From: rkunenbo@cs.ruu.nl (Ronald Kunenborg)
Subject: Re: Are the Moties us?
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 12:03:55 GMT
Organization: Utrecht University, Dept. of Computer Science

In <1992Sep6.122602.11882@techbook.com> szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo) writes:

>>>That's a phobia. And according to the student psychology sitting over here,
>>>phobias aren't considered inheritable/genetically codable.
>
>The "student psychology" needs to rethink the matter.  The most common
>phobias deal with heights, enclosed places, and animals like insects
>that were dangers during the hunter-gatherer period when our
>genetically influenced behaviors evolved.  

So why aren't we mortally afraid of other lethal animals ? Fear of spiders and
snakes is no more rational than fear of lions, killer bees and wasps.
Or tigers, wolves, bears and other large predators. Or scorpions, or rats.

As for enclosed places, many people have a phobia for open spaces. And fear of
heights? It seems to be more prevalent amongst certain cultures and less
amongst others - and this goes for many more phobias

>If phobias were culturally
>based, they would be directed against things we _really_ need
>to be afraid of, such as guns, cars, etc., but these do not typically produce 
>such strong reactions. 

A phobia for flying is well documented and not very rare. And I've known
people to be afraid to step into a car and start to shake and sweat (although
that could have something to do with the driver :) ).

As for a phobia for guns, I couldn't tell. Guns are glorified everyday on
television. Cars are considered the ultimate expression of freedom. A phobia
could well be culturally inhibited from developing. If, on the other hand,
guns were constantly portrayed as to be feared, and phobia for guns was
considered "normal", I think we'd see a large increase in "gun-phobia" (anyone
know the latin version of this? :)).

>Neverthless, phobias can often be alleviated by culture, in the form of
>therapy and drugs.

And aggravated, or even created (taboos are a prime example - and people have
died of "voudou".).

>In article <FRANCIS.92Aug26125755@galois.dogwood.atl.ga.us> francis@dogwood.atl.ga.us (John Stracke) writes:
>>OK, why do you think WMK is too complex to code? 
>
>"Wants More Kids" is just a convenient abstraction, not something that
>will literally be coded for in the genes.  We must better define the actual 
>effects, what sociobiologists call the proximate causes, that could
>bring about greater fertility in an environment of effective birth control.
>Since the timescales are very short on the evolutionary timescale,
>centuries, we need to locate genes that already exist that effect fertility
>in the face of birth control.   Here are some ideas that have been mentioned, 
>or that I have thought of: characteristics that are genetically influenced
>in a measurable way, and are likely in the population right now, that could 
>serve a partial role in evolving around birth control.  (I'm dealing with women>because the cause and effect is more direct; if you have ideas for men, like 
>the ability to break condoms :-), feel free to add 'em.)
>
>shorter gestation period 
>the tendency to have twins, triplets, etc.
>mother-baby bonding ("brood care"), greatly strengthened and turned into
>	WMK via various kinds of peer pressure, envy, etc.
>mother-baby finer discrimination between babies and baby-substitutes
>	(ie women who don't like pets, teddy bears, etc., but do like
>	babies)
>intelligence: forget the PC whiners and Gould-groupies; every credible 
>	psychological study considers IQ differences in humans to be 30-80% 
>	genetically determined.

I dare you to show me even one of those """credible""" studies that doesn't
get it's figures from Cyril Burt, or Burt-groupies. Or articles that quoted
articles that quoted results from articles that quoted Cyril Burt.

Or maybe the studies were conducted by that Nazi-professor Eysenck? 
(And I'm not using "Nazi" just to insult - he is one).

As for Gould, he has done a thorough and well-documented study into the
sense and nonsense of the correlation between IQ and heredity. Dismissing
not only him, but prof. Steven Rose, or prof. Bob Williamson - leading
geneticists - is tantamount to showing your abuse of science and your
political agenda. 

(And about PC - I'm more than willing to debate on some other group why
the attack on "PC" is nothing but a disguised attack on civil rights gained 
during the 60's).

>	High IQ corelates very well with high birth
>	control use and greatly lowered fertility in women. Genes
>	causing lower IQ, of which several have already been catalogued, 
>	could very well spread and in turn increase the fertility of more 
>	descendents.  However, this effect may dissapear once very effective, 
>	convenient and inexpensive birth control is achieved, perhaps some 
>	time in the next century. Genes could that effect clumsiness, the 
>	anatomy of reproductive organs, etc. could have a similar effect.

This theory reminds me, not only of Malthus, but of his contemporaries who
sought to explain the poverty and misery during the Industrial Revolution
by first evolution theory and next, genetics (and with science in general).

After the downfall of religion as a means to "explain" the world, science took
it's place. (And it serves even better than religion in some aspects, worse in
others).

>increase in age of menopause
>decrease in age of fertility onset (this is actually happening across the
>	developed world, but of course has been postulated to be due
>	to environmental factors like better diet. Nobody has studied
>	the possibility of this effect being due to natural selection
>	under improved health care practices or birth control).

Likely because most people (including myself) consider this too absurd to be
true. And because the simple and correct explanation is just that:
environmental factors (or rather, health care and good food) are the simple
and (proven) correct explanation. As for "natural selection", `I have no need 
for such a hypothesis'.

>Nonethless, there also are many cultural factors: wealthy and highly educated
>women have better access to birth control, birth control itself can be
>restricted or encouraged, baby-substitutes like pets can be restricted
>or encouraged or made more effective ("supernormal models"), peer pressure 
>can take the form of "stop! overpopulation!" or "so, what are you going 
>to do with the spare bedroom?", etc.  Within the same timeframe of
>centuries, we could have genetic engineering alter the genes directly 
>outside of selection, we could extend the age of fertility, we could 
>come up with a form of perfect birth control that overpopulation paranoids 
>throw in city water supplies, etc. I still contend that cultural factors 
>will run far ahead of genetic factors, and it is cultural solutions we 
>must seek to problems of population growth or decline. 

Ah, but *are* there problems of population growth or decline?
I say that these concerns are based in racism (concerns of the "Blacks"
overrunning the "White race"). I'm not going to debate this in
this newsgroup though. Talk.politics.misc is the correct newsgroup for that.

>szabo@techbook.COM  Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks
>Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400, N81) 

Regards,
-- 
Ronald Kunenborg, Ina Boudier-Bakkerlaan 89-3, 3582 XD Utrecht, The Netherlands

        "I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom
	      and democracy, but that could change." - Dan Quayle
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