Are we slaves to our genetics?

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AaronJSmith1978

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Hi, I’m asking this question because it has plagued my perception for quite sometime. The idea is that all of our behaviors and attitudes are genetic, if so how can we call our selves free. There is no way for me to hold someone morally responsible if they where genetically wired to do what they have done. Further more the idea of genetic determinism is totally disgusting to me. It validates racism and eugenics, something I stand firmly against. It also discards the hope that you can be more than you are. I myself, was born with good genetics, but the idea that we could not rise above our genetic short comings is depressing and destructive. Please, any help in this area to answer or refute the idea of such determinism would be a great help. Philosophical determinism doesn’t bother me as it falls apart when you take the cause and effect train to the level of quantum physics and cause of the universe, but this type of determinism/fatalism IMO can exist and we could just be puppets strung along by our genetics. It is very worry some for me, and I would love to know how to turn this type of fatalism on its head.

Thank you, God bless
 
Have you ever met identical twins? Identical genetic code, but not identical personalities.

Genetics can influence behaviour, but it doesn’t determine it. The idea that people are slaves to their genes isn’t supported by studies in biology or psychology.
 
I have, it is actually one of my defenses against these such allegations. Two sets of identical twins that I was personal friends with for a long time, both sets had very different personalities, both every different lives, and very different problems, and again genetically identical. Those that defend the opposite, simply bring up the similarities (they aren’t as similar as they insist) in twin studies and proclaim my experience as invalid or a statistical anomaly, usually the later, but I can’t see how one can ignore that, because although they might be an anomaly, they still happen and far more frequently than they should.
 
I don’t believe racism is genetic at all. It is learned behavior.

And even if something were genetic, that doesn’t mean we are unable to change things.
 
Irishmom2 said:
I don’t believe racism is genetic at all. It is learned behavior.

And even if something were genetic, that doesn’t mean we are unable to change things.
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I think that Aaron means race as opposed to racism. But race is not a concept that exists within genetics. It reallly is skin deep.

Your genes will tend to determine the type of person you are but not who you will become.
 
It is not so much that racism is a learned behavior or genetic, it’s that racist could use genetics to justify their reasoning. One gentlemen I argued with tried to justify that people that had more melanin in their skin were prone to aggressive and sexual behavior. He said that is why “black people are the way they are” he backed is view with what he felt was good science. Btw he comically looked like kernel mustard and was extremely racist. However after I checked out his sources I found that they were pseudoscience based off of the attempt to breed dosile foxes. It turns out they lacked melanin pigment. This was do to the fact that their brain was not producing the proper amount of dopamine to activate the melanin. Effectively the fox’s brain wasn’t working properly there fore it was dosile. It this type of extreme logic that is my fear. Btw bradski was right on my original intent.
 
I don’t think genetics play such a big role as to take away our ability to choose what to do. Our genes may make us prone to do certain things, but it’s still our choice whether we actually do it or not.
 
Genetics is only a part of our behavior. Our environment and how we were brought up is another part. Still we have free will and we can overcome our quirks, habits and tendencies through the grace of God. We are not slaves to our genetics nor our environment.

I am very different from my brother and sister yet we share the same parents.
 
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