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Mammalian Aggression

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Re: Mammalian Aggression

#11

Post by kashyapc »

Speaking of aggression, people often suspect the famous hormone testosterone as one of the prime causes. But Robert Sapolsky's (one of his papers is cited in OP's analysis) book, Behave shows something different: "While testosterone is inextricably tied to aggression, it is far less relevant to aggression than usually assumed."

Instead of asking "What do individual levels of testosterone have to do with aggression?", he posits a better question: "Does difference in testosterone levels among individuals predict who will be aggressive?"

The answer: Among birds, fish, mammals, and especially other primates, "generally no". As for humans, it has been extensively studied, and the jury is in (Sapolsky is quoting a British endocrinologist, John Archer): "There is a weak and inconsistent association between testosterone levels and aggression in [human adults], and ... administration of testosterone to volunteers typically does not increase their aggression."

———

The executive summary being testosterone's effects are hugely context dependent—this in turn means "rather than causing X, testosterone amplifies the power of something else to cause X."

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#13

Post by Blikkentrekker »

kashyapc wrote: post #11

Speaking of aggression, people often suspect the famous hormone testosterone as one of the prime causes. But Robert Sapolsky's (one of his papers is cited in OP's analysis) book, Behave shows something different: "While testosterone is inextricably tied to aggression, it is far less relevant to aggression than usually assumed." Instead of asking "What do individual levels of testosterone have to do with aggression?",…

> Speaking of aggression, people often suspect the famous hormone testosterone as one of the prime causes. But Robert Sapolsky's (one of his papers is cited in OP's analysis) book, Behave shows something different: "While testosterone is inextricably tied to aggression, it is far less relevant to aggression than usually assumed."

It's a very common thing, even among serious scientists, to immediately go searching for gendered factors and treat them as special, whereas often other factors are far larger, and far more interesting.

I find it telling that politics and science focuses so much on say, gender and race factors in terms of influence on academic achievements whereas very simple things such as what time of year one is born in is actually a more telling factor.

http://www.educationalneuroscience.org.uk/resources/neuromyt...

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#14

Post by pjc50 »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #13
kashyapc wrote: post #11

Speaking of aggression, people often suspect the famous hormone testosterone as one of the prime causes. But Robert Sapolsky's (one of his papers is cited in OP's analysis) book, Behave shows something different: "While testosterone is inextricably tied to aggression, it is far less relevant to aggression than usually assumed." Instead of asking "What do individual levels of testosterone have to do with aggression?",…

> Speaking of aggression, people often suspect the famous hormone testosterone as one of the prime causes. But Robert Sapolsky's (one of his papers is cited in OP's analysis) book, Behave shows something different: "While testosterone is inextricably tied to aggression, it is far less relevant to aggression than usually assumed." It's a very common thing, even among serious scientists, to immediately go searching for…

> gender and race factors in terms of influence on academic achievements

The focus of the politics on these factors is because, within living memory, they were grounds for exclusion from academia entirely. There is therefore an effort to make sure the exclusion is not being carried on covertly instead of overtly.

Bad ideas take a long time to replace.

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#15

Post by pjc50 »

ilaksh wrote: post #10

I have always felt that human behavior should be interpreted as a variant of mammal behavior. So social scientists would be informed by biologists.

20th-century eugenics discredited this concept so badly that it is now treated as radioactive waste. There was a lot of bad biology and sociology manufactured to justify supremacism.

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#16

Post by Blikkentrekker »

pjc50 wrote: post #14
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Speaking of aggression, people often suspect the famous hormone testosterone as one of the prime causes. But Robert Sapolsky's (one of his papers is cited in OP's analysis) book, Behave shows something different: "While testosterone is inextricably tied to aggression, it is far less relevant to aggression than usually assumed." It's a very common thing, even among serious scientists, to immediately go searching for…

> gender and race factors in terms of influence on academic achievements The focus of the politics on these factors is because, within living memory, they were grounds for exclusion from academia entirely. There is therefore an effort to make sure the exclusion is not being carried on covertly instead of overtly. Bad ideas take a long time to replace.

> The focus of the politics on these factors is because, within living memory, they were grounds for exclusion from academia entirely. There is therefore an effort to make sure the exclusion is not being carried on covertly instead of overtly.

So was poverty, citizenship, family lineage, and many other things they aren't so interested for to demonstrate that they are more significant influences than many other factors.

I would simply say that these scientists care a great deal for gender and race in their own social matrices, and simply treat a man differently based on his gender or race, but aren't so interested in doing so based on citizenship, or birth cycle.

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#17

Post by cbolton »

kashyapc wrote: post #11

Speaking of aggression, people often suspect the famous hormone testosterone as one of the prime causes. But Robert Sapolsky's (one of his papers is cited in OP's analysis) book, Behave shows something different: "While testosterone is inextricably tied to aggression, it is far less relevant to aggression than usually assumed." Instead of asking "What do individual levels of testosterone have to do with aggression?",…

> rather than causing X, testosterone amplifies the power of something else to cause X.

That still means that testosterone is a cause of X, doesn't it? Not a deterministic cause of course, but in a causal graph there would be a directed path from "testosterone" to X?

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#18

Post by Haunted_Cabbage »

cbolton wrote: post #17
kashyapc wrote: post #11

Speaking of aggression, people often suspect the famous hormone testosterone as one of the prime causes. But Robert Sapolsky's (one of his papers is cited in OP's analysis) book, Behave shows something different: "While testosterone is inextricably tied to aggression, it is far less relevant to aggression than usually assumed." Instead of asking "What do individual levels of testosterone have to do with aggression?",…

> rather than causing X, testosterone amplifies the power of something else to cause X. That still means that testosterone is a cause of X, doesn't it? Not a deterministic cause of course, but in a causal graph there would be a directed path from "testosterone" to X?

Does the exponent of a variable make the variable large or does it describe the characteristics of how it gets large?

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#19

Post by cbolton »

Haunted_Cabbage wrote: post #18
cbolton wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rather than causing X, testosterone amplifies the power of something else to cause X. That still means that testosterone is a cause of X, doesn't it? Not a deterministic cause of course, but in a causal graph there would be a directed path from "testosterone" to X?

Does the exponent of a variable make the variable large or does it describe the characteristics of how it gets large?

I would say the exponent of a variable makes (contributes to making) the result large.

Re: Mammalian Aggression

#20

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #13
kashyapc wrote: post #11

Speaking of aggression, people often suspect the famous hormone testosterone as one of the prime causes. But Robert Sapolsky's (one of his papers is cited in OP's analysis) book, Behave shows something different: "While testosterone is inextricably tied to aggression, it is far less relevant to aggression than usually assumed." Instead of asking "What do individual levels of testosterone have to do with aggression?",…

> Speaking of aggression, people often suspect the famous hormone testosterone as one of the prime causes. But Robert Sapolsky's (one of his papers is cited in OP's analysis) book, Behave shows something different: "While testosterone is inextricably tied to aggression, it is far less relevant to aggression than usually assumed." It's a very common thing, even among serious scientists, to immediately go searching for…

as I'm getting older I'm making an effort to lift weights (just 20 mins with a deadlift every other day) in addition to cardio (running) and I notice my body really needs this to feel as good as I used to.

The running gives me quick highs but the weight lifting does have an affect on my testosterone production and sex drive it seems. I was a little low few years ago (I tested because after reading pseudoscience research I wanted to know) but since building this into my routine my levels are back to normal. N Taleb wrote about it and I was a bit skeptical but then thought why not give it a try it's free and will not hurt (or make some quack rich).

> whereas very simple things such as what time of year one is born in is actually a more telling factor

interesting. I wonder if this might have to do with school starting in autumn and kids born in autumn might then be more likely to start the year after - instead pushing themselves in for an early start this very year when they're legally able to start school. it would be obvious if kids that are actually a year older then the classmates had more time to be ready for school than their peers. Otherwise it would also be interesting to see this repeated in the Southern hemisphere where autumn is actually spring.

Many Japanese I know would laugh at Astrology but are 100% convinced that blood-type affects personality.

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