What are the best arguments against biological essentialism...

What are the best arguments against biological essentialism? As of right now it seems silly to me that there are people who disagree with it but I've just become aware of that so I want to know their reasons.

Explain what it is. I'm not googling your meme philosophy.

it's racist

It's not a meme. Biological essentialist is a term used to describe people who think that biology plays a fundamental role in shaping an organism's identity, stuff like gender, sexual orientation, personality, etc. They don't disagree that culture influences identity as well but this position says that before culture changes anything biology sets certain limits on the organism. It's basically biology 101 but people called constructivists disagree with that and say that culture plays the only role in that, or something like that. What I'm interested to know is their, or anyone else's, arguments against it.

maybe saying identity here was a bad word. I should have said that biology shapes the organism's nature or something like that

>constructivists
constructionists*

The human brain is a particularly maliable tool this means that it can learn alot more that what is hardwired intocfrom birth. Culture is the learned parrs of your behavior at its most basic. Obviously there are limits placed on humans by biology but there is wide variations of possible paths that a human can take depending upon their learning .

I just don't think we should set state policy based on people's biology.

We set up successful societies that contradict our biology. Biologically determined behavioural tendencies exist in men and women but these were all evolved for a tribal, hunter gatherer lifestyle.

At this point there is not much much place left for them. We can't go back to primitive societies anymore and trying to fulfill the biologically determined male and female roles in a modern society is impossible and would just lead to frustration. Yes, the natural order would be men providing meat via hunt, the tribe arranging monogamous relationships, women being under the guardianship of the tribe in general and the male partner in particular etc. But we can't do this in a modern society.

Our best chance instead is to explore and acknowledge these primal roles and tendencies and deal with the fact individually that we can't completely fulfill them anymore.

Is that a girl(male)?

your position is exactly what is called biological essentialism
you guys are biological essentialists as well. discussing policy questions is a separate topic from what was asked
its lorde, the only good picture of her

reviewbrah?

I don't see anything controversial about this. Plus I'm a hard determinist.

I'm not really seeing any room for an alternative explanation here. Obviously, being a 6'6" 250 pound man is going to give you a different set of sensory inputs than being a 5'6" 120 pound woman. I don't see how it's possible to argue that the distinction between the two is irrelevant in regards to forming an individual identity.

>you guys are biological essentialists as well. discussing policy questions is a separate topic from what was asked

I didn't say I'm not, but I think it's absolutely related. Generally the reason people try to bring up these things in public is because they want policy enacted based on it.

It's like when people bring up IQ based on race. Yes there's evidence there in biologically linking it, but why is it even relevant in discussion unless you want policy enacted that reflects it? It has little purpose outside of that goal, aside from a smug feeling that you're not part of a group you see as lesser, which is a thought process that I disagree with because it's inherently collectivistic.

This is not really philosophical question as much a scietific one. And it seems to be correct but not very enlightening.

>you guys are biological essentialists as well. discussing policy questions is a separate topic from what was asked

Well, there is no arguments to be made against biological differences, it is just a fact.

The only real debate could be about should we care about these roles or not.

she's ugly

I personally think that people who don't agree with it to at least some extent, tend to be the same kind that don't regard humans as a part of the animal kingdom or think that we are somehow intrinsically above the rest. So mostly religious and/or scientifically illiterate people (not including all of said groups of course).

>I don't see anything controversial about this
>I'm not really seeing any room for an alternative explanation here.
>This is not really philosophical question as much a scietific one
>Well, there is no arguments to be made against biological differences, it is just a fact.
You guys basically have the same position I have about it sounding silly to be against it. However, like I said above the constructionists are against it and that viewpoint is the most dominant in sociology/anthropology/linguistics/ethnography as far as I'm aware. Yes if you read the scientific literature on this you get more of a biological essentialist viewpoint but those people don't accept the scientific literature on this for philosophical reasons. I was hoping for their own positions to be made clear in this thread because it seems to be a central but confusing part of much of those fields I mentioned.

>and/or scientifically illiterate people
Is it fair to place people who reject science on philosophical grounds into the category of scientifically illiterate?

societies are living organisms

>Is it fair to place people who reject science on philosophical grounds into the category of scientifically illiterate?
If they do that then they're also philosophically illiterate, since philosophy isn't supposed to contradict science.

Sounds to me like a scientific excuse for beeing a racist

It's almost as if reality is racist and sexist. It's almost like humans are still dimorphic apes with the added twist of males and females being the most focused on neotenous features than the rest of the apes.

>since philosophy isn't supposed to contradict science.
you have that backwards. science isn't supposed to contradict philosophy. science is based on certain philosophical claims so you can argue against those claims without being illiterate

>However, like I said above the constructionists are against it and that viewpoint is the most dominant in sociology/anthropology/linguistics/ethnography as far as I'm aware. Yes if you read the scientific literature on this you get more of a biological essentialist viewpoint but those people don't accept the scientific literature on this for philosophical reasons. I was hoping for their own positions to be made clear in this thread because it seems to be a central but confusing part of much of those fields I mentioned.


Realize that one of the social engineering projects post-WWII was the discounting of any forms of classification that could be taken as "racism". Money was funneled to take education about humans focus on cultural differences, as opposed to innate biological differences. UNESCO gave money to anthropologists and sociologists who published views contrary to those deemed "biologically essentialist" and/or "racist".

If you are a racist, why don't you admit it, instead of hiding behind made-up labels?

two friends take IQ tests, one scores 140, the other 90

>well that's just an excuse to call me dumb!

it is

yes a valid and correct one

?

One problem is that racist already has associations with "lower class" people. At least in the US. The other problem is that people assume that if I take a position that they call "racist", that I'm a complete fucking idiot.

Despite the fact that intelligence requires discrimination, generalization, and the ability to make exceptions.

For example, I'm racist against blacks. I would never live in a black majority area. But I do have black friends and have met black individuals who I respect immensely.

To me, my racism is simple intelligence. To deny general characteristics of groups is anti-intelligence. Because you're dedicated to an idealist vision of the world that gives you no information.

how do you go from performance on a test to a value judgement. all testing shows is that some people are better at testing than others, no value judgement can be drawn from it but the test is used as an excuse to make "scientific" valid judgements

So you're saying that we should stop all tests? That humans aren't equipped with instincts that try to guess the type of person based on a few visual variables?

Let me go back, what do you think the IQ test covers? Someone with better visual imagination does better on mental rotation of 3-d objects (one of the items of the test). Someone with better verbal intelligence will score higher on reading comprehension and the definition of various words.

Life is an IQ test.

>One problem is that racist already has associations with "lower class" people. At least in the US. The other problem is that people assume that if I take a position that they call "racist", that I'm a complete fucking idiot.
Sounds like blacks and "racists" have a lot in common, doesn't it?

>For example, I'm racist against blacks. I would never live in a black majority area. But I do have black friends and have met black individuals who I respect immensely.
I wonder, do your black friends know about your enlightened philosophy

>I wonder, do your black friends know about your enlightened philosophy

Why would it be an issue? They're fucking individuals. I'm friends because we're compatible types of people.

As I said, part of intelligence is the ability to make exceptions. My interaction with them doesn't involve race at all because they're exceptions. I've vetted them, done work with them, yadda yadda. They're far better people than what I've seen most blacks do.

Why do I need to carry a big rock when I can just extract the valuable parts of it?

>So you're saying that we should stop all tests?
I'm saying that those tests are used to justify incorrect value judgements, they are tools of those in power used to assert their values on others
>That humans aren't equipped with instincts that try to guess the type of person based on a few visual variables?
What does this question even mean?
>Let me go back, what do you think the IQ test covers?
It covers how your experience in life, which is determined by the culture of a society, has shaped you as a person. I am a constructionist like op talked about.
>Someone with better visual imagination does better on mental rotation of 3-d objects (one of the items of the test).
It isn't an innate quality of a person that they just have "better visual imagination", they just gained it through the experiences they happened to have in live. So if someone were to perform poorly on that test that doesn't mean they are dumb, it just means random life experiences did not benefit "visual imagination". Same goes for what you said about verbal intelligence.
>Life is an IQ test.
Life is just power games. You are supporting a particular power game by supporting IQ tests as a valid measure of intelligence. It isn't valid, like I said above it's just a way to assert their values on others.

>It isn't an innate quality of a person that they just have "better visual imagination",

Actually it is. It's why there's a single autistic savant who can memorize and recall the entirety of city layouts and translate that to accurate drawings.

It's almost as if he has something that might be genetically variable...

>Life is just power games.

And people with higher IQs figure out the rules of power and the rules of the game faster and come up with better strategies and execute those strategies with more proficiency and speed..

As I said, give me just that variable and I will be more accurate in my forecasting that any other thing about a person, including sex.

you are obviously the type of person to base your judgements on feelings and faith rather than cold hard facts

IQ isn't something you can wholly disregard like this, not anymore

CONT.

Let me give you a sample of ability. I have a friend who sucks at math. Or sucked. Then he went to the military and got a TBI.

Now he sucks at math even more. He can't even solve single variable equations.

If brain damage can affect something like the ability to manipulate symbols ala math, then it's not a long stretch to say that groups of people can have different sorts of development, and differentiation, in their neurology.

My friend can do equations a million times and be utterly unable to remember the process to solve them the next day.

>Actually it is. It's why there's a single autistic savant who can memorize and recall the entirety of city layouts and translate that to accurate drawings.
>It's almost as if he has something that might be genetically variable...
How does pointing to an example of someone being able to do something demonstrate that is is genetically determined? You are just making a baseless assertion. I could just as easily assert that because they are able to do that they just had unique experiences which brought them to that point.
>And people with higher IQs figure out the rules of power and the rules of the game faster and come up with better strategies and execute those strategies with more proficiency and speed.
Again, another baseless assertion. You are just asserting that there are people who have higher IQs innately rather than them having gone though particular life experiences which led them to that point.
>As I said, give me just that variable and I will be more accurate in my forecasting that any other thing about a person, including sex.
What are you trying to say here? It doesn't make any sense.

Funny how you didn't bring any facts to the discussion yet you're trying to argue that I'm doing just that.

>If brain damage can affect something like the ability to manipulate symbols ala math, then it's not a long stretch to say that groups of people can have different sorts of development, and differentiation, in their neurology.
Brain damage impacting certain aspects of an individual doesn't demonstrate that those aspects were innate. Just because the ability to do certain things relies on the brain doesn't mean it is genetically determined, it just means they gained those abilities through life experiences and it changed the brain physically.

In the casino of life, I would make more money on a person with a higher IQ. That's my intellectual bet.

I doubt that Von Neumann, as a child, decided to consciously focus his brain power before doing something like dividing two 8 digit numbers at the age of 8.

He had innate intelligence that would frustrate the attempt of any social constructionist to find "social and cultural" influence.

Explain Von Neumann in a way that makes sense and maybe I'll consider the primacy of social exposure.

CONT.

And honestly, I have to call you willfully dishonest for not seeing a difference between "bright" people and a difference between "dull" people that goes beyond mere social upbringing.

It's something that's apparent to every teacher who sees the same kid outperform the other kids day by day and year by year. People are innately dumber than others and innately smarter than others. If cognition requires brain hardware, then one would assume a mutation of such hardware would cause a difference in their everyday cognition.

>How does pointing to an example of someone being able to do something demonstrate that is is genetically determined? You are just making a baseless assertion. I could just as easily assert that because they are able to do that they just had unique experiences which brought them to that point.
Is making baseless assertions all you're good for?
>It's something that's apparent to every teacher who sees the same kid outperform the other kids day by day and year by year.
Wow, it's almost like life begins well before school starts and people are influenced by different experiences before they become a student.

>Is making baseless assertions all you're good for?

How is any of that baseless? Von Neumann had a photographic memory and a genius that made other geniuses feel inadequate. I sincerely doubt that the majority of his talent came from environmental influences.

>Wow, it's almost like life begins well before school starts and people are influenced by different experiences before they become a student.

So all children can become geniuses with the right training? That's just being willfully stupid about the world. If you agree cognition requires the brain, then you agree that genes coding for brain structure differ amongst populations and thus, cognitive behavior is different amongst population?

Ashkenazis, for example, have a higher average IQ (115) but that isn't a drastic difference. Thing is that the right side outliers become far more numerous for averages that are slid rightward.

Of course as an average, they have below average visuo-spatial skills.

You're just repeating all of the same points I refuted earlier but changing the examples to make it seem like you're saying anything new.
>I sincerely doubt that the majority of his talent came from environmental influences.
That is basically what your position comes down to. You can't offer up something conclusive to reject what I'm saying and you're just doubting it for some reason.

>ou can't offer up something conclusive to reject what I'm saying and you're just doubting it for some reason.

Because you're not explaining to me how social influence is primary, especially when you have the life histories of amazing geniuses which indicate the demonstration of talent even at the age of 18 months.

I asked you to explain Von Neumann using social construction. If genius is molded primarily through social stimuli, then you should be able to explain to me the social constructions that contributed to his photographic memory, his quickness of calculation, and his output.

So, you are saying it makes sense to avoide contact with racists, unless vetting them, since most racists tend to be "lower class" and stupid people

that's the logic yes

experience starts shaping people before birth. large differences in people occur by the time people are 18 months old. it's not like you don't experience many things before then.
> then you should be able to explain to me the social constructions that contributed to his photographic memory, his quickness of calculation, and his output.
no, that isn't what I should be able to do at all. you're conflating two topics. I'll explain this to you by showing another example. when people first discovered that washing your hands before you help give birth to a child prevents many deaths that couldn't be explained at all. germ theory wasn't around yet people knew that some kind of environmental stimulus was causing those deaths. In this case its exactly the same, we know that environmental stimuli are causing "genius" but we can't explain it and people haven't learned which stimuli are the ones responsible yet.

If that's your perception, sure. But what are you going to do with a smart person who has valid arguments for racism?

Oh wait, "valid" doesn't exist because all forms of racism must necessarily be based on an emotional basis...HA HA HA

Back when I was homeless in skid row, you better fucking believe I tried avoiding black people. Was I being irrationally racist?

When I say that I will never move to an area with majority blacks, I meant it out of experience.

Tell me how awful and evil I am.

> when people first discovered that washing your hands before you help give birth to a child prevents many deaths that couldn't be explained at all. germ theory wasn't around yet people knew that some kind of environmental stimulus was causing those deaths.

Ah but now you're getting to the realm of neurological development. Because if you want to blame environmental stimuli, then you need to go back to in utero development because the mom's body forms the baby.

>In this case its exactly the same, we know that environmental stimuli are causing "genius"

How do you know IF you can't even point out a stimuli in the first place? How do you KNOW?

Why do smart people have smart children? Lucky environmental stimuli or genetic coding affecting the development of the brain.

CONT.

Hell, explain Down's Syndrome as a result of "environmental stimuli". I really want to see your mental and verbal acrobatics.

Your argument is biological essentialism, right? So racists are racists because their are biologically predisposed to racism.
That means that your arguments aren't actually logically sound, you are just trying to use your brain to rationalize your biologically determined racism

No. I don't know how you could misread what I wrote with such baffling inaccuracy.

>Your argument is biological essentialism, right?

My argument is that genes play a bigger role than social construction and its something obvious to most people, especially in a society where most couples practice a form of assortative mating. Similar IQ, similar socioeconomic status, etc.

I'm racist from experience. I used to be a filthy communist who thought all people had equal abilities. Then I became homeless and realized that the stereotypes, which I made fun of, were a lot more accurate than the "dindu nothings" of people unable to accept the fundamental unfairness of reality.

>My argument is that genes play a bigger role than social construction
>I'm racist from experience
How do you know its your experience and not your genes making you racist?

Well duh. You're merely describing it. Try to deconstruct it.

>hurr we must reject these HATEFACTS

You leftists pride yourselves in your commitment to science but you scurry away like rats when it goes against your false doctrines.

The fact that I was a communist who believed in equality of races, in a multicultural metropolis (Los Angeles), and then had an experience, of being homeless for 2 years, that changed my mind?

I'd invite you to spend a week or two in Skid Row. But of course you won't because it's much safer to call people racist than it is to live in a majority black area.

no offense, but if you are/were
>communist
>racist
>homeless
i fail to see how you are any better than the average black

CONT.

Not to mention you haven't explained Down's Syndrome. That's a, relatively, common disorder that has an etiology in mismatched genes and affects cognition and intellectual ability.

Are you going to tell the parents "Nah, your kids wouldn't be Downies if they were merely brought up in the right social circumstances"?

Blacks have a problem with empathy, telling the fucking truth, and maintaining stable hierarchies that no other race does. They're also more impulsive and violent. And then they have the audacity to yell about oppression while stealing some other poor bum's knapsack.

"racist and homeless" describes the rest of the homeless people. You think homeless asians camped near homeless blacks? Ha ha ha..

CONT.

But note, I'm still friends with a number of blacks. Because I'm smart enough to make exceptions. My friends don't threaten my survival. A group of strangers can easily threaten my survival in the wrong street, especially if they're black.

Observation, discrimination, generalization, and the ability to make exceptions. That's a lot of intelligence right there. Why would you endanger yourself by excusing criminality when you can always make exceptions for trustworthy people?

What a weird fucking thread, Essentialism is a complex philosophical topic that argues that things have a particular essence.

Biological Essentialism isn't some phrase that simply means people who favour the "nature" in the never ending "nature vs nurture" argument in terms of people's behaviour. It's more commonly used for religious people who think species have a particular essence and therefore can't change i.e. people who think evolution isn't true.

The number of people who disagree with it is so small that I'm not even sure why you though it worth posting about. You might as well make a post asking why some people think Earth is flat.

it is a commonly held belief in the social sciences

Many people disagree with the extent to which biology determines things, almost no-one disagrees that it does. Obviously a 6'5" guy is more likely to play basketball well than a 5'5" guy.

you're just asserting again that no one disagrees with it, but as I said its common in the social sciences

Would you say that it's common for social scientists to believe that being taller doesn't make you more likely to be good at basketball?

that kind of thing is unrelated to what biological essentialism is about. physical traits impacting performance on physical activities isn't something people debate

its the old nature vs nurture, chicken vs egg bullshit

every thing is conditioned and contingent, everything, all organisms are biologicaly conditioned and limited and set, all organisms get further conditioned and modified trough the process of living in conditions and enviroments, going trough situations and experiences, all culture is basicaly a organic output, humans generate culture just like slugs generate slug shells or ants build a anthill, the culture one lives in basicaly produces the whole individual, with the enviromental factors allready counted into that, since they dictate the cultural basis, and human biological defaults being the raw material, but the result is still so heavily dependant on the qualities and characteristics of the raw material it can all be seen as part of the same process, and culture being a organic output means it too is a product of the process, and phenotipes being the epigenetic result of living experience as provided and programmed by the culture means the raw material is also a premutating product of the process, so its all a constant reinforcing feedback loop selfgenerating dialectic whatnot sort of thing, a single process, allencompassing

or rather, lets say, is the high rate of largescale fire risk that troubled old wood urban architecture, a function of the qualities of wood as a building material or of the culture that produced such architecture, of the availability of wood in the enviroment, or of peoples habits and discipline involving the use of wood and wax as fuel?

one could make the point that wood burns till tomorow but that wouldnt realy be meaningfull, or say that people were stupid for building wooden buildings so close on top of each other and sorrounding them by walls, like they were purposefully making a firetrap, but then one is forgetting they had real reasons to pack themselves like sardines behind tall thick walls and keep loads of artilery and huge wats of oil handy, and so on

all these arguments are absurd, its allways one way or another to push some implicit ideological bullshit, thats why its important to focus on one particular factors above others, cause if its x then z if its y then a, its all crap, it does not assume a totality of things, and it does not attempt to grasp how fucked up this totality is, to the point whatever shitty ideal or identification prompts them to take up the ideological stance they are actualy defending it itself cannot even into correlation with reality, they might as well be childrens notions, they often are

That's such a weak way of thinking though and so on the "down-low". Own up to your racism you dumb faggot.

How is it a weak? Are you going to drag another brother down to your niggerhood?

You, as a community that isn't really a community, need to own up to the disproportionate amount of crimes. Including murder and rape. Instead you waste your time trying to school someone on Veeky Forums for being racist.

Not to mention that in actual verbal arguments, you sound like fucking weak women. Your pride is dotted with a million sensitive spot and you react with animalike violence when someone happens to touch any number of subjects that are tangential to your status in society.

CONT.

So as I was saying, sweetie pie, you can't ignore the elevated levels of criminality amongst your kind. And instead of owning it and pursuing strategies that actually recognize the mental and emotional difficulties of your race, you blame white people. So white people is why you waste your fucking life buying ridiculous looking shit only to end up dying shitting yourself because of a combo of Diabetes and obesity.

Jesus fucking christ if only you were all one cheek I could slap the shit out of.