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I see genetics being used as a “just so” explanation for all kinds of things that the science doesn’t really support, by people with different ideologies depend

I see genetics being used as a “just so” explanation for all kinds of things that the science doesn’t really support, by people with different ideologies depending on the thing they’re trying to justify. We take obviously mostly-genetically-determined traits like height, eye/hair/skin colour, facial features etc, then extrapolate to argue/assume that all kinds of other things must also be genetically determined, like cognition, behavioral patterns, emotional patterns, for which there is far less evidence of them being hard-coded in DNA. This will be confounded by the fact that we can often see commonalities in these factors from parents to children and between siblings, and assume these commonalities exist due to genetic coding, not recognizing that there are other forms of inheritance/conditioning that can explain these commonalities, but that even if these inherited patterns are deeply ingrained, they can be altered via the right practices (emotional “letting go” being the most important in my experience).

concordDance 3y ago
Are you actually aware of the evidence on these matters? There have been studies on adopted children and identical twins. What are the results? Here's a random study on criminality I was looking at a bit ago: https://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/frisell2010.pdf https://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/frisell2010.pdf
- astrange 3y ago
  Genetics is not a credible science, ie, it's just another one of the many sciences that thinks correlation is causation. This is because it can't do experiments, so it can't really show causation. (Identical twins are close to a natural experiment but not a very good one as even they don't have the same genetics.)
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    Genetics experiments are quite commonplace these days, for example in vaccine development, plant engineering, and many other applications
    - astrange 3y ago
      I mean on humans.
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        Your claim that genetics, a science affecting all life, is not a credible science, doesn't mention humans at all, so I doubt you did. If you have to limit it to "humans only", the claim falls apart anyways, because genetics isn't human-specific
        astrange 3y ago
        Your idea of an argument is to say that people don't know what their own posts mean?
        ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        Who are you to tell us to not trust our eyes? When you're wrong at trivia, can you just claim "I meant [the right answer]"? If that's what you meant, perhaps you would have said it, but if you would had said it, it would have ruined your argument. Simply put, you haven't made a convincing case that genetics, a science affecting all life, not just humans, is "not a credible science", despite indeed involving experiments all the time. Below is where you can make that case.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - concordDance 3y ago
    > Genetics is not a credible science This is a far stronger claim than I think you mean. We have a ton of evidence that those bits of DNA in our cells govern cell expression and even know in some cases that bit X being malformed causes bad condition Y (sure, you could hypothesize that they both have a common cause, but how the heck would that work? Correlation being causation works if both common cause and backwards causation are implausible, as they are often in genetics). > but not a very good one as even they don't have the same genetics Uhhh... they have almost exactly the same genetics. To a similar extent that two random cells from your body will have the same genetics. Yes, there will be a handful of mutations, but that's very unlikely to have an effect on any particular trait.
- tomhoward 3y ago
  Yes I’ve been exploring this topic (and undertaking personal growth work) for well over a decade. I know all about the twin studies and the way they’re used to support all kinds of claims but that don’t actually hold up to scrutiny. DNA just encodes proteins. It can’t explain/predict detailed behavioral patterns. A prominent example of how genetics can influence aggressive/criminal behavior is due to variations in the MAOA (“Warrior”) gene, but the promotion/suppression of this gene is still strongly influenced by environmental factors [1]. Twin studies (particularly separated twin studies) claim to prove that all kinds of things are genetically encoded, because “they must be”, without considering how much is caused/influenced by other factors - the gestational environment and the experience of being separated from the birth family being the most obvious. That’s not to say these behavioral patterns aren’t deeply ingrained and difficult/slow to change, but that’s very different from being hard-coded in DNA and impossible to change. For n=1 anecdata, I’ve significantly reduced my aggressive tendencies after years of growth work. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3469457/#:~:text=PET%20brain%20imaging%20of%20monoamine,epigenetic%20modifications%2C%20may%20mediate%20it https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3469457/#:~:tex....
  - concordDance 3y ago
    Are you willing to have a detailed discussion on this? I don't want to spend a few hours refreshing my knowledge of the research and gathering papers only to be ignored. (Also, did you check out the paper I linked?)
    - tomhoward 3y ago
      I read the abstract and skimmed the main content and couldn’t find anything that refutes what I’ve written or what I understand. I’m fine to have a discussion if your intention is to achieve a shared understanding of the topic, which is what healthy debating is about and what this site seeks to cultivate (even if it rarely achieves it). It does seem a little like you’re more interested in “winning” an argument for a position you’re already invested in, but I’m happy to be shown otherwise and to engage in a discussion if you bring a spirit of shared learning to it. Edit: rather than doing it here (in a thread that is already very long and stale) you can email me if you like (address in bio).
astrange 3y ago
This is a bad defense because you're using "genetically determined", which is either meaningless or not true. Height is not genetically determined unless you add "in an environment where nothing else that affects it happens". Like, say, someone cutting off your legs. And the same goes for every other trait.
- zlg_codes 3y ago
  The only other thing to affect height is nutrition. Assuming the same nutrition, certain ethnicities will trend taller than others. Denying that is just straight stupidity because you can observe the trend just by going outside.
  - astrange 3y ago
    > The only other thing to affect height is nutrition. And puberty blockers, pituitary gland diseases, and lack of sleep. …and cutting your legs off. > Assuming the same nutrition, certain ethnicities will trend taller than others. See, one thing about statistics is they're not necessarily valid for individuals, because eg not all statistical distributions have any values at their averages.
- jamilton 3y ago
  Saying something is genetically determined is not necessarily the same as saying it's completely genetically determined. And it's not meaningless, because there are things that aren't genetically determined at all, or at least are only genetically determined to such a small amount that they wouldn't be described as being genetically determined.
  - astrange 3y ago
    Nothing is "not genetically determined at all" because part of the causation of every human trait involves you being a human. But you should be clearer than that about what your theory of causation is.

concordDance 3y ago

Are you actually aware of the evidence on these matters? There have been studies on adopted children and identical twins. What are the results? Here's a random study on criminality I was looking at a bit ago: https://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/frisell2010.pdf https://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/frisell2010.pdf

astrange 3y ago
Genetics is not a credible science, ie, it's just another one of the many sciences that thinks correlation is causation. This is because it can't do experiments, so it can't really show causation. (Identical twins are close to a natural experiment but not a very good one as even they don't have the same genetics.)
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  Genetics experiments are quite commonplace these days, for example in vaccine development, plant engineering, and many other applications
  - astrange 3y ago
    I mean on humans.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      Your claim that genetics, a science affecting all life, is not a credible science, doesn't mention humans at all, so I doubt you did. If you have to limit it to "humans only", the claim falls apart anyways, because genetics isn't human-specific
      - astrange 3y ago
        Your idea of an argument is to say that people don't know what their own posts mean?
        ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        Who are you to tell us to not trust our eyes? When you're wrong at trivia, can you just claim "I meant [the right answer]"? If that's what you meant, perhaps you would have said it, but if you would had said it, it would have ruined your argument. Simply put, you haven't made a convincing case that genetics, a science affecting all life, not just humans, is "not a credible science", despite indeed involving experiments all the time. Below is where you can make that case.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- concordDance 3y ago
  > Genetics is not a credible science This is a far stronger claim than I think you mean. We have a ton of evidence that those bits of DNA in our cells govern cell expression and even know in some cases that bit X being malformed causes bad condition Y (sure, you could hypothesize that they both have a common cause, but how the heck would that work? Correlation being causation works if both common cause and backwards causation are implausible, as they are often in genetics). > but not a very good one as even they don't have the same genetics Uhhh... they have almost exactly the same genetics. To a similar extent that two random cells from your body will have the same genetics. Yes, there will be a handful of mutations, but that's very unlikely to have an effect on any particular trait.
tomhoward 3y ago
Yes I’ve been exploring this topic (and undertaking personal growth work) for well over a decade. I know all about the twin studies and the way they’re used to support all kinds of claims but that don’t actually hold up to scrutiny. DNA just encodes proteins. It can’t explain/predict detailed behavioral patterns. A prominent example of how genetics can influence aggressive/criminal behavior is due to variations in the MAOA (“Warrior”) gene, but the promotion/suppression of this gene is still strongly influenced by environmental factors [1]. Twin studies (particularly separated twin studies) claim to prove that all kinds of things are genetically encoded, because “they must be”, without considering how much is caused/influenced by other factors - the gestational environment and the experience of being separated from the birth family being the most obvious. That’s not to say these behavioral patterns aren’t deeply ingrained and difficult/slow to change, but that’s very different from being hard-coded in DNA and impossible to change. For n=1 anecdata, I’ve significantly reduced my aggressive tendencies after years of growth work. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3469457/#:~:text=PET%20brain%20imaging%20of%20monoamine,epigenetic%20modifications%2C%20may%20mediate%20it https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3469457/#:~:tex....
- concordDance 3y ago
  Are you willing to have a detailed discussion on this? I don't want to spend a few hours refreshing my knowledge of the research and gathering papers only to be ignored. (Also, did you check out the paper I linked?)
  - tomhoward 3y ago
    I read the abstract and skimmed the main content and couldn’t find anything that refutes what I’ve written or what I understand. I’m fine to have a discussion if your intention is to achieve a shared understanding of the topic, which is what healthy debating is about and what this site seeks to cultivate (even if it rarely achieves it). It does seem a little like you’re more interested in “winning” an argument for a position you’re already invested in, but I’m happy to be shown otherwise and to engage in a discussion if you bring a spirit of shared learning to it. Edit: rather than doing it here (in a thread that is already very long and stale) you can email me if you like (address in bio).

astrange 3y ago

This is a bad defense because you're using "genetically determined", which is either meaningless or not true. Height is not genetically determined unless you add "in an environment where nothing else that affects it happens". Like, say, someone cutting off your legs. And the same goes for every other trait.

zlg_codes 3y ago
The only other thing to affect height is nutrition. Assuming the same nutrition, certain ethnicities will trend taller than others. Denying that is just straight stupidity because you can observe the trend just by going outside.
- astrange 3y ago
  > The only other thing to affect height is nutrition. And puberty blockers, pituitary gland diseases, and lack of sleep. …and cutting your legs off. > Assuming the same nutrition, certain ethnicities will trend taller than others. See, one thing about statistics is they're not necessarily valid for individuals, because eg not all statistical distributions have any values at their averages.
jamilton 3y ago
Saying something is genetically determined is not necessarily the same as saying it's completely genetically determined. And it's not meaningless, because there are things that aren't genetically determined at all, or at least are only genetically determined to such a small amount that they wouldn't be described as being genetically determined.
- astrange 3y ago
  Nothing is "not genetically determined at all" because part of the causation of every human trait involves you being a human. But you should be clearer than that about what your theory of causation is.