[ExI] de Waal

Wed Feb 28 16:42:36 UTC 2018

On Tue, Feb 27, 2018 at 11:49 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:

> **
> *Yes, it's ALWAYS both genetics and environment.  That should go without
> saying.  But your claim is much more specific - obey adults. *
>

Not a gene to obey  adults, a gene to believe what adults say is true, or
at least probably true. It's not difficult to see why there would be
evolutionary pressure for such a gene to develop, or why a gene with the
opposite tendency would be lethal. And if the devout didn't think the very
young didn't have such a tendency they would not place such emphasis on
having religious grade schools and even religious kindergarten. Yes
sometimes children rebel but if such actions wasn't rare (compared with the
times they didn't rebel) it wouldn't be revolutionary.

> 
> Society is changing
>

A gene that predisposes a child to believe what adults tell them will slow
down the rate of social change but it will not slow down the rate of
technological change, in fact technology itself would not exist without it.

> > 
>  read the Pinker book
>

I've read all of Pinker's books except for his newest "Enlightenment Now",
and I'll get around to that before long.

> >* *
> *you are stereotyping badly - taking a few thousand (depending on if you
> count Boko Haram and such) terrorists and making claims about the rest of
> the billion or so followers.*
>

Stereotyping? I provided some hard data in my last post, you didn't. I'll
give you some more, according to Pew research almost all Muslims in
Afghanistan (99%) want barbaric sharia law imposed, and most in Iraq (91%)
and Pakistan (84%) and Egypt (74%) .  Even in Ottawa, the capital of
Canada,  62% of Muslims in that city think the country should be ruled
by sharia law. These statistics may not be politically correct but facts
are facts and there is something rotten in the heart of Islam . There is
one bright spot, although 22% of Egyptians  have  a favorable opinion of
Osama bin Laden that is better than what it was in 2007, back then it was
27%.

>* *
> *Penalties for nonobservance in Islam are great.*
>

True, thanks to good old sharia law. 

>* *
> *Genes simple?*
>

Compared with the environment very simple indeed.

> >* *
> *Do you know (of course you do - you can do the math) how many
> interactions are possible among 20k genes,*
>

 I know it would take far FAR *FAR* more than 20,000 variables to define
the environment.

>
> >* *
> * Are you crazy? *

I don't think so, but then crazy people usually don't. Perhaps that's
probably a question best left to others to decide.

John K Clark
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