[ktizo]

You appear to be arguing that local cultural factors when growing up are not responsible for the vast majority of differences in individual cultural behaviour when compared to genetic differences. From this it would seem safe to assume that you believe that a lot of cultural behaviour is not learned, but is encoded within the genome as some form of cultural predestination, which is then presumably expressed at the neuronal level while growing up. This would seem to fly in the face of pretty much all studies into brain plasticity and childhood development, and also makes no sense given the range of genetic diversity of the population we are discussing, which is one that contains well over a billion people.

[boboblong]

That's not at all what I'm arguing. Nice strawman though.

[ktizo]

What is your position then? As you seem to be just criticising other people's positions without putting forward what you actually think the situation is. If your position is just that we just don't completely know the situation, then that is fair enough, but that doesn't mean that all possibilities are equally likely.

[boboblong]

My position is that a 100% culture, 0% biology explanation for group differences is highly unlikely given the fact that statistically significant biological differences do exist between "races" (groups that were geographically isolated from one another until several thousand years ago). Yes, I'm just criticizing, but it's a criticism that needs to be heard. We've allowed ourselves the comfort of believing that there are no inherent differences between groups of people for too long, and, basically, science says otherwise.

[esrauch]

Except my response that you flamed me for I specifically said that it could be true that it is not 100% cultural 0% biological. If you are purposefully trolling, it's really lame. If you aren't purposefully trolling then you are trying so hard to push your political point that it is indistinguishable from trolling and isn't going to convince or enlighten anyone.

[boboblong]

You said, "Even if there is some genetic difference, it seems clear that the vast majority of the difference is cultural and not genetic."

I simply pointed out that this is not clear at all.