Thursday, August 24, 2017

640 Wie was een beter mens: Robert E Lee of Abraham Lincoln ? Burgeroorlog in de VS..


Er zijn krachten (*) die de macht willen overnemen door onderlinge vijandschap en chaos te veroorzaken. Verdeel en heers.
Dit gebeurt nu zelfs binnen de VS.
Een beproefde methode is om de symbolen van de andere partij, de heilige huisjes,  omver te schoppen.
De blanke Amerikaan ziet zijn jobs naar China vertrekken,  zijn loon al 30 jaar gelijk blijven, zijn schulden enorm hoog worden, zijn huis onder water en het land overspoeld worden door immigranten die bereid zijn een generatie lang tegen een hongerloon te werken.
Begrijpelijk dat hij zich verenigt rond een 'oude held' van de blanke man.  Als diens standbeeld word bezoedeld is hij begrijpelijkerwijze woest.
Maar was General E. Lee nu werkelijk de slaven-drijver die de Media van hem maken?
En was Lincoln nu werkelijk de bevrijder van de slaven?
En hoe gingen de volgers van Lincoln om met de indianen?

Paul Craig Roberts toont aan dat de idolen van 'Links' minstens zo gruwelijk te werk gingen als Robert E. Lee, die in feite niks anders deed dan zich tegen  overvallers en verkrachters van hun vrouwen  verdedigen.  Dat is niet alleen het recht van elke man, maar ook de plicht.

(*) For the Jewish philosopher Leo Strauss, the Jewish people can no longer trust democracies after the failure of the Weimar Republic and the Shoah. The only way to protect itself from a new form of Nazism, is to establish its own world dictatorship – in the name of Good, of course. It would therefore be necessary to destroy certain resistant states, drag them into chaos and rebuild them according to different laws [7]. ( Bron: Thierry Meyssan) 




Trump and American History Have Been Assassinated

Trump and American History Have Been Assassinated
Paul Craig Roberts
When Trump was elected I wrote that it was unlikely that he would be successful in accomplishing the three objectives for which he was elected—peace with Russia, the return home of offshored US jobs, and effective limits on non-white immigration—because these objectives conflicted with the interests of those more powerful than the president.
I wrote that Trump was unfamiliar with Washington and would fail to appoint a government that would support his goals. I wrote that unless the ruling oligarchy could bring Trump under its control,Trump would be assassinated.
Trump has been brought under control by assassinating him with words rather than with a bullet. With Steve Bannon’s dismissal, there is now no one in Trump’s government who supports him. He is surrounded by Russophobic generals and Zionists.
But this is not enough for the liberal/progressive/left. They want Trump impeached and driven from office.
Marjorie Cohn, whom I have always admired for her defense of civil liberty, has disappointed me. She has written in Truthout, which sadly has become more like PropagandaOut, that the House must bring articles of impeachment against Trump for his abuse of power and before he launches a new civil war and/or nuclear war.
This is an extraordinary conclusion for a normally intelligent person to reach. What power does Trump have? How does he abuse his non-existent power? The ruling Establishment has cut his balls off. He is neutered. Powerless. He has been completely isolated within his own government by the oligarchy.
Even more astonishingly, Marjorie Cohn, together with 100% of the liberal/progressive/left are blind to the fact that they have helped the military/security complex destroy the only leader who advocated peace instead of conflict with the other major nuclear power. Cohn is so deranged by hatred of Trump that she thinks it is Trump who will bring nuclear war by normalizing relations with Russia.
Clearly, the American liberal/progressive/left is no longer capable of rational thought. Hate rules. There is nothing in their lexicon but hate.
The American liberal/progressive/left has degenerated into idiocy. They think that they are fighting “white nationalism” in the White House and that Trump is a champion or symbol of “white nationalism” and that there will be no victory until Trump and all symbols of “white nationalism” are obliterated.
Little do they understand. Ajamu Baraka spells it out for them in CounterPunch. White Supremacy, he writes, is inculcated into the cultural and educational institutions of the West. Liberal and leftist whites are also white supremacists, says Baraka, and Trump and the “alt-right” are nothing but a superficial useful platform on which the white supremacist American liberal/progressive/left can parade its self-righteousness. Ajamu Baraka’s conclusion is “that in order for the world to live, the 525-year-old white supremacist Pan-European, colonial/capitalist patriarchy must die.” It is not difficult to see in this statement that genocide is the solution for the white plague upon humanity. Little wonder the “alt-right” gets exercised by the anti-white propaganda of Identity Politics.
Non-white immigration will finish off the shards of remaining European civilization. All current demographics indicate that all of Europe and North America will sooner than you expect be occupied by non-white majorities.
The problem is not so much the immigrants themselves as it is that they are taught to hate whites by white liberal/progressive/leftists. The destruction of statues will not end with Robert E. Lee’s. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are next. They owned slaves, whereas the Lee family’s slaves were freed by will three years prior to the Lincoln’s invasion of the South. The Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln memorials will have to be destroyed also as they, too, are momuments to racism. Indeed, according to the Identity Politics of the Liberal/progressive/left the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution are White Supremacy documents written by racists. This doubles the indictment against Thomas Jefferson and adds all of the Founding Fathers to the indictment. All are guilty of institutionalizing White Supremacy in America.
The uninformed insouciant Average American may think that this is a joke. But no. It is the orthodoxy of the white American intellectual class. It is taught in all the universities.
In Atlanta they are talking about erasing the heads of the South’s generals carved into Stone Mountain. Mount Rushmore in South Dakota will be next. It has carved into it the heads of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. All racists, and Roosevelt was a colonialist and imperialist to boot. Lincoln was the worst racist of all.
Economist/historian Thomas DiLorenzo reminds us that “to his dying day, Lincoln was busy plotting the deportation of all the black people in America, including the soon-to-be-freed slaves.”https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/11/thomas-dilorenzo/next-target-blacklivesmatter/
The following statements are all statements that are in Abe Lincoln’s Collected Works:
“I have said that the separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation [of the white and black races] . . . Such separation . . . must be affected by colonization” [sending blacks to Liberia or Central America]. (Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln vol. II, p. 409).
“Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and . . . favorable to . . . our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime.” (Collected Works, vol. II, p. 409). 
“I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people” (Collected Works, vol. III, pp. 145-146). 
How did Lincoln in the face of his own words and deeds get to be the hero who liberated blacks from slavery? The Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave, as Lincoln’s Secretary of State complained. It was a war measure that only applied to slaves under the jurisdiction of the Confederacy in hopes of fomenting a slave rebellion that would pull Southern soldiers off the front lines to rush to the protection of their wives and children. In 1861 the year the North invaded the South, President Lincoln said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so” (First Inaugural Address). In 1862 during the war, Lincoln wrote to Horace Greeley: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.”
Lincoln was elevated to the undeserved position of black liberator by the historical lies made up by white liberal/progressive/leftists who hate the South. They are so consumed by hate that they do not understand that the hate that they teach will also devour them. They should read Jean Raspail’s book, The Camp of the Saints. People taught racial hate do not differentiate between good and bad members of the people they are taught to hate. All are equally guilty. As one Third Worlder wrote to me, “all whites are guilty,” even those such as myself who speak out against the West’s atrocities against the darker-skinned peoples.
The Amerian liberal/progressive/left has long been engaged in demonizing white people exactly as Nazis demonized Jews and Communists demonized capitalists. One would think that the liberal/progressive/leftists would be aware of what happened to the Jews and to the Russian, Chinese and East European capitalists and bourgeois middle class. Why do the liberal/progressive/leftists think they will escape the consequences of teaching hate?
What has Charlottesville taught us other than that the hate expressed by the liberal/progressive/left exceeds the hate expressed by the white nationalists themselves. When it comes to hate, the White Supremacists are out-gunned by the liberal/progressive/left.
Hate is the hallmark of the American liberal/progressive/left, and hate always ends in violence.
The Northern ruling economic interests had no interest in devoting resources to a war to free slaves. They wanted the Union held together so that there would be no competition for the lands west of the Mississippi and so there would be an agrarian sector to which to market northern manufactured goods protected by tariffs against lower priced British goods.
The northern work force didn’t want any freed slaves either. The large number of recent Irish immigrants driven out of Ireland by the British starvation policy called Lincoln’s war “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” What freed slaves meant for the northern working class was a larger labor supply and lower wages. In 1863 when the Republicans passed the draft, the Irish in Detroit and New York rioted. The rioters took out their anger and frustration on northern blacks, many of whom were lynched. It is not clear to me whether more backs were lynched in the North during the war or in the South during Reconstruction. If there are any memorials to the Irish, those racist statues will have to be taken down also. Perhaps even the Statue of Liberty is racist.
And we haven’t yet heard from Native Americans. In his excruciating history, The Long Death: The Last Days of the Plains Indians, Ralph K. Andrist describes the genocide of the Plains Indians by Lincoln’s Civil War generals, William Tecumseh Sherman, Phillip Sheridan, Grenville Dodge and other of the first war criminals of the modern age who found it a lot easier to conduct warfare against Southern women and children than against armed troops. Against the Native Americans Lincoln’s generals now conducted a policy of genocide that was even more horrible and barbaric than Sheridan’s destruction of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
Lincoln historian Professor Thomas DiLorenzo provides a synopsis of the genocide of Native Americans here: http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=803
During the eight year presidency of General Ulysses S. Grant, 1868-76, the Union generals conducted a policy of extermination against the Native Americans. Entire villages, every man, woman, and child, were wiped out. The Union Army’s scorched earth policy starved to death those Indians who escaped fire and sword.
Professor DiLorenzo writes:
“Sherman and Sheridan’s troops conducted more than one thousand attacks on Indian villages, mostly in the winter months, when families were together. The U.S. Army’s actions matched its leaders’ rhetoric of extermination. As mentioned earlier, Sherman gave orders to kill everyone and everything, including dogs, and to burn everything that would burn so as to increase the likelihood that any survivors would starve or freeze to death. The soldiers also waged a war of extermination on the buffalo, which was the Indians’ chief source of food, winter clothing, and other goods (the Indians even made fish hooks out of dried buffalo bones and bow strings out of sinews). By 1882, the buffalo were all but extinct.”
Indian warriors who were captured were subjected to the type of trials and executions that the George W. Bush regime gave Saddam Hussein: “hundreds of Indians who had been taken prisoner were subjected to military ‘trials’ lasting about ten minutes each, according to Nichols (1978). Most of the adult male prisoners were found guilty and sentenced to death—not based on evidence of the commission of a crime, but on their mere presence at the end of the fighting.” In other words, POWs were executed, for which the US executed German officers at Nuremberg.
The Union massacre of the Indians began before the Civil War was won. DiLorenzo reports:
“One of the most famous incidents of Indian extermination, known as the Sand Creek Massacre, took place on November 29, 1864. There was a Cheyenne and Arapaho village located on Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado. These Indians had been assured by the U.S. government that they would be safe in Colorado. The government instructed them to fly a U.S. flag over their village, which they did, to assure their safety. However, another Civil War ‘luminary,’ Colonel John Chivington, had other plans for them as he raided the village with 750 heavily armed soldiers. One account of what happened appears in the book Crimsoned Prairie: The Indian Wars (1972) by the renowned military historian S. L. A. Marshall, who held the title of chief historian of the European Theater in World War II and authored thirty books on American military history.
“Chivington’s orders were: ‘I want you to kill and scalp all, big and little.’ ( Marshall 1972, 37). Then, despite the display of the U.S. flag and white surrender flags by these peaceful Indians, Chivington’s troops ‘began a full day given over to blood-lust, orgiastic mutilation, rapine, and destruction—with Chivington looking on and approving’ (Marshall 1972, 38). Marshall notes that the most reliable estimate of the number of Indians killed is ‘163, of which 110 were women and children’ (p. 39).
“Upon returning to his fort, Chivington ‘and his raiders demonstrated around Denver, waving their trophies, more than one hundred drying scalps. They were acclaimed as conquering heroes, which was what they had sought mainly.’ One Republican Party newspaper announced, ‘Colorado soldiers have once again covered themselves with glory’ (Marshall 1972, 39).
DiLorenzo reports: “The books by Brown and Marshall show that the kind of barbarism that occurred at Sand Creek, Colorado, was repeated many times during the next two decades.”
General Sherman, a war criminal far in excess of anything the Nazis were able to produce, wrote to his wife early in the Civil War that his purpose was “extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the [Southern] people.”
His wife responded: Conduct a “war of extermination” and drive all Southerners “like the swine into the sea. May we carry fire and sword into their states till not one habitation is left standing” ( Walters 1973, 61).
DiLorenzo observes that Sherman did his best to take his wife’s advice.
The extreme hatred and barbarity to which the Northern war criminals had subjected Southern non-combatants broke like fury over the Plains Indians. Distinguished military historians have described the orders given to General Custer by Phillip Sheridan as “the most brutal orders ever published to American troops.”
Clearly, if we are taking down statues, we can’t stop with Robert E. Lee. We will have to take down the Statues of Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and all the rest of the Union war criminals who implemented what they themselves called “the final solution to the Indian problem.”
The designation of the northern invasion of the South as a civil war is itself a lie. The term “civil war” is used to cover up the fact that the North initiated a war of aggression, thus removing the sin of war from the North. A civil war is when two sides fight for control of the government. However, the South had no interest or intent to control the government in Washington. All the Southern states did is to use the constitutional right to end their voluntary association with other states in the United States. The South fought because the South was invaded. Southerners did not regard the War of Northern Aggression as a civil war. They clearly understood that the war was a war of Northern Aggression.
As brutal as Lincoln’s war criminal armies were to Southern civilians, the inhumanity of the brutality toward Southern people escalated during the long period called Reconstruction. The Northern ruling Republicans did their best to subject the South to rule by the blacks while Northern “carpetbaggers” stole everything that they could. No white Southern woman was safe from rape. “Civil War” buffs have told me that there were southern towns in which all the women were hidden in the woods outside of town to protect them from the Republican Union soldiers and the former slaves that the Republican agents of Reconstruction encouraged. What happened to the South at the hands of the Republicans was no different from what the Russians and Americans did in Germany when the Wehrmacht surrendered. The demonized KKK was an organization that arose to protect what remained of the South’s honor from unbearable humiliations.
Consequently, for decades no Southern person would vote Republican. The Democrats lost the “solid South” by aping the Reconstruction Republicans and again bringing Reconstruction to the South, using federal force instead of persuasion.
No real facts are any longer taught in the US about the so-called “Civil War.” In the place of the actual history stands only lies.
In an accompanying guest contribution, economist/historian Professor Thomas DiLorenzo explains the real reason that Lincoln invaded the South. He shows that Lincoln’s success in conquering the South destroyed the political character of the United States that had been formed by the Founding Fathers. He also shows that the Union policy of conducting war against civilians created the precedents for the massive war crimes of the 20th and 21st centuries. Seldom does the opportunity arise to acquire an enlightening and accurate history lesson from one article. That is what Professor DiLorenzo has delivered. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/08/21/lincoln-myth-ideological-cornerstone-america-empire/

Sunday, August 20, 2017

639 Een notitie over Terrorisme

Een notitie over 'Terrorisme'.

= De strategie:
Livia Rokach beschreef hoe Israel het terrorisme als strategie gebruikt.  Men lokt de vijand uit tot plegen van terreur, om hem zo zwart te kunnen  maken. Dan kun je die vijand met instemming van 'de wereld' een kopje kleiner maken. Of zonder vorm van proces opsluiten.  

= De terroristen:
Sinds de jaren 80 financieren Saudi Arabiƫ en de VS samen de madrassa's waaruit potentiele terroristen en jihadisten worden gerecruteerd.

= Het doel:
De jihadi's worden nu gebruikt om Israel's buurlanden kapot te maken en onder het mom van 'terreur bestrijden' wordt wereldwijd een Security Web uit gerold en wordt ervaring op gedaan met Internet monitoring, censuur en blocking.(Vb: Amazon heeft vrijwel alle revisionistische boeken van haar site verwijderd.)  Etc.  etc.
Het is een grote oefening om te leren hoe je de wereld onder controle kunt houden.

= Wie zijn de bedenkers:
Neocons en Mossad en de Grote Media zijn de kern van deze beweging.
Amerikaanse politici doen mee omdat ze niet anders kunnen. Denk aan AIPAC en de Israel Lobby.
Wapenindustrie doet mee omdat ze er direct voordeel van hebben. Bankiers doen mee omdat ze 'familie'zijn, en ze bij weigering door de Media zouden worden vernietigd: denk aan alle criminaliteit door bankiers.

= Echte of Fake aanslagen?
Over de feitelijke aanslagen ( 911, Londen, Madrid, Parijs en nu Barcelona etc etc) kun je zeggen: Bedacht en veroorzaakt door de Neocons en Mossad.  Deels uitgevoerd door onwetende moslims.

Het heeft geen enkel nut om te proberen vast te stellen of die aanslagen echt waren, met echte doden, of dat het fake was.
Dat maakt niks uit.
(Ik denk dat de aanslagen deels echt waren en deels fake. Idem met de slachtoffers.)

= Het doel: angst
De aanslagen worden gepleegd voor het effect op de psyche van de mensen.
Het volk moet bang worden.
Mogelijk wil men een burgeroorlog tussen moslims en christenen. Of tussen zwart en blank. Of tussen immigranten en autochtonen.

= Het doel: een totalitaire staat (de facto door joden geleid).
Het volk moet bang worden. Zo bang dat het een permanente noodtoestand accepteert. Dan is het overal 'Israel': dan kunnen alle Jan Verheuls zonder enige vorm van rechtspraak weg rotten in de gevangenissen. Precies zoals nu de Palestijnen gebeurt.
Dat Jan Verheul dan in de gevangenis zit omdat hij de joodse agenda in de smiezen heeft zal niemand ooit te horen krijgen.  Ze verzinnen wel iets.
Jan Verheul hoopt dat hij tegen de tijd dat dit kan gebeuren al een natuurlijke dood is gestorven.

= Niks nieuws onder de zon:
Voor onze joodse vrienden is dit niet nieuw. In het boek Esther lezen we hoe de Perzen sidderden en beefden van angst voor de joodse Mordechai. In Arendar Europa was het precies zo. In de Gulag was het exact hetzelfde. Niks nieuws.
Het zou allemaal bekend moeten zijn. Maar dan moet je wel nieuwsgierig zijn. Bijna niemand is dat.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

638 Kritiek op joden = Ontslag voor journalist. Zegt het voort, collega's.

Kritiek op joden = Ontslag voor journalist.

Zegt het voort, collega's.

Dat is hoe censuur werkt: Zo maak je duidelijk wie de baas is.
Zo zorg je dat er uiteindelijk geen journalist meer is die zo stom is om ook maar het minste druppeltje kritiek op 'de joden'  ( of op Israel) te uiten.

In het onderstaande voorbeeld is de kritiek op 'de joden' zo klein, dat geen van de 5 collega's  van Myers die het artikel beoordeelde , er enig bezwaar in zag. Toch is Myers ontslagen, en roept hij: "Terecht dat ik ontslagen ben! "
Het doet denken aan de 28 standing ovations in Het Congres, toen Netanyahu er sprak.  En op het enthousiaste applaus dat Saddam Hussein kreeg tijdens de speech waarin hij de 'verraders' bekend maakte, mannen die verzocht werd de zaal te verlaten ( en nooit meer zijn terug gezien....)
Deze mensen begrepen allemaal hoe machteloos ze waren en hoe machtig de spreker was.

-----------------------

HIER   een voorbeeld dat ik volledig uit Haaretz heb overgenomen.


Fired Irish Journalist Apologizes for Offending Jews, Agrees Deserved to Be Sacked.


Kevin Myers, a columnist for the Irish edition of the Sunday Times of London, singled out two female BBC presenters for their ability to negotiate high salaries because they are Jewish.

JTA Aug 01, 2017 7:36 PM



BBC Presenter Claudia Winkleman Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters
Sunday Times Columnist Fired After Saying Female BBC Journalists Earn More Because They Are Jewish
The Irish journalist fired for writing what critics called an anti-Semitic newspaper column apologized and acknowledged that he deserved to be sacked.
But Kevin Myers said in an interview with an Irish radio station Friday that he was not anti-Semitic.
“It was stupid of me, the encapsulation of such a complex issue in a single sentence,” Myers said, referring to a line in a July 30 column that played on the stereotype of Jews as hard bargainers. “One of my flaws is to deal with major issues with throwaway lines.”

Screenshot of Kevin Myers' column in Irish edition of Sunday Times of London, July 30, 2017.
In his column for the Irish edition of London’s Sunday Times, Myers had noted that two of the BBC’s best-paid female presenters, Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz, are Jewish.
“Good for them. Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity,” Myers wrote.
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Critics said the column, which was critical of the notion that men and women deserved equal pay, was both anti-Semitic and misogynistic. Myers was fired and the newspaper apologized.

In his first comments on the incident, Myers told RTE Radio One that at least “five or six” other Sunday Times employees would have overseen the column before it went to print.
“A number of people nodded on duty and let something through that shouldn’t have gone through,” he said.
However, Myers called himself the “author of his own misfortune” and took responsibility.
“I am very very sorry to them, I really mean it, I’m not rescuing anything as far as I can see, it’s over for me,” he said, referring to the two BBC broadcasters mentioned in his column. “I am issuing an apology for no other reason than contrition of the hurt I have caused them. I said those words out of respect for their religion.”
Feltz also commented on the incident during an interview on  BBC’s Radio London, saying the Myers column highlighted “every vile stereotype about what Jewish people have ever been deemed to be by racists.” She also asked how something “so blatantly racist” was allowed to appear in the newspaper.
Frank Fitzgibbon, editor of the Sunday Times Ireland, said the column “contained views that have caused considerable distress and upset to a number of people,” and that Myers will “not write again for the Sunday Times Ireland,” according to The Independent.
Fitzgibbon said he took “full responsibility” and added, “This newspaper abhors anti-Semitism and did not intend to cause offence to Jewish people.”


read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.804617

637 Vijf leerstellingen omtrent de invloed van Genen op Gedrag.

HIER het originele artikel.

Vijf  'wetten' omtrent de invloed van de genen op ons gedrag.  


 The time has come for a review post on the laws of behavioral genetics. I will talk about why these laws are laws and why they are important. Eventually, this will be merged into my Behavioral Genetics Page, but for now, I will start with this primer.
The five laws of behavioral genetics are:
  1. All human behavioral traits are heritable
  2. The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of the genes.
  3. A substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioral traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or families.
  4. A typical human behavioral trait is associated with very many genetic variants, each of which accounts for a very small percentage of the behavioral variability.
  5. All phenotypic relationships are to some degree genetically mediated or confounded.
All are simple. All can be said in one sentence. Yet all are incredibly profound and terribly underappreciated in today’s society.
For most of the history of the laws, there were only three. The first three were coined by Eric Turkheimer (who has since spent his time trying to undermine his own discovery). Recent genomic studies have added the fourth (Chabris et al, 2015). And Emil Kirkegaard has proposed the fifth based on multivariate behavioral genetic studies. Allow me to review the five laws and their everyday significance.

First Law: All human behavioral traits are heritable.

Derivation:
  • Identical twins raised apart will be similar – and usually highlysimilar in every conceivable measurement
  • More generally, behavioral and other phenotypic similarity is predicted by genetic similarity for all behaviors and phenotypes, across all human relations, regardless of environmental circumstances. That is, identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins or full siblings, who are more similar than half-siblings, who are more similar than first cousins, and so on ad infintum.
This is underappreciated because this means that all human characteristics, including the things we feel are products of “free choice” or “free will” are infact heavily dependent on genetic forces. This includes life circumstances, such as where and how you live – even how you grew up. Free will doesn’t exist. Political, religious, and moral views are themselves partly enshrined in the genes. This (or, more specifically, additive heritability) is responsible for continuity within families and within social and ethnic groups. And this is why human societies and behavioral quirks persist, resistant to change.

Second Law: The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of the genes.

Derivation:
  • Identical twins raised apart are no less similar than identical twins raised together
  • Non-related individuals reared together are no more similar than random strangers
  • More generally, people growing up together are no more similar than you’d expect from their genetic relationship alone
Also under appreciated, the Second Law talks about the “shared environment” – parents, peers, schools, neighborhoods – all the things children growing up in the same household share. The effect of all those things on any behavioral trait or other phenotype is nil. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Zero. All the things people (especially in the modern West) think matter to children’s development have no effect at all. This includes expensive schools, nice homes, strict discipline, religious indoctrination – none of it matters. No adult outcome shows any effect of shared environment, this includes criminality, marital stability, income, adult happiness, and substance abuse (though note, educational attainment seems to be affected by shared environment, but even here, the effect of education goes away when you look at income). It just doesn’t matter. This strikes squarely against popular belief, making the second law the most vehemently denied of them all.

Third Law: A substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioral traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or families.

Derivation:
  • Identical twins (even raised together) are in fact far from identical and differ in significant ways
  • In general, there will be variance left over once genes and shared environmental effects are accounted for
Identical twins may have different handedness, have different fingerprints, and indeed, can differ in criminal history (such as perpetrating a mass shooting).
More poignantly, identical twins can (and in fact, in cases where at least one is gay, usually do) differ in sexual orientation.
Twins differ substantially for cancer incidence – despite having very similar lifestyle habits, indicating that these factors don’t do as much as many think.
Now, while a good bit of this of left over variance turns out to actually be measurement error (i.e., twins are even more similar than they first appear when you watch them long enough/better), the Third Law means that there is more to the story that straight-up genetic forces. Many commenters here try to fill in the blanks with the usual environmental suspects (e.g., schools, peers, differential parental treatment) – ignoring the lessons of the Second Law which shows the nonexistence of any effect of these things. As fingerprints indicate, there are deep developmental forces at work that render many of these ideas unnecessary – indeed, nonsensical in many cases. Or, in the case of sexual oriental, the distinguishing force may be something largely outside our control, such as pathogens (see Greg Cochran’s “Gay Germ” Hypothesis – An Exercise in the Power of Germs). The Third Law indicates that chance effects can dash our best laid plans.

Fourth Law: A typical human behavioral trait is associated with very many genetic variants, each of which accounts for a very small percentage of the behavioral variability.

Derivation:
  • Genomic studies have found few genetic variants that have a large effect on behavioral traits
This is mostly of concern for breeding or for genetic engineering. This puts the kibosh on simplistic notions of a “gene for X”, because in reality there are a plethora of genetic variants at play in a given behavioral trait. This is why, despite the progress being made in genetic modification, it will be still a while yet before “made to order” designer babies are a reality.

Fifth Law: All phenotypic relationships are to some degree genetically mediated or confounded.

Derivation:
  • Whenever there is an association between two phenotypes (such as poverty and crime), there will be a genetic association driving both
And finally, I come to Emil Kirkegaard’s newly coined law, one that is vastly underappreciated. This was drawn from studies like those of Amir Sariaslan’s and others showing the confounded nature of phenotypical associations (even extended phenotypes like social circumstances). This essentially strikes at the heart of modern social science (and for that matter, medical science), which assumes, wrongly, that association between social and/or behavioral factors is an indication that one causes the other. In reality, genetic forces cause both. Indeed, we see this with health and lifestyle: people who exercise more have fewer/later health problems and live longer, so naturally conventional wisdom interprets this to mean that exercise leads to health and longer life, when in reality healthy people are driven to exercise and have better health due to their genes.
* * *
I could go on and also talk about another thing that bugs me, namely twin control studies, which basically apply a version of the confounded wisdom seen in the Fifth Law. Namely such studies assume that correlations in unshared environment (i.e., the matter of the Third Law) as causal, ignoring the substance of the Third Law in the process (i.e., unshared biological forces could cause both factors of interest). But, this will be a topic for another day.
These are dangerous times for biosocial science – societal and political forces make this matter difficult to discuss or research. A reckoning is approaching, and it is unclear how it will turn out. In the mean time, technology and our understanding of the forces at play marches on, waiting for our society to catch up.


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Omdat bij dit soort artikelen de comments vaak interessant zijn, zal ik de eerste 50 comments toevoegen. 



  1. RaceRealist88 says: • Website
    “Indeed, we see this with health and lifestyle: people who exercise more have fewer/later health problems and live longer, so naturally conventional wisdom interprets this to mean that exercise leads to health and longer life, when in reality healthy people are driven to exercise and have better health due to their genes.”
    So in Jayman’s world, diet and exercise has absolutely no benefits?
    Also what do you know about behavioral therapy?
    I’ve used these guidelines with great success for people.
    Would you say not to diet and exercise because in the end it’s genetic anyway?
    This doesn’t even touch on obesogenic environments and the food reward hypothesis. I may get into that later.
  2. JayMan says: • Website
    @RaceRealist88
    From your piece:
    The relationship between vigorous exercise and all-cause mortality is well studied.
    Unfit thin people had two times higher mortality rate than normal weight fit people. Further, overweight and obese fit people had similar mortality rates when compared to normal weight fit people
    Exercise into old age is also related to higher cognition and lower mortality rate in when compared to individuals who do not exercise.
    You completely miss the meaning of the Fifth Law, and apparently don’t have any understanding of the notion that correlation does not equal causation.
    But of course, if you make money off this, I wouldn’t really expect you to understand.
  3. res says:
    Thanks for your exposition of these laws. One quibble (emphasis mine):
    More poignantly, identical twins can (and in fact, usually do) differ in sexual orientation.
    Is that really what you mean to say? Aren’t most identical twin pairs the same–heterosexual? Do you mean something like “of identical twin pairs where at least one is homosexual”?
  4. RaceRealist88 says: • Website
    @JayMan
    “You completely miss the meaning of the Fifth Law, and apparently don’t have any understanding of the notion that correlation does not equal causation.”
    I understand that. That’s basic.
    Sitting around, eating like shit and not exercising leads to deleterious health consequences. Behavioral therapy can ameliorate these things. As I said, I’ve used the above pubmed article with great success. Obese people who do the above and then stop sitting so much, eat better and exercise have better blood markers than those who don’t. That’s a causal effect on exercise.
    Read into behavioral therapy. It works. Numerous people have used it with great success.
    I eat right every day of the week. I eat a certain kcal/macro split depending on rest of workout day. Would you say that if I didn’t do that I’d still be in good health and be in shape?
    “But of course, if you make money off this, I wouldn’t really expect you to understand.”
    Taking charge of people’s health is my career. I’ve helped hundreds of people get better habits and live healthier lifestyle.
    But of course, since you’ve never worked with people who need this help I wouldn’t really expect you to understand.
    I’ve been in this field for years my friend. I know what works and what doesn’t. And what you’re saying is extremely dangerous for people’s health.
    Also I’m sure you know that if you’re giving this “advice” that it’s illegal since you don’t have the correct credentials.
  5. JayMan says: • Website
    @RaceRealist88
    “You completely miss the meaning of the Fifth Law, and apparently don’t have any understanding of the notion that correlation does not equal causation.”
    I understand that. That’s basic.
    However:
    Sitting around, eating like shit and not exercising leads to deleterious health consequences.
    Apparently, you don’t.
    Obese people who do the above and then stop sitting so much, eat better and exercise have better blood markers than those who don’t.
    That’s not what large RCTs show.
    I’ve been in this field for years my friend. I know what works and what doesn’t. And what you’re saying is extremely dangerous for people’s health.
    Also I’m sure you know that if you’re giving this “advice” that it’s illegal since you don’t have the correct credentials.
    Let’s not even get into selection bias.
  6. Anon says: • Disclaimer
    @RaceRealist88
    A guess the problem here is how genes influence people’s way deal with food and exercise, like some people have propensity to go workout and eat less food or be more concern with their health, and some other people don’t have that drive to eat less or be concern with health and what type of food they are eating. And there’s the question about each body have somewhat different reaction to food. But in end of the day, caloric intake is important, you can put obese people in a hypo caloric diet for a time, and they will lose weight and fat, but once they are “loose” again, they will regain weight because the plethora of factor will again start to come in to play, factor like: their personality, their body reaction to food, their environment; some of this factor are beyond control, like personality or body reaction, other you can change like environment, but still some people will simply run to another environment that suits their needs. It’s complex question, that even doctor don’t know how to act, the proof of this is all of those diets and dietitian fads that come and go. Here a link to a good site about science of fitness and related stuff: http://sci-fit.net/2017/450-weight-loss-studies/
    Highlight to:
    “*Some people may be genetically predisposed to obesity (hunger, willpower, motivation, etc.)
    *The body might try to regain lost weight via different weight regulation mechanisms (metabolic, behavioral, hormonal, and more)”
    Ah, and sorry for my poor English, it’s not my first language.
  7. Brabantian says: • Website
    Powerful stuff here, especially this part from JayMan’s article above
    Under appreciated, the Second Law talks about the “shared environment” – parents, peers, schools, neighborhoods – all the things children growing up in the same household share. The effect of all things on any behavioral trait … is nil. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Zero. All the things people (especially in the modern West) think matter to children’s development have no effect at all. This includes expensive schools, nice homes, strict discipline, religious indoctrination – none of it matters. No adult outcome shows any effect of shared environment … It just doesn’t matter.
    Somehow I thought of when, a few years ago, Mark Zuckerberg gave $100 million of his Facebook profits to improve the Newark NJ school system performance … only to find math & reading evaluation scores continue to decline, in what became a legendary ‘social spending’ boondoggle disaster. Tho to be fair a lot of that dosh was spent corruptly on $1000-a-day consultants etc.
    Re the ‘gay germ’ or similar thoughts, the French psycho-analyst Jacques Lacan (1901-81) thought that gay tendencies are the result of child fears that come into play at some very fragile chance moment, usually in early infancy … the child fears destruction for being a ‘competitor’ to the same sex parent, so the child ‘inverts’ his / her sexuality as a survival tool, so as not to seem a threat … Lacan & others noting the number of gay males who experienced self-insecure fathers or other male figures in youth, particularly authoritarian-types … possibly the tendency to have that kind of large-scale fear, & to respond in such a way, is itself genetic
  8. JayMan says: • Website
    @Brabantian
    Great comment, except for this part:
    Re the ‘gay germ’ or similar thoughts, the French psycho-analyst Jacques Lacan (1901-81) thought that gay tendencies are the result of child fears that come into play at some very fragile chance moment, usually in early infancy … the child fears destruction for being a ‘competitor’ to the same sex parent, so the child ‘inverts’ his / her sexuality as a survival tool, so as not to seem a threat … Lacan & others noting the number of gay males who experienced self-insecure fathers or other male figures in youth, particularly authoritarian-types
    That’s precisely the sort of nonsense this entry is made to address. :)
  9. anon says: • Disclaimer
    You are, as the saying goes, ‘not even wrong’ about free will.
    Because free will is not a scientifically identifiable quality. It’s simply a description of the way it feels to humans as they go about their business and make decisions. We are complex creatures, and have, as Daniel Dennett puts it, ‘all the free will we need’ in order to be held responsible for our actions.
  10. JayMan says: • Website
    @anon
    You are, as the saying goes, ‘not even wrong’ about free will.
    Because free will is not a scientifically identifiable quality. It’s simply a description of the way it feels to humans as they go about their business and make decisions.
    Actually, there are useful definitions of free will, that do have meaning here.
  11. dearieme says:
    “All the things people (especially in the modern West) think matter to children’s development have no effect at all. This includes expensive schools, nice homes, strict discipline, religious indoctrination – none of it matters.” Does it include parental divorce?
  12. dearieme says:
    “Twins differ substantially for cancer incidence”: I didn’t know that. I wonder if some cancers are infectious diseases: presumably even twins are exposed to the haphazard nature of picking up infections.
  13. JayMan says: • Website
    @dearieme
    Does it include parental divorce?
    It does.
  14. JayMan says: • Website
    To a certain commenter: you’ve been banned since the WordPress days. And you’re still banned, so don’t try to circumvent it.
  15. RaceRealist88 says: • Website
    @JayMan
    “Apparently, you don’t.”
    Take two twins. Lock both of them in a metabolic chamber. Monitor them over their lives and they do not leave the chamber. They are fed different diets (one has a high-carb diet full of processed foods, the other a healthy diet for whatever activity he does); one exercises vigorously/strength trains (not on the same day though!) while the other does nothing and the twin who exercises and eats well doesn’t sit as often as the twin who eats a garbage diet and doesn’t exercise. What will happen?
    Why don’t you answer my direct questions to you: Would you say that if I didn’t do that I’d still be in good health and be in shape? Are you saying not to diet and exercise?
    Furthermore, can you tell me which genes mediate this effect of exercise, dieting and sitting? I’d love to be enlightened.
    I know you’ve read Gary Taubes, so you know the reason for the obesity increase: processed carbs/sugar. So, as I’ve said, changing our food environment will lead to a change in weight in America. This is driven by our change in environment; we have Paleolithic genomes in novel environments. I’m sure you know that insulin is the driver of obesity—why we gain weight.
    “That’s not what large RCTs show.”
    Which? Like Look AHEAD? Too bad the results don’t mean that diet or exercise advice shouldn’t be given to diabetics.
    The intentional weight loss group showed a 15% reduction in all-cause mortality.
    Lastly, 2.5 hours of exercise a week compared to no exercise is associated with a decrease in all-cause mortality by 19 percent whereas 7 hours a week compared to no activity resulted in a 24 percent decrease.
    Decreases in all-cause mortality were even seen going from no activity to light walking.
    Non-vigorous exercise is associated with lower all-cause mortality.
    “Let’s not even get into selection bias.”
    I’m stating my personal experience in my time doing this.
    Low-carb ketogenic diets are best for type II diabetics. There are benefits to having ketones circulating in the blood, which include (but are not limited to): weight loss, improved HbA1c levels, reduced rate of kidney disease/damage, cardiac benefits, reversing non-alcoholic fatty liver, elevated insulin, and abnormal levels of cholesterol in the blood. These benefits, of course, carry over to the general non-diabetic population as well.
    In regards to weight loss, see Dr. Jason Fung who uses intermittent fasting and low-carb diets with his patients with great success.
    Relevant article:
  16. RaceRealist88 says: • Website
    @Anon
    Thanks for the link. Tons of studies which I can use to better help my clients.
    “other you can change like environment”
    The food environment in the whole country needs to change. Look at when obesity exploded in America and then look at dietary recommendations around that time. There is your answer to why we have this epidemic.
    “Some people may be genetically predisposed to obesity (hunger, willpower, motivation, etc.)”
    The hormone ghrelin, for instance, shows great diurnal variation. This coincides with hunger “coming and going”. It’s possible to ‘train’ yourself when you get hungry, mainly through intermittent fasting.
    I’m well aware that more ghrelin is released when one is in a kcal deficit. This mainly goes back to the ‘dietary recommendations’ set by the AHA—mainly their 55% CHO recommendations. If you knew insulin’s role in the body you’d know why that’s a bad combination for attempting to lose weight.
    Insulin inhibits the breakdown of fat in the adipose tissue by inhibiting the lipase that hydrolyzes the fat out of the cell. Since insulin facilitates the entry of glucose into the cell, when this occurs, the glucose is synthesized into glycerol. Along with the fatty acids in the liver, they both are synthesized into triglycerides in the liver. Due to these mechanisms, insulin is directly involved with the shuttling of more fat into the adipocyte, meaning it has a fat-sparing effect. Insulin drives most cells to prefer carbohydrates for energy. Putting this all together, insulin indirectly stimulates the accumulation of fat into the adipose tissue.
    So eating whatever you want is a recipe for diabesity. Do this for long enough, then you’ll be going to Dr. Jason Fung to have your foot cut off.
    De novo lipogenesis is also another factor in fat accumulation.
    “The body might try to regain lost weight via different weight regulation mechanisms (metabolic, behavioral, hormonal, and more)”
    I am well aware of adaptive thermogenesis, body set weight, etc. Dr. Fung agrees that all diets fail.
    Insulin resistance maintains high insulin levels which cause more resistance to insulin which result in a vicious cycle. This, over time, causes weight gain. To break the cycle, you must lower insulin and the subsequent insulin resistance which is doable by LKCD/low-carb diets.
  17. JayMan says: • Website
    @RaceRealist88
    Dude, this is not the place to pontificate. I’m going to have to start deleting your comments if you keep relying on confounded correlational studies.
    Take two twins. Lock both of them in a metabolic chamber. Monitor them over their lives and they do not leave the chamber. They are fed different diets (one has a high-carb diet full of processed foods, the other a healthy diet for whatever activity he does); one exercises vigorously/strength trains (not on the same day though!) while the other does nothing and the twin who exercises and eats well doesn’t sit as often as the twin who eats a garbage diet and doesn’t exercise. What will happen?
    There was this study.
    Which? Like Look AHEAD? Too bad the results don’t mean that diet or exercise advice shouldn’t be given to diabetics.
    The intentional weight loss group showed a 15% reduction in all-cause mortality.
    Larger meta-analyses find no such effect. And there is some publication bias in the above paper, aside from the fact that their result is non-significant, anyway.
    In regards to weight loss, see Dr. Jason Fung who uses intermittent fasting and low-carb diets with his patients with great success.
    “Great success” to me would be large sample, long duration/follow-up.
    Not that interventions would necessarily provide evidence of the effectiveness of lifestyle to improve health/extend life in the general population.
    Last warning: you simply need to do better.
  18. songbird says:
    My understanding is that somewhat rarely, there can be large IQ differences between identical twins. This, no doubt, can’t be explained by home environment, and, though possible, is not likely explained by genetic differences. I think it is strong evidence for developmental factors, most likely in the womb. Possibly mediated by infectious disease or the immune system.
    Anyway, since IQ seems to generally be so heritable, I think it really puts things in perspective in possibly explaining some of the other differences one might observe between twins.
  19. RaceRealist88 says: • Website
    @JayMan
    “I’m going to have to start deleting your comments if you keep relying on confounded correlational studies.”
    Do you know of any non-confounded causal studies? As I said above, the Look AHEAD trial doesn’t mean that diet and exercise shouldn’t be prescribed to diabetics.
    Can you explain to me how the studies on LKCD are confounded and why they show those reductions/improvements in patients? They even show weight loss. This is not up for debate; it is an established fact.
    “There was this study.”
    I was speaking in terms of mortality, not weight gain.
    I agree with you in regards to traditional dieting but IF/low-carb diets shows great promise in helping obese people.
    Even then, that study is not new to me. It also replicated the findings of the Vermont Prison Study which showed that the body revved the metabolism upwards to 50% in order to get rid of excess weight after the prisoners were taken off the feeding regime, they effortlessly went back down to their regular weight. This is evidence for the body set weight.
    Obviously, the twin with the healthier habits will live a longer life with better quality than the twin with shitter habits in regards to my thought experiment. Can you answer my questions: Are you saying people should not exercise? Are you saying that people should not watch what they eat and should not make an effort to eat higher-quality foods? What is so hard about answering simple yes or no questions?
    “Larger meta-analyses find no such effect. And there is some publication bias in the above paper, aside from the fact that their result is non-significant, anyway.”
    Source? You seem to be anti-physical activity despite the large body of research in regards to its benefits.
    ““Great success” to me would be large sample, long duration/follow-up.”
    Well, the “great success” is in regards to his clients that he works with. I’ve had “great success” with the people I’ve worked with. Should I disregard my personal experiences in this field? Should I find a new career because “fuck it, dieting and exercise doesn’t work anyway so just sit around and be lazy cuz genetics”?
    “Not that interventions would necessarily provide evidence of the effectiveness of lifestyle to improve health/extend life in the general population.”
    Why wouldn’t they? People who would show a reduction in malady A while doing exercise regimen B would be proof enough for this. LKCD studies show this very simple point.
    Is there any specific reason you’re so anti-physical activity? The data is out there, yet you deny it.
    If I were to just stop my strength-training routine, eat like shit and sit around all day, I wouldn’t increase my chance for all-cause mortality?
    “Last warning: you simply need to do better.”
    I am doing better. Your one-liners really leave a lot to be desired.
  20. @JayMan
    Your assumptions rely on reification and unwarranted genetic determinism. Diet and exercice obvioulsy impact health and there are no eating well genes or appropriate activity genes. Your logic would require instinctive knowledge of what is good for health and equality of access to those things.
  21. GondwanaMan says:
    Race Realist is well-meaning but he’s an argumentative Italian-American and has an exercise/nutrition business to support. So he’s never gonna accept the evidence no matter how good it is.
    Anyhow, I’m glad to see you put up another post. Creationists of all types can never accept the evidence, while the rationalists can truly grok these dark facts!
  22. Tulip says:
    Jayman writes:
    All the things people (especially in the modern West) think matter to children’s development have no effect at all. This includes expensive schools, nice homes, strict discipline, religious indoctrination – none of it matters.
    This doesn’t accord with the empirical findings in a lot of the literature:
  23. Si1ver1ock says:
    I’ve always wanted to contribute to science, so here goes:
    benotypebē-nə-ĖŒtÄ«p, the observable behavioral traits or properties of an organism that are produced by the interaction of the genotype and the environment.
  24. JayMan says: • Website
    @Double-Juice-JJ
    Diet and exercice obvioulsy impact health
    Strictly speaking that statement is true. But the usefulness of the statement in isolation is very limited.
    there are no eating well genes or appropriate activity genes.
    I guess you missed the First Law.
  25. JayMan says: • Website
    @RaceRealist88
    Can you explain to me how the studies on LKCD are confounded and why they show those reductions/improvements in patients?
    See here:
    “Great success” to me would be large sample, long duration/follow-up.
    “Not that interventions would necessarily provide evidence of the effectiveness of lifestyle to improve health/extend life in the general population.”
    Why wouldn’t they? People who would show a reduction in malady A while doing exercise regimen B would be proof enough for this. LKCD studies show this very simple point.
    No intervention shows that lifestyle changes extend life – or even improve health. Even if they did, their generalizability would depend on their actual prescription. In any case, the point is moot, since they don’t even show such improvements in the first place.
    Please see my previously linked Obesity Facts page for more. Once you’ve read that, get back to me. Until then, I’m putting the brakes on this discussion.
  26. @JayMan
    No, the first law is a gross generalization that remains abstract, using it as proof of anything is reification fallacy. Heritability is one thing (abstract construct), actual genotype to phenotype mechanism is another (empirical reality).
  27. hyperbola says:
    @Brabantian
    This article is primarily non-quantitative, non-scientific gobble-de-gook. The main problem with many assertions is that they seem not to be true. In fact, you can find MANY articles that deny these assertions. Here is one that addresses some serious scientific research in layman’s terms and provides real physical mechanisms for why identical twins are different in personality traits.
    The Mystery of How Identical Twins Develop Different Personalities
    ….”In twin studies it had been clear that even though the twins are identical (monozygotic), there are still some differences between them that emerges over time,” says Gerd Kempermann, a behavioral geneticist at the Dresden University of Technology and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease in Germany. “Identical twins are often amazingly similar, but mothers and close relatives can still tell them apart easily.”
    …. Importantly, identical twins raised in the same household — the same “outer” environment — still develop personality differences over time. Behavioral geneticists have long pegged these differences to influences by the “non-shared environment,” though there’s no real consensus on exactly what the non-shared environment consists of, Kempermann told io9. In twin studies, he says, these non-shared environmental influences essentially boil down to the individual experiences siblings have, and their own personal interactions with their environment.
    Kemperman and his colleagues studied genetically identical mice, and found that their experiences influenced the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus — a part of the brain associated with learning and memory. They believe these neurological changes promote individual differences in behavior and personality.
    Naturally, the development of personality differences should be reflected in the brain. In the hippocampus, new neurons are constantly being generated in a process called neurogenesis. Knowing this, Kempermann and his colleagues wondered: How do life experiences drive individualization in the brain? Specifically, if genetically identical mice lived in the same environment, how much individuality would they each develop, and would their different “personalities” be reflected in their hippocampal neurogenesis?……………
    ,,,,The team found that the mice, though genetically identical, showed highly individualized explorative behaviors. They lived in the exact same arena, but they reacted to this environment differently, Kempermann says, adding that the behavioral differences only grew over time. So some mice became explorers, who roamed the environment more as the months passed, while other mice preferred to really stick to areas they knew….
    …. So to recap: The mice’s experiences, or interactions with their environment, affected their long-term behavioral patterns and the growth of new neurons, promoting the development of distinct personalities despite their genetically identical makeup….
    _______________________________________________________________
    In fact, this kind of knowledge has been available for a LONG time already. For example, the personality of genetically identical cats can be changed FOR LIFE by imprinting certain areas of their brains chemically during gestation.
    This article should NOT appear in Unz Review as a scientific article. It is not science, only opinion.
  28. dearieme says:
    @JayMan
    Would the following be consistent with the data?
    Parental divorce might make children unhappy for years but by middle age the effect has dwindled away.
  29. JayMan says: • Website
    @dearieme
    Parental divorce might make children unhappy for years but by middle age the effect has dwindled away.
    Correct. Parental divorce can also make children happier (by breaking up acrimonious home lives). Also, people are pretty bad at nailing down the source of their unhappiness (which is often themselves).
  30. JayMan says: • Website
    @hyperbola
    Importantly, identical twins raised in the same household — the same “outer” environment — still develop personality differences over time.
    Great recap of the Third Law, which jives with what I wrote in the piece.
    This article should NOT appear in Unz Review as a scientific article. It is not science, only opinion.
    Funny how your own source seems to say otherwise.
  31. JayMan says: • Website
    @Double-Juice-JJ
    No, the first law is a gross generalization that remains abstract
    Decades of study show otherwise:
  32. @JayMan
    Ever heard about the missing heritability crisis? Or how difficult it is to spot actual SNPs that account for the variance in complex traits and then understanding the underlying biological genotype/phenotype interractions.
    You seem to be unaware that heritability estimates only exist in a statistical reality, nothing empirical. I’m not implying that heritability is meaningless. It just shows genetic influence, not determinism and tels nothing about malleability or between group variance.
    Moreover, behavioral genetics is not really able to establish “laws” like physics and life sciences do.
  33. guhyasamAja says:
    >As fingerprints indicate, there are deep developmental forces at work that render many of these ideas unnecessary
    An example of some of these developmental forces,Jayman?
  34. JayMan says: • Website
    @Double-Juice-JJ
    For fuck’s sake:
    Ever heard about the missing heritability crisis?
    Or how difficult it is to spot actual SNPs that account for the variance in complex traits
    See the Fourth Law above.
    You seem to be unaware that heritability estimates only exist in a statistical reality, nothing empirical.
    Preaching is a good way to get banned here.
    It just shows genetic influence, not determinism and tels nothing about malleability or between group variance.
    Along with a lot of other evidence that does just that.
  35. JayMan says: • Website
    @guhyasamAja
    An example of some of these developmental forces,Jayman?
    Pathogens as mentioned before. But these factors are at present poorly understood.
  36. dearieme says:
    @JayMan
    I read a history of MI6 recently. At the time of The War, one of their top coves apparently believed in hiring men raised in homes with the father missing: dead or divorced. The children grew up as more observant of human behaviour, he believed.
    Then I reread some John Le Carre spy novels: he alluded to the same belief. Obviously that sort of notion can hang on for a long time in an organisation.
  37. JayMan says: • Website
    @Tulip
    This doesn’t accord with the empirical findings in a lot of the literature:
    See the above mentioned Fifth Law, as well as the “Sixth Law” I mentioned.
  38. PiqueABoo says:
    No adult outcome shows any effect of shared environment
    As much as I like looking at this field, in fact feel lucky because Plomin’s gang have been playing with local English data, I can’t accept ‘No’.
    What outcomes are we measuring? I’ve got a 14 year-old who has some extremes, very bright, very self-motivated, determined and also quite intoverted. None of the latter was my magic parenting (if it were then picking ‘introverted’ isn’t a winning strategy for school-side life), but I will take credit for a substantial amount of the knowledge in her head having answered zillions of questions about new vocabulary/concepts and having had countless enjoyable debates over this or that, ever since she was old enough to talk a bit. A lot of that isn’t taught by schools or measured by national exams, but there has clearly been a significant effect.
    If you zoom in on an individual, then parenting does make a difference. If I pick some of this one’s superpowers then a couple of them have been gained by chance. One of the latter is that she’s quite accomplished mountain tech-climber, the only child doing anything like that in her school, which has clearly made her a bit heroic/dangerous in her saturated by Lara/Katnis/Kris peers’ eyes, as opposed to a conscientious academic girl that some girl-clique will inevitably decide to make this months’s target. In terms of personality I don’t think it’s done much more than draw out propensity for stoicism etc., but I’m certain that act of parenting has changed the peer relations and it has also changed her self-identity.
  39. expeedee says:
    This is a wonderful article and I think you did a good job of summarizing the principles of behavioral genetics. Could the differences in identical twins be due to tandem repeats, transposable elements, methylation or just developmental noise? I’ve heard that transposable elements are very active during brain development and that there is a certain randomness involved. Might that affect sexual orientation?
  40. JayMan says: • Website
    @PiqueABoo
    If you zoom in on an individual, then parenting does make a difference.
    -
    the only child doing anything like that in her school, which has clearly made her a bit heroic/dangerous in her saturated by Lara/Katnis/Kris peers’ eyes, as opposed to a conscientious academic girl that some girl-clique will inevitably decide to make this months’s
    Anecdotal evidence is always the best kind…
    Parents impart skills and knowledge, but what a kid does with such is very much out of the parents’ hands.
  41. JayMan says: • Website
    @expeedee
    Could the differences in identical twins be due to tandem repeats, transposable elements, methylation or just developmental noise?
    MZ twins due have some minute genetic differences due to point mutations, and they could play a smart part of observed twin differences.
    Might that affect sexual orientation?
    Probably not.
  42. ThreeCranes says:
    Jayman
    Traits such as openness to new experiences or introversion are fuzzy and open to doubt. I would imagine that tests that measure tonal pitch discrimination, reaction time to a stimulus, sensitivity to pain, color discrimination and such would also show heritability. Since these are more readily quantified they would seem to be ideal basis for convincing skeptics. Can you provide examples of other readily quantifiable tests used by psychologists that would support your case? (which I personally accept, but that’s irrelevant)
  43. JayMan says: • Website
    @ThreeCranes
    Traits such as openness to new experiences or introversion are fuzzy and open to doubt.
    It’s called measurement error. Low-error measurements of those things show higher heritability.
    Can you provide examples of other readily quantifiable tests used by psychologists that would support your case? (which I personally accept, but that’s irrelevant)
    See the Polderman et al paper linked above. No human trait has a heritability of 0 (hence, the First Law).
  44. nickels says:
    ‘Identical twins raised apart will be similar – and usually highly similar in every conceivable measurement’
    This proves nothing.
    First, i challenge you science worshipers to understand the brain and how it functions (you don’t and you can’t).
    Second, describe to me how the gene’s manifest the brain organization from the first task (you can’t–scientist don’t have a clue hiw DNA works beyond building protiens, snipping them, etc…).
    We don’t understand how each soul is assigned its body for the journey in this world. These studies seem to indicate there may be some ties between such souls.
    Now you can criticize my take, but we can both explain the mechanics of our differing theories to the same degree: zero.
  45. nickels says:
    ‘Correlation does not equal causation.’
    Proceeds to write an entire article of statistical mumbo jumbo (zero understanding of mechanics) that does nothing but try to argue correlation is causation.
  46. phil says:
    @songbird
    Don’t forget about somatic mutations, which can alter DNA after conception.
  47. A quibble to point out an exception that proves the rule.
    1. All human behavioral traits are heritable
    Except the behavior of getting your reproductive bits wacked off prior to puberty because you think you are the other gender. Surely that’s not a heritable trait after it makes its appearance.
  48. Cundalini says:
    There’s a sixth law;
    We are all just pieces of meat and the Universe does not care wether we live or die.
  49. nicky says:
    @Anon
    Obesity has a genetic component, but it is generally not our ‘own’ genes. It has become clear that the composition of our intestinal microbiota (bacteria outnumber our own cells by several orders of magnitude) plays a major role. It is not yet well understood how a ‘healthy’ life-style, diet in particular, impacts our intestinal ecosystem.
    It is plausible -but not yet proven- that all kinds of preservatives used in processed foods, as well as antibiotic use, would have an impact.
    Point is, we (in fact, all multicellular organisms) live in a tight symbiosis with our microbiota and their amount of genes -in variety and numbers- is far greater than our own genes. We are only beginning to have an inkling of understanding of how this affects us.
    • Replies: @JayMan