Culture may be encoded in DNA
POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Saturday, September 5, 2026 00:24
VIEWED: 9894
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If Earth's atmosphere happened to scatter the wavelengths making up the color I call poo brown/yellow, and if humans shat light blue, my ancestors would have learned to associate the poo brown/yellow wavelengths with peace and tranquility, and light blue wavelengths would mean "ick". I'd be sitting on the airplane taking great pleasure in a shit colored sky. I'd be disgusted by light blue.
Yep, exactly right. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or ugliness); and doesn't exist outside of it. I vaguely remember a study about human attitudes to colour, specifically looking into whether female preference of the colour pink was innate.
The thing with beauty for me is there has to be an underlying 'truth' - an hourglass figure is beautiful (to the male eye, which is very sensitive to these things) because it is an indicator of fertility. There is a good reason why that particular sense of beauty would be hardwired into our DNA - and in this respect we have 'absoluteness' of beauty. What about moral beauty? Compassion, selflessness, a mother's love for her children - so is there an absoluteness (of beauty) for human morality, wired into our DNA as a sense of beauty? I don't expect to win over the moral relativists here but that's the kpo philosophy.
Heads should roll
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Byte,
Calm down.
First, there was never a standard of anorexic beauty. You can check the stats on playboy bunnies and fashion models that i referred to earlier, they are the ideal, I think you'll find they are far from anorexic. But is that genetically encoded? Of course it is. If it weren't, there would be no evolution. The view of ideal mate has to occur *before* the actual physical change can take place. Our primal desires exist, and must happen first, unless we really do live in a creationist world.
Think of it this way: picture three mice.
The first mouse has no genetically encoded information
The second mouse has an image of a cat associated with fear.
The third has an image of a cat encoded as associated with warm cuddly places to squeak.
Who gets eaten first, who last, and how does that effect evolution?
I thought this was the somewhat obvious starting point we were all coming from.
What I find fascinating is actually this notion:
Historically, why there are Europeans at all, when much of Europe was glaciated in the ice age.
Around 80,000 years ago, a tribe from west Africa migrated north from somewhere around Rwanda to the Levant, around morn day Israel.
Around 50,000 years ago, a tribe from the Levant wandered into the mountains of Asia Minor and on up to the caucuses and the alps on the other side.
Here's the intriguing possibility: an image that we associate with wondder and magic involving tiny people, giant forests and untouched snowflakes. Sound familiar?
Consider now that such a people who had such a strange image of paradise would migrate to such a region. The people who chose not to do so were later wiped out, much later, around 35,000 years ago or so,
There's definitely something strange about a people who would do this, but the idea that they are lured to it by a genetically encoded desire is an intriguing one.
I'm not on the extreme end of nature, I don't think that I'm even in the middle.
Stress dictates genes? This seems unlikely to me. Genes are largely the result of random shuffling if pre written code donated by parasites who copied it earlier foam some other species. Sure, environmental pressures weed out the weak. That doesn't mean that they are writing the code, unless you would mean that in the above example, a love of hinterlands evolved after the people moved there, which is also possible, maybe to keep them from going back.
Saying that gender identities are genetic is not a middle of the road position. It's a pretty strong nature position. A lot of gender identities are chemical, but that does not automatically make them genetic, most of your chemical profile is actually dietary.
On the bird songs:
Do you mean you are deaf or have a hear problem, or that you couldn't find fhe audio files?
If you cant hear, i can tell you what anyone who can hear can verify: there are I think three natural bird song audios on the page to give you a frame of reference, and then a series of bird songs being tweaked as they slowly evolve from simple songs thru interesting permutations To arrive at the final result of the wild bird song. These guys really solidly prove their case, I felt.
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anything that can be argued to be learned is nurture.
This is what your missing here I think: this is exactly the position that the article is disproving,
If it is learned, it is cultural. But what if what we learn is driven by a preselector?
That would be the key argument here. It's a fascinating one to me because vie seen evidence that something like this might be going on for some time. I suspect KPO and Citizen also have. The alternative is not interesting, it is essentially to say "nothing to see he, move it along." what is also not interesting is the wulfish idea that ergo black people are automatically genetic criminals, or that anything which is very obviously social can now be said to be genetic by extension. I particularly dislike this sort of argument because its precise that misappropriation of scienc
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KPO
A blob is perfectly fertile and there are parts of Africa and the pacific that find that form attractive. Hourglass also indicate agility. If you want to see the perfect female form, watch rhythmic gymnastics. At least, perfect in the eyes of a european male. I suspect other european males will agree. Ive noticed that some men have more of a breast thing, but that's probably also a genetic profile.if you like russian girls you're probably part Russian, or Slavic, and so some part of you is Asian, leading to a different form, which is a genetic tendedncy to have that form, which may have resulted from a genetic tendency to select for that form.
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By the time kids are old enough to ask for a fairy tale, they have already learned a ton of cultural information from their environment.
Mal, I'd have to disagree. I think they have nothing relevant which is going to guide there. the selection of stories is pretty much from the get go. Okay, for myself, sure, you have a point. I learned to talk in Holland, so I learned Dutch. The I came here and learned English. Classical europe has a different effect on me as a result. But still, children even when they are very small like some things and not others long before they develop any taste at all. To wit, I would listen, as a kid, to John denver or rolph Harris, stuff which I might objectively say required no thought to select. Go to a fair, listen to a band playing songs to kids. They're playing certain types of tunes that kids like to hear. The band has changed it's repertoire in favor of dumb little tunes that tykes like. The kids don't know why they like them, but it does seem preconditioned.
If you mean to say that all preconditioning is some intangible early environmental factor than I would disagree, but I don't think we could prove it one way or the other. I guess an in depth study of adopted children and their preference relative to their non adopted peers would give you a split in the nature nurture here, but I think you would find that it was a split, and not a pure nurture result.
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Just $0.02.
Encoded= hardwired. I think the fact that we can even TALK about "culture" is encoded.
I suspect we're encoded for quite a bit, but very little along the lines of what we've been discussing.
Being social- encoded. Hardwired due to long dependency. All babies, except autistic ones, respond to human face and voice.
Notion of fairness- encoded.
Notion of other- encoded.
Cooperation- encoded. (by oxytocin)
Competition- probably encoded (altho no hormone/brain structure found)
Empathy- encoded. Hardwired in the frontal lobe.
Learning/ teaching- encoded.
Capability of learning/teaching abstract thought- encoded.
Language ability- encoded
Tendency to cluster together in danger- encoded.
Serial monogamy- encoded.
If you want to find out what we're encoded for, look for things that are constant across cultures. There are probably a host of other things that are hardwired that we haven't figured out yet, but not along the lines of "beauty", which are often culturally (and therefore arbitrarily) determined.
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Byte,
Calm down.
I wasn't upset. This is just far beyond anything I have any ability to comprehend. It doesn't make sense to me.
Clearly something happens that a mouse recognizes danger, and this is encoded. Also clearly, it's been shown that things like anxiety can be carried through multiple generations because it can cause modification in how genetics are expressed through methylation.
I just have trouble buying that these triggers are THIS specific, because of the wide variance in what can trigger these response. Straight african men are attracted to WOMEN, if there is another element of this attraction such as weight or something else, it occurs on an individual level, and is an artificial construct except for being something that draws attention. Similarly, I must view the female bird attraction to birdsong this way, because the birdsong also has variations.
And in the case of the mouse, anxiety in general promotes their continued living and increases their chances for reproduction. I doubt that they have any particular reaction to CAT! more than it is they have a constant SCARED! reaction.
I think maybe you've hit my crazy eddie wall. I don't think I can agree with this conclusion under any circumstances. So I will go now.
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But there's another side to it KPO: we still have no way of knowing if color preferences are indeed genetic. In China, red is the color of marriage. Not so in the West. That's cultural, not hard-wired.
If a human baby grew up on the world with a shit-brown sky, without ever knowing about earth or talking to anyone who had, would they associate the shit-brown color with tranquility?
Do Indians babies growing up in the US, if they have no contact with Indian culture, retain a genetic pre-disposal to pentatonic music? If I had grown up in India with Indian parents and nothing but Indian culture, would my brain recognize a pentatonic scale as more sonorous than the Western heptatonic?
If I was a male living 400 years ago in Europe, would I see skinny, tanned-skin woman as sex symbols, or would I think them ill fed and coarse?
If I was a male living 20,000 years ago, would I think the Venus of Willendorf was obese, or would I worship her as the ideal sex symbol?
Actually, for those last two points and regarding fertility and gymnasts: woman with very little body fat often stop menstruating. Today's sex symbol is NOT particularly fertile, so the evolution argument for the male attraction to it is pretty silly. It's totally cultural.
Dreamtrove: "The view of ideal mate has to occur *before* the actual physical change can take place."
First: you confuse me. In this sentence you say that evolutionary change happens because the mate makes a decision - which could be quite arbitrary. But then your mice example chalks up evolution not to the mate's choice, but to pressures from the environment.
Second: I don't agree. I don't think that a mate makes a choice and voila changes are wired in. Outside forces are the real deciders. A girl mouse may think the boy mouse who doesn't fear the cat is sexier. Doesn't mean that trait will pass on.
The danger from the cat is the decider. The danger actually preselects not only male mice who fear, but female mice who like male mice who fear.
DT again: "Mal, I'd have to disagree. I think they have nothing relevant which is going to guide there. the selection of stories is pretty much from the get go."
You've seen two day olds select fairy tales? Or what age are you considering "the get go"?
Maybe during the first week or so infants are focused on more basic things, but then they become absolute fucking sponges, soaking up every nuance of their parent's behavior. For this I point to the study (that I have no reference for sorry!), that language skills are programmed in our brains before we even begin to speak. But you can see this easily: look at any baby with their parent. That baby is a little copying machine, and it lives to be cared for and approved of. It picks up on every detail of mom and dad's habits and preferences. There's a good year of this intense learning before the baby starts acting independently, and showing what it's learned. (And showing what's wired in - I do think there's some of this, just not nearly as much as you're saying.)
"But still, children even when they are very small like some things and not others long before they develop any taste at all." Just because you don't see them exhibiting "taste", doesn't mean they aren't actively developing it.
Put a bunch of newborns in boxes, each completely isolated from everyone. A year later, give them a collection of fairy tales from every culture in the world. If the Euro babies prefer Euro tales and the African babies prefer African tales, then you've got some real evidence of something.
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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left
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Quote:Excellent post Signym. I think I was working toward figuring out what you said. You saved me lots of time LOL!
Originally posted by SignyM:
I suspect we're encoded for quite a bit, but very little along the lines of what we've been discussing.
ETA: Signym's post is making me see the error in my earlier post, re the mice example. The fear of the cat is NOT hard-wired, he ability to learn is. Duh! Suppose cats suddenly decided to be best friends with mice, to protect and coddle them and bring them bon-bons. The mouse that was capable of overcoming its cat-fear would have a huge survival advantage.
In this way, it is vital to a species to have diversity. So while the mice that fear cats are more likely to survive, the species will do better if it always has some individuals *without* this trait. Just in case external circumstances change.
Thanks Signym - this does make me think.
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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left
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Originally posted by dreamtrove:
First, there was never a standard of anorexic beauty. You can check the stats on playboy bunnies and fashion models that i referred to earlier, they are the ideal, I think you'll find they are far from anorexic. But is that genetically encoded? Of course it is.
Are you sure? Many cultures have a very different out look on what constitutes the perfect mate. One in particular, who's name escapes me at the moment, had a fertility goddess who was almost obese. In fact the current ideal would seem to be overall bad for species survival, since thinner Women are less able to sustain child birth. In fact until very recently being fat was considered a good thing, it proved you could afford a lot of food after all, a good provider.
Also I think theres evidence of humans in Europe much earlier than your time line.
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows.
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Pretty much agreeing with everything Mal4Prez is saying.
Ideals of beauty are a shifting phenomenon, thus most likely cultural.
Plus, the standard of beauty as depicted by contemporary media of any age does not necessarily reflect the individual experience of sexual attraction. So while a certain body type may be culturally popular and statistically most admired, there will still be a large number of people primarily sexually attracted to other variants. Or be attracted to traits independent of body type. Or see conflict between their standard of beauty and what turns them on sexually.
Even the traits we can argue are most likely encoded as attractice (youth and health) can be overcome for reasons of emotional attraction or pheromones or whatnot.
I think this speaks for a strong cultural and psychological influence over very specific genetic encoding toward physical type.
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