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It's easy to see how the world would be different if ESP worked - Wall St. would be run by psychics, not quants. You've yet to make any such predictions regardi

It's easy to see how the world would be different if ESP worked - Wall St. would be run by psychics, not quants. You've yet to make any such predictions regarding genetic differences, except possibly vague allusions to some slightly different power structure which you can't even explain clearly and which is dependent on some unspecified assumptions about genetics. I said that if minuscule genetic differences result in huge variance of power, there needs to be some super-linear correlation, or, if that is too cardinal, some amplification mechanism. I then said that whatever that amplification mechanism is, because intra-group genetic variance is much larger, that amplification would create a rather chaotic power structure, which is far from what we see. You are assuming that whatever variation exists in power causing genes has huge in-group variance relative to between-group variance. This might be false. In fact, we know it's false for height, skin pigment, and a variety of other easy to measure traits. Incidentally, in many cases, we also don't know what specific SNPs cause those traits. But I guess it's completely impossible that some harder to measure trait might also exhibit similar variance.

pron 11y ago
> It's easy to see how the world would be different if ESP worked It's also easy to see how the world would be different if genetics played a significant role in the power distribution. I did not make vague allusions nor was the power structure I described slightly different: I described a chaotic, unstable, though rather uniformly distributed power. Just about the complete opposite of the power structure we have on this planet now. True, we do not know how (or whether) the world would be different if genetic contribution were small, but neither do we know that for weak ESP (like in the infamous Derryl Bem experiment, where people could guess with a slightly better than random probability, one of two possibilities -- provided they were related to naked women -- a second or so into the future). Still, we don't put too much effort looking for weak ESP. > In fact, we know it's false for height, skin pigment, and a variety of other easy to measure traits. Oh, we know skin pigment affects power very well. It just does so with the mediating factor of society. > But I guess it's completely impossible that some harder to measure trait might also exhibit similar variance. So far it is you who are making vague allusions to mysterious traits that you are not even able to describe at all, let alone ascribe to genetics in any shape way or form, when a simpler explanation exists which so far explains observations rather well. Is it impossible? Of course not! But what you're doing isn't too different from creationism. We can't disprove that, either. If you have some better notions of what it is you're looking for, why you believe it may be genetic in spite of drastic revolutions in power distribution among the races -- occurring over mere centuries -- then we'll have something to study. You haven't even made a clear hypothesis let alone a falsifiable one. -- And I must say once again -- though of course it isn't enough to dismiss it -- that your case isn't at all helped by the fact that experiments have shown a strong desire in humans to believe in innate differences, even as very young children, who view social differences as hereditary, innate and immutable. It does us a lot of good to believe so: it absolves us of moral considerations, alleviates fear of change, and gives us a strong sense that what is is what should be. In short, it makes it easier for us to cope with the world -- just like religion. Religion (or magical thinking) and racism (or ingroup allegiance) appear at a very early age, and are possibly instinctual. This is one example of a study (there are tons) by my friend's former research group: http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/.premium-1.528187 http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/.premium-1.528187
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  I described a chaotic, unstable, though rather uniformly distributed power. Just about the complete opposite of the power structure we have on this planet now. And as I pointed out, this would only be true if the underlying genetic traits were uniformly distributed. We already know that many genetic traits are not. Hence, all you've proven is that if underlying genetic traits cause power, they are (like height, pigment, and many other traits) not uniformly distributed. Of course, going back to the beginning of this discussion, the specific claim you disputed is that such traits could exist and are NOT uniformly distributed. You've ruled out something which isn't even a straw man of a position I can remotely identify. Woot. As for what I'm looking for, nothing. The only empirical claim I've made is "modern genetics isn't very good yet". Everything else was merely socratic questioning and attempts to correct your misunderstandings of the scientific method.
  - pron 11y ago
    The thing is that the "power trait" isn't just any trait -- it is the mother of all adaptive traits. A powerful person has extremely higher chances to survive and procreate, and with a powerful mate to boot. From what we know about evolution and genetic traits -- see the Price equation[1] and evolutionary game theory[2] -- adaptive traits can't be distributed in such a non-uniform way, especially if they are so extremely adaptive. And, of course, no trait heredity can explain power revolutions that occur over centuries. Even if we don't know everything, I can't believe that we'd be so wrong. Relativity is just a better approximation of reality than Newtonian dynamics. Of course, you could explain things as follows: the population of each race is already adapted to its local environment (with strongly adaptive traits spread noisily but uniformly in each population), but those traits -- like skin color (which is now non-adaptive) -- haven't yet had time to adapt globally since the races started to mix. This poses a difficult problem, that can be stated in two ways: 1/ if there are plenty of, say, powerful black people in the US (although on average the black population is much less powerful), how come those people's power traits didn't spread among blacks in Africa (remember, it's an extremely adaptive trait) 2/ How come the super-adaptive power traits is so unequally distributed within each trait. The first question can be answered by saying that power takes different forms in different cultures, and the American power trait is not adaptive in Africa. This is an interesting hypothesis, but it doesn't really fit with what we know about power. Sure, there are cultural differences, but they are rather superficial and don't coincide with relative inter-race power (e.g. Japanese culture displays the same emphasis on authoritative power and tradition as African or Arab culture). The second question simply can't be answered with our mathematical evolutionary models. And, of course, there's still the power-revolution problem which seems to preclude any kind of genetic heredity. All of those problems can be explained through changes to the environment, but the pertinent environment is social rather than natural, so you'd have to see genetics as a mediating factor of social forces. Even that is unlikely because the time frames are wrong for evolutionary changes. What is interesting, though, is that if we take the environment to be a social environment and shrink the time frames, we could see something similar to evolutionary models (only much more volatile). This is why Richard Dawkins introduced the concept of the meme[3], or "social gene", to hypothesize that social ideas can display similar behavioral models to biological genes. And I understand the scientific method just fine, thank you. Knowledge isn't binary (Gettier problem aside); there are levels of knowledge. We know genetics and evolution enough to conclude that a social explanation is more probable than a genetic one for similar reasons we can conclude that problems in experimentation and data analysis are a far likelier explanation to the Bem experiment than weak ESP. In physics, too, most scientists decide not to spend their time researching hypotheses that appear unlikely or pose harder problems than others, even if they can't be completely rejected outright, opting instead to focus on the more promising ones. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_equation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_equation [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_game_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_game_theory [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

pron 11y ago

> It's easy to see how the world would be different if ESP worked It's also easy to see how the world would be different if genetics played a significant role in the power distribution. I did not make vague allusions nor was the power structure I described slightly different: I described a chaotic, unstable, though rather uniformly distributed power. Just about the complete opposite of the power structure we have on this planet now. True, we do not know how (or whether) the world would be different if genetic contribution were small, but neither do we know that for weak ESP (like in the infamous Derryl Bem experiment, where people could guess with a slightly better than random probability, one of two possibilities -- provided they were related to naked women -- a second or so into the future). Still, we don't put too much effort looking for weak ESP. > In fact, we know it's false for height, skin pigment, and a variety of other easy to measure traits. Oh, we know skin pigment affects power very well. It just does so with the mediating factor of society. > But I guess it's completely impossible that some harder to measure trait might also exhibit similar variance. So far it is you who are making vague allusions to mysterious traits that you are not even able to describe at all, let alone ascribe to genetics in any shape way or form, when a simpler explanation exists which so far explains observations rather well. Is it impossible? Of course not! But what you're doing isn't too different from creationism. We can't disprove that, either. If you have some better notions of what it is you're looking for, why you believe it may be genetic in spite of drastic revolutions in power distribution among the races -- occurring over mere centuries -- then we'll have something to study. You haven't even made a clear hypothesis let alone a falsifiable one. -- And I must say once again -- though of course it isn't enough to dismiss it -- that your case isn't at all helped by the fact that experiments have shown a strong desire in humans to believe in innate differences, even as very young children, who view social differences as hereditary, innate and immutable. It does us a lot of good to believe so: it absolves us of moral considerations, alleviates fear of change, and gives us a strong sense that what is is what should be. In short, it makes it easier for us to cope with the world -- just like religion. Religion (or magical thinking) and racism (or ingroup allegiance) appear at a very early age, and are possibly instinctual. This is one example of a study (there are tons) by my friend's former research group: http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/.premium-1.528187 http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/.premium-1.528187

yummyfajitas 11y ago
I described a chaotic, unstable, though rather uniformly distributed power. Just about the complete opposite of the power structure we have on this planet now. And as I pointed out, this would only be true if the underlying genetic traits were uniformly distributed. We already know that many genetic traits are not. Hence, all you've proven is that if underlying genetic traits cause power, they are (like height, pigment, and many other traits) not uniformly distributed. Of course, going back to the beginning of this discussion, the specific claim you disputed is that such traits could exist and are NOT uniformly distributed. You've ruled out something which isn't even a straw man of a position I can remotely identify. Woot. As for what I'm looking for, nothing. The only empirical claim I've made is "modern genetics isn't very good yet". Everything else was merely socratic questioning and attempts to correct your misunderstandings of the scientific method.
- pron 11y ago
  The thing is that the "power trait" isn't just any trait -- it is the mother of all adaptive traits. A powerful person has extremely higher chances to survive and procreate, and with a powerful mate to boot. From what we know about evolution and genetic traits -- see the Price equation[1] and evolutionary game theory[2] -- adaptive traits can't be distributed in such a non-uniform way, especially if they are so extremely adaptive. And, of course, no trait heredity can explain power revolutions that occur over centuries. Even if we don't know everything, I can't believe that we'd be so wrong. Relativity is just a better approximation of reality than Newtonian dynamics. Of course, you could explain things as follows: the population of each race is already adapted to its local environment (with strongly adaptive traits spread noisily but uniformly in each population), but those traits -- like skin color (which is now non-adaptive) -- haven't yet had time to adapt globally since the races started to mix. This poses a difficult problem, that can be stated in two ways: 1/ if there are plenty of, say, powerful black people in the US (although on average the black population is much less powerful), how come those people's power traits didn't spread among blacks in Africa (remember, it's an extremely adaptive trait) 2/ How come the super-adaptive power traits is so unequally distributed within each trait. The first question can be answered by saying that power takes different forms in different cultures, and the American power trait is not adaptive in Africa. This is an interesting hypothesis, but it doesn't really fit with what we know about power. Sure, there are cultural differences, but they are rather superficial and don't coincide with relative inter-race power (e.g. Japanese culture displays the same emphasis on authoritative power and tradition as African or Arab culture). The second question simply can't be answered with our mathematical evolutionary models. And, of course, there's still the power-revolution problem which seems to preclude any kind of genetic heredity. All of those problems can be explained through changes to the environment, but the pertinent environment is social rather than natural, so you'd have to see genetics as a mediating factor of social forces. Even that is unlikely because the time frames are wrong for evolutionary changes. What is interesting, though, is that if we take the environment to be a social environment and shrink the time frames, we could see something similar to evolutionary models (only much more volatile). This is why Richard Dawkins introduced the concept of the meme[3], or "social gene", to hypothesize that social ideas can display similar behavioral models to biological genes. And I understand the scientific method just fine, thank you. Knowledge isn't binary (Gettier problem aside); there are levels of knowledge. We know genetics and evolution enough to conclude that a social explanation is more probable than a genetic one for similar reasons we can conclude that problems in experimentation and data analysis are a far likelier explanation to the Bem experiment than weak ESP. In physics, too, most scientists decide not to spend their time researching hypotheses that appear unlikely or pose harder problems than others, even if they can't be completely rejected outright, opting instead to focus on the more promising ones. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_equation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_equation [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_game_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_game_theory [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme