Gender and Intelligence

Evolutionary biology refutes feminist egalitarian social constructivist mythology and the gender-levelling political demands that take root on it. The male and female brains are different:

http://libertarianrealist.blogspot.com/2012/01/gender-and-intelligence.html

Post 1

Saturday, January 14, 2012 - 4:02am

I'm smarter than you brad and so is everyone else that posts here what race and sex is a troll anyways?

Post 2

Saturday, January 14, 2012 - 9:10am

Unseriously

You know, I've seen the movie Shrek 2. And, from what I can gather, trolls don't really have any private parts. They are not 'anatomically-correct' -- at least not when depicted in clever animation movies designed to simultaneously entertain younglings while covertly inserting humor that only an adult could conceptualize.

Seriously

Brad, the male and female brain are different, but almost equal. Because we're dudes, let's use a car analogy:

Males have more grey matter (larger "engines" of thought), but females have more white matter (more "transmission" of the 'engine-power' of thought). Think of it like a Bugatti Veyron. A Bugatti Veyron is a 16-cylinder, 1000+hp, supercar. It's got a big engine and lots of power. The male mind is like a Bugatti Veyron. But, as car enthusiasts say, it is really just four 4-cylinder engines packed under one hood. Now, if you are trying to pull a sled with a Bugatti Veyron, it will -- traction permitting -- it will pull a sled so heavy that it would have taken 1000 horses (to move that sled). But, alternatively, you could pull that same sled with 4 Subaru WRX STi cars. The female mind is like 4 Subaru WRX STi cars.

In both cases, you have 16 cylinders and 1000+hp. But here is the rub: the 4 Subarus have a total of 16 wheels of traction. So , a lot of the time in reality, the female mind will pull 'heavier sleds' than the male mind -- even without all of the raw horsepower of the male mind. The upshot is that you can't compare usable mind-power (you can't evaluate the global merit of a mind) based on a single metric.

Ed

Post 3

Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 12:11pm

Ed, you are attempting to reason with a "car" that has maybe only three but granted perhaps five cylinders, but they are not in-line, so the "car" is unbalanced when the "engine" is running. With the "engine" off - seen perhaps reading a book by Ayn Rand - the "car" looks normal. But once the "engine" starts up, you know that something is very wrong.

To abuse the analogy, collectivist thinking is like having a car with five cylinders placed just about anywhere - even one horizontally in the back seat - and the automotive engineer attempting to convince the marketing department that "collectively" this is one heck of an engine.

Even if any collective generalization were true - "communists have higher IQs than vegetarians" or
"impressionists are more emotional than dadaist" or "baseball umpires have larger thumbs than hockey referees" - what difference would it make in one individual's evaluation of the moral status of another individual?

Collectivism may be just an abstract philosophy that an individualist accepts - like putting on a necktie that does not match your suit, even though you think it does. Collectivism grows from within. I assert that collectivism is genetic. But free will being what it is, there are still socialists whom I would trust far beyond some of the individualists I know.

That is one of the errors in the "new country" and "Galt's Gulch" theories. The claim that if "we" all exclude "them" then "we" can have a better world totally ignores the reality of human relations and relationships. Complexity brings benefits. Bastiat's broken window cautions us to look beyond the obvious. I don't care if my plumber is a Christian; in fact, it is probably an endorsement. But in any case, good plumbing is its own justification.

So, too, with the collectivist individualists who want to circle the wagons or form a square. We are not at war. We are merchants. In fact, I might suggest that rather than "The War for Men's Minds" we change the paradigm to "The Markets for the Best Ideas."

It is not this:
Caesar!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxLqx8xF9Pw

It might be this:
Arab Bazaar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S6bnh57OkU

It is surely this:
Canadian Railroad Trilogy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzo6Otpgj-E'

Post 4

Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 3:26pm

Collectivism grows from within. I assert that collectivism is genetic. But free will being what it is, there are still socialists whom I would trust far beyond some of the individualists I know.

That doesn't make sense to me. How is an idea passed along from generation to generation by DNA? And if the idea of collectivism is transmitted genetically, what does free will have to do with anything? And isn't "trust" (in that last sentence) out of context? When I think of "trust" in that context where collectivism versus individualism are being referenced, I would trust the individualist because his basic principles don't include forcing people to go with the collective. And why, from the next paragraph in Michael's post above, would being a Christian be an endorsement? I could understand it not being relevant, and I agree that the plumbing work stands as its own justification, but I don't understand being Christian as an endorsement.

Post 5

Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 4:10pm

Cars with bigger engines don't necessarily perform better in all road, weather, and traffic conditions. While bigger engines imply the ability to reach higher top speeds, fast cars may be less reliable or more likely to cause crashes than other types of vehicles.

Is a Corvette better than a Caravan minivan? Only in particular respects. The vehicles certainly possess different characteristics, being entirely different breeds. An individual Corvette's performance may vary greatly from another based on age, maintenance, fuel, tires, altitude, defects, add-ons, and an unlimited number of other variables. In general, though, a Corvette can go faster than a Caravan, even though it's possible to turbo-charge a Caravan and for a Corvette to be stuck in first gear.

How highly one chooses to value speed as compared to other qualities is a normative issue that has no bearing on the positive proposition that Corvettes by their nature are equipped to go faster than minivans.

The moral dogmatist will conflate the normative with the positive and object to any generalizations about car makes, models, and types beyond their most superficial characteristics. The moral demand that one explain cars' actual performance capabilities only by reference to individual cars and never by reference to characteristics that car types share in common puts morality in opposition to the full integration and use of conceptual knowledge.

The moral dogmatist doesn't explicitly deny the existence of car types, but some of his allies do. The outright concept obliterator holds that sports cars, minivans, sedans, SUVs, and other vehicle types do not exist; that only individual vehicles exist. The mentality is one of concrete-boundedness and hyper-skepticism. It leads to the claim that since some vehicles may be crossovers, bearing characteristics of both sedans and SUVs, and some vehicles may not fit neatly into a particular category, such ambiguities invalidate all classifications. Since human beings have a practical and unavoidable need to use language to classify and organize their perceptions, the concept obliterator permits humans to continue using terms such as "SUV" and "sedan" (if framed in superfluous quotation marks) but insists they are mere social constructs, that they don't actually refer to anything real. Concept obliteration of this sort is intended to sever the connection between concept and percept, between mind and reality, crippling one's ability to know anything and rendering humans epistemic slaves to social opinion on matters of vehicle type.

Post 6

Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 5:14pm

Okay, Brad, I agree with you by about 40-60%.

If you had to have too many concepts or too few concepts, it'd be better to have too many. This makes a prime suspect out of the behavior you have dubbed "concept obliteration." In general, folks who engage in concept obliteration are in the wrong. This is because, in general, if you had to have too many concepts or too few concepts, it is better to have too many. But keeping that preliminary warning (about how to go about the process of thinking in general), there is just not enough of the mind and brain understood to legitimize your intention to characterize folks based on one or a few metrics (e.g., cranial capacity, grey matter volume, etc.).

For instance, men have about 6 times the grey matter as women, but men are nowhere near 6 times as smart. On conventional IQ tests, females are about as smart as males are. So what gives, Brad? What gives? What kind of a conclusion can we draw from that? Take Einstein, for example. Earlier you floated the possibility that big heads make for big brains, and that big brains make for big intelligence. Therefore, if you have a big skull, there is probably a big brain inside, and we can go ahead and statistically categorize you as being probably smart. Well, how does that theory hold up when we look at Einstein's brain? I realize that this is just a single example (what you warned against), but it's Einstein for christ-sakes! He's the paradigm example of a genius! The facts?

Einstein's brain, weighing in at 1230 grams, was 12% smaller than an average brain (1400 grams) -- though he had big parietal lobes. Being less than average by 12% is supposed to be a big deal, it is supposed to do something -- but it didn't. So, what do you do when even cardinal cases pop up like this which contradict a hypothesis? Answer: You drop the hypothesis. If the Bugatti Veyron -- the highest-horsepower production car in the world before 2009 or so -- if the Bugatti Veyron was found to be slower than the average car, then it would be proper to re-think the relationship between horsepower and speed. This example -- this cardinal example where the feature in question was unparalleled -- would be enough to shake the whole foundation of our theory on horsepower and speed.*

I'm getting this information from a book called The Rough Guide to the Brain and, in it (p 15), there is this wonderful quote -- I think it will help alter your seemingly-overconfident perspective on this matter:

If the brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't.

--Emerson M. Pugh

Ed

*I want to stress that the Veyron-horsepower-speed paradigm is a counterfactual. I want to stress that, in reality, we can usually rely on our making the mental connection between horsepower and speed. We can make the connection between the one metric and the other. My purpose for including this as a counterfactual is to draw attention to the fact that we are not currently in an epistemological position that permits us to do this with the brain and the mind. The relationship between brain, mind, and intelligence is not simple enough -- contra Brad's efforts -- to permit us to do something like that.
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/15, 5:32pm)

Post 7

Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 6:52pm

Ed,

"Men have about 6 times the grey matter as women..." Where is all this extra grey matter located? There's not that much extra room inside men's skulls.

As for the brain size:intelligence correlations, I can explain why they are not 1:1 and why they are still significant. But before I do, I want to know that it won't be a waste of my time. Previously, I've come to the conclusion that your skepticism on this subject is unreasonable and likely unshakable; that no matter what evidence I could possibly present, it wouldn't be enough. It seemed to me that your view was that I'd have to be superhuman and account for all environmental factors before you'd agree that genetics explains even as much as 0.000001% of the racial IQ gap.

If that is your view, then there's no point in carrying this discussion forward. If it's not, then please explain to me what evidence would move you from thinking racial variation in cognitive capacity likely doesn't exist to thinking it likely does?

Post 8

Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 10:19pm

Brad,

"Men have about 6 times the grey matter as women..." Where is all this extra grey matter located? There's not that much extra room inside men's skulls.

In women, much of the grey matter is replaced by white matter. Women have at least 6 times as much white matter in their brains as men do (so it is a simple trade-off).

It seemed to me that your view was that I'd have to be superhuman and account for all environmental factors before you'd agree that genetics explains even as much as 0.000001% of the racial IQ gap.

If that is your view, then there's no point in carrying this discussion forward. If it's not, then please explain to me what evidence would move you from thinking racial variation in cognitive capacity likely doesn't exist to thinking it likely does?

Brad, as I said before, I already think that genetics explains somewhere between 15-50% of the observed variation in IQ scores! The reason I think that is because I have produced evidence of environmental factors explaining at least 50% of the observed variation. Now, not everyone knows about the research which I have presented here regarding how environment can and does affect intelligence, so you are still going to get folks -- even intelligence "experts" -- saying that intelligence is primarily genetic. As Robert Atkins the diet guru said, it takes about 20 years before what it is that is scientifically known, becomes scientifically accepted. In his case with low-carb dieting (as well as in the historical examples he gave in his 1972 book) that proved to be true.*

So now, what you would need to show me would be these steps:

1) delineate groupings of genotypes and explain how well of a fit they are (e.g. an 80% fit, a 90% fit) when put into those heuristic categories that we refer to as: "race"
2) show how these groups of genotypes are different from each other in relation to their relative phenotypic expressions of intelligence

The reason you would have to perform step #1 is because the concept of race wasn't deduced from genetic difference, even if genetic differences do, in retrospect, explain the racial variations in phenotypes. The reason you would have to perform step #2 is because of the 'investigative underdetermination ' inherent in such research coupled with genetic/phenotypic redundancy ('genetic overdetermination'). Some "race" could have more of one gene for intelligence, but the other "race" could have more epigenetic factors (or perhaps, say, could have 2 other genes for intelligence -- but genes that are not yet identified) that lead the second race to be the one with more intelligence, on average -- even though all current scientific data would predict that the first one should be more intelligent, on average.

Our investigative underdetermination means that we may not be able to tell which group-activations of which sets of genes produces the phenotypic trait in question (in this case, intelligence) because -- at the same time -- the overdetermination of genotypes means that several combinations of genes, activated in several varieties of activation patterns can (at least, in theory) produce the same phenotypic result (genetic redundancy). An example of genetic redundancy is fetal hemoglobin. We stop producing it as we age and we instead produce adult hemoglobin -- but the genes for fetal hemoglobin never go away, they are still there. They remain there as a possible redundant way to get hemoglobin produced in a person (e.g., to resolve anemia).**

So, you have a set of genes. You have to show that, when activated, they produce intelligence. Also, you have to show that there isn't another set of genes that, when activated, produces the same intelligence. And, even if you successfully show a set of activated genes producing intelligence, you can't be sure that you've shown the only way to produce that phenotypic result from that genotype, because there may be more ways than one combination where the genome could produce the same phenotypic result.

Ed

*Low-carbohydrate diet review: shifting the paradigm.

What does a clinician need to know about low-carbohydrate (LC) diets? This review examines and compares the safety and the effectiveness of a LC approach as an alternative to a low-fat (LF), high-carbohydrate diet, the current standard for weight loss and/or chronic disease prevention. In short-term and long-term comparison studies, ad libitum and isocaloric therapeutic diets with varying degrees of carbohydrate restriction perform as well as or better than comparable LF diets ... . It is time to embrace LC diets as a viable option to aid in reversing diabetes mellitus, risk factors for heart disease, and the epidemic of obesity.

.
**Transcriptional regulation of fetal to adult hemoglobin switching: new therapeutic opportunities.

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/15, 10:30pm)

Post 9

Monday, January 16, 2012 - 12:13am

Ed,

You had quoted Thomas Sowell as suggesting that the black/white IQ gap was not "even partly racial." It's odd to quote someone whose conclusion you disagree with to make a point in a debate, especially since the reasoning behind his was so unsound as to fail Logic 101 (his premises supported a conclusion that racial IQ gaps were durable in spite of changing social environments).

If you think that genetics could even plausibly account for 15% - 50% of inter-racial IQ variation within a society, then you should join me in rejecting radical equalitarian arguments that take genetics off the table completely. Even your low end figure of 15% is significantly greater than 0%.

Most psychologists who study causes of intelligence assign a value of greater than 50% to genetics. It's easy to grasp why when focusing on child prodigies who do exceptional things at young ages that no parenting or schooling can reproduce in other kids. Check out this 60 Minutes story that just aired tonight:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57358845/jake-math-prodigy-proud-of-his-autism/

Being mediocre is also genetic. It's just less obvious.

Post 10

Monday, January 16, 2012 - 7:54am

Brad,

Like Darth Vader, you said: "[J]oin me ... ", but I cannot come over to the Dark Side. Environment explains up to 85% of all noted variation in IQ scores. And even what is dubbed genetic is not always purely genetic. As an example, a simple fatty acid from butter (butyric acid, or butyrate) can re-awaken dormant genes on your genome and make you produce the hemoglobin of a human fetus (resolving some cases of anemia). If a stupid stick of butter can genetically transform your phenotype (via inducing dormant genes), then what kind of a categorization can we really get into, regarding genes and intelligence -- a categorization that would be immune to such discoveries in the future?

I fear that we could not make a categorization that wouldn't soon be blasted into smithereens by further scientific findings showing said genes to be largely under environmental control. So, no, I will not join you.

Luke Skywalk ... er ... I mean, Ed

Post 11

Monday, January 16, 2012 - 10:45am

Here is another example, drawing from a case given in the book (p 134-5) which I cited and linked to above in post 6.

Papua New Guinea tribes often seem to be "stupid." They run around half-clothed and they sing and dance and engage in what can be characterized as stupid-looking rituals. It is up to us to explain why that is the case. If they have the same genetics as us, then their behavior should approximate ours. This potential explanation for their apparent stupidity would be a genetic explanation -- i.e., that they act as if they are dumb because they have genes coding for such apparently-dumb behavior. This is called biological- or genetic determinism.

An alternative explanation for their seemingly-stupid behavior would be a philosophic explanation -- i.e., that they act as if they are dumb because of holding a wrong worldview (a wrong philosophy). On this view, you could have similar genes but different levels of evident intelligence because, in determining human performance, human philosophy is a more powerful factor than human biology. This view is called, for lack of a better phrase, common sense.

Let's discover which one of these explanations is correct, by looking at the case given in the book.

In the 1950s it became clear something strange was afoot on the eastern tip of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, when a rapidly increasing number of women and children of the South Fore tribe began dying of a disease known locally as kuru.

The name comes from the Fore word for "trembling", and in the preliminary phase, known as the ambulant stage, sufferers would experience a general unsteadiness of movement, a slurring of speech, and shivering. ... In the second, sedentary stage, ... [t]hey would also begin to slow down mentally, ...

... More than 1000 (of the tribe's 8000) people died in less than a decade. ...

... The women of the Fore took part in ritualistic mortuary cannibalism. ... The prepared brain, considered a delicacy, was reserved for close relatives. These posthumous feasts were eaten by the women of the tribe, who would share their meal with children -- no men were allowed to partake. ...

... [The scientist Daniel Carleton] Gajdusek began working on the idea that kuru might be the result of some kind of slow-acting virus that, once contracted, would slowly destroy the central nervous tissue of the infected individual. In a breakthrough, he linked the tribe's ritualistic cannibalism with the spread of kuru -- an idea which explained the disease's behaviour perfectly. ... It also explained the familial path the disease seemed to take. Cannibalism was subsequently banned in the region and kuru died out. In 1976, Gajdusek was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work.

As it turns out, there was no virus, but it took more Nobel-Prize-winning research to discover the cause of kuru. Only after the discovery of prions in 1982 by Stanley B. Prusiner was the true nature of kuru revealed. ...

So, we have 2 sets of behavior to explain, the specific behavior of a kuru-afflicted person who becomes mentally slow, and the general behavior of the tribe. The cause of the first case of stupidity -- the mentally-slow kuru patient -- is the second kind of general behavior. The ultimate cause is their primitive, mystical view of reality where rituals are thought to be intrinsically good or holy and not to be questioned by tribal members. In each case, the ultimate cause for their poor intelligence -- as inferred from their unintelligent behavior -- is philosophic (not genetic).

You can include philosophy as an environmental cause of behavior (as against a genetic cause) with the qualification that the precise environment affected is your mental environment. Humans live in a double-environment -- it is both physical and mental for us. Our philosophy shapes our mental environment, and this shapes our behavior and performance in the world -- even more than genetic or biological differences do.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 1/16, 12:34pm)

Post 12

Monday, January 16, 2012 - 12:12pm

I suppose kuru could be called "mad philosopher disease" as contrasted against "mad cow disease" in America.

Post 13

Monday, January 16, 2012 - 4:11pm

Mr. Thompson said: "Papua New Guinea tribes often seem to be "stupid." They run around half-clothed and they sing and dance and engage in what can be characterized as stupid-looking rituals. It is up to us to explain why that is the case."

Obviously, you have never been to Florida.
You never saw any movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
You never went to a baseball game, hockey game, basketball., etc., etc.
You never have been inside a church, synogogue or mosque.
You never voted in an election.
You never advanced and defended an idea in an online discussion board.
You never wore a necktie.

Ed, you are the Truest of the True Believers here. May you never be relegated to Dissent. ... and keep eating those brains! (Nice post in #10, though. My sanction!)

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 1/16, 4:15pm)

Post 14

Monday, January 16, 2012 - 4:42pm

Bran Trun: The moral dogmatist will conflate the normative with the positive and object to any generalizations about car makes, models, and types beyond their most superficial characteristics. The moral demand that one explain cars' actual performance capabilities only by reference to individual cars and never by reference to characteristics that car types share in common puts morality in opposition to the full integration and use of conceptual knowledge.

Is it an SUV or a Ford? Is the Crown Victoria the "police car"? And if so, what happened to the Plymouth Fury? Are Fury genes in the Crown Vic?

First, you never posited any taxonomy of "race." You did not because you cannot.

We know who makes cars. ... and sometimes we do not as the so-called "Chevymobile scandal" demonstratred.

You cloak your ignorant, 19th century racialst gobledegook in objectivistic jargon. Perhaps you are a member of the race of Parrot Men found in The Iron Dream.

Post 15

Monday, January 16, 2012 - 5:52pm

Michael,

The Crown Vic used to come in more varities but was domesticated for police and taxi duty. I believe the Ford Taurus went extinct and what is now commonly called a Taurus is really a Five Hundred.

I confess to being ignorant about the Plymouth Fury. But I don't systematically prescribe ignorance like you post-modernists do. Race deniers seek to obliterate the concept-forming process and suppress information deemed not supportive of their normative ends.

Some racial egalitarians seek literally to deprive drivers of any breed of vehicle data that might help them steer clear of dangerous neighborhoods. The driving directions a GPS device gives might be Racist:

Is GPS "Avoid Ghetto" App Racist?

http://libertarianrealist.blogspot.com/2012/01/is-gps-avoid-ghetto-app-racist.html

It's about depriving people of information and preventing them from forming and using concepts. It's more explicitly anti-mind than any major religion, this religion of political correctness. Anyone who judges questions of fact based on its (or any) moral/political mandates, anyone who puts its (or any) oughts above "it is," has succumbed to the religious mentality.

(Edited by Brad Trun on 1/16, 5:55pm)

Post 16

Monday, January 16, 2012 - 9:11pm

True Believers of the world, unite! ...

... Oh, wait ... that is wrong on more than one level.

Just ... uhhh ... uhhh ... just forget I said that.

:-)

Ed

p.s. Thanks for the kudos, Mike M.

Post 17

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - 12:19pm

Brad Trun opened the topic with : "Evolutionary biology refutes feminist egalitarian social constructivist mythology and the gender-levelling political demands that take root on it. The male and female brains are different:"

"... feminist egalitarian social constructivist mythology and the gender-levelling political demands ..."

Yeah, but no one beats the Reds when it comes to jargon. ... lackeys and running dogs of monstrous US imperialism.... social deviants, hooligans, and self-indulgent egotists intoxicated by western consumerism... But you are way ahead of Christians who can only "rebuke Satan" in two words or less.

Here's the problem: some self-identified feminists assert, as you do, that men and women are different, and that women are superior. They have statistics to prove it, too. Just biologically, consider that the female is a double XX and the male an Xy. That little tiny deficient flaccid bitsy weensy y-chromosome lacks the ability to conceive and bear. Evolution, being what it is, the defective males adopted the heritable strategy of penetration... which, at least, had the beneficial side effect of better mixing genetic materials... assuming you think that this is good. I mean, if evolution worked for billions of years with randomly varying daughter cells, it is difficult to prove that just any change is "good." After all, male penetration is only a parasitic variation on the previously established strategy of conjugation between equals.

I do not (necessarily) advocate this, I'm just saying, you would find feminists who agree with you. They may not be egalitarians or gender-levellers. But not all lackeys are running dogs...

The problem is one of concept formation. You assert that any mishmash of attributes among entities can be called a concept. Thus, the Milky Way Galaxy is a Milky Way Bar because both contain the same elements. ... and they do!

Take gender. What is it? Ed Thompson nicely showed one error in your thinking with facts about brains. But Ed did not question sexual identity. What is a "male brain." Presumably, these were the brains of humans already pre-identified by researchers as "men." Were any gay? Were any transgendered? We all know Professor McCloskey of Bourgeois Virtue and Bourgeois Dignity. Anyone scan her brain?

A classmate of mine and I got the highest scores on a quiz, so I followed her out. She said that it was her birthday. Mine, too! So, I walked over the LGBT Office where she worked and we later went out on a study date. She said: "Sex is what is between your legs. Gender is what is between your ears. Orientation is what happens between the sheets."

We know wheat from elephants, even if parameciums are animals with chlorophyll. But parameciums exist, nonetheless. Your so-called "libertarian realism" is only 19th century thinking, long since proved false. We are in the 21st century. The paradigm of epigenetics has eclipsed Darwinian theory.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 1/17, 12:38pm)

Post 18

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - 1:55pm

Michael,

In addition to having 19th century views on race, I have 18th century views on liberty, 17th century views on the scientific method, and B.C. views on the law of identity.

You can congratulate yourself for your comparative post-modernity. I will congratulate you for at least for admitting that your views are opposed to Darwinism. Some atheist race deniers won't admit that Darwin's theory necessitates races having particular biological identities and origins.

As the Charles Darwin Research Institute (http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org) notes:

Darwinism was swept away in the 1920s by various environmentalist doctrines. Freud's Oedipal theories and Watson's behavioral molding of individuals were compatible with Marx's assumptions of the malleability of entire social groups through government intervention.

Let us be explicit about the problem faced by Darwinian psychology -- political correctness. Its central thesis is the environmental determinism of all important human traits. It stems from Marxism and a belief that social and economic oppression are the cause of all significant individual and group behavioral differences. The Marxist hold on liberal political sentiment is so extensive many of us think that way without realizing it.

Unfortunately, your honesty does not extend to acccurately representating my thoughts. As someone with ancient views on logic, I find misrepresentations to be invalid. Admittedly, your Joycean writing style is sometimes too sophisticated in its layers of symbolism, irony, and ambiguity streaming from your consciousness for my mere literal mind to understand. But when you stated, "You assert that any mishmash of attributes among entities can be called a concept" you clearly stated a falsehood. I make no such assertion.

(Edited by Brad Trun on 1/17, 2:32pm)

Post 19

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 - 2:24pm