In the nature nurture debate I believe they are referring to human nature not how nature effects humans. — Andrew4Handel

But humans are part of nature - the environment - your social environment.

One thing I do not believe like some thinkers argue is that genes determine a child's outcomes. Also one thing about human society is that it is deeply artificial. So our genes are not a created to negotiate modern society. Only in a truly primitive state can our genes beside to be fulfilling a truly biological niche in my opinion. — Andrew4Handel

I forgot to mention this last time. Modern society is just a new environment that a species has to adapt to. That is what species have been doing since life came about. Environments change. Species adapt or die out. Sometimes as species can wreck havoc on their own environment and threaten their own existence, but species are part of the environment just as an earthquake or a hurricane is. Predators are part of the environment (natural selection) that puts pressure on their prey to adapt. Humans aren't any different. The environment is chaotic. Sometimes there are times of stability, but that is a result of our subjective view of time.

I think it is a chicken and egg thing with genes but the theory is that genes arose in a primeval soup not that genes preexisted their environment which to me does not favor genes. — Andrew4Handel

The chicken and egg thing isn't a paradox any more. We now know that the egg came before the chicken. Egg-laying is a method of procreating that was adopted by the chicken from their ancestors.

Genes just didn't just pop into existence. They evolved from complex organic molecular interactions (that soup that your talking about). Nature and nurture are the same. You are arguing a false dichotomy.

Important social policy and psychological theory hinges on this. The issue is that people who favor genes or personality as most powerful advocate different policies, ideologies and therapies but people who advocate nurture and environment are more likely to advocate changing societal and family dynamics.

I do think genes are important but they are important in context of nurture. For example you raise your child based on what is best for his or her genes or simply preferences and dispositions. But people like Plomin and Caplan will argue that parental intervention has limited effect which is implausible. One notable statistic is that people most often share their parents religion. — Andrew4Handel

If the idea is that we should have equal outcomes for all, you can't achieve that by just taking children from their parents and letting the State raise them as one. You'd have to genetically engineer humans AND let the State raise them as one.

Mutations are what has driven the long-term existence of life. If genes didn't have the potential to make changes when they copy themselves, then life couldn't evolve and would have died out long ago. Mutations are what allow us to adapt to those environmental changes.

Nature and nurture are the same. You are arguing a false dichotomy. — Harry Hindu

Maybe I should clarify myself here. By nurture I mean parenting and some social factors. The term nature is problematic in some sense because it does not refer to anything is specific but is like a concept someone times contrasted with the artificial or supernatural.

So in a trivial way everything is nature but in the context of these debates nature equals biology and genes and sometimes ecological environment (as opposed to artificial environs)

On the other hand nurturing is quite well defend as upbringing of offspring and it can refer to the environment you deliberately create or expose the offspring to.

Nature as in life in general on this planet is not really concerned with outcomes and many species go extinct and use a wide variety of strategies to achieve goals with mixed results and fluctuating systems. I am not arguing that we should make children in harmony with nature and their genes but that nurture can help the best traits of a person flourish.

i am not optimistic either way but I think nurture and parental responsibility is very important.

Maybe I should clarify myself here. By nurture I mean parenting and some social factors. The term nature is problematic in some sense because it does not refer to anything is specific but is like a concept someone times contrasted with the artificial or supernatural. — Andrew4Handel

I seems like you've lost interest in reading other people's post and are set on just restating your claim over and over.

I already said that the artificial/supernatural vs. natural is a false dichotomy. You're using antiquated terms based on an incorrect idea that humans are separate from nature.

So in a trivial way everything is nature but in the context of these debates nature equals biology and genes and sometimes ecological environment (as opposed to artificial environs) — Andrew4Handel

I'm not interested in discussing debates. I'm interested in discussing reality. Reality is nature. Nature is reality. If it makes you feel better to use the term "reality" then that's fine. "Reality" is what makes you "you". You're making it more difficult on yourself by dividing reality into "nature" and "nurture".

On the other hand nurturing is quite well defend as upbringing of offspring and it can refer to the environment you deliberately create or expose the offspring to.

Nature as in life in general on this planet is not really concerned with outcomes and many species go extinct and use a wide variety of strategies to achieve goals with mixed results and fluctuating systems. I am not arguing that we should make children in harmony with nature and their genes but that nurture can help the best traits of a person flourish.

i am not optimistic either way but I think nurture and parental responsibility is very important. — Andrew4Handel

I think it is important too. I often say that most of our problems are the result of bad, or a lack of, parenting. But nature is just as important. Mental disorders can be a daunting, sometimes impossible, hurdle for any good parent to overcome.

I'm not interested in discussing debates. I'm interested in discussing reality. Reality is nature. Nature is reality. If it makes you feel better to use the term "reality" then that's fine. "Reality" is what makes you "you". You're making it more difficult on yourself by dividing reality into "nature" and "nurture". — Harry Hindu

But I think in reality some things are genes and "nature" and somethings are nurture/environment in a real sense.

Take cancer for example. Angelina Jolie had both her breast removed because she had an increased risk of breast cancer in her family.

However some people have developed cancer through the workplace being exposed to toxic substances like asbestos or lead. So it wouldn't make sense for Jolie to have a double mastectomy if her relatives died in a work related incident.

The debates people have are based on evidence.

Homosexuality is an interesting example (and sexuality in general) because people want to know what causes it whether it is genetic, occurs in the womb, or develops.

If it was found to be genetic in some sense and this was proven beyond a doubt it would be interesting to see how religious anti gay people reacted.

I find the idea people could be reared to be gay via parenting and propaganda highly implausible and as a gay person who grew up in a strictly religious home I see no evidence of this happening to me.

I have read claims (by homophobes no doubt) that the reason some gay men had bad relationships is because the boys sexuality was alienating the father from the fatherly duties he had a preference for. Some people blame a child's personality for the parents rejection of it.

One thing I do not believe like some thinkers argue is that genes determine a child's outcomes. — Andrew4Handel

Why do you think that genes, which direct the formation and operation of a person, would not determine outcomes? Granted, genes are not the only operator in plant and animal life; there is also the environment which can be quite aversive--shortage of food, too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, death, etc.

Also one thing about human society is that it is deeply artificial. — Andrew4Handel

At first glance, human society is perversely artificial. Some aspects of society continue to be perverse even after considerable observation, but a lot of "society" is just the result of our particular animal natures. For instance, naked apes that we are, we require shelter from the environment. We lost the big teeth of our ancient forebears, so we do better with cooked food and manageable fruits and vegetables. Shelter and cooking alone -- never mind high fashion and television -- are "artificial" -- depending on artifice.

Why do you think that genes, which direct the formation and operation of a person, would not determine outcomes? — Bitter Crank

By outcomes here I am not referring to hair color or intelligence etc.

An outcome can be shaped or influenced by too many factors including chance.

I think there is a valid discussion to be had about weighing up the contributions of nature and nurture in various areas including education and child rearing.

I wasn't thinking of traits like hair color either. I was thinking in terms of "life outcomes". How adaptable we are, how volatile, how insightful, how diligent, how much risk we are comfortable with, how aggressive we are, and so on are all controlled by genes to some extent. Comfort with risk taking is something that genes probably control; whether we actually take risks, when, and where we take them, are probably conditioned by experience.

But I think in reality some things are genes and "nature" and somethings are nurture/environment in a real sense.

Take cancer for example. Angelina Jolie had both her breast removed because she had an increased risk of breast cancer in her family.

However some people have developed cancer through the workplace being exposed to toxic substances like asbestos or lead. So it wouldn't make sense for Jolie to have a double mastectomy if her relatives died in a work related incident.

The debates people have are based on evidence. — Andrew4Handel

But your parents are bags of genes and how they behave (raise you) is a result of their genes and their own upbringing (adopting the behavioral norms of ancestral bags of genes). It's a process so tightly woven that it's difficult to say that it's two separate things.

Your Angelina Jolie example and comparison is one that supports my argument, not yours. It's both nature and nurture.

"If the idea is that we should have equal outcomes for all, you can't achieve that by just taking children from their parents and letting the State raise them as one. You'd have to genetically engineer humans AND let the State raise them as one" Yes Harry Hindu, and we still need to add a third factor to make true equality possible: a never-ending repression to prevent differentiation and specialization to emerge naturally, as it is a mathematical quality of our universe that when elements interact they tend to form systems of differentiated parts.
So equality as totalitarian (socialist, fascist, feminist, islamist...) movements understand it, requires a strong and endless violence on the DNA, minds, and behaviour of people.

In a computer program to develop new designs via I.A. algorithms, what is nature and what is nurture? For example, if I need a new design for a car tyre that is the most efficient in rainy and hot conditions, is "nature" or "nurture" that did the job?

But your parents are bags of genes and how they behave (raise you) is a result of their genes and their own upbringing (adopting the behavioral norms of ancestral bags of genes). It's a process so tightly woven that it's difficult to say that it's two separate things.

Your Angelina Jolie example and comparison is one that supports my argument, not yours. It's both nature and nurture. — Harry Hindu

I don't see how My Joile example supports your point and I definitely do not think it is a tightly woven process. Some cancers are only caused because of an environmental factor and some are only caused because of a genetic disposition.

I think your reference to genes is vague and you can't actually specify any particular gene complex that you can claim caused a behavior or outcome.

If the idea is that we should have equal outcomes for all — DiegoT

I have not put forward this idea. My comment was that genes can fully manifest their attributes in ideal environments.
For example if you drop a Lion in the middle of the Atlantic then it's genes will prove useless but in the Savannah it can show its skills. In this sense genes can easily be undermined by environment and nurture.

So before you claim to have proved genes are responsible for intelligence or outcomes then you need to create an equal playing field to validate this claim.

My other argument is that we could help people to be the best them, whatever that is, otherwise we are going to be forcing very different people with different abilities into a damaging rigid paradigm. This could mean something like a completely different education system for different types of people.

I don't see how My Joile example supports your point and I definitely do not think it is a tightly woven process. Some cancers are only caused because of an environmental factor and some are only caused because of a genetic disposition.

I think your reference to genes is vague and you can't actually specify any particular gene complex that you can claim caused a behavior or outcome. — Andrew4Handel

The Jolie example supports my argument because there are two reasons (nature and nurture) why someone would want to remove their breasts. You basically showed that both can be the case, but ignored one over the other for no reason. You basically made a circular argument. You gave no evidence why one is more important than the other. Remember, my argument isn't that nature is more powerful than nurture. My argument is that they are equal. I think you are arguing against a position that I haven't taken. You want to see it as black and white. I see it as one color - grey.

I was saying Angelina would only want to remove her breasts if she thought the cancer was genetic and not otherwise.

The overall point is that there are genetic conditions that cannot be avoided and lots of environmental factors that can be avoided. But I am failing to see where this blend of nature and nurture is arising in specific cases.

What I am seeking to show is that you can make a valid distinction between nature and nurture without it been an oversimplification. I am skeptical about genetic or nature explanations unless they are robust and specific not just hand waving.

I think you would have to be a determinist to believe nature could not be overcome. Also I believe people are biased even when they play lip service to the both are equal stance. For example with Stephen Pinker who really wants to prove that evolution and nature have some inescapable deterministic effects.

Remember what Richard Dawkins said?

"Now they swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.

They are in you and in me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines.”"

it´s not possible that some cancers are entirely environmental. You need a human being to develop the cancer, and the human being is shaped by genes. Genes that are working differently to those of ratopín rasurado (sorry, I don´t know the name in English), that prevent any cancer from developing at all in these animals. Likewise, there are no entirely genetic cancers either; the cancer needs food, oxigen, water to grow and that comes from the environment. The distinction inherited/acquired is a practical one, to help doctors focus on possible remedies, but it´s not an accurate description of what really happens biologically.

It seems to me that humans have a vast repertoire of behaviour and potential. Whereas animals have a limited repertoire of behaviour and potential.

So there is a huge range of possible outcomes for humans and environments they live in.So I think it is much harder to predict outcomes or find general causal factors. Also people can be channeled in numerous directions to "flourish" in different ways. So I don't think tendencies like introversion, aggression etc can be that determinate.

Maybe being shy will prevent you becoming president or Prime Minister? Maybe not? Maybe aggression will get you a top job as a ruthless manager or maybe it will land you in prison? Maybe diligence will make you hard working and popular with your boss but unpopular with your more relaxed work mates.

Dawkins is not a good source for this discussion in particular. He probably thinks that milk conspires with coffee to enter our bodies every morning and create the kind of metabolisms that will want more milk to be produced.

it´s not possible that some cancers are entirely environmental. — DiegoT

I am not saying that I am saying they are primarily caused by something in the environment and can be avoided by not being exposed to that environment. It is trivially true that the the body and nature are involved in everything but not causally deterministic.

Another example is comparing physics and economics. It is trivially true that coins are considered to be made of atoms but atoms play no role in economic theory. You could class money as an emergent property which behaves differently then the basic behaviour considered in atomic theory.

Psychology could be described as an emergent property in this way.

Ugh, Dawkins set the public understanding of biology back by at least a decade or two, and as a result we get threads like these.

coins do not play any factor in economy either...I think you mean money, which is a thought, and thoughts are conditioned by biology and culture. "If it was found to be genetic in some sense and this was proven beyond a doubt it would be interesting to see how religious anti gay people reacted". Well, they would react similar to how they react when it is proved that violence or gluttony is in our biological nature. They´d say: but we also have a spiritual (or cultural) nature that must play a role, or we are just chimps.

No one should ever cite Dawkins in debates like this. The mere existence of epigenetics just nullifies his old selfish gene nonsense. If I were him I'd be be bitter about it and all the impressive stuff coming out of the field, so I definitely don't put much stock on his word on this topic.

Well, they would react similar to how they react when it is proved that violence or gluttony is in our biological nature. They´d say: but we also have a spiritual (or cultural) nature that must play a role, or we are just chimps. — DiegoT

I do not think they are willing to accept God would create homosexuality. If it was proven genetic

. I think some gay people including myself here would be reassured if it was purely genetic because of the slurs we have faced.

I do think religious people that opposes something that is genetic and biological and immutable will tie themselves up in knots be contradictory and look horrible (which is what happens)

If there was anyway it could be shown we could be nurtured to homosexual they would jump on that.

Nevertheless I don't think you can get an is fro an ought so whether a behaviors is nature, nurture or a combination how we respond to that or create values from it is subjective values.

Yes, people like Robert Plomin and Richard Haier should be cited instead since they specialize in the field of genetics and focus on intelligence.

Robert Plomin has come out with a book arguing similar this year, 2018.

https://theconversation.com/blueprint-by-robert-plomin-latest-intelligence-genetics-book-could-be-a-gift-for-far-right-104499

"DNA is the major systemic force, the blueprint, that makes us who we are. The implications for our lives – for parenting, education and society – are enormous."

"On the science, Plomin has previously expressed his support for Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s racial premises in their notorious 1994 book The Bell Curve "

Yes, it is a great book.

I'm sorry, but no. Plomin's book makes it clear that there are no policy recommendations made on the basis of his work, which is very contrary to Murray's questionable nonsense which does make direct, racially directed policy suggestions. Further, this seems to entirely ignore epigenetics. Genetic expression is just flatly in contradiction to the idea of genetic determinism. Genes (which themselves aren't well understood) interact with the environment. Quoting David Moore from "The Developing Gnome":

So, although I will talk about genes repeatedly in this book, it is only because there is no other convenient way to communicate about contemporary ideas in molecular biology. And when I refer to gene, I will be talking about a segment or segments of DNA containing sequence information that is used to help construct a protein (or some other product that performs a biological function). But it is worth remembering that contemporary biologists do not mean any one thing when they talk about “genes”; the gene remains a fundamentally hypothetical concept to this day. The common belief that there are things inside of us that constitute a set of instructions for building bodies and minds—things that are analogous to “blueprints” or “recipes”—is undoubedtly false. Instead, DNA segments often contain information that is ambiguous, and that must be edited or arranged in context-dependent ways before it can be used.

The idea that you'll reduce intelligence down to some set of genes in isolation is silly. Their akin to a template, a passive one.

I'm sorry, but no. Plomin's book makes it clear that there are no policy recommendations made on the basis of his work, which is very contrary to Murray's questionable nonsense which does make direct, racially directed policy suggestions — MindForged

Andrew never made the claim that Prof. Plomin was in favor of Prof. Murray's policy recommendations.

The idea that you'll reduce intelligence down to some set of genes in isolation is silly. Their akin to a template, a passive one. — MindForged

Prof. Plomin doesn't disagree with you there either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lev8dGnxvdw&t=71s

homosexual behaviours are observed in many species; however, homosexuality as a personal identity is far from universal. Homosexual tendencies are shaped by culture; just like the pitch of our voice, the way we walk or how we deal with conflicts. So there are many different ways of being homosexual, just like there different ways of being hetero. XXI homosexual culture has many anti-social values: a great hostility to tradition; body cult; hyper-sexualization and hedonism; vanity; irresponsibility; intolerance.[/b] It is natural that religious people are disgusted by the gay culture, as their lives are guided by opposite values. LGTB and gay activists have been widening the gap between traditional families and homosexuals for decades, because they are informed by a socialist, confrontational view of the social world. The good place of gays in Western societies, relies on political power too much and on being acceptable by common people too little. Gays as a community need to be more open-minded, and change their values and then Christians and Jews will accept them a lot better. Stop using the word homophobia for a start. Don´tdemand respect, earn it by finding and promoting better role models for the young gays.