[lbo-talk] Don't Mess With Mom

[Luke Weiger]

It just seems to me that such confusion is generally superficial.  I think
there's a charitable and coherent interpretation of what your biz Phd friend
said--i.e. that most of the variation we see in character and personality
isn't a consequence of environmental differences (a thought we can
coherently develop with the sort of counterfactual talk I introduced in a
prior post).  Moreover, if you asked your friend if this is what she
"really" meant, I think she'd assent.

-- Luke

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "andie nachgeborenen" <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>
To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 10:09 PM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Don't Mess With Mom


>
> Yes, Miles is right. I've even written a paper about
> this elementary truth. (It hasn't been published yet.)
> The confusion will not die. I had an extraordinarily
> intelligent person, a biz PhD with some biological
> knowledge, tell me today that she thought that
> character or personality was almost entirely
> "genetic," although with training and disciple one
> might overcome genetic proclivities. Moreover, the pop
> sociobiological literature, some of which is written
> Harvard professors of biology, is full of this error,
> even though the proponents will sometimes retreat
> temporarily if pushed. The fact is, most people think
> that "biological" or "genetic" means "fixed
> independently of the environment." Another very smart
> woman, former philosophy prof, NYU law student, author
> of an excellent book, recently commented on a draft of
> the above-mentioned paper, sating disapprovingly that
> she thought it was a bad idea to concede that genetics
> might make contribution to explaining human behavior,
> because it concedes what the right wing says about
> human nature.
> --- Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 lweiger at umich.edu wrote:
> >
> > > Of course "both environment and genes must
> > interact to produce any specific
> > > traits."  It's not like you could clone me by
> > extracting some of my DNA and
> > > placing it in a vacuum.  NO ONE OVER THE AGE OF
> > FIVE HAS EVER HAD SUCH A
> > > HORRIBLY CONFUSED UNDERSTANDING OF HOW GENES WORK
> > (at least in recent times).
> > > Please be more charitable.
> >
> > >From my own experience teaching and reading
> > people's opinions online,
> > I'd say naive genetic determinism is alive and well.
> >  I wish your
> > statement above in caps were true, but it's not.
> >
> > Miles
> >
> > ___________________________________
> >
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> >
>
>
>
>
>
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