5 ms·

> Chinese people are fully aware of what's right and wrong and we choose to deliberately cheat. Whether that's cultural tendency or genetic one is another story

by dimino 11y ago

> Chinese people are fully aware of what's right and wrong and we choose to deliberately cheat. Whether that's cultural tendency or genetic one is another story. What?! Genetic?! There is very little, if any evidence to support the idea that genetics has anything to do with the Chinese propensity to cheat...

crimsonalucard 11y ago
There's no evidence at all. Even when attempting to do research on this, the political backlash could destroy any scientist's career. No official evidence will ever be collected because of this. I only speak from personal experience. I know many chinese people both born here and born abroad. I am also chinese and born in the united states. I am telling you, honestly, from a purely anecdotal standpoint: I think there's a chance it's genetic. Edit: Just to keep things from getting out of hand, and more balanced I want to state this fact: Statistically, it is far more likely for a serial killer to be a white caucasian male then it is for a serial killer to be of any other race. Do I think this is a cultural thing? No. I'm leaning towards genetics. But that's a purely anecdotal opinion as there's no evidence pointing in either direction.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- kmicklas 11y ago
  Why would those things be genetic? If there were a "serial killer gene" or a "cheater gene", those traits should manifest themselves in all kinds of obvious differences in behavior - which we do not see. It's hard to imagine a protein causing such complex differences in behavior while affecting nothing else.
  - crimsonalucard 11y ago
    What's the other explanation then? Culture? Why don't we see higher rates of serial killers in other races born in the United States? It's very possible for many differences in behavior between races to be genetic in origin, in fact it's the more logical hypothesis versus the alternative which states genetics doesn't influence behavioral differences between races. Think about it. If genetics influences physical traits from height, skin color, facial features, and even athleticism, what black magic in this world makes it so that genetics doesn't even touch behavior or intelligence? >It's hard to imagine a protein causing such complex differences in behavior while affecting nothing else. It's impossible to logically deduce a conclusion from the bottom up. We simply currently don't have enough knowledge to know how proteins scaffold the entire human neural network. With highly limited knowledge, we can only look at the problem from the top down. That being: genetics is known to influence physical traits, therefore it is logical to conclude that it also influences mental traits.
    - dimino 11y ago
      > If genetics influences physical traits from height, skin color, facial features, and even athleticism, what black magic in this world makes it so that genetics doesn't even touch behavior or intelligence? Because we have no evidence that such is the case on a culturally grouping level. There is no genetic concept of "Chinese". It literally doesn't exist. You're making this about the possibility of genetics impacting behavior, when the real issue is you thinking cultural boundaries exist in genetics. They don't.
      - crimsonalucard 11y ago
        There's no concept of humanity on the atomic level. It literally doesn't exist. One configuration or mishmash of atoms we call rocks are no different then the mishmash we call humans. Try, without using any high level concepts or groupings, to define what configuration of atoms signifies a rock and what configuration signifies a human. If you go low enough on any topic the boundaries between categories become vague and the definitions become extremely complex. It's very hard to define what a human is in terms of atoms. The same goes for race, it's very hard to define, at the genetic level what is chinese, and what is not, but the category and boundary exists at all levels, and we can't ignore it. I've heard of your argument before. They say that the delta in genetic differences between two people of different races is the same as the delta of two people, of the same race, therefore race doesn't exist. This argument is flawed. I believe the "genetic" definition of race is immensely more complex than simply the delta of genetic differences. Here's a more accurate definition: People of the same race have a higher probability of sharing certain genetic traits. So let me redefine my argument in way you can understand. The people who we label as "chinese" who share similar physical/genetic traits, I believe will be more likely to also share a behavioral genetic trait that makes them more likely to cheat.
        dimino 11y ago
        I'm sorry, you misunderstand -- the people we label as "Chinese" do not share similar physical/genetic traits. Common misconception that they do, but there is very little genetic consistency across cultural boundaries, and when such a thing does exist, it's quite noteworthy.
  - ticviking 11y ago
    You don't have to go to the absurd "cheater gene" degree. Note this is not at all scientific, but rather trying to point out how easy some small genetic things might push society and culture in particular directions. Suppose instead that a few traits like: - Social Intelligence - Impulse Control - Desire for Retribution have normal distribution with slightly different peaks in different populations. A population with high social intelligence and low desire for revenge might tolerate more cheating(since people only cheat when they can get away with it) than one with low impulse control and high desire for revenge, where cheating might spark a shootout. You probably don't have to move those distributions much to start seeing pretty large changes in things like mass shooting demographics, or who cheats.
- asgard1024 11y ago
  > Even when attempting to do research on this, the political backlash could destroy any scientist's career. No official evidence will ever be collected because of this. This is really offtopic, but I think you're wrong. There are two ways to do such research - the proper one and the racist one. The proper one is to link specific genes to specific behavior. This presumes that you screen individuals in the study for those genes. Then you are not being racist, because existence of those genes is rarely 100% coinciding with culture or skin color. Research like that is quite common, if there is a reason to think there is indeed a link (for example there is a genetic study of above average intelligence in Ashkenazy Jews, they were extremely homogenous group and yet they don't all share the genes that has been shown to have the link). The racist way is to match skin color or culture to behavior. This is scientifically useless, because you don't show any actual genetic link, and it only serves for stirring racial hate (you could pick any indirect attribute from many, like eye color or facial hair, so why pick skin color?). Such studies are rightfully being rejected by real scientists.

by dimino 11y ago

crimsonalucard 11y ago

There's no evidence at all. Even when attempting to do research on this, the political backlash could destroy any scientist's career. No official evidence will ever be collected because of this. I only speak from personal experience. I know many chinese people both born here and born abroad. I am also chinese and born in the united states. I am telling you, honestly, from a purely anecdotal standpoint: I think there's a chance it's genetic. Edit: Just to keep things from getting out of hand, and more balanced I want to state this fact: Statistically, it is far more likely for a serial killer to be a white caucasian male then it is for a serial killer to be of any other race. Do I think this is a cultural thing? No. I'm leaning towards genetics. But that's a purely anecdotal opinion as there's no evidence pointing in either direction.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
kmicklas 11y ago
Why would those things be genetic? If there were a "serial killer gene" or a "cheater gene", those traits should manifest themselves in all kinds of obvious differences in behavior - which we do not see. It's hard to imagine a protein causing such complex differences in behavior while affecting nothing else.
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  What's the other explanation then? Culture? Why don't we see higher rates of serial killers in other races born in the United States? It's very possible for many differences in behavior between races to be genetic in origin, in fact it's the more logical hypothesis versus the alternative which states genetics doesn't influence behavioral differences between races. Think about it. If genetics influences physical traits from height, skin color, facial features, and even athleticism, what black magic in this world makes it so that genetics doesn't even touch behavior or intelligence? >It's hard to imagine a protein causing such complex differences in behavior while affecting nothing else. It's impossible to logically deduce a conclusion from the bottom up. We simply currently don't have enough knowledge to know how proteins scaffold the entire human neural network. With highly limited knowledge, we can only look at the problem from the top down. That being: genetics is known to influence physical traits, therefore it is logical to conclude that it also influences mental traits.
  - dimino 11y ago
    > If genetics influences physical traits from height, skin color, facial features, and even athleticism, what black magic in this world makes it so that genetics doesn't even touch behavior or intelligence? Because we have no evidence that such is the case on a culturally grouping level. There is no genetic concept of "Chinese". It literally doesn't exist. You're making this about the possibility of genetics impacting behavior, when the real issue is you thinking cultural boundaries exist in genetics. They don't.
    - crimsonalucard 11y ago
      There's no concept of humanity on the atomic level. It literally doesn't exist. One configuration or mishmash of atoms we call rocks are no different then the mishmash we call humans. Try, without using any high level concepts or groupings, to define what configuration of atoms signifies a rock and what configuration signifies a human. If you go low enough on any topic the boundaries between categories become vague and the definitions become extremely complex. It's very hard to define what a human is in terms of atoms. The same goes for race, it's very hard to define, at the genetic level what is chinese, and what is not, but the category and boundary exists at all levels, and we can't ignore it. I've heard of your argument before. They say that the delta in genetic differences between two people of different races is the same as the delta of two people, of the same race, therefore race doesn't exist. This argument is flawed. I believe the "genetic" definition of race is immensely more complex than simply the delta of genetic differences. Here's a more accurate definition: People of the same race have a higher probability of sharing certain genetic traits. So let me redefine my argument in way you can understand. The people who we label as "chinese" who share similar physical/genetic traits, I believe will be more likely to also share a behavioral genetic trait that makes them more likely to cheat.
      - dimino 11y ago
        I'm sorry, you misunderstand -- the people we label as "Chinese" do not share similar physical/genetic traits. Common misconception that they do, but there is very little genetic consistency across cultural boundaries, and when such a thing does exist, it's quite noteworthy.
- ticviking 11y ago
  You don't have to go to the absurd "cheater gene" degree. Note this is not at all scientific, but rather trying to point out how easy some small genetic things might push society and culture in particular directions. Suppose instead that a few traits like: - Social Intelligence - Impulse Control - Desire for Retribution have normal distribution with slightly different peaks in different populations. A population with high social intelligence and low desire for revenge might tolerate more cheating(since people only cheat when they can get away with it) than one with low impulse control and high desire for revenge, where cheating might spark a shootout. You probably don't have to move those distributions much to start seeing pretty large changes in things like mass shooting demographics, or who cheats.
asgard1024 11y ago
> Even when attempting to do research on this, the political backlash could destroy any scientist's career. No official evidence will ever be collected because of this. This is really offtopic, but I think you're wrong. There are two ways to do such research - the proper one and the racist one. The proper one is to link specific genes to specific behavior. This presumes that you screen individuals in the study for those genes. Then you are not being racist, because existence of those genes is rarely 100% coinciding with culture or skin color. Research like that is quite common, if there is a reason to think there is indeed a link (for example there is a genetic study of above average intelligence in Ashkenazy Jews, they were extremely homogenous group and yet they don't all share the genes that has been shown to have the link). The racist way is to match skin color or culture to behavior. This is scientifically useless, because you don't show any actual genetic link, and it only serves for stirring racial hate (you could pick any indirect attribute from many, like eye color or facial hair, so why pick skin color?). Such studies are rightfully being rejected by real scientists.