tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11635675.post6780503679339853938..comments2023-10-29T05:11:37.677-07:00Comments on Porcupine blog: Our Problems Part 4 Why Things are So BadLarry Gambonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04965037776214596919noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11635675.post-11790578088353714172008-12-13T16:23:00.000-08:002008-12-13T16:23:00.000-08:00If you remember “personal experience” was only par...If you remember “personal experience” was only part of my reason for skepticism. I also mentioned “practical experience and the experiences of others in the social sciences” Say like tens of thousands of case studies, the 120 years of field work that is out there. It also appears the author is guilty of the very things she accuses others of – see below. I remain skeptical...<BR/><BR/>From Wikipedia “The Nature Assumption”<BR/>Frank Farley of Temple University claims that "she's taking an extreme position based on a limited set of data. Her thesis is absurd on its face, but consider what might happen if parents believe this stuff!" Wendy Williams of Cornell University, who studies how environment affects IQ, argues that "there are many, many good studies that show parents can affect how children turn out in both cognitive abilities and behavior." Jerome Kagan of Harvard University argues that Harris "ignores some important facts, ones that are inconsistent with this book's conclusions". Some critics of Harris' book argue that she defines "nurture" differently than it is traditionally defined by psychologists talking about "nature and nurture." These critics charge that "nurture" should include all the environmental inputs, and not just the parent/child relationship. Since contemporary American parents who send their children to conventional schools and allow them to spend hours in front of television and videogame screens have less time with their children than these other inputs do, naturally those other inputs would be likely to have a significant and perhaps larger effect than the parents. <BR/>(It is also of interest that Farley, Williams and Kagan have vastly better academic credentials that Harris)<BR/><BR/>Review by Steve Sailer http://www.isteve.com/nurture.htm <BR/>In contrast, her third assertion -- parents don't matter -- is plausible only within her narrow, arbitrary boundaries. To fully explain human behavior, everything matters. Anything conceivable (whether genes, peers, parents, cousins, teachers, TV, incest abuse, martial arts, breastfeeding, prenatal environment, etc.) influences something (whether personality, IQ, sexual orientation, culture, morals, job skills, etc.) in somebody. <BR/>To show that peers outweigh parents, she repeatedly cites Darwinian linguist Pinker's work on how young immigrant kids automatically develop the accents of their playmates, not their parents. True, but there's more to life than language. Not until p. 191 does she admit -- in a footnote -- that immigrant parents do pass down home-based aspects of their culture like cuisine, since kids don't learn to cook from their friends. (How about attitudes toward housekeeping, charity, courtesy, wife-beating, and child-rearing itself?) Not until p. 330 does she recall something else where peers don't much matter: religion! Worse, she never notices what Thomas Sowell has voluminously documented in his accounts of ethnic economic specialization. It's parents and relatives who pass on both specific occupations (e.g., Italians and marble-cutting or Cambodians and donut-making) and general attitudes toward hard work, thrift, and entrepreneurship. <BR/><BR/>As for this obsession with reducing everything to genetics <BR/><BR/>The Gene Illusion is a book by clinical psychologist Jay Joseph[2], published in 2003, which challenges the evidence underlying genetic theories in psychiatry and psychology. Focusing primarily on twin and adoption studies, he attempts to debunk the methodologies used to establish genetic contributions to schizophrenia, criminal behaviour, and IQ. <BR/><BR/>See also a review of THE GENE ILLUSION at http://human-nature.com/nibbs/03/joseph.htmlLarry Gambonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04965037776214596919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11635675.post-90624016872824647212008-12-13T14:20:00.000-08:002008-12-13T14:20:00.000-08:00Larry, EVERYONE lives by theory. The only people w...Larry, EVERYONE lives by theory. The only people who explicitly dismiss "theory" are the ones who use unconscious or implicit theorizing.<BR/><BR/>Harris' work, for example, is built on mountains of empirical data. The theories such as those of Robert Trivers on why it is adaptive for children to be resistant to any attempts by their parents to alter their personality, just help to explain what it is we see. It is only in the most extreme cases like "feral children" that we see the effect of abuse, and even then there are cases of twins or siblings who had the support of nobody but each other and turned out all right.<BR/><BR/>Have you ever heard the saying "a single data point is garbage"? That's what we call an anecdote, and what most of your personal experiences would qualify as. It is extremely difficult for you to determine any sort of causality without the sort of controls used in scientific studies (Harris' book is in part about how researchers failed to do such controls and so their research had been contributing little to understanding).<BR/><BR/>If you'd like to point me to some scientific debunkings of Harris or Wrangham, go right ahead. I'd also note, in case you haven't read Demonic Males, that they theorize an "evolutionary feminism" near the end to ameliorate the violence and patriarchal hierarchy sustained by males and (perversely enough) females as well.TGGPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11017651009634767649noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11635675.post-48761124903566974122008-12-12T08:53:00.000-08:002008-12-12T08:53:00.000-08:00Sorry, but I am not as impressed by these books as...Sorry, but I am not as impressed by these books as you are. I base my world view not on theories, but personal experience, practical experience and the experiences of others in the social sciences. Every few years for the last 46 – 1962, when I read Ardrey's "African Genesis" – my first encounter with such works – a volume of "paradigm-changing importance" is launched, has its 15 minutes of fame and descends into oblivion. Think also of Konrad Lorenz, Lionel Tiger to name a few more. At best, such works keep science from being complacent and add a nuance or two. The scientific method is not the same as building a court case. You can write a book and "prove" damn thing you want. In the 1950's and 1960's scientists in pay of the tobacco companies wrote reams of studies "proving" no link between cancer and smoking tobacco. Today many of these same scientists for hire "prove" that global warming ain't. "Studies" are still being churned out "proving" that cannabis is dangerous. I could site many more examples.<BR/><BR/>Of course there are paradigm changes. But these are not made by authors but by discoveries in the field. Excavation of Australopithecine camp sites shows they were gatherers and scavengers. "Man the hunter" is a myth. Mitochondrial DNA analysis shows that the genetic background of Europeans is overwhelmingly what it was 35,000 years ago. Good-bye to the belief that Europe was overun by vast hordes of Indo-Europeans who displaced the original inhabitants.<BR/><BR/>Attempts to prove that humans or males are INNATELY violent or aggressive or whatever, are unscientific, ideologically-driven hogwash. So too would be the contrary, trying to prove they are innately peaceful and unaggressive. <BR/><BR/>As for Harris's work – it does not prove that child abuse is not harmful, all it shows is that one's genes and people other than parents can have a major influence. This is of course something I have long known – how else to explain how one abused child will grow up to be a chronic welfare recipient, addict or criminal and another an activist, artist or a writer? What I came to realize is that high intelligence helps in overcoming abuse and mentors play a major role.Larry Gambonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04965037776214596919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11635675.post-65162011524166046322008-12-10T17:17:00.000-08:002008-12-10T17:17:00.000-08:00I recommend that you read Judith Harris' "The Nurt...I recommend that you read Judith Harris' "The Nurture Assumption". It is honestly the best-written science book I've ever come across. It should change your perspective on the impact of abuse on children. <A HREF="http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/12/neuroscience_an.html" REL="nofollow">John Bruer's</A> "The Myth of the First Three Years" is also supposed to be good on a related topic.<BR/><BR/>If you want to know why it is that humanity is so violent and hierarchical (and the importance of gender with regard to those aspects), the primatologist Richard Wrangham provides a good explanation in Demonic Males, which I wrote a massive <A HREF="http://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/two-book-reviews/#more-206" REL="nofollow">review</A> of that segued into a Straussian interpretation of a reactionary blogger.TGGPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11017651009634767649noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11635675.post-25296997663207978732008-02-26T17:55:00.000-08:002008-02-26T17:55:00.000-08:00A hint of determinism in a Marxist crust with a dr...A hint of determinism in a Marxist crust with a drizzle of solipsism and a whipped <I>arabesque</I> of structuralist dreaming.<BR/><BR/>We encourage you to read Bourdieu, or anyone else who gets beyond reductionist concepts like "the large minority". People do not <I>exist</I> in the political sense, they <I>act</I>. This is a much more useful and complicated way of looking at history.<BR/><BR/>Also very pleased to have found your blog.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11635675.post-39893401860766541342008-02-04T00:50:00.000-08:002008-02-04T00:50:00.000-08:00I have to correct Zhu on one point. Upward mobilit...I have to correct Zhu on one point. Upward mobility is pretty bad in the United States and the UK although the United States is the worst of the two. But most of continental Europe rates higher. There is less poverty than Canada especially in northwestern Europe and the Scandinavian countries .Wernerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17213034395981099737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11635675.post-47738487860951235692008-02-02T07:38:00.000-08:002008-02-02T07:38:00.000-08:00I'm with you Larry ... to a point. The Enlightenme...I'm with you Larry ... to a point. The Enlightenment did not happen in the 1960s. Our general adoration of old ways has changed little and appears to be turning back despite the efforts of us round-earthers. I maintain we were much more free 30 years ago than we are now and when I look to the future I do not need to wear shades.Mr. Beer N. Hockeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07184518909716677938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11635675.post-75780933053673088632008-01-29T19:14:00.000-08:002008-01-29T19:14:00.000-08:00Your post sounds like a Pink Floyd's song ;) I agr...Your post sounds like a Pink Floyd's song ;) <BR/><BR/>I agree. Especially in Europe where there's still a strong hierarchy at so many levels: students/ teachers, boss/ employees, "good" family/ working class etc.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11635675.post-19722270383154823962008-01-29T09:46:00.000-08:002008-01-29T09:46:00.000-08:00it is interesting how that plays out on a larger s...it is interesting how that plays out on a larger scale, as well as in individuals.Graemehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04230080850680753260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11635675.post-17970637938547100822008-01-28T22:22:00.000-08:002008-01-28T22:22:00.000-08:00To Jewish people the holocaust is visceral, as sla...To Jewish people the holocaust is visceral, as slavery is to Afro-Americans. Events like that dominate your consciousness, no matter what reforms are presented.Frank Partisanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03536211653082893030noreply@blogger.com