I beg to differ, although I agree with some of what you say, it is however very naive to say that ''if the parent is this then the child is that''. In here you say: is totally untrue. There is no way or guarantee that if a mother is as good as an image the daughter is too. This is totally untrue and I know. So one has to be careful to make such assumtptions because then if what you said is correct then the reverse is true too which is dangerous and undermining to the human mind. If the mother is no good then you are assuming that the daughter is no good either This means there is no way out, or progression and no hope for anyone to achieve any better. For this reason, I totally dismiss your theory of being similar to our parents. Each one of us, although yes, we do bear characterstic of both our parents, is own individual and personality. We are able to take and make our own decisions and think for ourselves separate from our parents. It is very important that we do for the sake of hope and progress.
And I am saying the level is immaterial, deep or shallow, you are 50/50 through and through. You may look and act completely like one of your parents, but that is only through the good graces of the other's DNA. there is no getting around it and it isn't on some deep abstract level. Its at the surface and is part of every cell in your body. If one trait is dominant, then it is only because the other is recessive. The recessive gene is not the weaker gene; it has evolved to make the choice to be recessive when paired with a dominant gene. the reason it makes that choice is because it has survived millions of years doing just that, which means it gets to live another day and foster a new generation which it will be part of. In a way, it's the smarter gene. The root, the basis of your programming, all starts at the DNA "level" and it is a 50/50 mix, all through you birth to death. What you choose to do with it may be another matter, but to believe that your physical-chemical makeup is only a small part of what you are, a starting point, is to delude yourself.
there's also the 'nature vs nurture' issue to consider... all children in the same family are not treated exactly the same way, by every other family member, which means even if each was born with genetic character traits similar to one parent, their emerging/evolving personalities may differ as a result... thus, a son may turn out to be more like the mom and a daughter more like the father...
That's true, but the nurture portion only has the nature (dna programming) to work with. If you have twins separated at birth and one is given a stimulating environment and is loved and cherished, it will have a different future, more than likely, than a sibling that was placed in some dump and used for a doorstop until it was eighteen. However, the raw material is the same and it's the pre-installed software that will dictate how they each respond to their environment. In reality, twins who have been separated turn out to be very like one another regardless. The programming is strong. it has to be to ensure the survival of the organism. To continue the computer analogy, if you take two identical computers and give them to two different people, then you are going to have two apparently different things at the end, but they will still be essentially what they were when they were manufactured. More than likely, if you strike an "a" key on either machine, an "a" will appear on the screens of both, unless they have had some radical reprogramming. The digital equivalent of becoming a scientologist, maybe.
You guys need to look into nature vs nurture. I think we inherit certain mental and physical traits but we also take after society in how we "carry ourselves".
I think you missed my point. I was saying that I believe this is the intention behind the phrase. It's not a personal theory of mine or a belief I subscribe to, which I stated in my post as well. That is just how I've always heard the phrase applied, which I thought I would offer up, seeing as some people are getting into genetics here, and I don't think that's how the phrase was meant to be understood at all. I then finished my post by stating I don't think much thought should be put into it because assumptions are silly. I even mentioned how I myself am extremely different from my own mother as an example. The phrase is used when it's applicable and is ignored when it isn't. So it's useless. I still stand by my original point of saying that gender plays a big role. Daughters tend to look up to their mothers as #1 role models and sons to their fathers. And I do think that a kid might be more likely to try a particular hobby or food or activity if the parent does it. Babies and kids go through long stages of mimicry of those closest to them. Didn't you ever play with your mother's makeup and get into her dressy clothes as a little girl because you wanted to be like her (if you're female)? Didn't your father give you a toy razor or lawn mower so you could imitate him (if you're male)? And of course that blurs lines; for instance, my father was earning his master's degree when I was around three or four. He spent a lot of time studying in our home, and one day I colored all over my storybooks because I wanted to "study" just like my father, because he was a role model and an influence one me. He still is, but particularly at that age kids tend to mimic. That's what I meant with that comment. I'm not necessarily saying that if the mother is a politician the kid will be too, or if the father is a drug addict his son is somehow more likely to be an addict as well. There may be statistics on those or not... I'm not familiar with them and so I don't and haven't claimed that. Of course we're all individuals, and of course none of us will ever be clones of our parents. There are plenty of sociological influences that shape our personalities, and family is a big influence. That's not a pet theory of mine; that's a commonly accepted fact. But so are peer groups, school / work, and the media. All of these, plus random chance and a fair bit of biology, influence who we are. Of course our parents do not dictate who we become. I think a good amount of us would be fucked if that were true. Hope that cleared something up.
prophet... that is only generally [but not always] true of identical twins... fraternal twins are from different eggs, therefore do not have the same dna...
and that was my point all along, thanks. Yes, we are 50/50 our parents on the DNA level when we are born, but who we are goes much deeper than that. We constantly change from the day we are born, and we keep changing all the way until death. Quite literally, in some cases, as there are bad guys turning into good guys and confessing their sins on their death bed and so on. Think of it as a painting. When you are born, you are 50% your father's painting and 50% your mother's painting. The end result is a finished painting in most ways, but you keep improving it all your life. Yeah, stupid example, but I hope at least someone understands what I mean. :redface:
I think when it comes to personality, it's not always as straight-down-the-line as some here seem to think. Girls may very well have character traits very similar to their father (I've had that said about me, many times), and boys to their mothers. Going further and talking about appearance, even there I've comes across folk where it's at once clear they are mother-son or father-daughter. So it really all depends. When it comes to emulating parents, there are lots of factors one can consider - family structure for one, and the kind of values they are taught for another. Children may well emulate the parent who is of the same gender as them, but not necessarily, especially these days.
Yes, I know the difference between identical twins and fraternal twins. And I also know it's not always true, but it does happen.
I am vaguely familiar with the nature/nurture thing. Heard of it once or twice. It is, in fact, at the core of this discussion. The disagreement seems to revolve around the percentage one has on our development over the other. That arguement itself is spurious since they fit hand in glove. But if one has to lay out a percentage- The pro nurture people (here, not in the scientific world) seem to be under the impression that you come out of the mold, (birth) ready to go and from then on it's your environment, fate and the choices you make that creates 'you'. There is a small kernel of truth in that, but in fact, DNA's effects are long reaching, far more than is apparent on the surface. The influences and the environment around most of us are DNA driven. That is the key to understanding this. DNA is what makes us build things (we are not unique in nature in that) and our individual environments are affected by what others in our species build and do. Your environment, the nurture bit, is largely comprised of people and things that have been constructed by DNA that is not a million miles from your own. Your relatives near and far. Your parent's DNA is what drives them to nurture (or not, there are advantages to the parent and their own chances of spreading their seed in moving on from their offspring. i.e.deadbeat dads). So the parents DNA affects you well after birth, for better or worse. If your Dad leaves, his selfish act will influence your formation. Since his selfishness is partly driven by DNA and partly his upbringing ( maybe his father did the same thing and this would have been partly programmed by his DNA and his upbringing) that legacy continues as a combination of DNA and DNA's extension into the world of behaviour. The biologist Richard Dawkins has coined the term Meme to express this idea. It's a difficult notion to quantify if I am not to go on about this all night, but he basically intended it to mean a cultural expression of your genetic makeup. Language is a good example of a meme. An individual language isn't programmed into us, but we use the DNA programming for the physical ability as well as the mental capacity for language to build a language withing a culture. The primitive capability to communicate that our ancestral species may have had was selected as a good survival tool in the evolution of our species and was developed by natural selection (poets are sexy, out verbal skills show a good potential to mates for breadwinning and the education of offspring) into what we can do now. So the tribe's DNA, of which your DNA would almost certainly be involved in, chips in to ensure that at least some of the tribe, and therefore some of your DNA gets through to the next generation,even if it isn't yours, but your third cousin's.If cousin Sally's DNA gets through, then some of your's does as well. It's playing the odds, as all DNA does. In short, an altruistic gene implants an "all for one, one for all" impulse in us that ensures our survival. If we were a loner species we wouldn't have a hope in hell against all that nature throws against us. We're a social species. You can argue the toss from here til doomsday, but the evidence is that DNA spurs on communal feelings within a tribe and, contrary-wise, is at the root of xenophobia and racism, all in aid of ensuring that it (DNA) gets to the next generation. The assertion that there is a "Deep DNA level" is to suggest that it is some sort of seed that we grow from. This is not the case. It's difficult to draw an analogy without confusing the issue further, but if were to say that DNA is like the foundation of a house, and that the nurturing builders are the environment, I'd be wrong. The whole house is influenced by DNA. Every stone, door cupbourd toilet waching machine and electric socket. And the nurture? Maybe the smoke rising from the chimney. OK not a great example, but my flower analogy was almost certainly going to be misunderstood and start an inane spinoff. Anyhow, this essential drive in us is that powerful. if it were not, we would have perished loooooong ago. This is not to say that nurture does not exist. It does, but it has less influence on what we are than is often imagined. We are programmed to assist each other and we have a set of programmed emotions, invoked by chemicals, to do so. We are programmed for war and compettion amongst ourselves and other species (different DNA strains, "Those bastards over there") in an equally impressive measure, also driven by powerful programmed emotions. It's what makes us nuts. And interesting.
OK, I'm unable to resist: I wouldn't agree that you're fifty percent of each parent even at the DNA level, if you're considering the _expression_ of the genes. Yes, each parent threw the dice bazillions of times, contributing their genes in competition with the other parent's genes, gene by gene by gene. But the dominant genes win the day, so the actual characteristics displayed by the child reflect that dominant gene. When the child has children, the recessive genes from that child's parents get another chance to throw the dice, but otherwise, child's characteristics aren't going to be a precise 50/50 reflection of the parent's characteristics. ChickenFreak
The dominant ones don't win the dy, they are merely expressed. the submissive gene wins also. It gets to reproduce and that is all genes are 'interested' in. They are not trying to advance the species, they aren't seeking to make themselves into a more advanced form of life. they just want to make it to the next succesful bag of puss If anything, the recessive gene is often the more successful. The child's characteristics are immaterial. to put it another way, the child's characteristcs are made possible by one of the alleles being recessive. Your assertion involves value. and it is a value that is of no interest to the gene or the organism's survival. It's a value based on a desire to see the characteristic of the parent in the child. It's difficult to make this clear without writing pages on it. If you really want to know, there are some excellent books. the best one on this particular subject is probably The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Or Matt Ridley's Genomeand The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation I could go on about his, but these guys make a living at it and can explain it more fully than I ever could. It's an amazing concept and i do understand that it is difficult to accept, most of us having been drug up to believe that we are somehow imbued with some kind of divine breath. I'm not arguing philosophy here. I'm merely pointing out the mechanics of it as they are understood at this time. This isn't my opinion. This is how the machine works. But don't take my word for it. Read something substantial on the subject.
I agree that in terms of the survival of the gene, a person is a 50/50 mix of their parents. But I interpret the original saying as being about the expression of the gene in a specific generation, not the survival of the gene across multiple generations. To me, it's about whether Judy, daughter of Fred and Marilyn, is like Fred, or Marilyn, or more of one or the other, or, for that matter, neither. "Like" in appearance, personality, talents, and so on. And I interpreted the 50/50 argument as meaning that Judy is half "like" Fred and half "like" Marilyn. (I do realize that at this point, I'm arguing more about what we're arguing about. But I've gone this far, and this is the Lounge, so I'll keep going.) For the passing on of Judy's genes to future generations, she is half and half. But when you compare the expression of Judy's genes with the expression of Fred and Marilyn's genes, there's no predicting who she will be like. She may happen to have received two copies of a lot of recessive genes that were not expressed in Fred and Marilyn, and therefore be expressing a lot of characteristics that are not expressed in _either_ Fred or Marilyn. I don't think(?) that we're actually disagreeing on how things work here, just on what we care about in the argument. ChickenFreak
Environment has a very huge part in who we turn out to be. If you raise an infant in an isolated room with no connection with any other human for his whole life and then one day you release him to the world, among other people, that (I'd say person but he would be more like an animal: no speech, only noises; brain underdeveloped, etc., etc.) would be afraid of everyone and everything and would simply run to the closest cover or corner in sight. So, what we turn out to be as a person comes mostly from the environment. We are not programmed to assist each other, we do it because it makes everyone's lives much easier. Emotions are for survival, fear to run away, love to procreate. Excitement if something new is found, anger if something is taken from one, or done to one - some kind of primal way of picking out the fittest and best - the strongest shall survive. Over time they have "evolved" and, also, more precise emotions have come into being, then learned from parents and passed on to children. We are definitely not programmed for war. War comes from stupidity, greed, the want for power, the want to show power. One people not liking the other does not come from genetics, it comes from centuries of, again, stupidity, plundering, killing, stealing from the neighbor. And, finally, it can lead to war. You take children from one and then from the other without them knowing anything about each nation and put them together. They won't, over time, kill each other off, they will live together quite peacefully. It is the environment that would otherwise make them hate one another. If we were programmed to do anything, we couldn't make our own choices. Once we were, just like animals are, but not anymore, not for thousands of years. Now we make our own choices. We can choose not to assist anyone, we can quell our emotions, all that even if it feels very, very wrong. Quelling emotions is... difficult, but very doable. We are not fully in control of ourselves but are headed that way. Not all are the same, some are more in control then others, it might also come from self-awareness. Some persons have "disabilities": have no emotions at all, or just some, or are simply messed up (perceive something and get the wrong emotion). Genes do affect us but not as much as they do with animals. A horrific experience can snap your mind and change you completely. From a loving person to a dead-cold one. Something analogous: artificial intelligence. True, programmed, but programmed to be independent, to make its own choices, even to reprogram itself. Doesn't exist yet as far as I know, would be nice if it did...
OK first off, you are an animal and to suppose you are anything else is a huge mistake. The notion we are somethign special is an illness, a very bad idea someone got in their heads many thousand of years ago and been spread by the neat trick known as 'faith'. You are an animal who is part of a pack who has learned to fuck with their environment more than most animals,but you are a naked ape, full stop. Your choices are fewer than you imagine. Your program includes imagination which is what provides you with choice. Imagination evolved as a survival tool. We're not the only animals that have it, by the way. Most mammals have some. (Dick Cheney springs to mind, along with church mice.) I didn't say environment had no effect, but it has far less than you are supposing and in any case, an environment consisting of mostly your relatives is formed by your DNA (or portions of it). Evolution has developed your DNA to influence the world outside of your body to ensure it's survival. (building shelter, farming, communication skills) Any nurture you get or do not get is a result of your parent's programming. Their programming is a result of their parent's and so on. The extended family that is your 'tribe' has been programmed to share affinity with you and protect on a sliding scale depending on how closely related they are to you in order to ensure that the DNA you share with them goes forwards in case theirs does not. Nation building and war. Again, this is not my opinion, it is the way it works whether you like it or not!
You mean they are the way they are because their parents had sex? Or you mean the way they raised their children, meaning the environment the children grew up in? Genes affect how the children react with things around them. But if they are taught from birth in a direction, then that is what they will believe and hold as true. Unless they prove to be smart enough to see the real truth themselves. I agree on the point that we are animals, simply far more advanced than most others on Earth. We aren't anything special. And faith is for control and power, always has been, and not the good kind. What makes us different from all the other animals is that we can deny our fading, not so strict anymore, programming much more than others can. I suppose it is some form of programming that makes us interact with everything around us in the first place. In that form there will always be some kind of programming. With less advanced animals it is much easier to see how they work but we can manipulate our environment, build things, complex things. Saying that we do things because we are programmed to do it is not entirely true. Choices (programmed to make our own choices?)... With less advanced animals it is simpler: hunger, you hunt and eat; mating season, you mate. Do we have mating season? No, we don't. Do we eat every time we are hungry and the food is right before us? No. I can say the same. This is not my opinion, but it is the way we work, whether you like or not! I suppose we can both agree to disagree.
The computer is in a mood for a double dose I am guessing it likes to read everything twice for confirmation
Firstly, I am saying that th eparents are programmed to nurture. alles klar? The second point is we are not more advanced than other animals. We are different and our abilities have led us to a situation where our influence on our environment is more marked than many other creatures. Let's take an octopus. It has had just as much evolution as we have. has to have, since we both started from the same point. It has developed diffrnt, just as impressive techniques as we have, to ensure that it's genes gets to the next generation. the same can be said for a bacteria. Instead of engineering itself in such a way that it walks talks and needs clothing, it has followed a different route ( I do not, by the way, mean that there was a conscious choice by this phrase) and developed into something that has some extremely impressive external influences of it's own, not the least of which is an evolutionary capability that is way beyond what we can keep pace with. We build things because of our programs. There were several evolutionary develpments in our past that have enabled us and compelled us to do so. The most important of these are imagination and curiosity. These were not "dished out by the gods" They were evolutionary advantages that were enhanced over many generations. Intelligence and imagination became both useful towards survival, ( if Grob could make a stick and a rock into an axe it utilized both) and sexy. A woman who mated with a guy who could make axes had a good chance of picking up the clever gene for her offspring, thereby increasing the chance that her gene would survive down the line. Axe making guy might be attracted to a woman with good child bearing hips and a strong matrnal instinct in order to ensure that his genes were passed on to the next generation. All of our drives are rooted in these basic instincts. One, live long enough to reproduce and two, reproduce succesfully. EVERYTHING we do is geared towards this. Arts? Absolutely. They display a large capacity for imagination, a surplus. "I am so smart I can afford to waste time painting! I'm a catch!" Most everything we do is geared towards getting our next meal or getting laid. Altruism is an extension of greed. We all worry about how humanity is going to survive global warming nuclear weapons or whatever. ( well those with the imagination to wonder what is over the next hill. Neocons need not apply here) Well the interest is selfish at the end of the day. We worry about it because we are worrying about the burden on our descendants. If we have no children, we worry about nephews and nieces or the children of our extended family, however large you choose to make it. So, everything you do, with the possible exception of masturbation or it's brethren, is set towards one of these goals. The problem here is that there is a tradition in the species that somehow has made us feel we are "special" We aren't. We're different, but all of our accomplishments over all the tens of thousands of years we have been here pale in comparison to just one aspect of biology; invagination and gastrulation. Look it up. It is a more mind blowing process than all the imaginations of the greatest authors who have ever lived could come up with. And it all came from replication and accidents in that replication.
ah, the god-fearin' okies! not much has changed since scopes, has it?... as yogi [berra, not the bear] woulda said, 'it's deja vu all over again!'
Do you agree with this saying? actions speak louder then words? or should it be: words speak the truth and actions do the talk? If not how should one rectify it?
