hey winky one of my potential grad school advisors doesn't agree with the gene-centered view of evolution
but she is an evo-devo person so duhhh
Is this just the idea that DNA is not the end-all be-all of evolution, but itself a trait which happened to be advantageous? Because I'd agree with that.
no, although that is a good thought!
the idea is that evolution acts either on the genotype or the phenotype
gene-centrists believe that the gene is the unit of selection, whereas the alternate view posits that it is the phenotype that is the unit of selection
What do you think? Seems to me that selection wouldn't be granular enough to act on genes; an expressed trait is going to be the deciding factor, regardless of the genetic precursors.
well like I said, its an arbitrary distinction between one or the other, but I tend to cut toward phenotype based on semantics.
Epigenetic effects such as nutritional input, environmental effects on phenotype, parent's environment, and other factors ultimately shape gene expression, and they often can act in a manner that ignores the genes themselves (i.e. inhibiting proteins that are already in use, blocking them from being produced, and many other ways)
Now, some say that this is all still selection acting on genes, but my counter to that is that this is really a reductionist approach...if you take that argument and extend it, there is nothing but genes. What is a gene? Is it the genetic code? Is it the trait? Is it some intermediate? A mixture of the two?
I think the simultaneous reduction and extension of the gene is a bit counter-intuitive
It's more that you made generalized statements about an entire group of people based on your limited interaction with them. You use "white people" as a stand in for the small group you've met and then transpose that to them all. All the white kids I knew in college if they did any drug it was pot and that was it.
This statement combined with your laughable other views is about as joking as rush limbaugh speaking on any minority. You clearly don't like white people, you couch it in a joke but it isn't funny, it won't be funny, because frankly you're a fucking racist.
ahahaha
I'm sorry but this is just
oh my god from you of all people
ok I'm sorry but I actually don't give a shit about this
I mean, I'm awesome, but most white people fucking suck.
Why must you hate your own race? We got to the moon first and we invented Lord of the Rings and we run the entire world and all kinds of other accomplishments.
I mean I was going to ask if you're just incredibly over-sensitive (which would be ironic for someone who makes his posting persona on pushing other people's buttons, especially with racial humor -- but I find that those people who think minorities should "just go with it, gosh it's only a joke!" are always the ones to get butthurt if someone makes a joke about whites) or if you have some weird misplaced grudge
Winky now that we aren't arguing with each other on this, I see we are making slightly dissimilar cases and arguing slightly different points- but this isn't just us.
I am beginning to wonder if the entire dichotomy isn't talking past one another
EDIT: what I mean is, there is a big difference between the arguments on both sides when you look at group evolution versus developmental evolution
The weirdest choice in the movie Taxi Driver was making both the pimp and prostitute white
NYC back then, finding a white pimp was like finding a charizard in your booster pack when you were a kid
They exist, but that shit is rare
the pimp was expanded into a real role solely for Harvey Keitel
Yes, but the reason I brought it up was that on the one hand, you have a role that generally would be handed to a black man, but was instead made for/given to a white guy. On the other hand, it might be considered racist to slot a black man as a pimp, perpetuating a negative image of black people.
It's one of those situations where someone looking for a fight can take any angle. Look at The Wire, for instance. The drug dealers are all black. There is a reason for that, but some nob's still going to go RACISM! and claim it shines a poor light on black people. Even though the show is practically a documentary of Baltimore.
Wash on
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CindersWhose sails were black when it was windyRegistered Userregular
I mean, I'm awesome, but most white people fucking suck.
Why must you hate your own race? We got to the moon first and we invented Lord of the Rings and we run the entire world and all kinds of other accomplishments.
And we are pretty much the entirety of the Republican party, the leadership of the Mormon, Catholic, and Southern Baptist religions, most cops are white, and most farmers are white (though that is starting to change).
I think what it comes down to is something like this
Whenever anyone brings up discrimination against whites, even in jest
It deeply irks me
It's not that it's not true, per se, but that even choosing to talk about it strikes me as so inherently suspect
I can't dissociate it from stuff like Fox News talking heads trying to scare white grandparents with stories of some black kids beating up a white kid at an inner-city school somewhere. Meanwhile 1/9 black men 18-25 are in jail, and despite roughly equal incidence of actual drug use, black people are far more likely to be caught, far more likely to be charged once caught, and far more likely to be convicted if charged.
Like any discussion of non-white discrimination against whites, to me, activates some alarm bell. It just always seems to scream to me "Lock your doors, the n*****s are coming!" or even worse "see they deserve what they get."
The reality is that we live in a world of overwhelming oppression and injustice. The poor, minorities, women, the disabled, queer people -- there are so many groups that face real, institutional, overwhelming injustice and have suffering enforced upon them and it should break people's heart and make them angry
I think the only drugs college-going white kids consider dirty or off-limits are meth, heroin, and crack.
Not to talk in generalities that could be construed as racist or anything...
it's not racist if it's about white people
literally not joking here
Was it a stupid thing to say, that I then spent ~100 posts sort of slowly calming down and backtracking from? Yeah. It was.
But because there's something about comments like that (even though I know it was partially in jest) that strikes me as insensitive, trivializing, or even somehow immoral.
I guess there is a part of me that feels like, yeah, it's almost immoral to even talk about discrimination against whites, because the discrimination against non-whites is so overwhelming and yet so little talked about in the mainstream (another part of the structure of oppression). By discussing the harm that comes to whites, I think it unavoidably participates in a culture of equivocation that is desensitizing at best.
It's like when we show stereotypical characters on TV -- the black drug deal, the corrupt black politician, the absent black father, the promiscuous young black woman -- and people so often justify these portrayals as "well but there are people like that!" And yes, there are. But in the absence of portrayals of the equally real people who are not like that, those stereotypical portrayals take on a significance beyond merely being stories.
To borrow a phrase from a brilliant TED talk, they become the single story, and it is a dehumanizing story.
So, while, yes, there are black drug dealers and corrupt black politicians, there is something immoral about portraying those stories in the context of the current media environment we live in -- unless you're going to also do your part to portray real, sympathetic characters who are equally as true to life but also positive (see: the Wire).
I guess the anger I feel when I see commercials for The Chicago Code is the same thing that gets dredged up whenever anyone talks about whites being on the receiving end of discrimination. It makes me want to scream where are your priorities?
I feel there is something inherently political, something perhaps even detrimental about it. Yes, it's true, and yes, it's also absolutely wrong, and yes we absolutely should have empathy for its victims for they are also human and they also suffer.
But something about it feels wrong when suffering of such enormous magnitude is left out of the discussion entirely.
I don't know if that's justified, but that's the feeling that triggered my initial response, in case anyone's curious.
while i ultimately don't think it is (hence this whole conversation, anyway- until you clarified) i thank you for this post.
i think that for me it ends up at the assumption that we are friends, here, and so i try to presume good faith. i do this in general, too.
an example: one of my peeves is people who like to examine the radical aspects of a community, and from that dismiss everything. i am naturally wary when someone regularly talks about another thing a stupid 'radical feminist' did. i sometimes suspect that this is their glib, defensible way to call all of feminism into question. if i call them out on it, all they have to say is "what... i'm not saying anything about feminism is general. i'm only saying this particular thing is stupid". and i mean, i could be suspicious like that all the time. a lot of the time i'd probably be right about the person, too.
but i guess what i'm saying is we're (mostly) buddies here so when someone complains about this dumb thing or the treatment they got from that person or whatever, i don't look for the agenda behind it. it leads to long arguments where they have plausible deniability (and i'll never know whether i was right about them).
The weirdest choice in the movie Taxi Driver was making both the pimp and prostitute white
NYC back then, finding a white pimp was like finding a charizard in your booster pack when you were a kid
They exist, but that shit is rare
the pimp was expanded into a real role solely for Harvey Keitel
Yes, but the reason I brought it up was that on the one hand, you have a role that generally would be handed to a black man, but was instead made for/given to a white guy. On the other hand, it might be considered racist to slot a black man as a pimp, perpetuating a negative image of black people.
It's one of those situations where someone looking for a fight can take any angle. Look at The Wire, for instance. The drug dealers are all black. There is a reason for that, but some nob's still going to go RACISM! and claim it shines a poor light on black people. Even though the show is practically a documentary of Baltimore.
The Wire is great though because it paints those drug deals as real people you can sympathize with, and also has a bunch of other black characters who are in positive positions and who are also multi-faceted and can be empathized with
if anyone says the Wire is racist that would be p dumb
Is this just the idea that DNA is not the end-all be-all of evolution, but itself a trait which happened to be advantageous? Because I'd agree with that.
no, although that is a good thought!
the idea is that evolution acts either on the genotype or the phenotype
gene-centrists believe that the gene is the unit of selection, whereas the alternate view posits that it is the phenotype that is the unit of selection
What do you think? Seems to me that selection wouldn't be granular enough to act on genes; an expressed trait is going to be the deciding factor, regardless of the genetic precursors.
I would say that everything else, all the epigenetic factors, all the other gene interactions, basically everything else external to the gene itself is part of the gene's environment and is putting selective pressures on it. In which case, you may have selective pressures on the phenotype, but those pressures themselves then put selective pressures on the genes. The genes are central, then, because they are the things that are carrying any information, the selective pressures on them are the only ones that ultimately matter because they're what will be passed on and build the next organism in the generation.
Though, I have to agree with Arch and admit that this is blurred sometimes by epigenetics that manage to carry information.
Winky on
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
the idea is that evolution acts either on the genotype or the phenotype
gene-centrists believe that the gene is the unit of selection, whereas the alternate view posits that it is the phenotype that is the unit of selection
I'm not a biologist, I've only taken high school biology and brushed up on a few things relating to mitosis in the past few years but aren't both those options silly? Evolution tends to act on a chemical level where shit goes "wrong" either accidentally or by pressure of conditions and if it turns out to be a successful mutation, it spreads through the gene pool by survival of the fittest.
Whether that is expressed as a phenotype, a new gene, a deleted gene, lots of deleted genes, activation of previously inactivated shit, promotion, whatever... That part seems irrelevant; it all falls under the same umbrella of evolution.
It is hard for me to describe the central disagreement in simple terms.
So, I'll frame it like this: group selection, though I know this isn't exactly what Arch is getting at.
So, group selectionists think that a trait may evolve into a population of animals because it benefits the survival of the entire population of animals. Say, food sharing. If one of the animals shares his food with all of the rest of them, his particular genetic fitness will go down, but the entire population's fitness will go up. If the group is the unit of selection, then selective forces will cause this trait to appear.
Now, if the gene is the unit of selection, then no matter what a trait won't get selected for unless it enhances the fitness of the gene itself. So a food sharing trait like that would never get selected for just because it increases the fitness of the group. The trait would only get selected for if it benefited the fitness of the gene, because the selective pressure is felt on the gene and not the population.
EDIT:
Or, you could look at other levels, like if the organism is the unit of selection, or if the phenotypic expression of the gene is the unit of selection, etc.
Why would you ever act like only one or the other occurs? It's a silly disagreement. Obviously "fitness" is a complex thing. If an animal is in a social group, the change will need to be a net benefit, and if it is incompatible with sociability (or some other population trait), it'll need to be a big enough advantage to overcome that. I'm sure there have been cases where both have worked. At any rate, I wouldn't want to have to try and prove the negative.
Donkey Kong on
Thousands of hot, local singles are waiting to play at bubbulon.com.
Winky now that we aren't arguing with each other on this, I see we are making slightly dissimilar cases and arguing slightly different points- but this isn't just us.
I am beginning to wonder if the entire dichotomy isn't talking past one another
EDIT: what I mean is, there is a big difference between the arguments on both sides when you look at group evolution versus developmental evolution
I think it's a problem with almost all academic debate :P.
But that's exactly how I feel about the colossal "nature v. nurture problem". There would probably be an acceptable consensus already if it weren't for the false dichotomy polarizing people.
Posts
well like I said, its an arbitrary distinction between one or the other, but I tend to cut toward phenotype based on semantics.
Epigenetic effects such as nutritional input, environmental effects on phenotype, parent's environment, and other factors ultimately shape gene expression, and they often can act in a manner that ignores the genes themselves (i.e. inhibiting proteins that are already in use, blocking them from being produced, and many other ways)
Now, some say that this is all still selection acting on genes, but my counter to that is that this is really a reductionist approach...if you take that argument and extend it, there is nothing but genes. What is a gene? Is it the genetic code? Is it the trait? Is it some intermediate? A mixture of the two?
I think the simultaneous reduction and extension of the gene is a bit counter-intuitive
you're, like, a juggalo on the internet loser shit hierarchy
yup
ahahaha
I'm sorry but this is just
oh my god from you of all people
ok I'm sorry but I actually don't give a shit about this
No.
I tend to think that either situation is extremely possible, and I am certain both occur because I always feel it is silly to limit nature arbitrarily
Bring on the haters, you know I want to be a wrestler here let me find my costume while my dad pets the dog in the background.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Why must you hate your own race? We got to the moon first and we invented Lord of the Rings and we run the entire world and all kinds of other accomplishments.
but I guess it's both!
I am beginning to wonder if the entire dichotomy isn't talking past one another
EDIT: what I mean is, there is a big difference between the arguments on both sides when you look at group evolution versus developmental evolution
did that a week ago
Yes, but the reason I brought it up was that on the one hand, you have a role that generally would be handed to a black man, but was instead made for/given to a white guy. On the other hand, it might be considered racist to slot a black man as a pimp, perpetuating a negative image of black people.
It's one of those situations where someone looking for a fight can take any angle. Look at The Wire, for instance. The drug dealers are all black. There is a reason for that, but some nob's still going to go RACISM! and claim it shines a poor light on black people. Even though the show is practically a documentary of Baltimore.
And if I am considering my school year I probably don't belong in the hospital at all.
Blarrhghgh.
White people are fucking terrible.
Congratulations!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR1hI_Ikuv8&feature=related
I liked True Grit.
But you and I differ strongly when it comes to story telling so maybe
maybe you should see the exorcist thingy
If it makes you feel any better, an American you will never meet is rooting for you!
Congrats!
pleasepaypreacher.net
while i ultimately don't think it is (hence this whole conversation, anyway- until you clarified) i thank you for this post.
i think that for me it ends up at the assumption that we are friends, here, and so i try to presume good faith. i do this in general, too.
an example: one of my peeves is people who like to examine the radical aspects of a community, and from that dismiss everything. i am naturally wary when someone regularly talks about another thing a stupid 'radical feminist' did. i sometimes suspect that this is their glib, defensible way to call all of feminism into question. if i call them out on it, all they have to say is "what... i'm not saying anything about feminism is general. i'm only saying this particular thing is stupid". and i mean, i could be suspicious like that all the time. a lot of the time i'd probably be right about the person, too.
but i guess what i'm saying is we're (mostly) buddies here so when someone complains about this dumb thing or the treatment they got from that person or whatever, i don't look for the agenda behind it. it leads to long arguments where they have plausible deniability (and i'll never know whether i was right about them).
but i do sympathize with your position, here.
Is she as cute as a button?
Congratulations!
The Wire is great though because it paints those drug deals as real people you can sympathize with, and also has a bunch of other black characters who are in positive positions and who are also multi-faceted and can be empathized with
if anyone says the Wire is racist that would be p dumb
later people, no internet in my room
The reason I don't is because a day goes past pretty quickly with that game.
I would say that everything else, all the epigenetic factors, all the other gene interactions, basically everything else external to the gene itself is part of the gene's environment and is putting selective pressures on it. In which case, you may have selective pressures on the phenotype, but those pressures themselves then put selective pressures on the genes. The genes are central, then, because they are the things that are carrying any information, the selective pressures on them are the only ones that ultimately matter because they're what will be passed on and build the next organism in the generation.
Though, I have to agree with Arch and admit that this is blurred sometimes by epigenetics that manage to carry information.
:P
just start the game without me, times likes these where i have nothing to do will be few and far beetween
Why would you ever act like only one or the other occurs? It's a silly disagreement. Obviously "fitness" is a complex thing. If an animal is in a social group, the change will need to be a net benefit, and if it is incompatible with sociability (or some other population trait), it'll need to be a big enough advantage to overcome that. I'm sure there have been cases where both have worked. At any rate, I wouldn't want to have to try and prove the negative.
I think it's a problem with almost all academic debate :P.
But that's exactly how I feel about the colossal "nature v. nurture problem". There would probably be an acceptable consensus already if it weren't for the false dichotomy polarizing people.
but if everybody is ready and you are not, than I'll go ahead