>
> But this is a confusipn. We may be genetically
> disposed to manifest traits in certain environments,
> just as I have a genetic predisposition to grow to
> 5'10" ina n environmentw here there was proper
> nutrition, less in one where there wasn't. My genetic
> predispotions are precisely NOT those that are
> manifested in all environments or regardless of the
> envirinments. This is your confusion. A genetic
> predisposition is a disposition to manifest a trait in
> an environment.
i'm not confused about it. why do isolated deaf people exhibit an impaired capacity for language BUT still exhibit a capacity for it?....a demonstratable capacity. i know what a capacity is. to use your example.....someone with a genetic capacity to grow 5'10, given identical environmental parameters will grow taller than someone that is genetically predisposed towards growing 5' 6. or won't they? i mean to use you example again....say the evironment only supplies enough nutrition to sustain a 5'6 person......if you compare what will become of a person that is genetically predisposed towards growing 5' 10? will he stop growing at 5'6 or will he grow taller than 5'6 but perhaps be more sickly than the guy with the 5'6 trait? there one can perhaps note since the evironment was identical for both that his sickliness had alot to do with his 5'10 trait in comparison....i mean why was it different? you can make all the correct observations etc. in that instance you can note the genetic difference.
> That's not how the innateness reserach is done.
> Chomsky doesn't study feral children, he does math and
> applies it to languages tahta re spoken by social
> beings. Feral children, btw, do not learn language,
> you can''t "make up your own language," that silly
> idea was put paid by Wittgenstein.
ok i am ignorant about innateness reasearch....but examples of the behavior of children etc. is cited often enough. i just kind of assumed... though what are children doing when they start babbling incoherantly? start speaking words they couldn't have heard before.... i mean i've seen a kid show me a rock and label it some word that i've never heard before.... that's what i meant by 'making up'...all kids do that. i mean it's probably just inept imitations or whatever or maybe not because they are often very distinct words that don't sound anything like other words they may have heard....so whatever that is is what i was refering to....the child brain trying to form associations with things verbally.
> > my thinking is that if sexual preference was innate
> > it would be so for
> > everyone.
>
> Gaaa. Another congfsuion. You use thing almost
> meaningness word "innate," which is not a biological
> term, first to mean "rigidly manifested in all
> environments" or maybe "manifested apart from social
> environments"
using the term 'rigidly'is how you interpret what i said. i never said rigidly....i would have probably said something like 'manifesting itself in someway as distinct from something that didn't have the trait in question'. i can't envision, to use your example again, an environment where a 5'10 trait and a 5'6 trait would produce the exact same results. if there is it's in probably some abstract hypathetical plane completely divorced from reality.
> (though how you could tell what
> someone's sexual preferences were apart from others,
> that is asocially, I do not know)
i was being sarcastic...that was my point. if it was a genetic trait wouldn't it manifest itself in some way as distinct from etc....outside of a social environment? i mean if someone was genetically predisposed towards violence, or being angry, wouldn't they still be violent or angry when no one's around?
>,a nd now you use it
> to mean "universal." Byt even if there were something
> that was innate in the first sense, which is
> incoherent, that would be no reason to think that it
> was innate in the second sense.
well ok....take chimps and Bonobos. two species that are almost biologically identical....yet completely different actually opposite social structure...one could find this social variation to be an innate characteristic among bonobos etc. in that sense would there be a bonobo that didn't exhibit this charactersitic? probably a weird example.... would there be a human that didn't exhibit the capacity for language? since we know that is an innate characteristic of humans? easier example....the hypathetical human child raised by goats...he may sort of act like a goat...or enough so to fit in with the other goats, wolves chimps whatever....would it's innate characteristics then completely dissappear?
> This is the first sensible thing you have said in this
> discussion. You might be right, might not, but one
> might actually study this. Not, however, by raising
> feral children and seeing what they wanted to fuck, if
> anything.
i know, i was being sarcastic.....obviously a feral kid would not assign gender roles to inanimate objects. but a feral kid's brain will still attemt to form verbal associations with things.
~M.E.
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