First, can the entire political spectrum learn what "environmentally vs. genetically determined" actually means?
Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
211–220 of 756 posts
Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, exactly like that!
If you would be so kind to explain to me why I should believe you, a random person on the internet claiming to be a "scientist" who "spends a lot of time thinking" about this subject, over thousands of peer reviewed research articles and case studies stating that even if genetics is a factor in intelligence then it is so closely tied to other causal factors that it is effectively impossible to control for, then I am…
Why shouldn't intelligence be inherited while other traits are? It makes little sense to me, especially because intelligence is so important for survival.
Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
#213I guess the word progressive here isn’t helpful because there’s a huge diversity of thought that gets swept up under that label. But if you take it to mean the intersectional flavor of progressive that focuses on issues of disadvantage and discrimination, then the idea of a generic lottery seems right up their alley . If the genetic lottery has winners and losers, surely that’s pure gold to progressive politics! It’s…
> Why are progressive think tanks not totally on board with this already?!
Possibly because they'd have to completely rewrite their ideological framework. Right now, it's based on active influences (racism, sexism, discrimination against the poor), and with genetics playing a (larger) role, it would shift to more passive influences (fewer women are in tech because they don't care as much for tech as men, not because they're oppressed) that you can't change via revolution + labor camps.
Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think at least some of those statements are independent of parenting, access to education and nutrition. Give everyone perfect parenting, a great education and lots of nutritious food and some of them still won't be able to learn calculus.
But why only calculus? Why the focus on a single subject? This is a very limited view of intelligence.
[deleted]
Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how much of the difficulty is due to large class size. If the student to teacher ratio were smaller, would teachers be better able to tailor instruction to struggling students?
Most teachers would struggle with algebra II.
This is a big problem imo. In my experience teaching high school, a lot of elementary school teachers struggle with basic math... And that's where the problems arise that we have to try to fix later on.
Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
The elephant in the room is that math has a giant UX problem. The notation is inconsistent and not nearly as logical as it could be.
Math notation is very consistent and it’s optimized for convenience. It’s been constantly refined over last centuries. People who complain about notation usually actually have problem with the substance, and the complaints about notation is just a coping mechanism, to deny hurtful reality that one can’t understand something hard, blaming external factors instead. Ask yourself: if notation was genuinely confusing, why…
>Ask yourself: if notation was genuinely confusing, why would mathematicians make themselves suffer needlessly?
I think its pretty clear that momentum causes a lot of nomenclature pain. You can't just redesign entire fields of understanding every couple decades. For instance, what other fields use single greek characters to label concepts in a seemingly unpredictable arrangement? Often, local maxima are found because concepts are added in the context of the field as it already existed.
And its not just math. Most sciences have this problem. It is what it is but its silly to say we're in the best of all possible worlds just because math has been around a long time.
Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
#217In these comments: people doing apologetics for a vision of the world where everyone is born with equal potential. I am a scientist, I work on these things, and I am here to tell you that: --Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited --Your personality is largely determined by genetics and is pretty much settled in to what it will always be by ~30 --If you don't learn to count right by ~4 you never will…
In this day and age, it is easy to get the actual degree and be called a 'scientist'. In these Internet days, it is even easier to claim you are a scientist when you are anonymous online, and make all sort of claims.
>In this day and age, it is easy to get the actual degree and be called a 'scientist'.
>
>In these Internet days, it is even easier to claim you are a scientist when you are anonymous online, and make all sort of claims.
OK, but what about their comment do you disagree with or find in error?
Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
#218In these comments: people doing apologetics for a vision of the world where everyone is born with equal potential. I am a scientist, I work on these things, and I am here to tell you that: --Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited --Your personality is largely determined by genetics and is pretty much settled in to what it will always be by ~30 --If you don't learn to count right by ~4 you never will…
Forgive me, but my understanding is that the heritability of IQ at ~70% is limited to those of higher socioeconomic status, and that it's closer to ~10% for those of lower socioeconomic status.
http://ibg.colorado.edu/cdrom2016/franic/Moderation/Lit/Turk...
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/97802038...
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761348839...
(I should note that beyond an undergraduate degree in linguistics I have essentially no professional qualifications in anything related to neuroscience. Most of my understanding comes from having read some Sapolsky and Steinberg cover to cover a few times, with a limited deep dive into late adolescent risk calculation and risk-taking related to a homicide case I was on.)
Is my understanding mistaken? Why?
Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
#219Genetics has a huge influence on what someone is predisposed to and what they can achieve. Certain ethnic groups and families, on average, are more likely to have certain traits and less likely to have others.
But genetics doesn't matter, in that just because you have "bad" genetics doesn't mean you'll suck, whether it comes to weightlifting, intelligence, temperment, etc. Maybe you won't be in the top 0.0001%, but except for some very specific circumstances, you can defy the average. If you want to know if someone's bad at something, actually testing them is much more accurate than looking at their genetics.
If you look at the top 10 distance runners, they're all from Ethiopia and Kenya. But as you look further down the list into the top 100, you start to see Americans and others. Furthermore, the Americans' times are really close to the Ethiopians and Kenyans.
So, even if we know for a solid fact that some ethnic group is on average dumber than another, or more violent, it doesn't mean anything. Because it doesn't say anything about the individual people, who vary much more than the difference in averages.
Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
#220In these comments: people doing apologetics for a vision of the world where everyone is born with equal potential. I am a scientist, I work on these things, and I am here to tell you that: --Intelligence is largely (~70-80% of variance) inherited --Your personality is largely determined by genetics and is pretty much settled in to what it will always be by ~30 --If you don't learn to count right by ~4 you never will…
People like me would be more convinced by your rant/flamebait if you provided sources for your claims. You claimed that the "broad strokes here are not up for debate" so it should be trivial for you to provide sources. Since you don't, it's hard to take your arguments seriously. Everyone can make unsubstantiated claims, providing evidence is the difficult part. I'm sure you understand that the "trust me, I'm a scientist" argument doesn't fly around here. :)