discussion The New York Times debuts messy article

[GentleDance]

[EtherealCat]

fight and defend against climate? do they mean climate change because conservatives definitely arent fighting that

[Both Sides Now]

Yeah. As a geneticist, I constantly come across political-scientists and psychologists attempt to apply evolutionary theory to sociology. It’s almost always a disaster. 

[gustavothehuman]

[Brando]

Kinda messy, but there is some truth in that. The society is very diverse. If we give in to any one of its polarizations we would end in a worse place. There needs to be balance and there's always a fight for the middle, which is always the deciding factor. Both sides tend to forget that, and liberals in particular are guilty of this. Where as the conservatives are happy to set liberals on fire using their own matches and just watch the moderates flock into conservative arms. 

[Headlock]

6 minutes ago, Brando said:

Kinda messy, but there is some truth in that. The society is very diverse. If we give in to any one of its polarizations we would end in a worse place. There needs to be balance and there's always a fight for the middle, which is always the deciding factor. Both sides tend to forget that, and liberals in particular are guilty of this. Where as the conservatives are happy to set liberals on fire using their own matches and just watch the moderates flock into conservative arms. 

Politics does not follow Mendelian or non-Mendelian genetics, social movements are not inherited in germ cells, there are no Darwinian finches in Congress 

There is no gene for political parties 

 

This is the same **** that used to be used in the industrial era where Darwinian evolution was applied to economics to justify capitalism 

 

This person is conflating modern sociological concepts of social constructionism and symbolic interactionism with evolutionary biology and population genetics.

Left and right are man-made concepts, you cannot genetically inherit or sexually reproduce a man-made concept.

[uusagii]

21 minutes ago, Headlock said:

Left and right are man-made concepts, you cannot genetically inherit or sexually reproduce a man-made concept.

This

[Ampersand13]

Do they mean the psychological implications of being raised by certain devout parents who lean left or right? Because that would make sense as those beliefs can merge in the psyches of children at very young ages, but if they are specifically talking about genetics then I really don't follow...

[Jynx672]

Genes can predict a lot of things, they're not wrong about that.

[Mean Trees]

How lame. I hate the simple models of cooperate/compete/defect. It's much more complicated than that.

[L.B GAGA]

I guess Scandinavian countries and more liberal countries in western europe are what? And the far right middle eastern, some asian and african counties?  Are now Non existent?The attempt at pseudo science.  

This was a fail. 

[stoopidjenna]

I don’t really understand why this is so controversial. It’s not literally saying that people are born conservative or liberal, but just that there may be certain generic predispositions rooted in our basic instincts for survival that could influence a person’s politics based on how liberals vs conservatives approach problems.

[Brando]

9 hours ago, Headlock said:

Politics does not follow Mendelian or non-Mendelian genetics, social movements are not inherited in germ cells, there are no Darwinian finches in Congress 

There is no gene for political parties 

 

This is the same **** that used to be used in the industrial era where Darwinian evolution was applied to economics to justify capitalism 

 

This person is conflating modern sociological concepts of social constructionism and symbolic interactionism with evolutionary biology and population genetics.

Left and right are man-made concepts, you cannot genetically inherit or sexually reproduce a man-made concept.

Left and right may be social constructs, but I've seen enough scientific articles about people's predisposition to certain views and beliefs based on genetics. Religion is one of them and there are certain genes that make you almost certainly a believer or an atheist. 

[Headlock]

4 hours ago, Brando said:

Religion is one of them and there are certain genes that make you almost certainly a believer or an atheist. 

[Brando]

32 minutes ago, Headlock said:

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1204-1241

 

https://www-newscientist-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.newscientist.com/article/dn7147-genes-contribute-to-religious-inclination/amp/?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#amp_tf=From %1%24s&aoh=16541776608934&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2Fdn7147-genes-contribute-to-religious-inclination%2F

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1204-1241

 

 

 

[Steve Jobs]

A lot of the opinion pieces in the Times lately have been …off. I feel like all of their content seems bizarrely uninteresting the past couple months, but maybe I’m just losing interest in news in general. 

[Headlock]

3 hours ago, Brando said:

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1204-1241

 

https://www-newscientist-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.newscientist.com/article/dn7147-genes-contribute-to-religious-inclination/amp/?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#amp_tf=From %1%24s&aoh=16541776608934&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2Fdn7147-genes-contribute-to-religious-inclination%2F

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1204-1241

 

 

 

Religion is a man-made concept, you cannot pass on man-made concepts.

 

And speaking towards you referencing the "god gene", which one guy proposed in one unpublished study in 2004 that has not been replicated, the author of the review article you linked isn't even agreeing with him  Like look at this:

Quote

Unfortunately, the final pages seem to have a few unintentional slips. For example, “Spirituality is based in consciousness, religion in cognition. Spirituality is universal, whereas cultures have their own forms of religion. I would argue that the most important contrast is that spirituality is genetic, while religion is based on cultures, traditions, beliefs, and ideas. It is, in other words, mimetic.” Well, even the most die-hard genocentrist would say that there are genetic influences that underlie a tendency toward spirituality, not that “spirituality is genetic.” Hamer goes on: “The fact that spirituality has a genetic component implies that it evolved for a purpose.” Although the question of why spirituality might have an evolutionary advantage is an important one, I haven't yet given in to the notion that every base pair of my DNA has some higher purpose.

Not only does Hamer (the guy who wrote the book) himself say that religion is not genetic but that spirituality is, the author themselves disagrees with Hamer's then assertion that spirituality is.

Furthermore, Hamer is literally talking about one specific gene that codes for one tiny neurotransmitter pump. That alone does not cause someone to believe in God 

 

The other article is again a review of a study that I had to go find on PubMed since it is behind a paywall, and again, you are misunderstanding what the study is saying:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15745438/

Quote

Biometric analysis of the two religiousness ratings revealed that genetic factors were significantly weaker (12% vs. 44%) and shared environmental factors were significantly stronger (56% vs. 18%) in adolescence compared to adulthood. Analysis of internal and external religiousness subscales of the total score revealed similar results. These findings support the hypothesis that the heritability of religiousness increases from adolescence to adulthood.

The study flat out says genetic factors were weak, and that is was environmental factors that pointed to "religiousness". They are referring to the ability of a person to possibly coming to believe something. That something literally could be anything. Furthermore, "heritability" is not the same thing as "inheritability". Heritability is not  genetic determination, it is the variation of a phenotype in a general population. They are saying this variation of "religiousness" increases into adulthood, meaning the variation increases, and that environmental factors are the cause of this variation, not genetics.

 

Aside from that, the problem with these studies is that they are connecting social constructions like religion, or back the OP, politics, with a possible genetic predisposition towards coming to believe in a certain concept they are taught about/come across. That thing could be literally anything, it is decided upon by what is presented to them.

 

A human born and raised in a vacuum is not going to become a Christian of their own volition 

Edited June 2, 2022 by Headlock

[Brando]

1 hour ago, Headlock said:

Religion is a man-made concept, you cannot pass on man-made concepts.

but you can pass a predisposition for it

 

1 hour ago, Headlock said:

A human born and raised in a vacuum is not going to become a Christian of their own volition 

well duh, but the human with religious predisposition born and raised in a vacuum will likely find something to believe in

[arceus]

sounds like the plot of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet 

[Headlock]

5 hours ago, Brando said:

but you can pass a predisposition for it

 

You're still not getting it, it is not a pre-disposition to religion, it is a predisposition to believe in ANY man-made concept that you are taught. It literally could be anything, ranging from religion to political identity to the believe in psychics 

 

5 hours ago, Brando said:

well duh, but the human with religious predisposition born and raised in a vacuum will likely find something to believe in

And that thing could be a rock. That is not what religion is 

[Brando]

9 hours ago, Headlock said:

And that thing could be a rock. That is not what religion is 

At least rocks are real

 

not to mention that primitive religions revolved around believing in rocks and animals and lightning etc

[Headlock]

15 hours ago, Brando said:

At least rocks are real

 

not to mention that primitive religions revolved around believing in rocks and animals and lightning etc

The belief that a rock is anything but a rock is a man-made concept.

I really don't know how else to explain this to you.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Headlock

[Sergi91]

Reminds me of South Park when half the town was pro war and the other half was against it 

[Brando]

8 hours ago, Headlock said:

The belief that a rock is anything but a rock is a man-made concept.

I really don't know how else to explain this to you.

first of all, there'd be no rocks in a vacuum. and second of all, all beliefs are man-made concepts. maybe we're just predisposed for those and some people have higher chance of believing based on their genetics. no need to make it any more complicated than that

[Communion]

On 6/1/2022 at 8:44 PM, Jynx672 said:

Genes can predict a lot of things, they're not wrong about that.