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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29467 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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It is quite striking, isn't it! The same person here will literally attribute intelligence and personality, assimilation, etc almost entirely to genetics, then turn around and say attractiveness and weight is a character flaw. It's fascinating.

Yes, it is quite striking that a (probably largely) wrong claim is pointed out as wrong and a (probably largely) correct claim is pointed out as correct. And people around here can simultaneously believe that one claim is true but an unrelated claim is false.

There have been IQ heritability studies. It's a lot more than 50% heritable. Understanding that's gated by childhood nutrition, parasite load, etc; people around here throwing around IQ heritability assertions are largely correct.

There are others in this thread who are claiming that negative outcomes in children of single parents are primarily due to genetics.

In other words, genetics can tell you to leave your partner but not how much to eat.

These kinds of claims require evidence.

One can be born with ugly features, or a short adult height or otherwise unpleasing proportions. Weight isn't like that. No amount of genetics will make you 300 pounds without putting the requisite calories into your system.

Personality, on the other hand, whether genetic or not is one of the most immutable things there is. The so-called personality disorders are pretty much intractable. About the only thing that changes personality is brain damage and the various extreme measures called "brainwashing" (usually involving drugs, torture, or both)

Where do you think the desire to eat comes from? The aether? It comes from your experience of the discomfort of hunger, and the feeling of reward from eating, created in the brain, exactly the same as intellect, neuroticism, conscientiousness, violence, etc.

Personality, on the other hand, whether genetic or not is one of the most immutable things there is

I strongly disagree here. People can and do change. There's a whole psychological literature on how environmental effects actually increase contribution towards personality towards middle age:

The contribution of genetic effects to phenotypic stability is moderate in magnitude and relatively constant with age, in part because of small-to-moderate decreases in the heritability of personality over child development that offset increases in genetic stability. In contrast, the contribution of environmental effects to phenotypic stability increases from near zero in early childhood to moderate in adulthood. The life-span trend of increasing phenotypic stability, therefore, predominantly results from environmental mechanisms.

Throwing around loaded and categorical statements like 'the most immutable thing there is' without any evidence to back it up is poor praxis my friend.

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