Here’s an example of it by the Left, or rather, the loss of one of its battles. Yes, women really are less predisposed to go into science. The Left opposes on principle the notion that many human traits are born, not made, because to admit that environment isn’t all is to concede defeat on their continual project to fight human nature. And it leads to absurdities like affirmative action demands that blacks, women, etc., must be represented in all endeavors in proportions equivalent to their proportions in the general population, and any deviation from this is prima facie evidence of racism and sexism. Larry Summers was famously bitten by this phenomenon a few years back.
32 thoughts on “The War Against Science”
Comments are closed.
Well, hey you can just look at a man or woman (on the left) and see no difference. Dike secretaries for science! …and assaulting little Cuban boys in Florida!
Doesn’t emotional blackmail trump science?
…and the conclusion… we should continue to try to mold people into what they are not.
Normally, Rand, I tend to agree with much of what you say. This time, though, it’s really not squaring with my own experience. Here’s how that hypothesis worked in my family:
– Paternal grandmother was trained as a physician (in 1910’s!) but worked a large portion of her life as a biochemical researcher
– Maternal grandmother had a Master’s degree in Chemistry and Biology (in 1920’s!)
– My mom had a PhD in Math
– Her younger sister had a PhD in Physics, and was the Department Chairperson of the Dept of Solid State Physics at a major University
– Her older sister also had a Physics PhD, and was also a Department Chair at a University (High Energy Physics, IIRC)
– Some of their female first cousins were also scientists or engineers
– My sister-in-law is a first-rate physician, but her true love is Math and hard sciences (at which she’s always excelled). She followed her Dad into Medicine, but it was a close run thing – with just a little encouragement she could have gone in the other direction.
A large majority of women in my family either were in the hard sciences, or very nearly so. So I’m pretty much not buying this theory.
A large majority of women in my family either were in the hard sciences, or very nearly so. So I’m pretty much not buying this theory.
Sorry, but you don’t disprove statistical theories with anecdotes. If the theory said that no women were into science, then you would have a point, but all you’ve done is show that women in your family tend to be more interested in science than most women. Which is further evidence that it is genetic.
Nature vs nurture isn’t so easily resolved. Although I’m one of the resident liberal dissenters, please ignore the political angle – it is not nearly as interesting.
In commenter’s BRT’s case, we don’t know enough about his family to know how large a role genetics is playing. Did you assume that every member of BRT’s family was separated at birth? No? Then how can you know the extent to which genetic vs cultural factors played a role? The linked article (which in turn links to another popular description of the study) gives evidence for some biochemical factors, but again, cultural (and other non-genetic) factors are not isolated.
The interplay between genetics and upbringing might be quite complex, and we know for sure that changing a child’s upbringing has profound effects on their interests and aptitudes.
Rand, I think you know everything I just wrote, and I suspect you are jumping the gun due to politics. As the climate deniers are fond of saying: more study is needed.
Climate deniers => deniers of fast anthropocentric climate change. I know you aren’t denying the existence of climates.
All I can do is contemplate with horror what would happen to me if I picked the wrong time to tell my wife that there is a publication called “Hormones and Behavior.”
Bob-1 Says:
“The interplay between genetics and upbringing might be quite complex,”
I tend to agree with this.
The interplay between genetics and upbringing might be quite complex, and we know for sure that changing a child’s upbringing has profound effects on their interests and aptitudes.
There is no doubt that environment plays a role. That does not constitute a proof that genetics does not.
With all due respect, have either of you taken a course in logic?
and we know for sure that changing a child’s upbringing has profound effects on their interests and aptitudes
Who’s “we?” And how do “we” allegedly “know” this? Studies of identical twins separated at birth and raised apart show considerable evidence for the opposite proposition. I am aware of no similarly solid evidence that favors your allegation.
Your politics are well-known here. As the question under consideration impinges significantly on core beliefs shared by most of those of your general political persuasion, no, I’m not going to “ignore the political angle.” I believe your unsupported assertion is just one more instance of the well-established tendency of you and your political confreres to assume their counterfactual prejudices to be obvious laws of nature.
Climate deniers => deniers of fast anthropocentric climate change.
Well, last I looked there isn’t evidence of “fast” anthropogenic climate change, so we should all be “climate deniers” in the sense Bob-1 uses. So what was the point of bringing up that phrase?
@Rand: I know, anecdotes don’t disprove statistical evidence. I wasn’t trying to prove or disprove anything. Nowhere in my message did I use words like “prove”, “disprove”, or even “convince”.
I merely stated verifiable facts about my own family that totally don’t fit the pattern in the paper. I also forgot to mention another very special lady in that group – my father’s third wife was a Math PhD and Dept Chair at a small University. So out of three branches of the family, all three have a preponderance of female scientists in it.
I the stated stated my opinion as a summary (“pretty much not buying it”).
If that prompts you to examine the paper with a little skepticism – great, if not – I’m fine with that too. Like I said, we see eye to eye on an awful lot of things. Bound to be a few things we don’t.
Sorry for the typos – long day.
BRT, your family flies in the face of the established statistical fact that the average IQ is around 100.
Rand’s commenters are not a good statistical sample for the average of anything. They’re all so much more well adapted, smarter, and better looking than average that they might as well be an alien species.
Perhaps I’m extrapolating from myself, but in any event, your grandmothers sound like they could have a show that’s a cross between The Big Bang Theory and The Golden Girls.
Rand,
The claim is that androgen causes an interest in working with things rather than people, and that influences career choice. The problem here is that we can’t isolate out how science is presented, and we certainly can’t tie how science is presented to any genetic factor. We might conclude that we can tie gender to an interest in something but tying gender to career choice is quite a stretch. In BRT’s family, science might have been presented as a people-centered activitity, and perhaps that, rather than genetics, made quite a bit of difference. The researchers quoted in the article you linked to suggested as much: “Maybe we could show females ways in which an interest in people is compatible with STEM careers.”
You said ” The Left opposes on principle the notion that many human traits are born, not made, because to admit that environment isn’t all is to concede defeat on their continual project to fight human nature.”
I disagree. Liberals would only concede defeat on any of their projects if the environment played no role whatsoever. The vast majority of researchers and lay people believe that both genetics and the environment play a role in how a person turns out, and in the case of lay people, this is true regardless of their political beliefs.
For example, lets see what Dick Eagleson really thinks…
Dick,
You are saying that you doubt that changing a child’s upbringing will have a profound effect on their interests and apptitudes.
As you suggest, lets consider two identical twins separated a birth. One is surrounded by books growing up and is given an excellent liberal arts education. Her mother is a poet, and her father, a history professor, makes it pretty clear that he’d be pleased if she followed in his footsteps, but also makes it clear that she should be sure to follow her own interests wherever they might take her. The other twin is raised in near-poverty, and is not surrounded by people who read (her adoptive mother died when she was three, her father and older sisters are exhausted when they get home from work, and switch on the tv every night). This twin leaves school in 6th grade to work at her father’s laundry business to help keep the family afloat.
I’m quite sure that the twins will have many cognitive attributes in common, due to their identical genetics, but tell me: which twin is more likely to become a scientist? Is this cliched example enough for you, or do I have to cite studies to convince you that upbringing (and, in particular, literacy) has a profound effect on a person’s interests and aptitudes?
you don’t disprove statistical theories with anecdotes
Try letting that sink in a bit before trying to dispute it.
Myer-Briggs for example has a gender relationship. The 16 types are not evenly distributed by gender. Although it can change in time, type is set at birth. Which means gestation is the only time for nurture to have been a factor. Twins are born with different types generally.
As for your anecdotal twins, history has many scientists that came from poverty.
Ken, the question isn’t whether there are cognitive differences between men and women; the question is whether differences in career choices between men and women says something about our genetics or something about our society (or both), and that question is damn hard to answer.
the question is whether differences in career choices between men and women says something about our genetics or something about our society (or both), and that question is damn hard to answer.
That is both true and irrelevant to the subject at hand, which is that the Left thinks that it’s easy to answer — it’s not genetics at all, it’s totally environment.
(Er, I mean, it is damn hard to answer right now, and it is hard to change society methodically. But if you’re patient, I suppose it is easy to just wait for society to continue to change and see if women’s career choices change.)
Rand, a) I don’t think that the Left (which is hardly monolithic, but lets pretend) thinks that genetics doesn’t play a role in shaping who a person turns out to be, and I have no idea why you think otherwise, and b) it doesn’t matter, because as long as the environment has some influence, left wingers will want to improve the environment. If you accept b, don’t bother trying to prove a. If you don’t believe b, I’d love to know why not.
I don’t think that the Left (which is hardly monolithic, but lets pretend) thinks that genetics doesn’t play a role in shaping who a person turns out to be
So, were the women at Harvard who got the vapors because Larry Summers had the temerity to suggest that their gender might explain why there weren’t as many brilliant women mathematicians not leftists? Or what?
…it doesn’t matter, because as long as the environment has some influence, left wingers will want to improve the environment.
No doubt, but they too often think that “improving the environment” means building gulags and other “reeducation” facilities.
I take it from your question that we are indeed pretending that the Left is monolithic, because otherwise, I’d ask if you’ve had a course in logic.
So, are the people who advocate genetic testing and the option for abortion in the case of congenital disorders that range from Tay Sachs (mental degradation starts at 6 months, death at age 4) to Fragile X Syndrome (the leading cause of inherited lifelong mental retardation) not leftists?
So, are none of the people who claim homosexuality is genetic leftists?
I really didn’t follow the controversy with Summers at Harvard, but I’d expect that the fight was over the practical ramifications of his position. The researchers you linked to wanted to increase the number of options available to women by more accurately teaching about science (which, of course, can have quite a bit to do with people, in numerous ways). If Summer’s position appeared to write off such efforts, I’d expect protests. I also expect that Summers’ actual position was misunderstood. Please don’t make me look into this — I’m sure there was plenty of stupidity to go around.
Anyway, it sounds like you conceded my point that it wouldn’t matter to a leftist if environment plays all or just some of the role in shaping who a person is. Even if I was thinking about improving public education while you were thinking dark thoughts about gulags, you’re still admitting that your point — “to admit that environment isn’t all is to concede defeat on their continual project to fight human nature” — is wrong. You admitting that they only need to believe that the environment plays some role. Thank you for admitting this! 🙂
For whatever it is worth, here’s a recent study arguing that genes matter quite a bit when kids are in a high socioeconomic status home while genes don’t matter much at all in a low SES home. The reasons why this might be true are easy to guess at, but maybe hard to prove. And yes, Rand, I think the study fits in well with the Liberal narrative.
Elliot M. Tucker-Drob, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A8000, Austin, TX 78712-0187 E-mail: tuckerdrob@psy.utexas.edu
Abstract
Recent research in behavioral genetics has found evidence for a Gene × Environment interaction on cognitive ability: Individual differences in cognitive ability among children raised in socioeconomically advantaged homes are primarily due to genes, whereas environmental factors are more influential for children from disadvantaged homes. We investigated the developmental origins of this interaction in a sample of 750 pairs of twins measured on the Bayley Short Form test of infant mental ability, once at age 10 months and again at age 2 years. A Gene × Environment interaction was evident on the longitudinal change in mental ability over the study period. At age 10 months, genes accounted for negligible variation in mental ability across all levels of socioeconomic status (SES). However, genetic influences emerged over the course of development, with larger genetic influences emerging for infants raised in higher-SES homes. At age 2 years, genes accounted for nearly 50% of the variation in mental ability of children raised in high-SES homes, but genes continued to account for negligible variation in mental ability of children raised in low-SES homes.
From: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/12/17/0956797610392926
Bob,
I’ll go you one better. Imagine twin infant girls accompanying their European aristocrat parents on a buffalo hunt in the Great Plains just before the Civil War. The hunting party is attacked by marauding Cheyenne, the mother killed, one of the babies taken. After making it back to the nearest U.S. Army post, the bereaved father is told that the Confederacy has besieged Fort Sumter and that no official resources can be spared to search for his abducted daughter. The father reluctantly returns to Europe and lavishes all his attention on his remaining daughter who becomes a novelist and painter of some note and the doyenne of the most prestigious salon in her nation’s capital city. Her luckless sister, never seen again by whites, is raised as a Cheyenne, is married to a warrior at 14 and dies in childbirth a year later.
Yeah, not a lot of congruence in their life stories and, gee, not a bit of the difference due to genetics. I guess I’m just full of shit up to my eyebrows after all. How embarrassing for me.
Seriously, dude, we can sit here all day proving that neither one of us is going to top Mark Twain as a spinner of yarns about people who look alike. Rather than invent endless hypotheticals about one twin raised by New York cafe society swells and the other by itinerant yak herders in Inner Mongolia, how about looking at some of the work that’s been done on cases of real separated-at-birth twins with less dramatic backstories. The twin studies are pretty well unanimous that 75 – 85% of one’s personality is genetically determined.
My fictional European sister was an artist. What do you want to bet that her honorary aboriginal sibling was good at embroidery and beadwork before she checked out?
that question is damn hard to answer
Big picture perhaps, but much easier case by case.
But the point is how many people get their panties in a twist to refute a statistical analysis which of anything is more likely to be objective.
Why the need to react? Is anybody saying it’s all nature or all nurture?
Why is the left always looking for a solution that takes away liberty? While claiming to be its proponent.
The ‘right’ to steal property is an unquestionable plank of the left.
Men and woman are different. Get over it. Viva la difference.
The twin studies are pretty well unanimous that 75 – 85% of one’s personality is genetically determined.
Since we’re talking about a war on science and all, I’ve got to ask: what does your claim even mean? What is 1% of a personality? How do I measure it?
Here’s a much much easier case: for a girl doing elite level training for gymnastics, what percent of puberty onset is determined genetically? Do you see the problem? Puberty onset is determined by genetics, but puberty can be delayed by environmental influences such gymnastics training. You can sort it out, right? Now suppose the vast majority of girls in your society are doing intensive gymnastics training. How do you figure out “what percent” of puberty onset is determined genetically?
But, at least puberty onset can be measured definitively, and you have a good hope of finding the particular genes responsible and figuring out how they work. Measuring personality is rather more complicated.
But Dick, just to be clear: I’m sure genetics play a very important role in determining how a person points out. If we use a very fuzzy definition of what your 75% to 85% figure means, it contradicts the study I cited above for low SES homes, but so what? Are we arguing about science or politics? 1% or 50% or 85% is interesting scientifically (or meaningless – I’m not sure), but politically it doesn’t matter – it will have no policy impact. If the number is 85%, people will argue that the remaining 15% is worth addressing.
1% or 50% or 85% is interesting scientifically (or meaningless – I’m not sure), but politically it doesn’t matter – it will have no policy impact.
Horsecrap. Penalizing a university for having fewer female than male engineering students/basketball players has a very significant impact.
If the number is 85%, people will argue that the remaining 15% is worth addressing.
And they will still get their panties twisted over the 85%, as you have just demonstrated.
I dunno I think the far-left statist understands all to well that there is a genetic component to human nature. You have the Progressives which spearheaded the Eugenics movement. And the Nazi’s ideal that by eliminating all the genetic trash in the human race that then would we finally be able to evolve into a species of Ubermensch. The modern progressive knows that they can’t just come right out and express these ideas directly anymore. People in general find that philosophy particularly abhorrent so they call it planned parenthood now days. But really the whole reason why they want to distill the human race into a monolithic ecosystem is so that they can have better control over the environment. A central command and control government works better when everyone is on the same page both mentally and emotionally. Nature introduces a wide degree of chaos into a system which makes life difficult if your ultimate goal is to maximize equality of results. A pure race makes life easier for the central planners to control the environmental upbringing of all those involved. But what they fail to realize is that while a monolithic ecology does indeed amplify traits that one finds desirable it also enhances the weaknesses as well. All it takes is one genetically predisposed disease or some pathogen that the immune system is biologically weak at dealing with and the whole monolithic ecosystem can be wiped out in a instant.
In some ways people are like apples. An apple grown from seed will grow in all manner of shapes, colors, and flavors. And most often will develop traits that have nothing whatsoever to do with their parent plant. But when you find one particular apple that has the size, color, and sweetness that one finds appealing then you can graft that tree to other trees and clone those desirable traits across multiple trees. Only then can you tame that wild fruit and maximize it’s productiveness but unknowingly make it easy prey to specific pests and disease.
Curt, I’m saying that whether how a person turns out is 15% or 85% influenced by their environment, people will make the same policy arguments. If the environment has a measurable effect on how a person turns out, someone will want to influence that environment, either for good or for evil. And “influence” doesn’t necessarily mean gulags nor does it necessarily mean quotas – it means whatever your theories on politics and education lead you to believe is best.
Also: if trying to say something accurately is “getting your panties in a twist”, can we assume that you have nice flat wrinkle-free underwear?
Fair question Bob. As far as I can tell, the percent of personality measure is based on things measured by “personality surveys” such as Meyers-Briggs. It is also significant that all research subjects in the separated-at-birth twin studies were adults at the time of the studies. The paper you cite, in contrast, isn’t about personality, it’s about cognitive skills. Not the same. Also, the test subjects were all two years old or younger – basically pre-lingustic infants. The study abstract refers to twins, but they do not seem to be of the separated-at-birth variety. That being the case, with both of each pair of twins raised in the same family environment, I’m not sure what the significance of the study is supposed to be, but I’m reasonably sure your public policy preferences are not reinforced by its citation. In fairness, I suspect mine aren’t either. Unless a study is of identical genetics in differing upbringing contexts, I don’t see either the interest or the usefulness of anything allegedly found – at least with respect to the topic under consideration in this comment thread. I suspect at least some of my questions about this study could be answered by actually reading the bloody thing, but I lack $35 worth of interest in satisfying my curiosity.
I do thank you for your admirably forthright clarity in laying out the leftist project in broad strokes, though; i.e., “I’m saying that whether how a person turns out is 15% or 85% influenced by their environment, people will make the same policy arguments.” If I may paraphrase here, “No matter what the marginal utility of a policy, my side will pursue it with single-minded ferocity because what matters more than anything else is that we be in charge of what everyone else does.” Does that about cover it?
Bob, since you have admitted ignorance on Summers/Harvard, I would suggest looking into that to get a better grasp of wrinkled underwear.
Bob-1, other studies have shown that while the environment (specifically massive parental efforts to turn children into super-geniuses versus parents who don’t care) can accelerate or retard development, the effects are temporary and disappear as the child matures. A dumbass can study hard in an intense learning program and pull ahead of his peers for a while, but he’ll still end up a dumbass. A genius can lag behind because he’s not exposed to learning opportunities, but he’ll still eventually be a genius.
Anecdote: One of my friends used to work for Operation Read and had an interesting illiterate client come in from deep in Appalachia. The client thought he was a functional illiterate and everyone around him thought he couldn’t read at all, but when she tested him for reading comprehension he ranked as a Harvard sophmore. She then spent hours convincing him that he could read as well as anyone in college. The guy was denied any opportunity, encouragement, support, had no self-confidence at all, and came from a poor, under-performing school. But he still blew out the top of the test.
Here’s a further argument that genetics plays a larger role than the environment: Even though they were doted on and raised in a nearly perfect, loving, rich environment, surrounded by books, computers, and influential visitors, Bill Gates’ dog and Barrack Obama’s cat have less chance of graduating from Harvard Law School than the son of an illegal Mexican farm hand. That has to be genes.