Re:Making the Mind: Why we've misunderstood the nature-nurtu...
by seppel on Monday September 30, 2019 @05:01PM
(#21119623)
The thing is, if you take the species dogs, pigs, horses, apes, and humans, then you can clearly put them somewhere on a scale regarding their ability to learn or understand (a) simple language (b) complex language, (c) simple math (d) advanced math. There might be some edge cases, but an average human will be better at any other species no matter how hard you try.
There is a very hard species boundary, so it must be something that is giving to the offsprings.
If you further accept that the ability to learn advanced math does not fall from the sky and we somehow descended from an ancestor that did not have this ability, then the only way we got here is that (something that correlates to) this ability was heavily selected for in the past.
And you need some kind of continuum (it can also be multi-dimensional) where you can gradually converge to. I don't think this is something that spontaneously emerged.
If you accept all this, then the same things will likely still play a role within current humans.
Evolution is simply three observable phenomena: first, living things carry genetic information; second, genetic information is rarely transmitted without any change to a descendant; third, a living thing that does not have descendants doesn't directly contribute their genetic information to any descendants.
There's nothing there to "believe" in any more than you need to believe in gravity.
Next, everything that happens to an organism that is not determined by genes is determined by the rest of the universe. That's pretty obvious.
A really interesting aspect, though, is that genes can't do anything if they aren't being read and processed correctly. Reduce the supply of essential nutrients, and it doesn't matter how awesome your genes are, you're going to get a deficiency disease. Fill the environment with chlorine compounds, and you're going to get poisoned. Too much lead? Too much alcohol? Say goodbye to proper development.
When it comes to humans, it's even worse. If you don't interact with them enough, they don't develop well. Language skill has a few years to develop properly -- without society, humans can't function in society.
None of those results suggest that we are hiding some sort of determinism that we should be paying more attention to.