[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Moon Eclipse

Eating right won't stop your baby from developing down syndrom. Eating write ensure your body has the resources it needs to survive, how your body manages those resources are genetic. Let's say you're a born diabetic, no matter how much sugar you eat, your body won't be able to produce the insulin to absorb the sugar. But let's say you're perfectly healthy, you're body will be able to given that your intake meets the recommended amounts.

But eating wrong will impair your development, no matter how healthy your genes are. So why is it a good idea to trust only the genes without looking at the actual result? You've never answered that.

How about you prove to me how it's not genetic. The ability to learn, retardation, learning handicaps. And how genuis is any different from the genetics of that just in the opposite manner.

It's far easier to break a machine than to build one that works perfectly. One wrong thing in the genetic makeup can be enough to provoke retardation. But the things that have to be "right" to make a genius go beyong the merely genetic.

Prove to me that a person with no genetic ability to do something can still do it if they have the "poper" nuturing.

I am saying no such thing. What I am saying is that prejudging on a person's ability on the mere basis of his or her genes is wrong. And, by the way, here's another question for you: it's not rare for people to be able to do several jobs. Like artists originally trained as engineers. Or mathematicians turned philosophers. Why should Dullindal chose what jobs those people will take?

I'm not saying that nuture takes no part either. I'm saying is that given equal environments, genetics will determine who's the superior.

And where are you going to find equal environments? Just because people have the same jobs doesn't mean at all their environment will be the same.

The idea stems from natural selection and evolution. Those that are best genetically suited for the environment which they live in will thive, while those least suited will parish. Therefore, if you are genetically suited for a job (environment of a specific work nature) you will thrive, while people less genetically suited will not.

We are more than our genes. Our environments shape us too. Imagine identical twins separated at birth. One raised in the wilderness by a tribe of hunter-gatherers, the other in a city by office clerks. Now drop both in the wilderness. Do you really think they have equal chances of survival?

Heck. Imagine identical twins raised together. One gets run over by a car and limps for the rest of his life. Do they have equal chances to make it as pro basket players?

Gene's can determine you gender, they can also determine the mutations in phenotype. Like you said, she was genetically male. The problem is that her genes were also defective and so the expression of the gene to make into a male were suppressed and thus she stayed phenotypically female. It has to do the end part of the Y chromosome. All babies are female to begin with, they only start expressing male traits when the DNA is traslated into an enzyme which causes a chemical change resulting in the expression fo male traits. So all you're telling me is that that person was genetically defective.

AFAIK, her "problem" was teratogenic, not genetic.

Your example has no bearing over nature vs nuture since the definition which you define as "boy" or "girl" are social behavioral cues. We already allow genes to determine our leaders. The best and the brighests. Strong, good looking, intellegent. If you're going to put George Bush as a counter argument to this it's neither nature or nuture. It's money and control. Bush has the support of those with the most power to manipulate the vote. Systems. Power to manipulate the environment in which we live.

"The best and brightest". Not "the people with the best genes", but those who can make a good showing for themselves.

The fact that we have criminals show us that we do not exert enough control in order to deal with such behavior before it starts. I was once told of a society in tranlviania where you could put an dollar bill on the side of the town well and come back a month later and it would still be there. Why? Order in that city was so absolulte that no one dared to steal it. That a child is disobediant and out of countrol does not mean you're disciplining him too much, it's that you're not doing it properly and/or you don't discipline him enough. Control is not absolute that is why we have crime, because you have feedoms that is why you have war, hate and crime.

Historically untrue.

And besides, you said it yourself. "we do not exert enough control". But there is no indication it is possible to correct that. Especially on the huge scale Dully is proposing. I'm sure crime would go down if we could put three cops behind every individual, working in shifts. Is it practical? Is it even possible, considering the fact the cops, too, would have to be watched?