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> parents matter, but they don’t make a difference This can clearly be refuted by the following argument: 1. Human nature has changed little over the past 100

> parents matter, but they don’t make a difference This can clearly be refuted by the following argument: 1. Human nature has changed little over the past 10000 years 2. The capability of individuals has improved massively over the past 10000 years 3. Any improvement in capability must be due to environmental changes over the past 10000 years(nurture) as nature has not changed 4. Parents are responsible for a large part of your environment I don't see how this nature vs nurture debate ever became a thing. Smells like leftover thinking from racism or something. IMO the only debate should be around which aspects of the nurture environment are the most important. One more note to add: Interestingly, in homogeneous/"equal" environments, each individual is given effectively equal opportunity and environment - which will mean that the smaller nature-based differences will start to matter. So from a certain perspective, the more we fight for equal "competitive footing" in winner-take-all situations, the more will see nature-based properties mattering more, which comes with a whole whack of other problems (see the film GATTACA).

dahart 4y ago
> I don't see how this nature vs nurture debate ever became a thing. Smells like leftover thinking from racism or something. IMO the only debate should be around which aspects of the nurture environment are the most important. Agreed, this argument (#3) is all the proof we need for quite a few of the social debates we’re still having, including race. Gender equality is another one, people to this day suggesting that gender disparities might be due to “natural” preferences of men and women, while those preferences are in flux and different from country to country. It cannot be genetics, obviously, because genetics isn’t changing that fast. Too bad our human nature is such that we don’t always listen to reason. I would maybe add a 1a to clarify that human behavior has changed over the past 10k years, and using this lens is a good way to identify that behaviors that change are almost certainly nurture.
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  >Gender equality is another one, people to this day suggesting that gender disparities might be due to “natural” preferences of men and women, while those preferences are in flux and different from country to country. For real? There are plenty of sex differences that exist across cultures (a big one being that men are comparatively more interested in tools, and less interested in other people) that for whatever reason educated people in the West love to deny.
  - dahart 4y ago
    For real, but relax because you’re actually agreeing with me mostly. If a trait is cross-cultural and not changing over time, then you’re arguing the opposite of what I said. I wasn’t claiming there are no differences, nor that all disparities are nurture, and I did explicitly say I was talking about traits that are changing and not cross-cultural, didn’t I? Traits that are culture-specific indicate nurture, traits that change over time indicate nurture, and traits that are shared globally and not changing indicate nature. That said, the hypothesis you’re talking about has a low level and very specific meaning in the literature that does not extend directly to things like choice of profession. When you summarize it as “men are comparatively more interested in tools”, or “less interested in other people”, that is glossing over a lot of detail and can be completely misleading without context. It has little to no bearing on whether women like to write software or men like to be empathetic and supportive and social. The other thing it glosses over is the magnitude of the difference. Does comparatively more mean 10% more or does it mean 0.001% more? Leaving the magnitude of the difference out while saying one is more than the other is a way to imply the difference is larger than it really is.
    - AussieWog93 4y ago
      I guess at the end of the day, a particular generation of men (graduating from late 00's - ?) were fucked over hard at a particularly vulnerable time in their lives by groups pushing for gender equality. Regardless of how "natural" it is for STEM to be gendered to the extent that it is (and from what I've heard, giving women more autonomy _reduces_ the likelihood they'll pursue STEM), you're always going to face opposition from this group because we have experienced the real-world policies that this type of thinking leads to. I guess it's like eugenics. The fact that it may or may be true is beside the point - that train of thought leads people to justify actions that are simply destructive.
      - dahart 4y ago
        > giving women more autonomy _reduces_ the likelihood they'll pursue STEM Not true. This data is 1) changing rapidly, 2) not cross-cultural, not to mention 3) cherry-picked time frame. There isn’t great evidence for this if you start from the year 1800, since all the numbers now are still higher. Numbers went up for a long time, and then started going down in the 80s. Numbers in India are dramatically different than the US. These things prove the changes are cultural and cannot be genetic, to the top comment’s point. Genetics isn’t changing this fast. You stated a recently observed correlation as though it was causation, an as though it was true for all people for all time. Causation has not been shown (the authors of the study you’re citing stated they do not have an explanation.) and the recent trend represents a recent change in the direction of trends, and didn’t happen in all countries, nor at the same time. So if you think STEM rates today are due to only nature, then you’re full of belief that isn’t backed by science. BTW the one single study you’re referring to is not accepted by everyone (replication attempts have failed), and had enough problems it had to issue a correction. Other researchers believe many aspect of the study were cherry picked, not just the time frame. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/women-stem-gender-equality-paradox-correction https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/women-ste...
imbnwa 4y ago
Is the cutoff of ~10K years meant to align with the agricultural revolution?
lelanthran 4y ago
Whether or not this argument is valid or sound, this is not a politically correct argument to make because the conclusion is not politically correct: > 3. Any improvement in capability must be due to environmental changes over the past 10000 years(nurture) as nature has not changed Claiming that the environment is significantly responsible for how kids turn out is going to draw a lot of ire from those cultures (and subcultures) who consistently turn out lower performing individuals. In effect, the argument that kids turn out better in a particular environment is equivalent to the argument that some cultures are inferior.
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  There is nothing politically or scientifically incorrect about saying that parents who educate their kids raise more successful children. It is both scientifically and politically incorrect to say that parenting doesn't matter, only the color of the child's skin. It is just all around incorrect to say that groups of people raise worse kids intentionally due to culture. Children raised by uneducated parents surrounded by crime are worse off due to their environment, and their culture is a product of that environment. It is only by the collective will of society (e.g., promoting enlightenment ideals over the objections of the superstitious masses, which happened longer ago in some places vs. others by political chance) that this changes. It is politically incorrect to blame people who are in these situations instead of bringing about the change to fix it.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > It is both scientifically and politically incorrect to say that parenting doesn't matter, only the color of the child's skin. Who said that? Looks and sounds like a strawman, otherwise why are you responding to a race-based argument that was never made? > It is politically incorrect to blame people who are in these situations instead of bringing about the change to fix it. Once again, who actually did that? Another strawman? A culture that normalises or encourages single parents over the alternatives results in worse outcomes for those kids. It's an inferior culture. A culture that values sports over education results in worse outcomes for those kids. It's an inferior culture. A culture which encourages primitive and superstitious practices results in worse outcomes for those kids. It's an inferior culture. The trouble is that you cannot actually win any argument in trying to "uplift" or "enlighten" people by asking them to reject what they consider parts of their culture. To many people, just pointing out that what they consider "normal" is actually detrimental to their kids is considered an attack on themselves by an oppressive bigot. There are cultures who consider any form of non-humanities education to be oppression. You aren't going to fix them by simply moving them into a new environment. They usually take their beliefs with them. Whites don't have the best outcomes, Asians have better outcomes (I think Hasidic Jews have the best, but I am not sure). That's not because of race, it's because of different cultures[1]. There are multiple different cultures even in the same race group! So it's quite confusing to me why you immediately and so quickly responded to a race-based argument that was never made. Some cultures really are inferior to others, but I don't know how you'd go about uplifting those cultures at the bottom of the performance spectrum while remaining politically correct. [1] What we really need is a study that looked specifically at things like Asian kids growing up in a black neighbourhood, or black kids adopted by Hasidic jews, or similar.

dahart 4y ago

> I don't see how this nature vs nurture debate ever became a thing. Smells like leftover thinking from racism or something. IMO the only debate should be around which aspects of the nurture environment are the most important. Agreed, this argument (#3) is all the proof we need for quite a few of the social debates we’re still having, including race. Gender equality is another one, people to this day suggesting that gender disparities might be due to “natural” preferences of men and women, while those preferences are in flux and different from country to country. It cannot be genetics, obviously, because genetics isn’t changing that fast. Too bad our human nature is such that we don’t always listen to reason. I would maybe add a 1a to clarify that human behavior has changed over the past 10k years, and using this lens is a good way to identify that behaviors that change are almost certainly nurture.

AussieWog93 4y ago
>Gender equality is another one, people to this day suggesting that gender disparities might be due to “natural” preferences of men and women, while those preferences are in flux and different from country to country. For real? There are plenty of sex differences that exist across cultures (a big one being that men are comparatively more interested in tools, and less interested in other people) that for whatever reason educated people in the West love to deny.
- dahart 4y ago
  For real, but relax because you’re actually agreeing with me mostly. If a trait is cross-cultural and not changing over time, then you’re arguing the opposite of what I said. I wasn’t claiming there are no differences, nor that all disparities are nurture, and I did explicitly say I was talking about traits that are changing and not cross-cultural, didn’t I? Traits that are culture-specific indicate nurture, traits that change over time indicate nurture, and traits that are shared globally and not changing indicate nature. That said, the hypothesis you’re talking about has a low level and very specific meaning in the literature that does not extend directly to things like choice of profession. When you summarize it as “men are comparatively more interested in tools”, or “less interested in other people”, that is glossing over a lot of detail and can be completely misleading without context. It has little to no bearing on whether women like to write software or men like to be empathetic and supportive and social. The other thing it glosses over is the magnitude of the difference. Does comparatively more mean 10% more or does it mean 0.001% more? Leaving the magnitude of the difference out while saying one is more than the other is a way to imply the difference is larger than it really is.
  - AussieWog93 4y ago
    I guess at the end of the day, a particular generation of men (graduating from late 00's - ?) were fucked over hard at a particularly vulnerable time in their lives by groups pushing for gender equality. Regardless of how "natural" it is for STEM to be gendered to the extent that it is (and from what I've heard, giving women more autonomy _reduces_ the likelihood they'll pursue STEM), you're always going to face opposition from this group because we have experienced the real-world policies that this type of thinking leads to. I guess it's like eugenics. The fact that it may or may be true is beside the point - that train of thought leads people to justify actions that are simply destructive.
    - dahart 4y ago
      > giving women more autonomy _reduces_ the likelihood they'll pursue STEM Not true. This data is 1) changing rapidly, 2) not cross-cultural, not to mention 3) cherry-picked time frame. There isn’t great evidence for this if you start from the year 1800, since all the numbers now are still higher. Numbers went up for a long time, and then started going down in the 80s. Numbers in India are dramatically different than the US. These things prove the changes are cultural and cannot be genetic, to the top comment’s point. Genetics isn’t changing this fast. You stated a recently observed correlation as though it was causation, an as though it was true for all people for all time. Causation has not been shown (the authors of the study you’re citing stated they do not have an explanation.) and the recent trend represents a recent change in the direction of trends, and didn’t happen in all countries, nor at the same time. So if you think STEM rates today are due to only nature, then you’re full of belief that isn’t backed by science. BTW the one single study you’re referring to is not accepted by everyone (replication attempts have failed), and had enough problems it had to issue a correction. Other researchers believe many aspect of the study were cherry picked, not just the time frame. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/women-stem-gender-equality-paradox-correction https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/women-ste...

imbnwa 4y ago

Is the cutoff of ~10K years meant to align with the agricultural revolution?

lelanthran 4y ago

Whether or not this argument is valid or sound, this is not a politically correct argument to make because the conclusion is not politically correct: > 3. Any improvement in capability must be due to environmental changes over the past 10000 years(nurture) as nature has not changed Claiming that the environment is significantly responsible for how kids turn out is going to draw a lot of ire from those cultures (and subcultures) who consistently turn out lower performing individuals. In effect, the argument that kids turn out better in a particular environment is equivalent to the argument that some cultures are inferior.

lern_too_spel 4y ago
There is nothing politically or scientifically incorrect about saying that parents who educate their kids raise more successful children. It is both scientifically and politically incorrect to say that parenting doesn't matter, only the color of the child's skin. It is just all around incorrect to say that groups of people raise worse kids intentionally due to culture. Children raised by uneducated parents surrounded by crime are worse off due to their environment, and their culture is a product of that environment. It is only by the collective will of society (e.g., promoting enlightenment ideals over the objections of the superstitious masses, which happened longer ago in some places vs. others by political chance) that this changes. It is politically incorrect to blame people who are in these situations instead of bringing about the change to fix it.
- lelanthran 4y ago
  > It is both scientifically and politically incorrect to say that parenting doesn't matter, only the color of the child's skin. Who said that? Looks and sounds like a strawman, otherwise why are you responding to a race-based argument that was never made? > It is politically incorrect to blame people who are in these situations instead of bringing about the change to fix it. Once again, who actually did that? Another strawman? A culture that normalises or encourages single parents over the alternatives results in worse outcomes for those kids. It's an inferior culture. A culture that values sports over education results in worse outcomes for those kids. It's an inferior culture. A culture which encourages primitive and superstitious practices results in worse outcomes for those kids. It's an inferior culture. The trouble is that you cannot actually win any argument in trying to "uplift" or "enlighten" people by asking them to reject what they consider parts of their culture. To many people, just pointing out that what they consider "normal" is actually detrimental to their kids is considered an attack on themselves by an oppressive bigot. There are cultures who consider any form of non-humanities education to be oppression. You aren't going to fix them by simply moving them into a new environment. They usually take their beliefs with them. Whites don't have the best outcomes, Asians have better outcomes (I think Hasidic Jews have the best, but I am not sure). That's not because of race, it's because of different cultures[1]. There are multiple different cultures even in the same race group! So it's quite confusing to me why you immediately and so quickly responded to a race-based argument that was never made. Some cultures really are inferior to others, but I don't know how you'd go about uplifting those cultures at the bottom of the performance spectrum while remaining politically correct. [1] What we really need is a study that looked specifically at things like Asian kids growing up in a black neighbourhood, or black kids adopted by Hasidic jews, or similar.