Politics is just biology

Originally posted by petrosianpupil
I think that idealogy boils down to how you interperet the human condition.

If you think that our behaviour is mainly down to the environment. You are left wing.

If you think that it is your genetic make up, then you are right wing.

Of course most agree it is a mixture. I tend to to think its 60/40 in favour of enviroment for most behavioural ...[text shortened]... raits. But greed, sex drive in favour of genetics. A very rough approx. Any views?

Any views?

Been hitting the mescaline a bit heavy here?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Been hitting the mescaline a bit heavy here?

sadly I really believe a lot of the things I post.

Originally posted by petrosianpupil
sadly I really believe a lot of the things I post.

I think you need a day job....

Originally posted by sonhouse
I think you need a day job....

On top of the two i already have?

Originally posted by petrosianpupil
I think that idealogy boils down to how you interperet the human condition.

If you think that our behaviour is mainly down to the environment. You are left wing.

If you think that it is your genetic make up, then you are right wing.

Of course most agree it is a mixture. I tend to to think its 60/40 in favour of enviroment for most behavioural ...[text shortened]... raits. But greed, sex drive in favour of genetics. A very rough approx. Any views?

Any views?

It depends what you mean by genetic influences. There's of the order of 100,000 genes in the human genome, and a lot of them code for things that are really only relevant at the cellular level. There's some genes to make us grow to about the right height, there's genes for eye colour and so on. There really isn't space for what crude biological determinists would argue for, there's just no reason to believe that there is a gay gene, or a lazy gene or anything like that.

What is true is that the fact that we walk on two legs is genetically determined - our bodies come out the right shape to - although the behaviour probably came first as a result of our evolutionary ancestors needing their hands free to carry stuff around, the structural changes came about as a result of selection advantage. So walking on two legs is certainly a behaviour that is genetically determined, but one that came about as a result of our ancestors' behaviour.

Emotions are things that are influenced both genetically and environmentally, we have hormonally influenced drives like hunger and sexuality - but I bet you could find identical twins where one is gay and one is not. But which emotion we select depends on social factors, depending on upbringing two different people may feel quite different emotions under the same circumstances.

Homo Sapiens has a smaller brain than Homo Neanderthalis had (Modern humans have around 1.3 litres of brain tissue, for the Neanderthals it was around 1.5) but despite that our culture changes faster and, even in prehistoric times was much more varied. We find new ways of doing things on a more or less continuous basis. Their brains may have been larger, but ours are more inventive.

One thing to bear in mind in these discussions is that human babies need to learn how to see, how to walk and all sorts of other stuff. A giraffe is able to run within about half an hour of being born.

I think that our behaviour is down to quite subtle interactions between genetic and environmental factors, but that our genes allow us to overcome, and change, our own behaviours. We are capable of smothering our emotional responses to events and controlling our behaviour to suit the needs of circumstances. I see myself as a moderate, but from most people's point of view I'm very left wing. I have met right wingers who would argue a similar line for behaviour, and disagree with the "in our genes" line. I'm sure that there are left wingers who would like to prove that socialism is somehow genetically encoded and that the current set up is an abberation.

So I disagree with your 60:40 split, or any kind of split, I think that nature and nurture are interleaved in a far more subtle way than that, you may as well say that it's all genetics and all environment. I also think that one's personal ideology affects, but does not determine, ones view of this.

Originally posted by DeepThought
It depends what you mean by genetic influences. There's of the order of 100,000 genes in the human genome, and a lot of them code for things that are really only relevant at the cellular level. There's some genes to make us grow to about the right height, there's genes for eye colour and so on. There really isn't space for what crude biological determ ...[text shortened]... nk that one's personal ideology affects, but does not determine, ones view of this.

Good post.

I am sure that you are right about the subtle way genetics and environment mix. But we can still estimate a mix so long as we realise the great limitations to such a figure.

I wonder if there are many Identical twins there are that one is straight/one is gay. I do believe that sex drives are strongly genetic so i would think that such situations are rare.

Originally posted by petrosianpupil
Good post.

I am sure that you are right about the subtle way genetics and environment mix. But we can still estimate a mix so long as we realise the great limitations to such a figure.

I wonder if there are many Identical twins there are that one is straight/one is gay. I do believe that sex drives are strongly genetic so i would think that such situations are rare.

lets not turn this thread into another gay one, puleeze.
genetics IS part of our individual environment.
whether one perceives a view as left or right wing is purely a relative value,
si it is not necessarily significant.

Originally posted by eamon o
lets not turn this thread into another gay one, puleeze.
genetics IS part of our individual environment.
whether one perceives a view as left or right wing is purely a relative value,
si it is not necessarily significant.

Marx had a view that "man is a totality of human relations" and communism is founded in a belief that society can mould people. Clearly environmental view points.

Hitler believed that Jews were inferior no matter how they were brought up clearly a genetic viewpoint.