CronoDAS comments on Open Thread: August 2009 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: taw 01 August 2009 03:06PM

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Comment author: taw 01 August 2009 06:54:15PM 3 points [-]

A very common belief here is that most human behaviour is based on Paleolithic genes, and only trivial variations are cultural (memetic), coming from fresh genes, or from some other sources.

But how strong is the evidence of Paleogenes vs memes vs fresh genes (vs everything else)?

Fresh genes are easy to test - different populations would have different levels of such genes, so we could test for that.

An obvious problem with Paleogenes is that there aren't really that many genes to work with. Also, do we know of any genetic variations that alter these behaviours? If preference for large breasts was genetic, surely there might be a family somewhere with some mutation which would prefer small breasts. Do we have any evidence of that?

So I suspect memes might be much more important relative to Paleogenes than we tend to assume.

Comment author: CronoDAS 02 August 2009 07:32:19AM 4 points [-]

I think we can fairly easily come up with examples of things that are regarded as attractive in some cultures and not others.

For example, tanned skin. Back in the "olden days" in Europe, pale skin was considered the ideal. The much-desired "fair maiden" in old tales is literally one with light-colored skin that is kept out of the sun so it doesn't tan. Today, in the U.S. at least, skin with a slightly bronze tan is often considered the ideal.

This may or may not have to do with social class. Prior to industrialization, lower class people would be tanned from working outside on farms, while higher class people (nobility, etc.) could stay inside and keep their skin nice and pale. Once poor people switched from working on farms to working in indoor factories, they, too, had pale skin, while the wealthier could afford to waste time sitting in the sun getting a tan. "Find signals of high status attractive" might be a genetically influenced trait (I'd be surprised if it weren't) but genes don't seem to determine exactly how people signal high status.

Plenty of behavior has genetic influences, but people learn an awful lot from their environment, too. When a dog is trained to roll over on command, is that a genetic behavior? If it is, then so is everything and it becomes a meaningless category.