can't function in society. None of those results suggest that we are hiding some sort of determinism that we should be paying more attention to.
- seppel 7y ago
  The thing is, if you take the species dogs, pigs, horses, apes, and humans, then you can clearly put them somewhere on a scale regarding their ability to learn or understand (a) simple language (b) complex language, (c) simple math (d) advanced math. There might be some edge cases, but an average human will be better at any other species no matter how hard you try. There is a very hard species boundary, so it must be something that is giving to the offsprings. If you further accept that the ability to learn advanced math does not fall from the sky and we somehow descended from an ancestor that did not have this ability, then the only way we got here is that (something that correlates to) this ability was heavily selected for in the past. And you need some kind of continuum (it can also be multi-dimensional) where you can gradually converge to. I don't think this is something that spontaneously emerged. If you accept all this, then the same things will likely still play a role within current humans.
ajross 7y ago
Sorry, how exactly are acquired non-genomic phenoma like developmental attributes, culture, language, or hell, even learned behavior... at odds with the theory of evolution. Evolution works through genes (well, mostly). That doesn't say other things have zero effect, and I'm really curious about what led you to think so.
- codingslave 7y ago
  I'm quite busy so I can't type it all out. But Noam Chomsky has an interesting perspective on language, which is that we are predisposed to it. If our brains did not have fixed architectures we could not develop. Learning language is a genetically encoded process, much like the deterministic developmental structure of your brain is. Further, things like culture are the aggregations of personalities and other factors, so it makes less sense to argue there (though I believe that culture is also determined). Personality for instance, is almost certainly genetically determined. What we call personality is an amalgamation of traits, all of which (intelligence, thought patterns, sociability) are inheritable. How could we have evolution while at the same time not pass down things like "how quick I am to anger". Its not as concrete, but at times just may be. Most likely you will slam me for the lack of rigor in my comment, which is fine, I don't have the time to spell it out and provide studies.
api 7y ago
> If you believe in evolution, you have to believe in the genetic determinism of genes. The determinism part doesn't follow. Evolution works on probabilities, so you have to believe that genes influence the outcome. Influence. That's all that's needed.

jimbob45 7y ago

Calm down there, Hitler. There's no conspiracy to hide any supposed truths of genetic superiority.

83457 7y ago
I don't think he is saying what you think he is saying. I took it more along the lines of we (free society) want to believe that anyone can be anything if they are given the right opportunities in life from birth. Someone could mistakenly take that to an extreme about whole classes of people but that's not what the comment was about IMO.
warent 7y ago
This is a really terrible comment. It adds nothing of value and completely misses the point of the parent post apparently just for the sake of weakly transplanting an overused unfunny meme from outside the community. They're saying that people seem to fail to acknowledge how much our genes determine who we are because it can feel like a scary disconnect from free will.
dang 7y ago
This comment breaks several of the site guidelines. Would you please review them and stick to the rules when commenting here? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

lacker 7y ago

If you read a decent amount of genetics research, you usually end up discovering some conclusions that are politically unacceptable. Even a comment as bland as yours, you can see some people consider it Hitlerian. But at the same time plenty of people do read genetics research and perform cutting edge experiments that advance the state of the art. It is acceptable to do these things, as long as you use enough academic jargon that laymen and politicians can't understand what you're saying.

ajross 7y ago
You have an example of something politically unacceptable revealed via "genetics research"?
- rpmisms 7y ago
  You can tell people's race by their DNA, meaning that there are genetic differences caused by race? Saying that is unacceptable in many spheres today.
  - bolzano 7y ago
    No, you can't because "race" isn't a useful or well defined term or object and doesn't apply (is incommensurable) to genetics. Worse it comes absolutely loaded with social and political implications. It doesn't describe anything we can really point to, but is just a highly charged, culturally variable label we place on a cluster of outward appearances (e.g. excess or lack of melanin, hair or eye color, height). You might be able to tell if a particular individual is likely to have a lack of melanin or blue eyes from DNA, but you can't say genetic differences are caused by race. That in the famous words of Pauli is not even wrong. It's a category error, and even if it were useful it also inverts the causality. We apply the label "race" to a cluster of possibly DNA influenced outward markers. We humans cause "race" and apply it to people. Not genetics. Using a poorly defined term like race in an argument like this is worse than just poor reasoning. It will confuse people at best and cause harm at worst. It's not unacceptable because people are afraid of the truth or something. It's unacceptable because it's incoherent, vacuous and empty. It adds nothing to the discourse.

dsr_ 7y ago

That's awfully simplistic. Evolution is simply three observable phenomena: first, living things carry genetic information; second, genetic information is rarely transmitted without any change to a descendant; third, a living thing that does not have descendants doesn't directly contribute their genetic information to any descendants. There's nothing there to "believe" in any more than you need to believe in gravity. Next, everything that happens to an organism that is not determined by genes is determined by the rest of the universe. That's pretty obvious. A really interesting aspect, though, is that genes can't do anything if they aren't being read and processed correctly. Reduce the supply of essential nutrients, and it doesn't matter how awesome your genes are, you're going to get a deficiency disease. Fill the environment with chlorine compounds, and you're going to get poisoned. Too much lead? Too much alcohol? Say goodbye to proper development. When it comes to humans, it's even worse. If you don't interact with them enough, they don't develop well. Language skill has a few years to develop properly -- without society, humans can't function in society. None of those results suggest that we are hiding some sort of determinism that we should be paying more attention to.

seppel 7y ago
The thing is, if you take the species dogs, pigs, horses, apes, and humans, then you can clearly put them somewhere on a scale regarding their ability to learn or understand (a) simple language (b) complex language, (c) simple math (d) advanced math. There might be some edge cases, but an average human will be better at any other species no matter how hard you try. There is a very hard species boundary, so it must be something that is giving to the offsprings. If you further accept that the ability to learn advanced math does not fall from the sky and we somehow descended from an ancestor that did not have this ability, then the only way we got here is that (something that correlates to) this ability was heavily selected for in the past. And you need some kind of continuum (it can also be multi-dimensional) where you can gradually converge to. I don't think this is something that spontaneously emerged. If you accept all this, then the same things will likely still play a role within current humans.

ajross 7y ago

Sorry, how exactly are acquired non-genomic phenoma like developmental attributes, culture, language, or hell, even learned behavior... at odds with the theory of evolution. Evolution works through genes (well, mostly). That doesn't say other things have zero effect, and I'm really curious about what led you to think so.

codingslave 7y ago
I'm quite busy so I can't type it all out. But Noam Chomsky has an interesting perspective on language, which is that we are predisposed to it. If our brains did not have fixed architectures we could not develop. Learning language is a genetically encoded process, much like the deterministic developmental structure of your brain is. Further, things like culture are the aggregations of personalities and other factors, so it makes less sense to argue there (though I believe that culture is also determined). Personality for instance, is almost certainly genetically determined. What we call personality is an amalgamation of traits, all of which (intelligence, thought patterns, sociability) are inheritable. How could we have evolution while at the same time not pass down things like "how quick I am to anger". Its not as concrete, but at times just may be. Most likely you will slam me for the lack of rigor in my comment, which is fine, I don't have the time to spell it out and provide studies.

api 7y ago

> If you believe in evolution, you have to believe in the genetic determinism of genes. The determinism part doesn't follow. Evolution works on probabilities, so you have to believe that genes influence the outcome. Influence. That's all that's needed.