[RD] Environment vs. genetics and related issues

[Lohrenswald]

I believe this is a fairly well-known "problem". Basically, is that which makes a person him/herself (personality, way of acting, intelligence etc.) a resulted of inhereted traits- a sort of bioligical blueprint- or of the environment around the person- what he/she has experienced, the worldview he/she has been exposed to etc.

I started to think about this while reading some threads here:
From Do You Think the GI Bill is Fair to the American People?:

I don't know, some people do seem to be born soldiers. People who not only excel at soldiering but also truly feel they have found their purpose in life on the battlefield. I am one of those people. Even though I am doing quite well for myself outside of the military, I still feel extremely dissatisfied with my life. I didn't feel that way in the military, and I actually felt at home while on deployment. If I had my way, I would have stayed in the military until the day I die.

So if we ever reach the point in our social development where the military becomes unnecessary, what are we to do with those who are born soldiers? Those who simply will not be satisfied with a "normal" life?

From Do you see transgendered folks as female?

I believe that we are more nature than nurture and most of what we do and how we act comes from the very basics of our genetic make up. My point is that society now allows folks to publicly act on those fundamental impulses. Because our need to be recognized and loved by others is so strong, humans seek out ways to be noticed by those who they hope will "embrace" them. Trans genders are just one of the newer groups to earn this freedom. By identifying themselves as they do they are rallying both support and others who might see them as worthy of a relationship. We all play the "look at me" game and usually it is within some cultural subgroup where we feel comfortable. We look for our characteristics that will set us apart and hopefully make us attractive.

Being trans gender doesn't cause a "look at me" personality. The "look at me" nature of who we are creates the desire to exploit our individual stories in our search for happiness. Fewer stories need to be kept private nowadays. The science of genderism (?) has just given us a new opportunity to differentiate ourselves. At one time we were perhaps just men, women rich and poor. Now we can attach many more adjectives to men/women to tell our story. As a man, I have a penis and a personality; to that I can add the descriptors I like best: rich, smart, not so pretty, straight/bi/gay, BMW series 7, wife, democrat, writer, etc. I could now add trans gender and not be ashamed.

Sorry there's quite a bit of unrelated discussion there.

So I have the opposite view from these two people. I believe that how a person views the world and what this person finds interesting or worth anything largly is based on what he/she has been exposed to, and to some extent something that can be decided on by your own.

Sexual orientation I am very sure is genetic or at least biological. But given the fact that the vast majority of people are heterosexuals and that there still are many many million homosexuals, is that really what makes a unique personality?
As opposed to things like sexual orientation there are for example habits, "ideologies", and special ways to percieve problems for example that are more unique, and I don't think these are biological.

Some people might be said to be "born writers", but I don't think something like that could be, as writing is something we have created. It's not found in nature.

Also, I believe that this goes beyond say poor tough environments and richer more priviliged environments and so on. I think there are things that most humans (at least in very large group, one of which being "the west") have sort of imposed on itself certain values and views. For example that properties are a thing that exist. Most people percieve this, but it's not an actual thing. There's also for example the notion that fame and attention is something to obtain. These I believe are thought rather than given at birth.

And as I said I do believe that with some insight, people can pretty fundamentally change themselves as a concious choice.

So yea, discuss.

 

[BvBPL]

Genetics describe proclivities towards certain behaviors, not destiny. Someone may have a greater or lesser chance to exhibit a certain behavior based upon her genetics.

We form our ideologies in part based upon our actions. We go through life acting in a certain manner while composing personal narrative histories of why we took those actions. We structure our ideologies around those narratives to make our past actions meaningful and to provide self-guidance for future actions.

Genetics do not, themselves, describe ideological choices. Instead they give a make a given action more or less likely in a certain circumstance. There's a substantial distance between the gene informing the action and the sum of personal narratives swelling into an ideology.

It is unlikely that any genetic direction provides a proclivity towards being, say, a Republican or a Democrat. Instead, genetics are more likely to operate on a more base level, say being a communitarian or a being less focused on community. The person with a genetic tendency towards being a member of a group is more likely to exhibit the ideology of the group in which she was raised where as the opposite is true of the party that has the opposite genetic disposition.

 

[Yeekim]

Never understood why people treat these as two mutually exclusive options. Both are equally relevant.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I subscribe to: your life is 5% what happens to you, and 95% how you react to what happens to you. This applies to both nature and nurture.

I was born with some genetically endowed traits. I am as tall as I am. I have the skin color I have. I have the mental capacity to process information at a particular rate.

I was also born with certain environmental factors that were absolutes. I was born in southern California, not New York City or in a village on the Congo or in the Australian outback.

I also received a variety of environmental variables. For example, my dad was mostly a particular way, but was himself a jumble of responses to his own myriad of events.

I have been reacting to all these factors my entire life, and those reactions are what has molded me. As an example when I say "my dad was mostly a particular way" one could say that would be a significant environmental factor, but what actually showed up all over my life was that my reaction to that environmental factor was "I will NEVER be like that." My brother's reaction to him was "I CAN never be like that," and that reaction shows up all over my brother's life. The same environmental factor produces two entirely different people, because of a difference in how we reacted to that factor and reactions are far more significant than the actual events.

The upshot of this is that I recognize that I am almost totally responsible for how I am. My reaction to something that early in life I perceived as an injustice inflicted on someone I perceived as "helpless" made me as much a "born soldier" as Commodore...but I know it isn't that I was born that way. I made myself that way, and can make myself another way should that way not work for me. My reaction to losing a five dollar bill that I got for Christmas when I was...five?...six?...created my entire (very uncomfortable) relationship with property for my entire life, until I recognized where and when I had made myself that way and chose to remake myself in that regard.

So I voted for "something else."

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I voted for "something else" because you haven't sufficiently defined your terms for me. I believe that most of what we do is ultimately determined by our genetics and brain chemistry. Environmental factors play in to it as well, but at the end of the day someone who is born with an IQ of 75 is not going to be a world famous physicist, and someone who is not born with a mental illness is never going to be a pedophile. But I vote other because I don't want to define this as pure genetics, there is also a significant influence from what happens to you in the womb, long after your genetics have been decided. Stuff that seems really minor, a slight hormone imbalance here, a little too much alcohol there, can have dramatic effects on your later brain chemistry. To answer the spirit of the question though: deep down, I truly think free will is an illusion, that humans are just like other animals, acting according to our programming, the only difference is that our programming is much more sophisticated. But we have to act as if free will is a thing in order to have a functional society, we can't excuse murderers and rapists by saying "that's their programming" or we'd have anarchy and everyone will suffer.

 

[BvBPL]

I was born with some genetically endowed traits. I am as tall as I am. I have the skin color I have.

Your genetics don't dictate that, however.

You wouldn't be as tall as you are if you had a poor diet. You might be taller still if you had a better diet. You wouldn't be as tan or pale as you are now if you spent more or less time in the sun.

Genetics describe a range of expected phenology, not precise attributes. How those genetic dispositions express themselves relative to other humans is determined by one's environment.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

we can't excuse murderers and rapists by saying "that's their programming" or we'd have anarchy and everyone will suffer.

Why? If we excuse them because it is their programming, would that suddenly increase the number of people with similar programming? How?

This is a familiar line of inquiry to me, because I explore it all the time in terms of crime, punishment, and the need for cops. If only I had a nickle for every time I've heard someone say that if all the cops quit tomorrow there would be chaos, but when I asked them if they would rob a bank tomorrow if their were no cops, or kill their mother in law, or steal a car, they said that of course they wouldn't. So they know that it isn't cops that keep people from committing crimes, yet they say that in the absence of cops crime would skyrocket.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Your genetics don't dictate that, however.

You wouldn't be as tall as you are if you had a poor diet. You might be taller still if you had a better diet. You wouldn't be as tan or pale as you are now if you spent more or less time in the sun.

Genetics describe a range of expected phenology, not precise attributes. How those genetic dispositions express themselves relative to other humans is determined by one's environment.

Good point.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Why? If we excuse them because it is their programming, would that suddenly increase the number of people with similar programming? How?

This is a familiar line of inquiry to me, because I explore it all the time in terms of crime, punishment, and the need for cops. If only I had a nickle for every time I've heard someone say that if all the cops quit tomorrow there would be chaos, but when I asked them if they would rob a bank tomorrow if their were no cops, or kill their mother in law, or steal a car, they said that of course they wouldn't. So they know that it isn't cops that keep people from committing crimes, yet they say that in the absence of cops crime would skyrocket.

It would make things worse for two reasons. Number one, those who currently commit crimes would remain free to just go ahead and keep doing it, at least until someone shot them in the face. Number two, there are people who's "programming" tells them simultaneously that robbing a bank is a good idea, but also, be afraid of the consequences, and if you remove that fear those people will just rob a bank because why not. We see this all the time on hidden camera shows, most people who see a purse laying on a bench unattended will ignore it or try to find the owner, but some people who are normally law abiding citizens WILL commit crimes of opportunity if they think they'll get away with it.

 

[Farm Boy]

I think, and maybe this is just me, that the number of men, particularly when young and/or tipsy, that would be rapists when presented with an appealing target and relative confidence in the absence of timely repercussion is larger than we'd like to admit Tim. I think perceived threat of repercussion, by cop or by shame or by otherwise, does have an effective area of action.

 

[Borachio]

I believe we're the product of both our genetics and environment.

In just which proportions these two determine what we are is an open, and probably undecidable question in the absence of controlled experiments to find out. Experiments which it would be almost certainly unethical to conduct.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Just for clarification: I see that the term "genetics" is problematic, but I would put other biological influences (like hormone balance during pregnancy and so on) in the same sort of category as genetics.
(I'll come back with a more substantial reply later)

 

[BvBPL]

It would make things worse for two reasons. Number one, those who currently commit crimes would remain free to just go ahead and keep doing it, at least until someone shot them in the face. Number two, there are people who's "programming" tells them simultaneously that robbing a bank is a good idea, but also, be afraid of the consequences, and if you remove that fear those people will just rob a bank because why not. We see this all the time on hidden camera shows, most people who see a purse laying on a bench unattended will ignore it or try to find the owner, but some people who are normally law abiding citizens WILL commit crimes of opportunity if they think they'll get away with it.

Explaining the behavior of antisocial criminal deviants as being either the consequence of their genetics or their rearing does not necessarily mean that we would not take action against them. It means that our theories of punishment would change. The need and desire for retributive punishment would fade, but we may still need to engage in rehabilitative action to prevent future malfeasance.

Indeed, if you explained violent crime as the result of genetics and rearing rather than individual choice, a fair case could be made that more custodial interactions are necessary, rather than fewer. One of the reasons we lock criminals away is for the safety of others. If we say the rapist can never not be a Rapist because of his genetics then the case could be made that we should lock more of them up for longer because they will never change their stripes and will always pose a danger to others.

 

[BvBPL]

Just for clarification: I see that the term "genetics" is problematic, but I would put other biological influences (like hormone balance during pregnancy and so on) in the same sort of category as genetics.
(I'll come back with a more substantial reply later)

That really muddies the issue. For one, hormone issues and other biological expressions are quantifiable different from genetics. Most biological issues than transitory and can be treated. Genetics, in contrast, is set for an individual person and cannot be altered (at this time).

Furthermore, many biological issues cross the line into being environmental issues. Take malnutrition. Malnutrition has biological consequences, but it is an environmental issue. So where's the line there? Is malnutrition a biological concern or an environmental one? Far better to split the question into the dichotomy of genetics versus environment without bringing up the sticky question of biological issues.

 

[bhavv]

Poll choices cant be serious unless there is an option for both. If coming from a scientific perspective, then that cannot really be considered valid.

 

[BvBPL]

If we wanted to get really scientific we'd have to insist on a poll option w. High p value.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Raising two kids moved me firmly into the camp of "mostly genetics".

 

[warpus]

A combination of both.

I have two feet because I have human DNA for example, but I hate tripe soup because of experiences with it I had when I was younger.

 

[Borachio]

Not everyone with human DNA has two feet, John Silver.

 

[ArneHD]

In the end the discussion is moot because it all boils down to chemistry; the chemistry of your DNA affects as well as the chemistry of your environment.