Comments on: Genes influence voting behavior?

By: sergey

sergey — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 08:08:19 +0000

This is a common fallacy viewing genes as actors defining traits. No, they are simply texts read by emerging development system, and different systems read different texts from this vast library, and react differently on what they read. Modern genetics is 99% theory of misprints, and you can not have a meaninfull view of literature and its trends based on data on misprints.

By: sergey

sergey — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:49:25 +0000

Only handful of traits can be directly associated with one or two genes. Absolute majority of them are results of complex interaction between hundreds of genes, so to identify the role of any one of them by observational data is impossible. This is the main stumbling block of darwinism: individual genes are invisible to natural selection, it affects only phenotypes, and relation between genotype and phenotype is not simple and in most cases can not be established by statistics. Only for rare genetical diseases cause-effect relationship can be established, but natural variants of the norm usualy have not distinct genetical explanation.

By: Bugs

Bugs — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:58:25 +0000

So is McCain monozygotic or dizygotic? What about Obama. I need to know where these people stand.

By: sergey

sergey — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:56:36 +0000

Correction: I meant “exciting”, not “exiting”.

By: sergey

sergey — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:54:14 +0000

Human genetics, especially behavioral, is an exiting and a very needed field, but it is still very immature. Eugenics is a premature discipline: we know too little to recommend any specific policy, but it can have a brilliant future. But real research in this field is severely crumpled by ideological phobias.

By: douglas

douglas — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:37:29 +0000

Funny how an article that talks about the study linking genetics with voter turnout gets transfigured into proof that genes account for political orientation. Of course, I suppose that's also why the eugenicists tended to be to the left, eh?

By: Thomass

Thomass — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:52:15 +0000

It’s a load of bs for many reasons. One not often addressed, a lot of the left is ‘conservative’ if you judge it impartially. It is full of conservative notions….

By: Sergey

Sergey — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:24:49 +0000

A general rule of application mathematics and statistics to raw data of sociology and psychology is “Garbage in, garbage out”. Yes, twin studies comparing prevalence of some trait in dizigotic/monozigotic twins is the golden standard of exploring genetic conditionality of traits, but such studies are plagued by insufficient samle sizes. Only when the dfference is so striking that is evident without statistics, its reality can be confirmed statistically. But if it is not evident by glance, no statistics of this sort can reveal it. Opposite is true: sometimes apparent difference evaporates after statistical analysis.
But there is more serious, paradigmatic defect in traditional scientistic approach reducing traits either to genetics of environment: in reality many of them do not fall to anyone of these, but are the results of individual development casually independent from genes and environment, that is, result of indeterministic self-organization. This indeterminism of complex system development makes it unpredictable and dependent on free choices of individ. That is why psychology and sociology are not sciences, and never will be.

By: SteveH

SteveH — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:12:23 +0000

I can only imagine the left wing academia nuts future solutions to this percieved problem.

Handicap parking places at the front door of voting precincts for the voting impaired?
The genetically blessed counting as only three fifths of a vote?

By: nyomythus

nyomythus — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:05:17 +0000

also check this out: http://rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.ytmnd.com/