Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#361

Post by hnbad » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

automatic6131 wrote: post #325

de_keyboard wrote: post #296

I've always thought the "progressive" position was this: 1. Genetics, upbringing and culture all matter 2. Diversity within an ethnic group is extremely large - often similar magnitude to diversity between ethnic groups 3. Therefore, to judge someone on their ethnic average will be inaccurate at best, offensive at worst I think that this position has been misconstrued by pop-right / alt-right figures to create a fals…

If you read the article, you'd see there are "progressives" in positions of power of what science is funded and what isn't, who take the position that genetics don't matter at all, and any research into them is done because it's motivated by rightist hatred of minorities.

I think dismissing that as "progressives being progressives" is dishonest.

Most scientific research into eugenics, "racial differences" and such is motivated by reactionary value systems. Most of it can also easily be classified as pseudoscience and is published in fringe journals (e.g. see Emil Kirkegaard's "research" and his "journals").

Since this topic is so overrun with reactionaries trying to scientifically justify their views, it's extremely risky for a serious journal to publish research into it and for institutions to fund this research in the first place. Because in all likelihood that reasonable accredited scientist prompting you about wanting to do the research is either personally pursuing such ideological goals or representing the interests of such a group.

In other words, because of all the incredibly unscientific "research" actual racists and eugenicists have done in this field before, it's extremely hard to do any work in this field without either risking being perceived as supporting their views (by opponents) or as validating their unscientific prior work (by supporters).

It's a bit like debating the Israel-Palestine conflict: if you criticize Israel for their actions in Palestine, you might have genuine human rights concerns or you might just do so as a proxy for anti-Semitism. If the people doing the latter wouldn't exist (and there wasn't such an obvious historical precedent for why they're scary) it wouldn't be such a hot button issue. Go ask a leftist how this usually plays out for them.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#362

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:27 AM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #292

tnzm wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You now seem to be talking about something else entirely.

No, I'm not. Can you be more precise in what you mean by "causative factors"? Without further context, and based on my understanding of the world, virtually anything internal or external to a person could cause them to be more or less skilled at something. It contains everything, and so seems that your statement could be interpreted that genetics and everything else in existence are one in the same.

What sprang to my mind when I read the arbitrarily response is that you have equally little control over the genes you’re born with as you do the place, time, family, society, economy, technology, and culture you’re born in to.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#363

Post by tnzm » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:30 AM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #292

tnzm wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You now seem to be talking about something else entirely.

No, I'm not. Can you be more precise in what you mean by "causative factors"? Without further context, and based on my understanding of the world, virtually anything internal or external to a person could cause them to be more or less skilled at something. It contains everything, and so seems that your statement could be interpreted that genetics and everything else in existence are one in the same.

You asked what was the difference between my statement (that genetics is not more special than other causes of being more or less skilled at something) and the statement that "all is one, separateness is an illusion". I answered that the difference between these two statements is arbitrary, which I still believe to be the case. Apologies if something else happened to you.

My original comment had the purpose of questioning the validity of the "nature vs nurture" distinction. It just seems like an unhelpful distinction, but then again I'm not a biologist, just a lay person who likes their concepts tidy.

Genetics is obviously not the same as everything else in existence; I'm not sure that even makes sense as a statement. You seem to have somehow derived that I am arguing against the concept of distinctions at all. I'm not sure if language would be feasible without distinctions.

I don't disagree with any of what you just said, but I fail to see what point you are trying to make or what you are arguing against. Without the (linguistic) act of making distinctions, everything is indeed one and the same, but that's... kind of pointless?

EDIT: Sibling poster also seems to fail to make the distinction whether (a) we're comparing genetics to other causative factors, or (b) we are comparing my statement about genetics to your "all is one" interpretation of it.

In case it's still unclear, (a) and (b) are two completely separate things and I'm not sure how this conversation got to the point of conflating them. It just serves to reinforce my belief that the ambiguity of our language's syntactic structures makes it inordinately difficult to reason about many things in everyday language. Or maybe I'm just a bad communicator. "Me bad", "you bad" that's supremely easy to express lol

EDIT2: Correction, TheSpiceIsLife does actually get it.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#364

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:32 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #362

colordrops wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm not. Can you be more precise in what you mean by "causative factors"? Without further context, and based on my understanding of the world, virtually anything internal or external to a person could cause them to be more or less skilled at something. It contains everything, and so seems that your statement could be interpreted that genetics and everything else in existence are one in the same.

What sprang to my mind when I read the arbitrarily response is that you have equally little control over the genes you’re born with as you do the place, time, family, society, economy, technology, and culture you’re born in to.

Also, I meant to add:

> How is this any different from saying "all is one, separateness is an illusion"?

> It's not arbitrary. "Other causative factors" is boundless.

These are distinctly different lines on inquiry. One is an inquiry to in the illusory nature of separateness, the other is an inquire in to the boundless nature of causative factors.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#365

Post by simonh » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:32 AM UTC

Tenoke wrote: post #271

armchairhacker wrote: post #219

Genetics 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…

Sure, that's a good point generally but doesn't seem at all the problem the article is addressing. Skimming it, it's about progressives denying group differences at all and calling those who research them 'equivalent to Holocaust Deniers'. From following genetics research and researchers, I've seen plenty of that, and I don't see the relevance of your point here.

The research isn't specifically about group differences, or differences between populations anyway. That issue inevitably gets all the attention, but it's just one dimension. The vast majority of genetic differences between any two individuals have nothing to do with whatever arbitrary groups society categorises them with, and most genetic differences that do correlate with anything like race are basically cosmetic.

Nevertheless genetic differences can make a huge difference to individuals. Many factors we uncontroversially categorise as disabilities have a genetic basis.

In UK schools children categorised as on the Autism spectrum, or dyslexic receive additional support and consideration with regard to exam rules. I don't want to sideline into an argument about to what extent these specifically have a genetic basis, but broadly if we are going to agree that such factors are taken into account, it's flat out incoherent to then ignore or deny research into the origins, characteristics and influence of these factors.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#366

Post by inter_netuser » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:34 AM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #301

pedrosorio wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kenyans, Ethiopians and (white) Americans are not genetically homogenous. Even two siblings can be quite different genetically. The great American distance runners have genetic talent - they didn’t just train harder than their middle school mates who were out of breath while the champions ran faster and longer than anyone else weeks after beginning training.

> have genetic talent - they didn’t just train harder than their middle school mates who were out of breath Who knows if it was only due to genes? And more importantly, there isn't a gene that's about running faster. (sure, some genes are helpful and might get you in front - not discounting the work the athlete goes through) Getting to the podium is a mix of several characteristics: Some people might be more prone to…

Gene for running faster: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2017.0108...

Amusingly, it is literally what you are writing about. Certain variants of that gene confer exactly a) better recovery b) sports injury resistance c) fast twitch fiber synthesis.

Simply because we have not pinpointed something with laser precision, propagated the knowledge to every human with internet access and papered it up with indisputable evidence strong enough to pacify the eternally-online exception finders and fact checkers - does not mean such things do not exist.

You are your genes. just a tiny 2% difference - and you would end up a dolphin.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#367

Post by globular-toast » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:35 AM UTC

You can't convince people of something they already know. It's the same reason arguing with religious people is futile. It's a mistake to assume people only deny things they believe are untrue.

One thing you will notice is how if you do say IQ is genetic, certain people will call you racist. This strikes me as very similar to looking up rude words in the dictionary.

There are things you know and you know others know, but you never mention. Most of the time that's because there's no reason to mention it. There's no point talking about uncomfortable things just because you can. What's worrying is when something actually important but still can't be talked about.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#368

Post by Tenoke » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:35 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #365

Tenoke wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that's a good point generally but doesn't seem at all the problem the article is addressing. Skimming it, it's about progressives denying group differences at all and calling those who research them 'equivalent to Holocaust Deniers'. From following genetics research and researchers, I've seen plenty of that, and I don't see the relevance of your point here.

The research isn't specifically about group differences, or differences between populations anyway. That issue inevitably gets all the attention, but it's just one dimension. The vast majority of genetic differences between any two individuals have nothing to do with whatever arbitrary groups society categorises them with, and most genetic differences that do correlate with anything like race are basically cosmetic.…

The backlash by progressives is usually specifically centered around the group differences part. And I don't buy that's the one that gets all the attention - all the negative one maybe, but most accepted and talked about genetic research isn't about that at all.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#369

Post by bencollier49 » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:37 AM UTC

DanHulton wrote: post #128

syops wrote: post #2

From the article: Over the next year, a biosciences working group revised the program’s funding guidelines, stipulating in the final draft that it would not support any research into the first-order effects of genes on behavior or social outcomes. The fact that this area is controversial suggests to me that it is worth exploration. I’ve taught mathematics at community colleges for over 20 years and I’m absolutely con…

You're making a lot of leaps of logic here, which might be why your colleagues are disagreeing with you. You go from "not everyone can learn algebra or calculus" and "mental disabilities exist" to "therefore intelligence is a scale and controlled by genetics and unalterable," which doesn't really track. Your previous education, your upbringing, your cultural values, these things all also have huge effects on your apt…

The thing which I think gets missed out of these discussions is the notion of community. We're such horrific individualists in the West that we seem to see nature and nurture as distinct, which of course they aren't. The nurture of a child is a product of the combined abilities (from nature and nurture) of the people in their family and community. There is no "I"; our DNA and mores are all part of a greater whole.

Re: Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?

#370

Post by rejectedandsad » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 9:39 AM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #52

syops wrote: post #2

From the article: Over the next year, a biosciences working group revised the program’s funding guidelines, stipulating in the final draft that it would not support any research into the first-order effects of genes on behavior or social outcomes. The fact that this area is controversial suggests to me that it is worth exploration. I’ve taught mathematics at community colleges for over 20 years and I’m absolutely con…

IMO, biological differences and barriers certainly exist and are non-trivial, but the differences between private and public schools demonstrates the degree to which institutional finesse can accommodate student strengths and shortcomings, including differences in intelligence or disability. In other words, we have a long way to go. In some schools around the Bay Area, we have half the students on the fastest track,…

I do wonder what’s gained by this. There are plenty of physics professors (perhaps even most) that didn’t do calculus until college or at least senior year of high school, what’s the advantage?