Nature or Nurture in you opinion?

[Ripster42]

We don’t eat together because we are hungry...

It's a time of reduced guard, which is mitigated by more eyes on the environment. A behavior that can be selected for (and likely was). Specific behaviors can absolutely be genetic, and it's not unlikely that group eating is one of those behaviors. Ditto religion. Religious authority, and the susceptibility of a population to that authority is also a behavior that can be selected for. As there are marked changes that occur in the brain during "religious experiences", it's very likely that it's also a genetic trait.

[Shadowferal]

From our own narrow perspectives as a human race that can't conceive of things beyond our imaginations, nurture probably plays a larger role. But from the perspective of an alien race observing us that IS privy to such things? We'll always have human limitations and predictabilities, in which case nature would appear to play a much larger role. Someone mentioned saying grace before dinner vs. just eating because you're hungry. But what about blorghisturation? They do it before consuming on planet Zognar, but we don't do it here. In fact, due to our lack of the sense of Smission we couldn't even conceive of such a thing!

What I'm getting at is that on a grander scale, our behavioral differences are probably much less extreme than we think they are. It'd be like watching an ant colony and seeing one ant acting slightly weirder than the others, but at the end of the day they're all constrained to being ants and will behave within those same limitations. We're only human after all.

Love the imaginitive perspective...the imagination is of the four currently known ways of gleaning truly new information. (Or so that I'm aware of)

[Forogil]

I couldn't care less what some random puritanical types on a forum say. They have no authoritative say over use of English or how logic functions. It's just pearl-clutching tone policing.

You don't understand what they are saying, and instead you are pearl-clutching about "tone-police":
The problem isn't that swearing is inappropriate in itself, but that using swear word is a clear sign that you don't have any real argument.

Similarly you don't understand that wikipedia's article indicate that nature and nurture both play an important part, and they are intertwined in complicated ways - and also that it shows your 98% nurture argument to completely miss the point (and be wrong).

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It's a time of reduced guard, which is mitigated by more eyes on the environment. A behavior that can be selected for (and likely was). Specific behaviors can absolutely be genetic, and it's not unlikely that group eating is one of those behaviors. Ditto religion. Religious authority, and the susceptibility of a population to that authority is also a behavior that can be selected for. As there are marked changes that occur in the brain during "religious experiences", it's very likely that it's also a genetic trait.

True, and studies show that religiosity is medium hereditable, but the actual religion is much less hereditable (in terms of genes; obviously people often get their parents religion through upbringing - especially if the parents are more religious; showing the usual mixing of the two).

[crewskater]

Not really though because genes only determine the least meaningful things about a person. A person's ideas and actions are the most important variables and they are not fixed to a person's genes. Genes act as an initial guide but humans are the only species capable of resisting and improving on their genetic programming.

You can't force a boy to act like a girl and vice versa. There have been studies done on this that show people are pre-disposed to certain traits. Of course there is gender dimorphism which is another forbidden topic. Haven't they separated twins at birth and compared them later on to find they are pretty similar despite different upbringings?

Are you familiar with Sam Harris and the idea that free will is an illusion? There's not much you can do if you're born a psychopath or have any other mental illness/disorder.

[BdayChick]

Today is my birthday..I saw this site by way of horoscopes/predictions for the date 01/20/21
Saw the header from someone named "gaymer" stating they are afraid because of what a animated tv show said??!!
Wtf ?!! Are you serious?
Is this what Our Future is to be like? Scared wussy followers..or sheep.. who believe whatever is told to us?! C'mon buck up buckaroo...pull those panties up&take control of what is right and stand strong. Be afraid of spiders...but Not Of Life!!
Thanks

[Endus]

You don't understand what they are saying, and instead you are pearl-clutching about "tone-police":
The problem isn't that swearing is inappropriate in itself, but that using swear word is a clear sign that you don't have any real argument.

Which is irrational nonsense. I have no idea where you got this lunatic idea, but it has no bearing on reality. It's just puritanical nonsense, like the idea that a girl wearing a skirt showing off her ankles must be a wanton temptress. It's that level of prudish ridiculousness.

[PC2]

You can't force a boy to act like a girl and vice versa. There have been studies done on this that show people are pre-disposed to certain traits. Of course there is gender dimorphism which is another forbidden topic. Haven't they separated twins at birth and compared them later on to find they are pretty similar despite different upbringings?

Are you familiar with Sam Harris and the idea that free will is an illusion?

Yeah I'm a big Sam Harris fan but I disagree with his position which says that the self and free will is an illusion. Boys and girls can use their creativity to foster new behaviors and values which makes them act more like their counterpart. Most people just stick with their genetic pre-dispositions and that's fine, it doesn't really matter either way.

There's not much you can do if you're born a psychopath or have any other mental illness/disorder.

Psychopathy can be cured though. A psychopath can't necessarily reason themselves out of psychopathy by themselves but the fact that it can be cured means that it's not a fundamental part of their nature.

[Forogil]

Which is irrational nonsense. I have no idea where you got this lunatic idea, but it has no bearing on reality. It's just puritanical nonsense, like the idea that a girl wearing a skirt showing off her ankles must be a wanton temptress. It's that level of prudish ridiculousness.

Your irrelevant drivel, after I linked supporting evidence for the statement, only demonstrate that you are unable to participate in a civilized discussion when your arguments are utterly demolished.

You might huff and puff to try to seem important, but there's nothing there.

As for the actual topic. Both variations in nature and nurture are important for explaining variations in humans (and similarly in many other species) - as studies have shown - and in many cases there are complicated interactions so it's not just nurture adding to nature.

[Endus]

Your irrelevant drivel, after I linked supporting evidence for the statement, only demonstrate that you are unable to participate in a civilized discussion when your arguments are utterly demolished.

That wasn't "evidence", that was just some random person who shared your puritanical crusade.

The idea that using swear words has any effect on the strength of an argument is patent nonsense. It's like arguing that anyone wearing too short a skirt should be considered immoral. Exactly the same sense of puritanical nonsense.

[Katchii]

Which is irrational nonsense. I have no idea where you got this lunatic idea, but it has no bearing on reality. It's just puritanical nonsense, like the idea that a girl wearing a skirt showing off her ankles must be a wanton temptress. It's that level of prudish ridiculousness.

You seem to be under the assumption that every human being functions entirely rationally and never does or thinks anything irrational and is fully accepting of and tolerant of the use of curse words in these settings and are therefore unaffected when people say them. This is simply not accurate.

I don't disagree with your stance. However, in a situation where people are arguing or having a discussion where logic is necessary to make a conclusion, if one side is cursing excessively it almost always distracts from what they're trying to say, because the people listening are having to work around the curse words, and listen to the argument itself rather than trying to overcome their reaction, not to mention that most of the time when a person is cursing like that it means they're already heated and the focus on the listener isn't on the argument anymore, it's on trying to calm the other person down or otherwise deal with them.

Trying to argue that curse words have no impact on the ability for the person using them to get their point across, be heard, or understood is just not accurate. I agree that they don't fundamentally change what's being said, but that's not the issue. The issue is how the argument is received. And in many cases, especially in stereotypically "professional" settings, they are not received well.

[Endus]

You seem to be under the assumption that every human being functions entirely rationally and never does or thinks anything irrational and is fully accepting of and tolerant of the use of curse words in these settings and are therefore unaffected when people say them. This is simply not accurate.

I don't disagree with your stance. However, in a situation where people are arguing or having a discussion where logic is necessary to make a conclusion, if one side is cursing excessively it almost always distracts from what they're trying to say, because the people listening are having to work around the curse words, and listen to the argument itself rather than trying to overcome their reaction, not to mention that most of the time when a person is cursing like that it means they're already heated and the focus on the listener isn't on the argument anymore, it's on trying to calm the other person down or otherwise deal with them.

Trying to argue that curse words have no impact on the ability for the person using them to get their point across, be heard, or understood is just not accurate. I agree that they don't fundamentally change what's being said, but that's not the issue. The issue is how the argument is received. And in many cases, especially in stereotypically "professional" settings, they are not received well.

I wasn't saying that curse words don't affect how someone feels about an argument. Language is often intended to elicit an emotional response, and strong language particularly so.

The argument I was attacking was the idea that inclusion of strong language weakens the argument, in terms of its logic and validity. That's what's complete nonsense.

I'm also pretty opposed to the idea that curse words should be somehow forbidden; that's an emergence from puritanical movements, and doesn't reflect historical attitudes towards such language. Fan-waving hyperventilation because someone cussed in your presence was ridiculous in the 19th century, and it hasn't aged well from that point on.

Plus, there's an increasing amount of research indicating that swearing has a lot of benefits (and basically no research showing the reverse, I'll note).

https://www.nbcnews.com/better/healt...lth-ncna843776
https://www.discovermagazine.com/hea...e-good-for-you
https://time.com/5115683/swearing-is...ou-emma-byrne/
https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/swe...o-science.html

[Katchii]

I wasn't saying that curse words don't affect how someone feels about an argument. Language is often intended to elicit an emotional response, and strong language particularly so.

Fair enough, and I agree. But in a situation where the topic and/or objective is logic and reason, what place does emotions or an emotional response have?

The argument I was attacking was the idea that inclusion of strong language weakens the argument, in terms of its logic and validity. That's what's complete nonsense.

This is both true and false. There are two sides to every argument; the giver and the receiver. While the inclusion of strong language doesn't weaken the argument being given, it can weaken how the argument is received, which is the most important part of the argument. If the purpose of the argument is to convince someone that your point of view has merit, is true, etc... and your use of curse words weakens your ability for that to happen, then your argument is objectively weakened because of your use of curse words.

I'm also pretty opposed to the idea that curse words should be somehow forbidden; that's an emergence from puritanical movements, and doesn't reflect historical attitudes towards such language. Fan-waving hyperventilation because someone cussed in your presence was ridiculous in the 19th century, and it hasn't aged well from that point on.

I don't disagree with you here, but that's simply not the world we live in. It is still very much a social norm to refrain from cursing in formal and professional settings.

[Shadowferal]

Hmf...if someone is using "fuck" every third word in a sentence I'm likely to tune him out...unless I can hear the frustration or anger or what emotion driving the person. Then as the more reasonable, or perhaps better to say, the one more capable of reasoning, I'll take a step back to "feel" what's driving the emotion. (To connect this to the thread; those that knew my parents as well as where I grew up wonder where I came from)

[Forogil]

I wasn't saying that curse words don't affect how someone feels about an argument. Language is often intended to elicit an emotional response, and strong language particularly so.

The argument I was attacking was the idea that inclusion of strong language weakens the argument, in terms of its logic and validity. That's what's complete nonsense.

And, as usual, you are attacking a straw-man of your own imagination.

The point is that you used swearing instead of arguments and everyone can see that; and now you are upset that it failed to give any real response, and focusing on a tangential point about swearing as you have nothing to contribute to the actual point.

And the actual point is that both variations in nature and nurture are important for explaining variations in humans (and similarly in many other species) - as studies have shown - and in many cases there are complicated interactions so it's not just nurture adding to nature.