How much socially of human races is nature vs. nurture?

Sodium Pentothal
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How much socially of human races is nature vs. nurture?

I'm not racist, simply because I believe everyone deserves an equal opportunity to prove themselves.

But I was just reading about different cat breeds (and who doesn't these day lol?), and I notice how each breed has their own unique personalities (the product of nature, as opposed to nurture).  Do you guys think this translates to human breeds/races?

Even if this does, I don't think it necessarily supports racism, because the difference between a cat and a human being is the phenomenon known as "mind over matter."

 

P.S. I wasn't sure whether to start this thread in Philosophy/Psychology or in Science.  Sad 

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Studies on twins and

Studies on twins and adoptees suggest that humans are born with personality predispositions that are not determined entirely by the environment.  There's also now a large and growing body of research that shows certain behavioral tendencies are heavily influenced by which sex genes you happen to get.  So the science shows that humans are not tabulae rasae in terms of the influence of genes on behavior (even though humans can nearly always overcome any kind of behavioral predisposition given enough motivation).

But if you're talking about something like the differences between, for example, bonobos and chimpanzees who were reproductively isolated about 800K years ago and who have very different social behaviors that are not determined by the environment (a bonobo raised among chimpanzees will still act more like a bonobo) then the evidence is not good.  Human populations, as far as we know, have never had a really huge degree of reproductive isolation for any amount of time--and if chimpanzees are any indication, it does take a really long time.

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It is evident that people

It is evident that people behave differently if they come from different cultures. There may indeed be some different character dispositions that are not culturally that are there in some races and not others. However, it seems more evident that there may be more differences in terms of natural personality traits between two white people than between a white person and a black person. In truth, we are all the same species, we all possess roughly the same amount of intelligence (in comparison to lesser animals), we all have moral capacity (in general). I would say that most dispositions to a certain type of behaviour, defined by your ethnicity is more generally culturally not genetically transmitted.


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I know comparing cat breeds

I know comparing cat breeds and human races is not the absolute perfect analogy, but I think one of the important features of this analogy is that cat breeds are of the same species the same way that human races are*.

If we typically do not observe personality differences (other than in intensity) within cat breeds, how much do the personality differences we observe within human races do you think is nature or nurture? Of course, this question assumes several things:

1. Cats are not capable of overcoming personality disposition (I don't think this is the same as inhibiting instincts, but I can see how an objection can be made here).

2. We can identify and agree upon the general personality dispositions of human races.

 

*The analogy might be strengthened if it is noted that this personality phenomenon is also observed in dog breeds (also all the same species, Canis lupus) and in any other animal species that have managed to create breeds.

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Nobody's ever been able to

Nobody's ever been able to find anything sweeping and definitive to my knowledge.

I mean there are some very small difference traceable to particular genes being more prevalent in a population.  For example, I remember reading that some east asians populations have a gene that causes the effects of alcohol to be actively unpleasant (causes an uncomfortable flushing sensation) and the presence of that gene is correlated with a lower incidence of alcohol abuse in those populations (I can track down the reference if needed).  But nobody's ever observed anything in humans like the differences between the behavior of dog or cat breeds that I'm aware of.

...and not that people haven't been looking.  I mean, the Bell Jar guys were trying to find IQ correlations, but I believe the last I heard their data had been debunked. 

"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert


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I once was trying to have

I once was trying to have an intellectual debate on Stormfront.org (don't ask lol); suffice to say, it did not remain intellectual for long.

One of their pride and joy evidence for "racialism" is some supposedly scientific finding of how the 3 main races of Homo sapien, Blacks, Whites, and Asians, have different average levels of testosterone or something, and that largely determined racial traits (e.g. intelligence, physical strength, obedience, etc.).  I tried to research the source, but I was banned or some shit before I could find anything.  Anyone already know what I'm talking about offhand?

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It's extremely difficult to

It's extremely difficult to build a genuine scientific basis for conclusions like "low testosterone = obedience."  Evolutionary psychologists and cognitive psychologists are the legitimate scientists who deal with these kinds of questions, and you'd pretty much never hear a serious scientist making that kind of claim.

For one thing, the hormonal interaction with behavior is not directly causal.  It's more of a feedback relationship, so that, for example, the alpha male of the monkey troop has the highest testosterone, but if you take him out of the group, whichever male rises to become the alpha male has a corresponding increase in testosterone.  So the social status and the hormone levels cause each other at more or less the same time.  Hormones are also very subject to measurement errors because they fluctuate so broadly and quickly.  That's why scientists who work with hormones usually talk in terms of correlations (like in my example of Asians and alcohol above).

Most of the theoretical evidence on brain structures is still being accumulated, but it looks like something similar: brain structures influence behaviors, but behaviors and environment can also have an effect on brain structures, within limits.

But mostly it's just insanely hard to control for environment where humans are concerned.  Twin and adoption studies only go so far.  So legitimate science has to take small steps and design experiments very carefully. 

...and of course the experiment that hasn't been done by people who say "group A has more hormone X than group B" is whether or not any randomly selected group will tend to have some kind of detectable tendency like this.  That is, the detected difference might not be due to race at all, it might just be a coincidence. 

Having said that, there's a lot of pseudoscience and misinformation out there surrounding differences between races. There's a looooong tradition of Western European types using pseudoscience to "prove" that the "darker" races are inferior in order to justify exploitation and other kinds of bad behavior. The book I mentioned, The Bell Curve, is just the latest incarnation of this effort.

So evidence is evidence if it's genuine, but bring your skeptical hat along every time somebody starts to push the agenda of genetically-inherited racial behavior differences.

"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert


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Reading over my previous

Reading over my previous post, I realize that the key point got buried in what I was writing.  I hate it when that happens.

 Legitimate science can't say something like "low testosterone causes these men to be more obedient." 

The way hormones work, it would be just as likely that being obedient causes lowered testosterone.  We do know that different kinds of submissive behavior (which can be caused by culture or social interactions) correlate with a lowered level of testosterone.  Being aggressive/dominant correlates with increased testosterone.

So if you have something built into your culture that causes a lot of men to act submissive, those men will show a lower level of testosterone.  But it's not a genetic tendency--it's completely environmental.

"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert


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Sodium Pentothal wrote: I

Sodium Pentothal wrote:
I once was trying to have an intellectual debate on Stormfront.org (don't ask lol); suffice to say, it did not remain intellectual for long.

Why waste your time?  The assholes on stormfront make me regret that I am a human being.  It literally makes me feel really bad that theu belong to the same species as me.

Don't get pissed at them, its not worth it.  Be apathetic toward those social degenerates.  They have the mental capacity of a 5 year old.  There ideas need to be marginalized, in the same way we marignalize the delusional persons delusions 

 

Sodium Pentothal wrote:
One of their pride and joy evidence for "racialism" is some supposedly scientific finding of how the 3 main races of Homo sapien, Blacks, Whites, and Asians, have different average levels of testosterone or something, and that largely determined racial traits (e.g. intelligence, physical strength, obedience, etc.).

You need to do legitimate scientific research my friend.  This is 1920's eugenics nonsense.  It was discredited over 60 years ago.  There is not one piece of scientific evidence that suggests that there is such a thing as "race."  At least not biologically.  Race is a socially constructed idea...it has no reality outside the minds of bigots.  It is a biological fact that there is more variation within a population that with a member of another population.  In other words, you and your neighbor has more genetic variation than you an a man from africa.  

Race is, quite literally, skin deep.  End of story.  The skulls of whites are not bigger than blacks.  Don't trust me, however, go ask anthropologists and geneticists if race has any biological merit.  They will say no.

Hell, ask Yellow #5.  He is a biologist.  He has backed me up many times making this point. 

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