lbo-talk-digest V1 #3327

Barry Rene DeCicco bdecicco at umich.edu
Fri Sep 8 12:27:27 PDT 2000


Subject: Re: nature vs. nurture, was FBI on Einstein

Norm wrote:


>racial/ethnic discrimination: if an infant imprints (emulates) on someone
>with specific appearance, speech and movement that feeds and shelters
>him/her, and shuns someone who looks, talks and acts differently who does
>not feed or shelter him/her, then his/her survival chances are better.
>that's nature. then you add a few years of what the parents whisper into
>johnnie's and janie's ears during infancy and you get someone who is more
or
>less discriminatory. that's nurture.

There was a comment on this by Robert Wright - a totally unapolegetic sociobiologist (or as they like to be called, 'evolutionary psychologist'). He commented that people meeting people of other races is very recent. Up until a few thousand years ago, people would only meet people who lived within a few hundred miles (at most).

This meant that, for practical purposes, almost all interaction was with people of one's own race. Therefore, almost all evolutionary pressure would come from competing/cooperating with others of the same race.

The article is in Slate, but I can't find it (their search facility is mediocre, and downloads crawl sooooooo slowly........).

Barry



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