----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Baker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2004 8:15 AM Subject: Re: The Savage Solution
> Dan said: > > > Most data suggests that it is mostly environmental. Indeed, my > > wife knows of no studies that indicate a genetic link. She has not > > worked in the field for about 10 years, so it is possible that > > there has been a recent study we don't know about, but its still > > likely she would have heard. > > Is she aware of any studies that looked for a genetic link and failed to > find one? I know next to nothing about social science, but the > impression I get from Pinker's _The Blank Slate_ is that until recently > almost all studies tried looked for correlations between the home > environment and future behaviour, but this clearly isn't good enough to > find the causes of the behaviour. For example, finding that there is a > correlation between growing up in an abusive home and becoming abusive > tells us absolutely nothing about whether being abused causes future > abuse unless we separate out environmental and genetic effects by > studying identical twins growing up together or apart (or whatever). > > Rich That's a separate question from the one I'm considering: being abused. With women being abused, we can look for likelihood of entering an abusive relationship based separately on the environment and on genetics. If it were genetic, for example, we would see no difference between a child born to an abusive father who was out of the picture before he abused him/her and one who grew up in a home where he/she was regularly abused. To the best of my knowledge, these questions have been asked with null results. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
