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>For instance, identical twins raised apart are not always concordant for mental conditions, The very same twin studies prove my point...no one is saying every

>For instance, identical twins raised apart are not always concordant for mental conditions, The very same twin studies prove my point...no one is saying every person with Gene X behaves a certain way. But we do know for a fact that, say, person with Gene Y may be X% more likely to exhibit behavior Z. They also strongly suggest that intelligence is heritible. Do you also want to tell me that because twins don't look 100% identical that their appearances aren't correlated at all?

perl4ever 7y ago
You might have heard that correlation isn't causation? It's a very common statement, that people think they know the meaning of. But the way it is always used is, this correlation isn't causation, because I don't like it, and that correlation is causation, because I do like it. In other words, special pleading. If something is not causative, which you seem to acknowledge in your example of "gene X", then why exactly do you attribute a correlation to something other than coincidence? What is coincidence, anyway? Einstein said coincidence is literally the only thing anyone ever experiences, in a literal mathematical/physical sense.
- twomoretime 7y ago
  Well if you consider all the entropy in the universe, our particular microstate is an indescribably rare coincidence... It's a matter of probability. Each if the following, individually, you'll agree, is rather probably correct: 1. Genes control brain structure 2. Brain structure controls predisposition toward cognitive macrostates (we classify them as pathologies) 3. Macrostates like BPD, ADHD, and Autism are proxies for specific behavioral tendencies 4. Genes are heritable Why this has taken so long to discern is the noise from 30-70% environmental influence. Point being there's far more than correlation here, there's a direct known mechanism.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Do you think there is "a gene" for being an asshole on the internet? Is there an instruction, or a group of instructions, responsible for a computer game being terrible? Can we learn anything useful from the THERAC-25 disaster by studying which instructions were linked to it in order to stop using software that has those instructions? Talking about separating the noise or environmental influence is "not even wrong".
    - twomoretime 7y ago
      >Do you think there is "a gene" for being an asshole on the internet? Well of course, there are multiple such genes that predispose people toward being "assholes" on the internet. One could argue that autism related genes increase the odds that a person will be called an asshole online. >Is there an instruction, or a group of instructions, responsible for a computer game being terrible Well you're kind of stretching with this analogy here...code doesn't sexually reproduce and lines of code don't typically have such global and complex functions. >Talking about separating the noise or environmental influence is "not even wrong". That's a little ridiculous, isn't it? Are you saying there's no reason to study the relationship between behavior and genes because there's too much noise? Is that something you think is true or something you want to be true? Because OP literally proves you wrong...
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        "Are you saying there's no reason to study the relationship between behavior and genes because there's too much noise" No, I'm trying really hard to express the idea that the question of whether there is/is not too much noise is a completely meaningless, wrongheaded question to ask. If you did the analysis on a computer game that sucked, maybe you find that GPU related code was correlated? Does that mean less GPU code = less suckage? You didn't respond to the THERAC-25 comment, which may have been the most targeted one to what I'm trying to communicate. What do you think is "proven wrong"?

perl4ever 7y ago

You might have heard that correlation isn't causation? It's a very common statement, that people think they know the meaning of. But the way it is always used is, this correlation isn't causation, because I don't like it, and that correlation is causation, because I do like it. In other words, special pleading. If something is not causative, which you seem to acknowledge in your example of "gene X", then why exactly do you attribute a correlation to something other than coincidence? What is coincidence, anyway? Einstein said coincidence is literally the only thing anyone ever experiences, in a literal mathematical/physical sense.

twomoretime 7y ago
Well if you consider all the entropy in the universe, our particular microstate is an indescribably rare coincidence... It's a matter of probability. Each if the following, individually, you'll agree, is rather probably correct: 1. Genes control brain structure 2. Brain structure controls predisposition toward cognitive macrostates (we classify them as pathologies) 3. Macrostates like BPD, ADHD, and Autism are proxies for specific behavioral tendencies 4. Genes are heritable Why this has taken so long to discern is the noise from 30-70% environmental influence. Point being there's far more than correlation here, there's a direct known mechanism.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Do you think there is "a gene" for being an asshole on the internet? Is there an instruction, or a group of instructions, responsible for a computer game being terrible? Can we learn anything useful from the THERAC-25 disaster by studying which instructions were linked to it in order to stop using software that has those instructions? Talking about separating the noise or environmental influence is "not even wrong".
  - twomoretime 7y ago
    >Do you think there is "a gene" for being an asshole on the internet? Well of course, there are multiple such genes that predispose people toward being "assholes" on the internet. One could argue that autism related genes increase the odds that a person will be called an asshole online. >Is there an instruction, or a group of instructions, responsible for a computer game being terrible Well you're kind of stretching with this analogy here...code doesn't sexually reproduce and lines of code don't typically have such global and complex functions. >Talking about separating the noise or environmental influence is "not even wrong". That's a little ridiculous, isn't it? Are you saying there's no reason to study the relationship between behavior and genes because there's too much noise? Is that something you think is true or something you want to be true? Because OP literally proves you wrong...
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      "Are you saying there's no reason to study the relationship between behavior and genes because there's too much noise" No, I'm trying really hard to express the idea that the question of whether there is/is not too much noise is a completely meaningless, wrongheaded question to ask. If you did the analysis on a computer game that sucked, maybe you find that GPU related code was correlated? Does that mean less GPU code = less suckage? You didn't respond to the THERAC-25 comment, which may have been the most targeted one to what I'm trying to communicate. What do you think is "proven wrong"?