3 ms·
>What I’m reading here is feminine good, masculine bad. I think that's an oversimplification. Males of most mammal species are more aggressive than females.
by nobody9999 6y ago
>What I’m reading here is feminine good, masculine bad.
I think that's an oversimplification. Males of most mammal species are more aggressive than females.
As David Eagleman[0] points out (WRT to one mammal species):
"Many of us like to believe that all adults possess the same capacity to make sound choices. It’s a nice idea, but it’s wrong…
Who you even have the possibility to be starts well before your childhood — it starts at conception. If you think genes don’t matter for how people behave, consider this amazing fact: if you are a carrier of a particular set of genes, your probability of committing a violent crime goes up by eight hundred and eighty-two percent. Here are statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, which I’ve broken down into two groups: crimes committed by the population that carries this specific set of genes and by the population that does not:
Average Number of Violent Crimes Committed
Annually in the United States
Offense
Carrying the genes Not carrying the genes
Aggravated assault
3,419,000 435,000
Homicide
14,196 1,468
Armed robbery
2,051,000 157,000
Sexual assault
442,000 10,000
In other words, if you carry these genes, you’re eight times more likely to commit aggravated assault, ten times more likely to commit murder, thirteen times more likely to commit armed robbery and forty-four times more likely to commit sexual assault.
About one half of the human population carries these genes, while the other half does not, making the first half much more dangerous indeed. It’s not even a contest. The overwhelming majority of prisoners carry these genes, as do 98.4 percent of those on death row. It seems clear enough that the carriers are strongly predisposed to a different type of behavior – and everyone is coming to the table equally equipped in terms of drives and behavior.
We’ll return to these genes in a moment, but first I want to tie the issue back to the main point we’ve seen throughout this book: we are not the ones driving the boat of our behavior, at least not nearly as much as we believe. Who we are runs well below the surface of our conscious access, and the details reach back in time to before our birth, when the meeting of a sperm and egg granted us with certain attributes and not others. Who we can be begins with our molecular blueprints – a series of alien codes penned in invisibly small strings of amino acids – well before we have anything to do with it. We are a product of our inaccessible, microscopic history.
By the way, as regards that dangerous set of genes, you’ve probably heard of them. They are summarized as the Y chromosome. If you’re a carrier, we call you a male."
[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307389928/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0307389928&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwjrbenjamin-20&linkId=QWIJGN4LNY3JQUYF https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307389928/ref=as_li_tl?ie...
- nyolfen 6y agoi know this is supposed to be a bit of a gotcha but there really are specific genes (not chromosomes) that are strongly correlated with violent crime: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29760212 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29760212
- nobody9999 6y ago>i know this is supposed to be a bit of a gotcha but there really are specific genes (not chromosomes) that are strongly correlated with violent crime: It's not supposed to be a gotcha at all. My point (as I stated in the first sentence of my comment) was that male mammals tend to be more aggressive. That implies violence, but also taking more risks as well. I'd also point out that the article[0] you linked doesn't cover the broad outline that Eagleman presents: "The authors of the study, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, said at least 5-10% of all violent crime in Finland could be attributed to individuals with these genotypes." [emphasis added] The point I was making (and that of the quote I included)was male behavior vs. female behavior -- which is directly related to the discussion of how and why vastly more male mammoth skeletons have been preserved as compared with female mammoth skeletons. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29760212 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29760212
- nyolfen 6y agothat's great; the excerpt you posted, however, was phrased as a 'gotcha' -- as in, 'you thought i was talking about a gene, but in fact i was talking about a sex'
- nobody9999 6y ago>that's great; the excerpt you posted, however, was phrased as a 'gotcha' -- as in, 'you thought i was talking about a gene, but in fact i was talking about a sex' If you have an issue with that, I suggest you take it up with David Eagleman[0]. I made it very clear (in the first sentence of my comment in fact, as I mentioned previously) what I was talking about. I thought that example to be apt, so I used it. [0] https://www.eagleman.com/ https://www.eagleman.com/