Scientists Identify Gene Pattern That Makes Some Animals Monogamous
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
So it won't show up on your 23andme test. It's a completely different type of analysis called RNA-seq, and in order to perform it they had to obtain actual brain tissue samples (not blood or saliva), because gene expression is different in every tissue.
Also, this seems to make no mention of 'rearing complexity'. A more developmentally complex brain should imply prolonged rearing and have a bias of survival in favor of shared parenting.
I guess you can find anything you're looking for in gene expressions, if you really want.
Primates are significantly brainier than most of the rest of Mammalia, on average, and humans and gibbons are the only primates that are more monogamous than polygamous. Cetaceans and elephants also have comparatively large brains and aren’t monogamous.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Got any citation for that?
The sexual part seems pretty familiar from looking around current society, and the children support part isn't far off from now either.
If humans were monogamous as you suggest, the figure of male reproduction would be far closer to 100%. But we’re not. We’re polygynous — a harem-based species. And the 40% figure you just cited proves that: Less than half of the men mate with all of the women. That’s not called monogamy dude. That is called polygyny.
This is one example of how using genetics data for a dating network can help produce better matches, and more calculated offspring.
1) Let's say you could provide definitive data showing, without doubt, that intraracial relationships resulted in different longterm outcomes than interracial relationships, with an extremely high degree of statistical certainty. Would you say that consideration or utilization of this fact would be racist if done in a completely impartial fashion?
2) What if we instead of simply considering intra/inter relationships we instead look the outcomes differences between specific ethnic/racial matchups over the longterm. Would consideration or utilization of these data be considered racist if done in a completely impartial fashion?
3) Let's move away from algorithms and add a human element. There are a variety of, mostly ethnically homogeneous, religions that vehemently forbade marriage outside the religion and where joining the religion, as an outsider, is made extremely difficult. Are these religions inherently racist? Are their practitioners inherently racist?
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And to be clear, as this is a sensitive issue, I'm not secretly trying to find some contradiction or whatever to come back at you with. I just like to try to understand worldviews outside my own and have no intention of challenging any of your answers in any way.
Probably, it meets most definitions.
> 2) What if we instead of simply considering intra/inter relationships we instead look the outcomes differences between specific ethnic/racial matchups over the longterm. Would consideration or utilization of these data be considered racist if done in a completely impartial fashion?
Well yes it would be.
˘ 3) Let's move away from algorithms and add a human element. There are a variety of, mostly ethnically homogeneous, religions that vehemently forbade marriage outside the religion and where joining the religion, as an outsider, is made extremely difficult. Are these religions inherently racist? Are their practitioners inherently racist?
Yep.
Pretty much anything that seeks to understand differences between races will inherently be racist by it's definition.
Second, there’s nothing racist about preferring people in your own ethnic group. Most people find their own race most attractive for a partner, and there’s reason to believe that will still be the case in a post-racism world. Yes there will be mixed couples, but people who want a mate from their own race aren’t racist.
Uuuh, while your algorithm isn't racist, if a person is using an algorithm to be racist, then it could be concluded that what is happening is... racism.
Sometimes I generate machine learning (ML) solutions and then this holds more true than ever. All the best (least biased) matchmaking solutions will be ML, as well as all the worst (most biased).
Also, matching for the best DNA/RNA/gene expression match, wouldn't that just separate us into different species of humans?
This is an extremely weak "argument".
Practically, anything can be used as a murder weapon by a murderer. Then "what is happening is ..." murder.
For instance, one big problem is that threes are with threes, and eights are with eights. Just because you give them an email saying they have similar genes, you're not going to convince an eight to go with a three. (That's one of the biggest problems in today's dating services. If you could figure out how to make an eight go with a three, you could make billions.) Anyway, by far the biggest problem, one that no one has been able to solve, is that nines and tens are not on the dating service at all. (They don't need it.)
So even if you throw in genetics, the nines and the tens are still better off dating in their own circles. I'd imagine that the genetics are generally pretty good in your average Division 1 athletics department for instance. So a top 10 offensive lineman and a top 10 women's volleyball or basketball player would be very unlikely to find better genetics on any gene based dating service that I could create. In fact, it could be argued that the athletic departments themselves are already serving ss genetically gated dating services for elite genes. Stanford crew girl has a thing for Stanford wide receiver is a lot easier method of getting good gene sets together than testing millions of people and trying to make matches by computer that you hope the people will like. (And I'd wager that if we were to put together a dating service that tried to match good genes, the crew girl and the wide out would create superior offspring in any case. [I don't like using the word "superior", but you get what I mean.])
So adding genetic services might appeal to a subset of users, but it's not going to solve the main problems with your average dating service today. How to get eights to go with threes? and how to get nines and tens to use your service at all? Adding genetic services would only be doing a LOT of work to add a service that may appeal to a very niche slice of the dating market.
Super duper insightful man.
But both problems you’re discussing have already been solved:
>how to get eights to go with threes?
Prostitution.
>how to get nines and tens to use your service at all?
Build a walled garden, I.e. the Raya app.
I've more often met with a misconception that men cheat more often than women.
Genetic expression is influenced by many things, some that we understand and some that we don't (yet), but it is highly plausible that this can be (and already is) influenced and optimised throughout people's lives.
People's negative reaction to your proposal is obviously because people think it's dystopian to think that the genetic hand you're dealt at birth is highly restrictive and deterministic in terms of your potential life outcomes.
Policies like the one you describe would lead to a horrible society, because anybody who comes to believe that they are doomed to a miserable, futile life will not contribute positively to society and may well contribute very negatively. I suspect much of what we're seeing playing out around the world right now is at least partly a result of this phenomenon.
If it turns out that people's genetic expression is far more important than their genetic blueprint, and that their genetic expression can be influenced and optimised to lead to improved life outcomes, then people will be motivated to contribute positively to society and society will be vastly improved.
If you have very unattractive qualities and because of that people are not selecting you, they are not punishing you. If someone doesn’t want to be with you because you admit you’ve cheated in the past but don’t plan to anymore, that is fair. If you carry genes that make you more likely to seek out other partners and they don’t want that, that is also fair.
Your genes that set physical attractiveness have little to do with just how attractive you actually are, who else may or may not find you attractive, and your chances for successfully passing on your genes.
Eg, your genes aren't the entire story, maybe not even most of the story.
I would very much oppose any government ever enforcing genetic criterion on a mass level. But I see no qualms about individuals themselves having genetic preferences. Your argument might be that well nobody would want somebody with [undesirable trait x] so it would exclude these individuals from the collective gene pool, yet we see in real life that that's not how things work. Being short is not very desired, is genetically linked, and is immediately visible. Yet in spite of all of that, in practice it in no way stops people from living great lives, raising families, and finding great partners.
(See e.g. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncen... for more on this.)
But... I don't like your reasoning. It sounds like: Hitler was a vegetarian. Don't be Hitler.
We already legally enforce certain kinds of eugenics. Most of the world prohibits sex between siblings. Right up until very recently many US states had marriage blood test requirements to prevent certain sexually transmitted and genetic diseases. There are a couple horrifying genetic diseases I wouldn't object to banning - google Lesch–Nyhan syndrome or Harlequin-type ichthyosis if you'd like to spend the rest of your evening crying.
It doesn't even sound like he's proposing a legal requirement. People pick mates for all sorts of dumb reasons. Hell, I know people that believe in zodiac signs. As long as it's voluntary, let them play the genetic dating game. If someone thinks that a few genes are going to bring a happy marriage, the joke's on them.
To me it read more like the Nazi comparison was meant as a wake up call, and the bulk of the argument is in the second paragraph: "In this study[0], there is no human research, and the definition of monogamy is limited to a single mating season. It's also looking at gene expression, which means that a gene that everyone has is either turned on or off. For reference, genes are expressed differently in various parts of your body, and is a fairly good test for various types of cancer."
On a separate note, this wasn't a "Hitler was a vegetarian" thing. Pseudoscientific rationalisation for why some humans are morally superior to others is precisely that sort of context where Godwin's Law doesn't apply.
We select people who are most likely to be within our social class, we select based on appearance and intelligence (and thus, earning potential) or things like height and fertility.
Because genes make up who we are, nearly every filter we create is somehow tied to a person’s genetics. Eugenics doesn’t have to be barbaric and racist.
I’m not calling for genetic based dating to be forced on everyone, or to become law. I’m simply calling for a platform to be built that allows people to come together based on desirable genes and give them the best chance of making genetically gifted children. We owe it to future generations.
Someday, when the technologies are ready and I have more money, I would be glad to form a team and take a shot at building this platform, if someone else hasn’t beaten me to it.