William_the_Bloody

Human Nature Part 2: Babies.

Babies are the ultimate blank slate, so naturally analyzing their behavior for signs of altruism, should give us some insight into human nature, here is what I found.

The results are mixed:

There were a few studies that seem to back Freud's age old theory on the human id, in that although babies possess a moral virtue of right and wrong, empathy and compassion, they are ultimately self centered breaking the world into an us and them camp.

(Psychology Professor) We're born with this extraordinary moral sense. A sense of right and wrong just comes naturally to humans and shows up in the youngest babies we can study. But this morality is limited. I think tragically limited. So we are morally attuned to those around us, to our kin, to our friends, to those we interact with, and we are utterly cold-blooded toward strangers. To some extent I think babies are natural-born bigots. They are strongly attuned to break the world into Us versus Them and have no moral feelings at all toward the Them

Are babies moral beings? Researcher explores the nature of tot-sized good and evil | CTV News

There have been however numerous studies that have attempted to show that babies have innate sense of good, through experiments with puppet show.

Ingenious experiments carried out at Yale University in the US used these measures to look at babies' minds. Their results suggest that even the youngest humans have a sense of right and wrong, and, furthermore, an instinct to prefer good over evil.After the "puppet" show "shapes", infants were given the choice of reaching for either the helping or the hindering shape, and it turned out they were much more likely to reach for the helper

If the climber moved towards the hinderer the infants looked significantly longer than if the climber moved towards the helper. This makes sense if the infants were surprised when the climber approached the hinderer. Moving towards the helper shape would be the happy ending, and obviously it was what the infant expected. If the climber moved towards the hinderer it was a surprise.

BBC - Future - Are we naturally good or bad?

There have been a few of these test studies that have concluded that babies have innate sense of moral goodness, but they have come under scrutiny.

An experiment five years ago suggested that babies are equipped with an innate moral compass, which drives them to choose good individuals over the bad in a wooden puppet show. But new research casts doubt on those findings, demonstrating that a baby's apparent preference for what's right might just reflect a fondness for bouncy things

but as the same article points out, the other scientists are pushing back

Even if flaws did exist in their study, Hamlin and her colleagues point to various independent studies, one of which uses a similar setup without the "bouncing" of the climber, that support the "babies have a moral compass" theory. The researchers go on to note they have replicated their findings, that infants prefer prosocial others, in a range of social scenarios that don't include climbing, colliding or bouncing. Hamlin's other studies have shown babies are good judges of character

After coming across a few articles casting doubts on the findings, there seems to be a debate raging right now on the validity of these experiments to be able to separate any environmental or human influence from their conclusions. So it appears this will not be resolved into sometime into the distant future.

Nevertheless, there were some studies showing that babies to have an inborn sense of altruism

When infants 18 months old see an unrelated adult whose hands are full and who needs assistance opening a door or picking up a dropped clothespin, they will immediately help, Michael Tomasello writes in “Why We Cooperate,” a book published in October. Dr. Tomasello, a developmental psychologist, is co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany


The helping behavior seems to be innate because it appears so early and before many parents start teaching children the rules of polite behavior.

It does however still seems difficult to be able to separate any environmental influences in these studies.

“It’s probably safe to assume that they haven’t been explicitly and directly taught to do this,” said Elizabeth Spelke, a developmental psychologist at Harvard. “On the other hand, they’ve had lots of opportunities to experience acts of helping by others. I think the jury is out on the innateness question.”

Conclusion:

Upon researching my first two topics , I'm coming to the conclusion that Frownland is probably right in that I won't get a definite answer on human nature.

What I am however noticing so far, is that the general outlook on human nature appears to be much more promising than what was previously thought.

It may be just a product of out time, in that the western world is largely dominated by a liberal media that reports on what it want to hear, but it would appear that we have at least moved on from that dark period in time in history, from say the late 19th century to the 1960's, that viewed human nature as innately self centered.

Here's some of the links:

BBC - Future - Are we naturally good or bad?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...443013/?no-ist

Are babies moral beings? Researcher explores the nature of tot-sized good and evil | CTV News

Babies: Born to be Good? - The Nature of Things: Science, Wildlife and Technology - CBC-TV

Do Babies Have a Moral Compass? Debate Heats Up

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/sc...uman.html?_r=0

Are Babies Born Selfish? - Parents.com

Children are NOT born nice, researchers claim | Daily Mail Online

Are Babies Born Selfish? - Parents.com

Babies are born good 'but habits of modern life makes them selfish' | Daily Mail Online

Babies are born good 'but habits of modern life makes them selfish' | Daily Mail Online

'Negative Parenting' Starts Aggressive Personalities Early | Childhood Aggression, Parenting Styles & Early Infancy

Scientists Discover Through Studying Toddlers That Humans Are Inherently Altruistic, Not Selfish

at Scientists Discover Through Studying Toddlers That Humans Are Inherently Altruistic, Not Selfish

grindy

I really enjoy reading your journal, but there's one thing that hampers the enjoyment:
Your eclectic usage of font sizes and the copious bolding and italics. I get that you try to structure the text this way, but less would really be more here. It's hard on the eyes (especially the small font size) and brain.
Still looking forward to your next entry, no matter whether you choose to follow my advice or not.

__________________
A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.

William_the_Bloody

Well I'll try to make it less boldy. I just figure that not many people are going to want to read long paragraphs, so I highlight the main points to sum things up.

SuperSymmetry

Very interesting journal, Will. I'll be sure to keep up with it.

William_the_Bloody

Human Nature: Part 3 Genetics and Instincts

One way to determine whether humanity is predisposed to be generally good or evil (selfish or altruistic) is to look at scientific studies that have sought for a genetic link to our behavior.

One such recent study looked at the initial instincts of how human would respond to specific situations under pressure in regards to being selfish or co-operative, and discovered...

"The results were striking: in every single study, faster—that is, more intuitive—decisions were associated with higher levels of cooperation....These results suggest that our first impulse is to cooperate"

but before you get your hopes up, the same study noted that the more time people had to think about things the more selfish they became.

How cooperative you are may depend on how quick you are to respond to a proposition, a new study finds. In a computerized game that involves contributing money to a common pool, people who took longer to think over their options were more likely to be selfish.

Mulling Over a Decision Makes People More Selfish, Study Suggests | Science | AAAS

Scientists Probe Human Nature--and Discover We Are Good, After All - Scientific American

It would sadly appear that our ability to rationalize increases are chances to want to hoard the pot of gold to ourselves, but it is not all bad, another scientific study using computerized models found that co-operative populations tend to fare better than selfish ones, and that even selfish individuals would have to learn to be somewhat co-operative if they wished to survive.

Evolution doesn't favour the mean or selfish - Technology & Science - CBC News

There are also all sorts of anthropological studies revealing that primitive tribal groups, cherish altruistic and co-operative behavior, and frown upon displays of selfishness, there is even a scientific study that raises the possibility of gene that contributes to our inclination to be naturally altruistic....

The researchers discovered that people with either of two of the variations of the COMT gene (called the Val/Val and Val/Met variations) donated twice as much money to the charity as people with the other variation (called Met/Met), regardless of their gender. In fact, more than 20 percent of the people with the altruistic variations donated all of their money.

to top that off, yet another study found that our brain activity fires neurons that allow us to experience pleasure when we help someone...

participants were given the chance to help someone else while their brain activity was recorded. Helping others triggered activity in the caudate nucleus and anterior cingulate, portions of the brain that turn on when people receive rewards or experience pleasure. This is a rather remarkable finding: helping others brings the same pleasure we get from the gratification of personal desire.

The Compassionate Instinct | Greater Good

Is Human Nature Fundamentally Selfish or Altruistic? | TIME.com

Is There an Altruism Gene? | Greater Good

so then why are we such bastards???

well in addition to becoming more selfish when we begin to rationalize things in out favour, it would appear that genetic variation is answer.

Just as some people may have a gene that predisposes them to be more altruistic, others may have genetics that predispose them to be more selfish...

a study, published in Brain and Cognition Journal, in which they scanned the brains of people who scored high in Machiavellianism while playing a basic trust game. The researchers found that when a person possessing a high Machiavellian score encountered a person who exhibited signs of fairness, their brains went into overdrive....the increase in brain activity happens because Machiavellians are imagining ways of exploiting the situation for their own benefit.

and it would appear that our ability to be mean is inherently genetic as well...

Like all genetically based behaviours, meanness in any of its manifestations is the product of multiple genes working together to encourage the phenotype personality traits. And because scads of mean DNA snips are floating around in the gene pool, most people would inherit some portion of the encoded malice. ...You’ve got to think it has an evolutionary basis and that it paid off in reproductive success at some point,” Paulhus says. “Some individuals had more opportunities for reproduction because they were aggressive and cruel.”

and although this study fails to identify specific genes, another study seems to have found a direct link between ruthless behavior and our genetics, explaining why humanities history as been riddled with monstorous dictators.

Researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem found a link between a gene called AVPR1a and ruthless behaviour in an economic exercise called the 'Dictator Game'.

as well as a gene that makes people predisposed towards rage and high levels of violence...

Scientists believe they’ve identified the genes responsible for high levels of rage and violence – does that make some men evil from birth?

Conclusion:

Once again, our evolution seems to be a mixed bag of imperfection, for all the genetic and anthropological evidence that shows us to be co-operative and altruistic, it appears we have the equal ability to be predisposed to selfishness and cruelty....particularly with the genetic code of certain individuals.

Makes me think of the old saying "it just takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch" the question I have is, are these people generally rewarded in life for their ruthlessness?

Next up, personalities and financial success.

'Ruthlessness gene' discovered : Nature News
Meanness, alas, is in our genes | Toronto Star
Science Reveals Why Some People are Selfish Jerks

William_the_Bloody

Thank you, didn't think anyone was reading this to be honest, I'm doing it for my own political exploration, but feel free to follow along.

William_the_Bloody

Human Nature Part 4: Physical Inequality

So upon review, genetically we seem to be a mix bag of good and bad, as tribal societies have shown though, we definitely have the ability to function as a communal society, which could be our ancient precursor to a welfare state?

Are we however equal?

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if two guys are stranded on a island indefinitely, with one hot blonde, that there is going to be some form of mating competition at some point, and that the guy who is 6'5 and 250lbs is going to have physical advantage over the other guy who is 5'8 and 160lbs.
(assuming they're not up for sharing)

This of course is an extremely hypothetical scenario, so the question is, does physical inequality play a factor in the real world? The answer is that it very much looks that way.

There have been various scientific studies debating the existence of a human alpha male, and although there is a large shadow of doubt looming over the scientific community on this topic, there are various features that appear to contribute to male success and dominance, and one of these is height.

Several studies on male height have been tied to the income one earns.

There have been a few in particular that have looked at the top CEO's of countries and have found that they all tend to be on average 6'0 or taller, a couple of inches above the average male height

I polled about half of the companies on the Fortune 500 list–the largest corporations in the United States...that on average CEOs were just a shade under six feet. Given that the average American male is 5’9″ that means that CEOs, as a group, have about three inches on the rest of their sex...In the U.S. population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or over. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent. Even more strikingly, in the general American population, 3.9 percent of adult men are 6’2″ or taller. Among my CEO sample, 30 percent were 6’2″ or taller.


Given that the average American male is 5'9″ that means that CEOs, as a group, have about three inches on the rest of their sex. But this statistic actually understates matters. In the U.S. population, about 14.5 percent of all men are six feet or over. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58 percent.

Why Do We Love Tall Men?

Different social groups can show different mean height. According to a study in France, executives and professionals are 2.6 cm (1 in) taller, and university students are 2.55 cm (1 in) taller[57] than the national average

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_...ound_the_world

Another study found that height in general effects how much a male earns on average.

The latest study, in Australia, found that being 6-foot tall brings raises annual income nearly $1,000 compared to men two inches shorter.

Our estimates suggest that if the average man of about 178 centimeters [5 feet 10 inches] gains an additional five centimeters [2 inches] in height, he would be able to earn an extra $950 per year - which is approximately equal to the wage gain from one extra year of labor market experience," said study co-author Andrew Leigh, an economist at the Australian National University.
Other studies in the United States and Britain put the extra earnings at nearly that much per inch.

"The truth is, tall people do make more money. They make $789 more per inch per year," says Arianne Cohen, author of "The Tall Book" (Bloomsbury USA, June, 2009).

it is however not just height that contributes to financial success, but good looks as well.

The age-old phrase "beauty is only skin deep" may not hold true in terms of your wages—and other benefits for your wallet. A number of studies examining the relationship between beauty and money show that more attractive people not only earn higher incomes, they also work more productively and profitably for their companies, obtain more loan approvals, and negotiate loans with better terms than their less-attractive counterparts.

Why It Pays to Be Attractive - US News

which imply that more attractive people are, on average, wealthier and have higher-paying jobs (if your company buys you a F/B class ticket when you travel for work, chances are you have a high-paying job) than less attractive people. This happens to be a well-known fact that has been reported by dozens of studies done by economists and psychologists. Many of these studies are summarized and discussed in the 2011 book Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, written by Daniel Hamermesh, an economist at the University of Texas in Austin.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...ore-successful

Want to Be CEO? Stand Tall. - At Work - WSJ


Quick edit (this one was somewhat rushed) a study as shown, the the issue of attractiveness seems to be cross cultural...

Charles Feng, a human biologist at Stanford University wrote in an article in the [external link] Journal of Young Investigators, that the explanation for humans' preference for physically attractive people is symmetry...This study was replicated in other cultures in Asia and South America with the same results. Feng goes to argue, based on research, that in our society, attractive people tend to be more intelligent, better adjusted, more popular and have more occupational success.

On height

The average height of CEOs of large corporations in North America is 6'2". Nowhere is the correlation between height and career success been more striking than in politics, particularly the U.S. Presidency. Of the 43 American presidents, only five have been below average height, with the last (Benjamin Harrison) in 1888. Most presidents have been above average height

https://www.success.bz/articles/2536...and_attractive

So there you have it, if your tall and good looking, you have a competitive advantage in life. Thankfully yours truly falls into this category, but I'm far from rich, and some of my best friends that stand well above 6'4 aren't doing to savy in the career department, and I know a lot of short wealthy people who have more money than I will ever see.

So there are obvious many factors that go into ones success in life, much of which is driven by environmental factors, however...

It would appear physical inequality gives some men & women, a heightened advantage over others. (Don't shoot the messenger)

William_the_Bloody

Lol, I would sure hope so, I suppose that the above is a fairly male centric viewpoint, but studies have shown that women consistently have a preference for taller men, though of course there are many other important qualities that take precedence over this.

I shall eventually be taking a look at mating, gender & gender equality, as well as the past and future potential of a matriarchal society, but next up is human intelligence.

William_the_Bloody

Human Intelligence: Are some people smarter than others?

Despite time constraints I will try not to be intellectually lazy with this one, as it is probably one of the most important subjects I will cover in my journal. Despite this, I only have free access to scholarly article if I drive to the University I graduated from, so I will largely be relying on articles that cite scientific studies.

It is quite apparent that physical inequality exists, it is visually noticeable, we can see it before our eyes, but because we still know so little about the human brain, the scientific evidence to support intellectual inequality, at least on a significant level, is less clear. So I'll attempt to answer three major questions...

1) Does genetic differentiation lead to notable differences in individual intelligence?
2) Is there a scientific reliable way to measure intelligence? (Ie; IQ testing)
3) Does intelligence lead to inevitable income inequality? (ie ; a correlation with IQ and income)

Human Intelligence Part 1

1) Does genetic differentiation lead to notable differences in individual intelligence?

There is strong irrefutable evidence that our intelligence is in part biologically determined. First we know that some humans are born with intellectual disabilities, (retarded; a term still used in the US) while others are seemingly born gifted (genius) with the ability to solve complex equations within a very quick timeframe.

We also know that this seems to be a hereditary in that a child who is born a genius, or retarted, or bright, but with some sort of learning disability, will often have a brother or sister who displays the same features or challenges in their life.

Some of the strongest evidence used to prove that intelligence is hereditary, and therefore not solely environmental has come from the studying identical twins that have grown up in different households, as the article below points out...

Most twins are raised together by the same parent(s) and in the same home, and so they share similar environments as well as similar genes. Yet even when twins are raised separately (perhaps because they have been adopted and raised by different parents), they typically have similar IQ scores (Bouchard & McGue, 1981; N. Brody, 1992; Mackintosh, 1998; Plomin & Petrill, 1997). In a review of many twin studies, Bouchard and McGue (1981) found these average (median) correlations:

Correlations of Twins’ IQs:
Identical twins raised in the same home .86
Identical twins raised in different homes .72

These are pretty high correlations, and the same reigns true for adoptive children whose IQ's more closely resembled their hereditary parents that their adoptive parents.

Another way to separate the effects of heredity and environment is to compare adopted children with both their biological and adoptive parents. Adopted children tend to be similar to their biological parents in genetic makeup. Their environment, of course, more closely matches that of their adoptive parents. Researchers have found that adopted children’s IQ scores are more highly correlated with their biological parents’ IQs than with their adoptive parents’

Still the .72 correlation would suggest that environment still plays a role, and there is the bigger problem of the IQ tests themselves, and their ability to reliably be able to accurately define and measure intelligence, so I will try to leave this aside for now (though it appears to be next to impossible) when examining the evidence of the brain itself. Just what has science found?

At least since the mid nineteenth century, scientists have been trying to find a link between brain size and intelligence, which would lead to scientists theorizing that intelligence is linked to brain size in comparison to a creatures body mass, which gives humans a steep edge over other animals in their taxonomy, and a recent study seems to back this hypothesis up...

A research team led by University of Wyoming's Sarah Benson-Amram found that carnivore species with relatively larger brains that are proportionate to their body size are better at completing problem-solving tasks. The team chose 140 animals from 39 different mammalian carnivore species and presented them with a new problem-solving task.

The animals involved in the study included arctic foxes, polar bears, tigers, spotted hyenas and wolves, among others. The team presented each animal with a metal box containing their favorite food. They were given only 30 minutes to extract it. The metal box can be opened by a sliding bolt latch. Results showed that animals with larger brains that are proportionate to their body size were more successful in gaining access to the food compared to the animals with smaller brains.

When It Comes To Intelligence, Brain Size Matters: Study : SCIENCE : Tech Times

but the real question is this, Is the size of human brains between individuals enough to result in one person being more intelligent than another? some recent scientific studies suggests that it does...

In 2005, a psychologist using brain scan imaging to determine brain size found evidence that people with larger brains tended to score higher on IQ tests.

This study’s best estimate of the correlation between brain volume and intelligence is 0.33. The correlation is higher for females than males. It is higher for adults than children. Regardless of theexamined, the correlation between brain volume and intelligence is always positive. It is very clear that brain volume and intelligence are related.

http://www.people.vcu.edu/~mamcdani/...%20article.pdf

The study was controversial in that it showed that men (whose brains generally weigh slightly more) on average had slightly higher IQ scores, but it was also noted that the ratio between men and women picked for the test was largely unequal, and although I am not a scientist, my understanding is that .33 is regarded as weak to moderate correlation at best. The study and brain scanning imaging has gone under critique since, but nevertheless further studies have supported this hypothesis.

In 2012 a group of neuroscientists released their findings that once again showed a link between brain size and intelligence.

Another notable genetic sequence, located within the HMGA2 gene on chromosome 12, was linked with intracranial volume — in other words, the space inside your skull that marks the outer limit as to how big your brain can get. At this spot, every C-allele variant was linked to not only lower intracranial volume, but also to lower IQ scores on the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery, a measure of intelligence.

Specific Genes Linked to Big Brains and Intelligence | Brain Size & Genetics

The largest brain study of its kind had found a gene linked to intelligence, a small piece in the puzzle as to why some people are smarter than others.
A variant of this gene "can tilt the scales in favour of a higher intelligence", says study leader Paul Thompson, stressing though that genetic blessings were not the only factor in brainpower.

Searching for a genetic explanation for brain disease, the scientists stumbled upon a minute variant in a gene called HMGA2 among people who had larger brains and scored higher on standardised IQ tests

Tiny gene change affects brain size, IQ › News in Science (ABC Science)

In short, they discovered a gene that effects a persons brain size, and the bigger the brain, the higher they scored on IQ tests. This reinforces a previous study by UK scientists, who found that bigger brains were less effected by cognitive deterioration than smaller brains as they got older.

Big heads really are smarter | UK news | The Guardian

Still many scientists argue that it is not necessarily the brain size that matters per say, but other factors which may or may not be enabled by a big brain...

They found that people with high IQ scores had significantly more grey matter in 24 of the regions than people with lower scores. Many of the areas, which are spread throughout the brain, are known to be related to memory, attention and language. Their results are reported online in Neuroimage1.Haier believes that different aspects of intelligence might depend on the amount of grey matter in these different brain regions. "This may be why one person is quite good at mathematics and not so good at spelling, and another person, with the same IQ, has the opposite pattern of abilities," he says.

Grey matter matters for intellect : Nature News

and other scientists suggest that it is not necessarily the brain size that matters, but how well the neurons and synapses are firing...

Rather, scientists now argue, it is a brain's underlying organization and molecular activity at its synapses (the communication junctions between neurons through which nerve impulses pass) that dictate intelligence.how neurons or nerve cells and synapses are organized—are the keys to determining information-processing capacity. Manger speculates that cetacean brains are large not because of intelligence but instead due to an abundance of fatty glial cells (non-nerve cells serving as a supporting tissue), which may be present to provide warmth in cold waters for the information-processing neurons in the brain's interior.

Fact or Fiction: When It Comes to Intelligence, Does Brain Size Matter? - Scientific American

and of course, as already mentioned, there is now direct evidence that our genes contribute to our intellect, or lack there of it...

We know that genetics plays a major role in intelligence but until now haven’t known which genes are relevant. This research highlights some of genes involved in human intelligence, and how they interact with each other,” said Dr Johnson, a Consultant Neurologist at Imperial College Healthcare and Deputy Head of the Center for Clinical Translation in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London.

and the good news...“Our research suggests that it might be possible to work with these genes to modify intelligence.

Intelligence 'networks' discovered in brain for the first time


All in all, the evidence would suggest that there is a hereditary basis for our intelligence, and that genetic differentiation does appear to suggest there are some differing levels of intelligence amongst humans, though it should be noted that their does not appear to be a strong consensus within the scientific community as to what the primary factors are, and the sought after link between brain size and intelligence only has a .25 correlation, which is pretty weak.

This is worrisome for me, we had all sorts of scientific studies in the early and mid twentieth century that showed some promise of correlation but now seem to be defunct. I obviously would choose science over religion and philosophy when coming to a theoretical decision, but I think we have to be wary of positivism as well, as scientific theories are nothing more than just theories, in which the conclusions of one study could be proven wrong tomorrow.

We seem to know so little about the human brain that I have some series doubts on whether we can accurately measure intelligence, I guess I'll find out in researching part 2.

grindy

Another great entry. Really like the way you tackle the subject.

A small nitpick:I think you mean "hypotheses".

__________________
A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.