Reblogged this on Philosophies of a Disenchanted Scholar and commented:
I wonder how this parenting malarkey fits in with r/K selection theory a la Anon. Conservative?

Jayman, what is your knowledge of RH negative blood type and what is your take on that phenomena – a different species of human perhaps?

“The transmission of misery or bliss in a family is entirely due to shared genes, just like most everything else.”

Interesting you should use the word “bliss”. Harvard just released its 75 year study on what makes men “happy” and the effects of parenting on happiness in old age comes up;

http://www.feelguide.com/2013/04/29/75-years-in-th-making-harvard-just-released-its-epic-study-on-what-men-require-to-live-a-happy-life/

“We are now at the point in our understanding where it is beyond dispute that all the interesting traits of human behavior, intelligence, and personality are heritable to some degree.”

Interesting is subjective. Some of the human behavioral traits he finds “interesting” I might not find so interesting, so such type of spin wording, although useful in propaganda, does not give weight to the argument. It would lead one to question, “So the traits he personally finds uninteresting have been found not be heritable?”

“The case for behavioral genetics is as solid as a rock. Yet certain people like to pretend as if this is a “speculative” affair, or deny that we have such evidence entirely.”

Its because of statements like the one I quoted above by Derb. Humans have known since ancient times that genes matter. Putting spin on studies and using misleading terminology to give the impression that there has been at least 1 peer reviewed scientific study that claimed 100% of everything about each human is 100% genetically determined is what gives us pause.

As far as your reply to Canadian Friend, bombastic statements such as, “The transmission of misery or bliss in a family is entirely due to shared genes, just like most everything else.”…. when you cite only two small studies in two countries only, also gives us pause. The word “entirely” is the bombastic part. We have absolutely no way of knowing that since our knowledge about genes itself is so limited and the field of genetic science is in its infancy stage right now, if not merely its embryonic stage.

Nobody has a problem with the concept of genes being deterministic to one degree or another. That you propose bombastically that its “entirely” is another matter.

Scale back the theatrics a bit.

Jumping to conclusions about race is not biology. It’s social “science” that cherry picks elements from biology, while selectively ignoring other factors that have a greater impact on behavior (economic conditions, history of the people/region, technology, theology, war, etc.). A group of people’s DNA does not just drastically change in a decade or two, but you can clearly see how politics, war, economics, and technology can make an entire community change for the better or take a turn for the worse, in a very short amount of time. This is obvious to 100% of people who aren’t racist.

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Good parenting could be a general display of social status, of which every human interaction is loaded with. “Look, we can afford violin lessons for our children and have so much spare time that we can build a treehouse with them….”

[…] see also The Derb on the JayMan from […]

1: Heritability measures the proportion of variation of a trait that is attributable to variation in genes, /at a particular time/. A secular environmental change can shift the entire distribution one direction or another, while leaving the relative impacts of genes and environment untouched. Height has always been highly heritable, but better nutrition has pushed up the average height by many inches over the centuries.

2: The crux of the Bell Curve’s argument is that the meritocracy is mostly endogamous – that is, high-status folks marry high status folks, a phenomenon called “assortative mating”. As for regression, you are indeed right that the children of two high status parents will regress somewhat in whatever traits made their parents exceptional. But here’s the thing: you only regress once! See Greg Cochran for why: http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/the-breeders-equation/

Exactly how endogamous the upper class becomes will make or break The Bell Curve’s predictions, but we already have significant evidence that it’s on the right track via Gregory Clark’s work on social mobility (or rather, the absence of it) through the ages.

>So far as I know, I have no six-foot ancestors. Where’s the heritability of height here?

There’s always exceptions 🙂

Nobody said 100% inherited. It is stated above:

“Behavioral genetics in a nutshell: heredity: 70-80%; shared environment: 0%; something(s) else: 20-30%.”

Even if there was more marriage among those in the lower class, the next generation, having inherited all the same traits, would be no different.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with that?

Every generation would be identical to the previous one if that statement were true.

But they are not.

If that quoted excerpt was true, in every generation there would be an identical percentage of the population – as there was in the previous generation – who would become drug addicts or violent criminals and an identical percentage of the population who would become law abiding well adjusted citizens…and we would still be in caves…

But we all know those percentages vary from generation to generations.

I am NOT saying we do not inherit most of the traits that makes us who we are, I am sure we do but I am saying that there has to be a certain amount of “plasticity” other wise nothing would ever change.

To say it is 100% inherited and that other factors account for ZERO % is a bit radical… for lack of a better word…

Exactly same experience with my family. My oldest son is a carbon copy of my (odd, contrary, fantasy oriented) personality, where my younger son is a lot like my wife (and her father), basically a born engineer. Having children can most definitely be a way to crystallize awareness of the power of genetics, but I don’t think it’s guaranteed by any means.

Congratulations on one of the best blogs in the world. To read you is heartening.

I am a historian and a philologist, but unlike 90 per cent of my peers am neither leftist nor resistant to the discoveries of genetics and psychometrics; indeed, I have lapped them up for decades, ever since my mother gave me H. J. Eysenck’s “Know Your Own I.Q.” over 50 years ago (I didn’t do too well, but then I was only about 10). Today, I am proud to call myself a friend of Helmuth Nyborg, who lives 15 miles from me. I hardly understand half of what he’s talking about, but a man so persecuted by the right-thinking cannot be wrong.

Two questions do keep occurring to me when I consider your well-established truths about personality and heritability:

1. How do you account for massive and rapid cultural change, if personality traits are largely heritable? How did large parts of the Western world go from respecting to despising the nuclear family in a few short years beginning in the 1960s? The authors of “The Great Disruption” inherited their personalities, right? Yet they turned on their parents, tradition, patriotism, moral and aesthetic standards, learning, and order. Western politicians used to defend their countries; now they are ashamed to do so. Where did those personality traits spring from?

2. Regression toward the mean should surely mean that, for example, parenting styles are far from fully heritable. Every generation will show a new mix. So the daughter of a feckless mother may turn out to be a model wife, no? What’s the role of regression in the story of heritable personality traits? This puzzles me too when I consider “The Bell Curve”‘s argument about an emerging meritocracy. Won’t the children of the smart meritocrats regress in intelligence? If they retain their parents’ status, won’t that be due as much to nepotism and monetary inheritance than to genes?

And a comment: my maternal ancestry is Danish-German-Swedish, my paternal Yankee to the nth degree (four Mayflower passengers), with possibly a bit of Irish thrown in sometime around 1840. Both my parents were smart, my father a professor of literature and my mother an independent writer. I have inherited, if that’s the word, my mother’s status, as my opinions make me unemployable in today’s academy. Here’s the comment: my mother was 5’2″, my father 5’8″, I am 6’0″. So far as I know, I have no six-foot ancestors. Where’s the heritability of height here?

WordPress.com / Gravatar.com credentials can be used.

It won’t BE calvin and hobbes, just in a similar art style. Watterson is whimsical and soft, which is great given the sharpness of his wit and the biting social commentary often featured therein. I like that mix: Soft cuddly looking characters saying things that make you think hard. Just like how having useless platitudes that everyone loves said by horrible monsters would have you maybe reconsider the meaning of those phrases. Capisce?

“The fact that parenting style makes no measurable contribution to the finished adult personality is perhaps the most counterintuitive result in the human sciences. ”

It’s only counterintuitive to people with fewer than two children.

My two daughters have *very* different personalities. Elder daughter has my personality in so many ways – she’s much more like me than her mother, while younger daughter is much more like her mother. They’ve had very similar life experiences, and if anything, the differences should have pushed younger daughter’s personality in ways she’s not exhibiting.

in thinking of how to present HBD truth and construct a narrative around it, I have to say the best bet would be to do it subtly. hit them over the head truth works for some (admittedly, myself) , but it gives an out to anyone invested in any other views to dismiss as racist science blah blah blah. just a thought

Excellent. Greater recognition is the result of your hard work and indefatigable spirit. Keep it up! Also, I’ve been trying to come up with ideas for illustrating a cartoon about the non effect of parenting. There’s just something about cartoon animals or people that opens up an idea to a wider audience. I’m thinking Calvin and Hobbes-ish in style. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any thoughts on the matter, I would be happy to give you a writing credit on the strip if it comes to fruition.

Re: zero independent impact of family:

– Is this a recent phenomenon, caused, perhaps, by the general effect of increased standards of living and reductions in violence? Should we expect to see higher shared environment in poorer countries?

– If the above is true, then when it comes to mate choice, are we just executing old adaptions that made sense when family environment did matter independent of genes?

– If it’s false, and shared environment is similarly low in primitive societies, then are all the mate choice algorithms that are purportedly for figuring out who is a good potential parent, really just for figuring out who has the best genes (and conversely, signaling you’ll be a good parent is really about signaling genes)?

– Is the outrage over the idea that parenting doesn’t matter a local phenomenon, or is it the result of some kind of “ATTACK ALL THOSE WHO SAY I’M NOT A GOOD MATE” adaption?

“How you raise your kids has virtually no impact on how they turn out. That is, nurture appears to matter little in the end.”

“It’s rendered additionally more challenging with a little one who insists on demanding much of my time, a demand which I more than happily obliged.”

Here’s the beautiful contradiction: that just because it doesn’t make any difference to ‘outcomes’, doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter to parents, nor does it mean it doesn’t matter to children. It is truly simply for the joy of family.

“My son will have his own rather interesting lineage to trace; for he is a part West African, part British (presumably English, and possibly Irish), part Chinese, and part Indian (subcontinent), part Yankee, part Quaker, part German, part Latvian tanned-skin blue-eyed male born in Maine. Oh the fun you’ll have. Do these interesting combinations contribute to our unique insights? Well, more on that in the future too.”

I couldn’t help it, but I thought of outbreeding depression.