littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
That doesn't mean anything!
*leaves thread for sake of own health*
*leaves thread for sake of own health*
Genetic determinism
- Thread starter Ibn Khaldoun
- Start date
Ibn Khaldoun
the present is dead, long live the future . . .
Of course not. It's ideology-free and neutral. Shiny... new...
bhamgeezer
Dogs bark
Don't you see! There are cultural spheres irreducible to the material, thus your empirical science is of no value in the context of this discussion!!
Ibn Khaldoun
the present is dead, long live the future . . .
Very good.
Not that empirical scientific knowledge doesn't have value, but it needs to be assessed, and contextualized. A scientific form enquiry itself.
bhamgeezer
Dogs bark
The point that I was making is that genetic determinism is a kind of modernized Preformationism.
To say that there are no problems with nature/ nuture, the concepts of genes and genetic information etc is simply WRONG. These are all hotly debated issues within the Philosophy of Biology.
Ibn Khaldoun
the present is dead, long live the future . . .
very handy lol. could you talk in these 'cliches' more? 
I'm afraid I'm just saying clichés I got from Phil/Lit students
Its nice to see someone admit that they're spouting gobbledygook.
There seems to be a confusion here. Materialism and support for empirical scientific evidence does not lead to genetic determinism. For example, I am a good Materialist and I certainly do not agree with genetic determinism. My objections to it are scientific.
bhamgeezer
Dogs bark
Clearly, materialism ultimately doesn't even require you accept any form of determinism or reductionism
Ibn Khaldoun
the present is dead, long live the future . . .
Just because it's not necessary doesn't mean it isn't frequently the case.
bhamgeezer
Dogs bark
So what if it is, material reductionism and determinism are great theories
Sure, but bear in mind that the whole Developmental Systems vs Genetic Programs debate is taking place within a strictly Materialist paradigm.
Philosophers of Science are, after all, pretty much uniformly Materialists.
Ibn Khaldoun
the present is dead, long live the future . . .
So what if it is, material reductionism and determinism are great theories
To you, perhaps.
Instrumental rationality is there to instrumentalize people.
Ibn Khaldoun
the present is dead, long live the future . . .
It seems quite nuanced though, so far.
So what if it is, material reductionism and determinism are great theories
They're only great if they work.
Genetic reductionism is an example of a theory that doesn't work, because it is both conceptually confused and a gross over-simplification.
bhamgeezer
Dogs bark
I'd rather take rationality even of the instrumental type over a series of meaningless sentences
Not sure about 'nuanced'. The disagreement is pretty fundamental- can we reduce phenotypical characteristics to genetics, or not? Related to this are the questions of whether or not it makes sense to talk about genetic 'information', 'code' and 'programs'.
OTOH it is of course a very polite debate. Its academic. The two sides don't call each other cunts or fuckwits, at least in public.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
No, but they have about the same utility.You're not making much sense either.
Phrenology and genetic determinism are not the same!
Who doesn't remember the likes of Lombroso, with his "criminal features" spiel ("genetic determinism" writ very large indeed!) and wince at how many people were taken in?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Environmental determinism is just as wrong-headed as genetic determinism. Phenotypical traits are best seen as emergent phenomena arising from the interaction of biology and environment.
B.F. Skinner, author of Beyond Freedom and Dignity (title says it all), was a sort of environmental determinist. Environmental determinism in the form of Lysenkoism was the official position in Stalinist Russia.
Environmental Determinism does not equal cuddly and nice.
Ibn Khaldoun
the present is dead, long live the future . . .
There is something to be said for that. People aren't just 'products of their environment' either, and that can be dehumanizing - i.e Behaviourism.
It's also New Labour's paternalist ideology that people are just pavlovian dogs, so they can control them that way.
Reductionism and determinism is more of an attitude/approach. It can take many forms.
[Said well, above.]
revol68
what, fucking what?
Yeah behaviourism is just as cynical and politically reactionary.
What is genetic determinism in your view?
I'd define it as something like this:
Genetic determinism is the doctrine that phenotypical traits are the product of a genetic program. In this view, the environment can to some degree modify the outcome of the program, but the basic causal processes are genetic.
That's preformationism surely? Not that that matters but I thought you were making a distinction between genetic determinism and preformationism.
I don't think there are any biologists who are preformationists. Surely that idea is dead. We are just discussing popular misconceptions of the science, aren't we?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
You haven't understood my point about nature/nurture, I don't think. If you had, you'd see that this is a non-problem. 'Is it nature, or is it nurture' is a false dichotomy. It is both – the environment does not modify the outcome of the 'program' – the 'program' expresses itself in the environment. No environment, and the program can't run. You cannot separate the two. To extend the computer analogy, to talk of nature independently from nurture is a bit like talking about a computer that isn't plugged in.
I agree with the above.
The preformationist idea is that the organism is already contained in the embryo as information. Regardless of whether there is any environmental modification of that preformed organism the whole concept of preformationism is wrong. Genetic information are instructions which do the job, but the instructions do not contain the information build the organism. You need the environment.
It's a non-debate as far as I can see.
Obviously you need an environment. Without an environment no organism can exist in the first place.
The point, however, is this: by positing the existence of a genetic program you're locating the primary agency for ontgeny in the genome. Yes, there needs to be an appropriate environment for the program to 'run', but the genome/ environment relationship is not one of equality. Only the genome has 'information' and 'instructions'.
In my view this is a kind of modern preformationism.
And I would repeat that this is very much debatable, and in fact has been debated in numerous academic journals. Try typing 'Developmental Systems Theory' into Google and see what you get.
