The idea at the core of the book, published in 1976, was thrillingly simple: that a living organism is just a gene’s way of making more organisms that can carry the gene down the generations.
Back then, The Selfish Gene seemed pretty harmless. Dawkins’s ideas tracked with mainstream sociobiology. It was a popular book that covered exactly the sort of ideas that my lecturers were already teaching.
Re-reading it now, with decades of scholarship in the history of biology under my belt, it seems less benign. The determinism baked into the “gene’s-eye view” in the book troubles me, as does the passivity of the organism in Dawkins’s telling — a “vehicle”, a mere “replicator”. The implication: that traits such as aggression are hard-wired into people. Fortunately, over the past couple of decades, new tools, fresh models and scholars in many disciplines have begun to embrace the complex reality of biology. Readers in search of an understanding of life on Earth today would do better to reach for books that take a broader view.
Yea, I know that's right.
Most "genetic predispositions" to ANYTHING is just apoligism for behavior or an attempt to justify bigotry.
I'm sorry, but no actually, your choices and behavior is a result of your environment's effect on your psychology and how you respond to it. Period.
I am fucking sick of bioessentialism in any form.
The nature vs nurture debate was settled long ago. It's always a mix. Humans have a lot of control over how they behave, but there are definitely inherent predispositions in everyone. They just don't group nicely along racial lines like bigots believe.
Some people have to struggle a lot harder to behave "correctly" (which depends on societal definitions). Beyond this, there are many different capabilities and preferences. Different people have different natural talents. A ton of that can be altered with learning and training, but some people will improve much faster and will reach higher goals.
The two (main) genders also have a lot of differences as a collective whole. None of that excuses prejudices and limiting people because of the group they are identified with. Any given person can be far outside the norm of their group in terms of what they can do well or do poorly. There are also a lot of perceived differences grounded in social norms that have nothing to do with biological reality. That doesn't mean there aren't others that are demonstrable but irrelevant to individual judgments.
The number of people who dwell in the fediverse and think that any two people can accomplish the same thing by putting in the same number of hours astonishes me. It's definitely influenced by their politics and how they want reality to be.
"Nature" as you call it (though I prefer saying "genetics", more precise), only decides physical shit minorly and I will die on this hill. Noone gives psychology enough credit.
And don't even get me STARTED on "domestication genes". Specifically in the behavioral field. Most people cite ONE STUDY where they "domesticated" animals down to black or white and they were "better behaved".
Counterpoint, people that want to do a study to "domesticate" and control animals just prefer sterile "professional" colors because they are PSYCHOTIC and have some variety of condition like OCD. And that changes their perception of the animal's behavior.
ie. Animal racism.
See also: Dog breed stereotypes.
This is why I have a cat