On Ayn Rand on Racism

Dean,

I think we are in agreement, then, about the biological realities of race and their manifestations in various measures of social outcomes. I'd call that viewpoint race realism. Those who conflate descriptive statements with moral statements would call it racism.

Perhaps we disagree somewhat about the practical relevance of racial observations. Here are a couple areas where I find it to be very useful:

1. No topic of which I am aware gets to the core of an individual's ability to cope with reality, reason, and exhibit intellectual honesty -- i.e., be objective -- than race. If a person's intellectual core is emotionalism, moral dogmatism, or social conformism, bringing up race will bring it out. The nature of some of the responses on this forum serve as confirmation.

2. Affirmative Action demands equal social outcomes on the premise of innate equality. That premise is false, and advocates of individual rights should not shy away from naming it as such in order to destroy the foundation on which racial egalitarians make their political demands.

Post 81

Monday, December 12, 2011 - 2:00pm

Steve:

True 'dat. My oldest son was tested twice within the span of a few months. One result was '113.' The next was on the far side of 140. That is a lot of uncertainty in the measurement.

Because of his genetic deletion, the fact that he has WS, my youngest son tested out below 60, which is not unusual for folks with WS. (They are often missing brain mass, with a distinctive '?' shape to their head in profile.) And yet he is very asymetric. No math at all; what math he can master he does using a very different scheme than you or I. But he has remarkable memory skills, and can (and does)discourse on the differences between the London and US casts of 'Mary Poppins: The Musical" with his friends, in detail.

WS is characterized by low IQ, as a consequence of systematically missing DNA. But, they barely knew how to test my 'normal' son; I'm not holding my breatrh waiting for them to figure out how to accurately test someone with WS. That 60 means little or nothing to me or anybody.

So, is there a spectrum of DNA characteristics, with 'syndrome' being at the severe end of differences, and 'race' at the insignificant end of differences?

Is that the way we should distinguish 'race' from 'syndrome?' That is, racial variations are 'insignificant', while syndromatic variations are 'significant.' And the corollary; with 'significant' variations from 'normal', it is OK to refer to outliers as 'abnormal' or 'disabled,' and/or to discriminate against them based on their unacceptable deviation from the norm(as in, their ability to perform math, as members of a class, and not as individuals? (i.e, when regarding 'syndrome' as an extreme example of genetic similarities of a class?)

And I'd say, of course not, because even in the genetic extreme, we don't discriminate against folks with either WS or DOWNS simply as members of classes; my son is 18, and has not asked(yet)to take his drivers test. If and when he does, I'll help him study for the test and take his drivers test, and if he passes or fails will be an attribute of him as an individual, and not his membership of the class 'folks with WS.' It will not be the state refusing him a license because he is a member of the class 'folks with WS.' It will be the state refusing him a license because he as an individual is unable to pass the state test(if that is the case.) This is even as I fully realize that his inability to pass his drivers test in this case is no doubt a direct consequence of his genetic deletion and diagnosis of WS.

When it comes to DNA, the definition of 'normal' is up for grabs(because we all individually have deletions to greater or lessor extent.) It is not sufficient to claim 'syndrome' as an 'abnormality' (because it happens often enough to be a 'syndrome')

And, if we can't find justification for class discrimination based on 'syndrome', then we for sure can find no justification based on 'race.'

Post 82

Monday, December 12, 2011 - 5:09pm

Lol. Brad Trun could actually be an asian supremacist..isn't trun a vietnamese name?

Post 83

Monday, December 12, 2011 - 6:41pm

Brad,

Then how do you explain blacks with high IQ's or Asians with low IQ's? If race determines IQ, then why don't all Asians have higher IQ's than all whites, and all whites, higher IQ's than all blacks? And if they don't, then all you're identifying are statistical differences. If you selected any large group of people at random, it would be astonishing if they all had an equal percentage of skills and abilities. That being the case, don't you have to judge each person as an individual? You're not against judging people as individuals, are you?

William,

It is not possible for me or anyone to judge each person individually. Even if it were, I am not obligated to do so. I choose to do so when it is worth the investment of time.

When I go to a restaurant I don't get to know the people who are cooking my food. Maybe they'll spit in it or use spoiled ingredients. I assume they won't, because statistically it's unlikely. I judge these unknown individuals to be trustworthy based entirely on circumstance -- restraurant name/reputation, incentive to make quality food, general human decency/responsibility, etc.

I judge an unknown old white lady walking toward me in the back alley of a city to be less threatening than an unknown young black male. I don't have time to get to know them individually before I decide in which direction my next step will be. Neither ageism, sexism, nor racism (whatever they may mean) are standards by which one can determine the epistemological validity of probabalistic generalizations. Nor do concerns over causing others offense on such grounds automatically supersede all other values I may hold, including but not limited to staying safe.

Obviously, there is overlap in racial IQ variation, just as there is overlap in height with the bell curves for men and women plotted against each other. Clearly, men are taller on average. Most of that is genetic, though certainly malnourishment and other environmental factors can stunt one's full height potential. Brainpower isn't as heritable as height. But it's still largely heritable. Blacks have smaller brains (see my previous post for data/source) which limits their IQ upside. The odds of a black person being just as smart as an average white are fair. But a black attaining an IQ of 120 or higher is very rare as compared to whites. Without Affirative Action, virtually no blacks would get admitted to the most prestigious colleges.

If IQ were cultural, then you'd expect subcultures within the black population to produce black high achievers on par with white and oriental high achievers. It doesn't happen. For the most part, black IQ distribution follows what a hereditary bell curve would predict -- shifted to the left of that for whites.

Post 84

Monday, December 12, 2011 - 10:09pm

Brad wrote,

I judge an unknown old white lady walking toward me in the back alley of a city to be less threatening than an unknown young black male. I don't have time to get to know them individually before I decide in which direction my next step will be. Neither ageism, sexism, nor racism (whatever they may mean) are standards by which one can determine the epistemological validity of probabalistic generalizations. Nor do concerns over causing others offense on such grounds automatically supersede all other values I may hold, including but not limited to staying safe.

No, of course, in these kinds of situations, you must make judgments based on the law of averages.

For example, George Sternlieb, one of the country's leading housing experts, found that private discrimination was practiced by black landlords as well as by white. The reason for the discrimination was not irrational bigotry, but simply that white tenants were judged on the average to be more reliable in paying the rent and less likely to damage apartments. Landlords sometimes charged whites as much as 25% less for identical apartments in the hope of retaining them as tenants.

A similar kind of discrimination is practiced by life-insurance companies, who charge women lower premiums than men. The reason is not that insurance executives are sexist, or that they hate men, but simply that women as a group have longer life expectancies than men do. Nor are insurance executives so blinded by stereotypical thinking that they believe that every woman will outlive every man. They recognize that there are many exceptions to the longer female life-expectancy. They are simply going by the law of averages.

It is true that better information can reduce or eliminate the advantages of discriminating on the basis of race or gender. And it would certainly be in a landlord's self-interest to try to obtain that information. For example, if a black applicant has better references and a better rental history than a white applicant, then it would be foolish for a landlord to discriminate in favor of the white applicant simply because whites on the average are better tenants than blacks. Arbitrary discrimination is not in landlord's economic self-interest. And a landlord who engages in it would be practicing racist discrimination.

I also think it's a mistake to jump to conclusions about someone's character or intelligence based simply on the fact that he or she happens to be of a certain race. In the absence of evidence supporting such a conclusion, the proper action is to reserve judgment. For example, if a black suspect were on trial for murder, would you judge him as guilty, simply because the murder rate for black men is higher than for other races? If you would, then you would be guilty of race prejudice.

You wrote,

If IQ were cultural, then you'd expect subcultures within the black population to produce black high achievers on par with white and oriental high achievers.

Not necessarily. There are other environmental variables that affect IQ besides cultural similarity -- like interest, motivation, expectations, nutrition, etc. Also, just to be clear, what do you mean by "cultural"? And what do you think of Thomas Sowell's arguments?

(Edited by William Dwyer on 12/12, 11:20pm)

Post 85

Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - 12:23pm

Bill, I sanctioned the above because you developed your case well. Allow me to offer a correction, not an absolute contradiction, but more like a ship's course correction. I figured that with time and space being limited, you just let the details go. But I also know your work over the years. So, I think that you did not intend the omissions I am going to fill in to be accepted as your own intention.

I judge an unknown old white lady walking toward me in the back alley of a city to be less threatening than an unknown young black male. I don't have time to get to know them individually before I decide in which direction my next step will be. Neither ageism, sexism, nor racism (whatever they may mean) are standards by which one can determine the epistemological validity of probabalistic generalizations. Nor do concerns over causing others offense on such grounds automatically supersede all other values I may hold, including but not limited to staying safe.
No, of course, in these kinds of situations, you must make judgments based on the law of averages.

For example, George Sternlieb, one of the country's leading housing experts, found that private discrimination was practiced by black landlords as well as by white. The reason for the discrimination was not irrational bigotry, but simply that white tenants were judged on the average to be more reliable in paying the rent and less likely to damage apartments. Landlords sometimes charged whites as much as 25% less for identical apartments in the hope of retaining them as tenants.

A similar kind of discrimination is practiced by life-insurance companies ...

The insurance companies do not practice intuitive discrimination. Unlike landlords who feel that white tenants are more reliable, insurance companies have good statistics to show which groups of drivers have better records. Moreover, the woman with a bad driving record will be treated as a bad driver, not as a statistically reliable good driver. As you imply, they have the background data which the landlord lacks. And as it is landlords do have background data, if they want to pay for it. Landlord associations and credit bureaus provide these services. So, discrimination in such cases is as you note unprofitable. Likely (I suggest) the result of attempting to cheap out on service fees, and relying on discrimination to substitute for knowledge.

As for the alley scene, my experience in security and my education in criminology suggest that such prejudices can get you hurt. First of all, what you doing in an alley? That harkens back to Stuart Hayashi's post here on RoR "Argument from Arbitrary Metaphysics." People don't just materialize in places. Also, a black youth will have the wherewithal to assume that if you are there, you are as likely as he is to be a dangerous person... which he might not be, so-called "averages" or whatever. He might be on his way home from the library. Brad Trun is playing on your prejudices. We all have them. But Objectivists work hard at defeating them with reason.

Moreover, what is the old white woman doing in an alley? I assure you that men released from prison find homeless shelters and homeless people scary. That woman might not have a good mental focus. She might find you scary, think you are a demon, and attack first. She might be looking for a victim, at the least a mark to beg from. No telling what will happen when she approaches. Myself, I never enter an alley without a flashlight and usually a partner, the metaphysically non-arbitrary assumption.

Finally, as for the unfortunately stereotyped black youth coming from a concert recital or something, one time, in Detroit, we had a national convention of the American Numismatic Association. We went from Cobo Hall to Greektown for dinner. In Greektown, there are all these motorcycle guys, many of them black. The dealers I was with were all carrying -- money, not guns -- and they crowded and looked around. Me, I look at the dudes and they were flatly ignoring us and clearly paying attention to each other. We were not in their pecking order. Some old honkey like you in the middle of blacktown, you are not a victim, you are trouble. You could be a cop or a process server. Why else would you be there? No wants to come anywhere near you.

This is how prejudice works when racist hatemongers feed on your fears. Now, I know you to be a rational man when you are online, so I am not saying that you are about to put on a white sheet. In fact, the actual, factual statments of your post above defeat that thinking. But I just point out a little current that took you off course a bit.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 12/13, 12:28pm)

Post 86

Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - 12:47pm

Michael I do believe that is the most concise and well written post I have ever read from you, really really nice job!

Post 87

Friday, December 16, 2011 - 7:19pm

Dean Michael Gores wrote in Post 69: "I think that in general Africans have lower intelligence and lower respect for other's property than Caucasians. I think this is due to differences in genetic design, due to natural selection.

Colder environments require greater planning and respect of property rights for a population to survive. You have to build a shelter, and prepare stores for the winter, and you have to kill looters or else you die in the winter.

Warmer ones do not require much planning nor any respect for property rights: year round plants and animals to eat, always warm: athleticism is supreme. People don't spend so much time caring for and building homes, nor storing food. Little value stored for looters to deprive you of, little reason to kill a thief.

The Innuit and Eskimos appreciate your endorsement.  Actually, I have read (and cited) a story that if a man drags driftwood up the shore he can leave it there and come back for it.  To anyone who sees it, it is intuitively obvious that this is someone else's property. So, they leave it alone. But one swallow does not a summer make, and I hesitate to claim that Aleuts have a better sense of property rights than Ashanti.

As for the "scarcity theory" of property rights, you have to take into account the fact that the rain forest is nutrient poor.  Warm climates are not necessarily abundant. The Forest and the Sea: A Look at the Economy of Nature and the Ecology of Man by Marston Bates (Random House, 1960) draws analogies between the two ecologies. Most of the energy transfer is at the top. It is near the ocean surface and it is in the forest canopy. Living on the ground in the rain forest (as humans do) is like being one of those glowing fish monsters with huge teeth that you only see from a bathyscape. Life is a vicious scramble... which is what Hobbes said it was for everyone anyway...

The Native Americans of the Woodlands probably had the best environment and it only allowed them to continue living as they did when they arrived. They made some progress, to be sure. And it is dangerous to say that they had no sense of property rights because that is only our view. The victors draw the maps: Boston and Albany were noted, but huge areas were called only "Iroquois" or "Mohawk" even though large, permanent villages were known. The line between Pennsylvania and New York was drawn, but no such lines separated the tribes. Separate they were, whether we noted it or not. Wampum was invented by Hiawatha to ameliorate conflict. That would tend to support your thesis. And native life was good enough that some Europeans escaped into it.   But North American was climatically the same as Europe with four seasons including glacial winters. And warfare, looting and raiding was pretty vigorous in both places.   So, it is not clear to me what is being demonstrated.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 12/16, 7:34pm)

Post 88

Friday, December 16, 2011 - 7:35pm

Dean Michael Gores wrote in Post 69: "I think that in general Africans have lower intelligence and lower respect for other's property than Caucasians. I think this is due to differences in genetic design, due to natural selection.

Colder environments require greater planning and respect of property rights for a population to survive. You have to build a shelter, and prepare stores for the winter, and you have to kill looters or else you die in the winter.

Warmer ones do not require much planning nor any respect for property rights: year round plants and animals to eat, always warm: athleticism is supreme. People don't spend so much time caring for and building homes, nor storing food. Little value stored for looters to deprive you of, little reason to kill a thief.

Apart from the racist ideas regarding race and intelligence, Dean appears to believe that ideas have a Lamarkian effect. Because a group in one area decides, rationally or not, to adopt certain ideas doesn't mean that those ideas will start to be transmitted in the genes. That goes beyond determinism to laying a claim that once ideas are adopted (and important) that the genes will pick them up for future generations.

Or, it could be saying that ideas were in every group, at the gene level, but they effected the survival rates of those in one area. That isn't Lamarkian, but it is still laying a claim for ideas being held in our genes. Me, I think that we create ideas, we learn ideas, we examine idea... we aren't little genetic robots whose ideas were all there at birth and were just passed along from our earliest ancestors as DNA.

Post 89

Friday, December 16, 2011 - 10:51pm

Whether you feel bad when contemplating cheating on a test, whether you feel like a disgusting scoundrel when considering cheating on your wife, whether you feel butterflies when you climb a tree or walk to the edge of the cliff. These are not feelings that you decide from some rational deduction. Instead, they are things that have been programmed into our genes through natural selection. Your body is designed to feel them.

This is your body telling you (through evolutionarily programmed means) that you are about to do something that is potentially significantly life alteringly stupid.

Some feel stronger with various emotions than others on various decisions and situations. This influences which means a person chooses in their attempt to achieve their goals.

Edit: Steve, I do not deny that this is also true:

Me, I think that we create ideas, we learn ideas, we examine idea... we aren't little genetic robots whose ideas were all there at birth and were just passed along from our earliest ancestors as DNA.

But I do believe that genetic differences between populations can result in differences in general behavior and intelligence between populations even if you give them the same environment.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores on 12/16, 10:57pm)

Post 90

Friday, December 16, 2011 - 11:35pm

Dean said, "Whether you feel bad when contemplating cheating on a test, whether you feel like a disgusting scoundrel when considering cheating on your wife, whether you feel butterflies when you climb a tree or walk to the edge of the cliff. These are not feelings that you decide from some rational deduction. Instead, they are things that have been programmed into our genes through natural selection. Your body is designed to feel them."

Not true, Dean. Each individual who has a feeling of guilt accepted a belief at an earlier period of their life that the act in question was morally wrong. Sociopaths, and those with different value systems won't feel guilty. You program your responses with the choice to accept the judgment that cheating is wrong. The actual feeling is carried and experienced by an underlying mechanism that we inherited. But the programming wasn't. The fact that our bodies are designed (by evolution) to experience feelings isn't germaine to the question of whether we choose to believe a thing is wrong or not.

Dean, you don't feel guilty if you someone tries to 'guilt' you into some charity or another - because you don't believe it would be wrong to say, "No." That should be proof enough that we make and accept judgments and integrate judgments - internalizing value judgments and that is where guilt, and other emotions, come from.

There are a few feelings or sensations that are hard-wired.... like hunger, or thirst. But those are not the same kind of thing. Other things we learn, like fear of height - it is behavioral, a baby doesn't start out afraid of height but learns to fear heights. The mechanism that lets us learn things at that level was introduced to our evolutionary ancestors back before we were lizard-like.
---------------

I do believe that genetic differences between populations can result in differences in general behavior and intelligence between populations even if you give them the same environment.

We disagree on this. I've spelled out in other posts the problems here (understanding what human intelligence is, the much greater variation that is due to learned, created culture, and the changes that exist in the micro-environments of the womb, early childhood with the family, etc.) and the fact that genes don't carry ideas and most behavior is not genetically coded.

Post 91

Saturday, December 17, 2011 - 2:22am

Determinism, compatibalism, free will. I've already stated my position, you yours. I don't see how we can come to agreement on this. We will return to old debates.

I could propose that there are no noncausal events. Note how incredibly difficult it is to generate "random" numbers. That causal seems reasonable, but then, of course, that this contradicts the "free will" unicorn. Free will makes no sense, by many implies a definition of non-causal events. I make sense of it with "self cause", where self is part of reality, and reality changes with a causal physics.

This leads me to think about how existence ever came to be in the first place. For there to be nothing, and then something, does not satisfy. And furthermore, for there to have always have been stuff, is also not satisfying.

Mysteries. Not to be answered today. Sorry for my lack of interest to continue this particular debate. Given our differences in premise, I hope you can understand our difference in conclusion, and realize that I am reasonable.

Post 92

Saturday, December 17, 2011 - 10:18am

Hi Dean,

You wrote, "This leads me to think about how existence ever came to be in the first place. For there to be nothing, and then something, does not satisfy. And furthermore, for there to have always have been stuff, is also not satisfying." (italics added)

Existence did not come to be. It is eternal (which literally means "out of time"). Time is 'in' the universe and is a property of the universe; the universe is not 'in' time. There was "always" something in existence, because the very concept of time presupposes existence. Since time is a relationship between moving objects, it depends on their existence. Without the existence of moving objects, there could be no time. Therefore, to say that there could have been a time when nothing existed is to say that there could have been a time when there was no time, which is a contradiction.

Furthermore, since something cannot come from nothing, there could never have been a time when nothing existed; otherwise, there would be nothing in existence now, since there would have been nothing to cause or create it. Remember, causality -- creation -- presupposes existence -- the existence of something to act as a cause; existence does not presuppose causality.

(Edited by William Dwyer on 12/17, 10:36am)

Post 93

Saturday, December 17, 2011 - 2:31pm

Good points, Bill.

Dean,

Let me try a thought experiment. Imagine complete stillness everywhere. No motion ... ever. Imagine trying to distinguish one moment from the next, or one millenium from the next. Nothing changes ... ever. In such a fictitious place, there would be no time. There also would be no use for time. Not just no concept of time, but no time in the existential sense. There would be no effect of time on reality and no effect of reality on time.

Ed

Post 94

Saturday, December 17, 2011 - 2:52pm

Stephen Hawking asserts that no god could have created the universe because a god literally wouldn't have had time to create it. There would have been no time prior to the creation of the universe. Such an argument is not likely to sway any theist. A god is by definition a supernatural being to which one ascribes impossible powers.

As to why anything exists at all, I have no answer and suspect none is possible; hence, the universe is rationally assumed to eternal, even though it can't be proven as such.

Post 95

Saturday, December 17, 2011 - 10:31pm

Brad,

... hence, the universe is rationally assumed to [be] eternal, even though it can't be proven as such.

Like one's proving that intelligence is genetic, you actually can prove that the universe is eternal -- i.e., with an 'argument-from-exclusion' (actually, with a modus tollens argument). It has to do with successfully accounting for all possibilities. It goes something like this:

If the universe is non-eternal, then it sprang up from nothingness (ex nihilo).
Nothing ever springs up from nothingness (because that is physically impossible).
----------------------------------------------------
Therefore, the universe is eternal.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 12/17, 10:34pm)

Post 96

Sunday, December 18, 2011 - 8:44am

Dean said: Whether you feel bad when contemplating cheating on a test, whether you feel like a disgusting scoundrel when considering cheating on your wife, whether you feel butterflies when you climb a tree or walk to the edge of the cliff. These are not feelings that you decide from some rational deduction. Instead, they are things that have been programmed into our genes through natural selection. Your body is designed to feel them
Steve replied: Dean appears to believe that ideas have a Lamarkian effect. Because a group in one area decides, rationally or not, to adopt certain ideas doesn't mean that those ideas will start to be transmitted in the genes. That goes beyond determinism to laying a claim that once ideas are adopted (and important) that the genes will pick them up for future generations.

Allow me to point again to epigenetics. Wikipedia here. Time magazine here. PBS Nova here.
Environment affects genetics. What you experience changes your DNA. Stresses create chemicals that bond to genes, turning them off. And it skips generations. And can matter whether you inherit it from your father or mother.

We need to get past 19th vocabulary and 20th century knowledge. Dean is not making a "Lamarkian claim."

Africa's problems and India's problems versus the problems of Germany or the Netherlands may be in part the result of environmental impacts on genetic transference. I say "may be" because this is not yet fully explored. One fact is that we know from close studies of a Norwegian community that failed crops in one generation will result in diseases and disorders two generations later.

I believe that Dean is speaking (well) for himself when he says that his sense of guilt is in-born. It may well be according to modern evolutionary theory. However, Dean is over-generalizing because not everyone is born with the same emotional expressions. Steve is right when he cites the existence of socioplaths. However, he is incompletel. Sociopaths are born charming and insincere; and serial killers are the extreme example. Some men sublimate their tendency for violence by joining the army, where it is rewarded in context. Others just kill their neighbors. Still other men, conscripted into military service, must be ritualized - and brutalized - into killing and some of them never learn it. Thus is not enough to say that "people are naturally ..." Different people are different.

SW: Other things we learn, like fear of height - it is behavioral, a baby doesn't start out afraid of height but learns to fear heights.

Again, the matter is more complicated. The baby does not learn to fear heights by falling.

Campos et al came to this conclusion using what is called a visual cliff, where a flat piece of clear plexiglass covers a ledge with a checkerboard pattern that drops off several feet with the same pattern visible below. Usually babies are placed at the edge of the cliff and their mothers call to them from the direction of the deep side to see if they will crawl across the plexiglass over the apparent drop off (2). Alternatively, in this study, babies were lowered onto the plexiglass on the deep side of the visual cliff while their heart rate was being measured. Crawling babies (or pre-crawling babies who had significant experience with a baby walker) showed a heightened heartbeat (fear response) while pre-crawling babies did not. (Serendip from Bryn Mawr here.)

If we can leave God and the Universe to another discussion, we might make some progress in understanding how people are different. In an earlier post, I referred to natural born pilots, to nerds versus jocks, and so on. Clearly, we are born with personalities. And we can change them - just as Michael Jackson, John Wayne, and Warner Oland changed their races. Whether our choices are passed on or passed over is a different question. My point is that these in-born characteristics and tendencies are not called "races." There exists no objective definition of race.

Post 97

Sunday, December 18, 2011 - 9:45am

Geebus...speaking of redheads and genetics:

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/oral-care/why-redheads-and-dentists-dont-get-along

"Redheads may be stereotyped as having fiery tempers, but those tempers may turn to fear and loathing when they walk through the door of a dentist's office, according to research published in the Journal of the American Dental Association. The study shows that people with a specific gene that often occurs in redheads tend to experience heightened anxiety when they pop in for a regular teeth cleaning."

Post 98

Sunday, December 18, 2011 - 12:03pm

Michael, I seriously hope that people don't take you seriously.

In this on-going discussion of race I've already mentioned one form of epigenics - embryology. I mentioned it, along with other effects that discredit the alleged connection between race and intelligence.

But what you wrote, regarding epigenetics, has nothing to do with my mention of Lamarkism. Lamarkism is the discredited theory that says acquired traits are passed on in the genes. The classic example is of a body builder whose hard work generates a muscular phyique, and then that trait is passed on to his children who grow up with muscular physiques. For that to happen you would have to show the following:
1.) The link between the muscle developement and a change in the genes,
2.) The genes changed must include those in the germ line (sperm or egg),
3.) Those genes would then have to code for the trait in question - big muscles - in the offspring.

There is no evidence of that existing. There are environmental effects on germ line genes - like diseases or radiation or chemicals that alter genes but that isn't the same as acquiring a trait and the genes being altered so that trait will be passed on.

What Dean was mentioning would have to be Lamarkian, unless you can show me research that says people who feel guilty about X, will have children who feel guilty about X, and the guilt reaction to X was transfered via the genes despite it not having been in the genes before the parent started experiencing it. None of the links you provided even come close. You said these inborn feelings "... may well be according to modern evolutionary theory." Not so. You said, "Sociopaths are born charming and insincere... Those sociopaths who are charming - and not all of them are - learned that skill.

Michael, your own example proves what I said... babies learn to fear heights.

That was one of those Michael posts where when the fluff is separated from the substance, one is hard put to find much substance.

Post 99

Sunday, December 18, 2011 - 2:10pm