This NYT article claims that if a man's ring finger is longer than his index finger, he's more physically aggressive. But I honestly have a lot of problems with this sort of study. They interviewed 298 males AND females and *asked* them about their tendancies and then measured their fingers. So it really should say that "males with longer ring fingers tended to think they have more aggressive tendancies."
Plus they say that "a statistically significant number of males" bla bla bla. I just recently learned what this meant. Very little. Don't believe the hype!
Just for the record, my ring finger is the same length as my index finger.
Posted by bluprnt at March 8, 2005 01:59 PMThere may be more to this than you think. In the early days of animal taxonomy, especially primates, classifications were based on ratios of physical characteristics. For example the ratio of the length of the metacarpal to the length of the phalanges. Similar metrics were also used on plants. There is an effort underway to re-do the taxonomy based on genetic information, rather than surface traits. As more and more genetic information is processed it is turning out that the original classifications systems are an extremely close match to those that are indicated by the genetic information.
The point is that there is a direct relationship between genes and the traits which surface. Because the genetic code is a huge string of base pairs, its impossible to know (at this point) what might be linked to what, but there seems a reasonable chance that both agression (call it testosterone production) and ring-finger length are sex linked in males. There may be a correlation, but neither one causes the other, and the idea of using one as a predictor is definitely a little out there.
As a quick follow up to the F/28 post: There are a couple instances where you've penciled in that behaviour is something more than a byproduct of physiology. It's not. Thats the Cartesian dualism argument, which is nonsense. To quote the most recent national geographic on the brain, "your mind is what your brain does". Conciousness, self-awareness, you name any of these 'metaphysical' ideas, and all they really come down to is some chemistry, a little electricity and a big combinatorial math problem concerning your neurons.
As for sociobiology, theres definitley something to it, but like behaviourism/psyc and religion, its a little too deterministic for my taste. Thats the whole nature/nurture arguement all over again though.
Posted by: uR at March 8, 2005 11:18 PMThat was just my point as well, that it’s silly to use studies like that to say “I’ve got a long finger, I will be more aggressive” when it’s based on so few people and they don’t even tell you the actual numerical breakdown. If testosterone does affect finger length, I don’t think that study proved it.
Again you confuse me! “Everything is physiology” seems to be your position but “sociobiology is wonky” does as well. Pray tell, what is the difference? Physiology is the functioning’s of organs like the brain, which sociobiology says developed from evolution so there you have it: they’re the same thing, no? We behave like our bodies tell us to which is the result of evolution. But, yes, currently I agree that people are getting carried away with sociobiology and being too deterministic, but I can also see how that is a lot of fun.
But, I honestly can’t say I agree with either position fully exactly because I apparently AM a Cartesian dualist, not that I really know what that means. The “everything is physiology” argument is too simplistic and seems to infer that everything in the universe is comprehendible by man. That we are the height of everything. We can understand everything, and that it all comes down to basic science, if only we study hard enough. Honestly it’s completely egotistical.
Not that I’ve figured out anything yet, or even think I will. I’m no spiritualist. And obviously organized religion is laughable. Or, at least, it performs important social functions yadda yadda yadda.
But I think I can see that there are connections among all living things and we definitely do not understand them. Ok, so I sound hokey but it’s the whole “hum of the universe” stuff. Being connected to the land. To say “everything is in your head. And if it’s not, it soon will be explained in a logical manner” seems illogical. Simplistic. Very comforting. A religion in and of itself.
What do you think?
Posted by: rebecca at March 9, 2005 02:14 PMSorry if I've been a bit ambiguous. Hindsight being what it is I think I may have misread, but I'll try to clarify:
I think there are, in reality, three factors to consider here when we try to talk about behaviour: a)physiology b)experience c) something other than physiology.
I think we agree that c) is the most contentious, so lets try to rule it out right away. This is the idea that you have some sort of 'ethereal' mind. The mind body separation: Cartesian dualism. The idea that your conciousness, language, self awareness etc. exists in a vacuum, removed from your physical presence on planet earth. This does not make very good predictions about...anything...and is in general, just a bad model.
So let's look at it in the context of something very simple (relatively speaking), like auditory processing. The cochlea in your ear performs what basically amounts to a Fourier transform on the indcoming sound wave. Different points along the basilar membrane resonate in response to (i.e. are tuned to) different frequencies. There is a direct mapping through the auditory pathway to your prinary auditory cortex. Eash point along the length of the basilar membrane references a unique point on the auditory cortex. This is purely physiological, think of it as a scaffolding for bigger things. This is just a fact, it exists, it doesnt make predictions about behaviour other than that we know that mammals all have this mapping, and that a sound which vibrates the basilar membrane will cause an ERP at a certain site in the A1.
Where it gets interesting is in the context of learning. Humans, dogs, whatever...assign context to certain excitations in the A1. The information processed through the auditory pathway to the cortex can have 'meaning' in that certain patterns of activity (combinations of frequencies) cause a reaction in another part of the brain. The recall of a memory, the ability to name, the ability to distinguish in meaning between two similar words based on a small acoustic change (think rhyme), sit vs. stay.
So every mammal has the same physiological framework (in this respect), but what is built on top of that framework depends on experience. Of course, the other parts of the brain also provide a scaffolding which is also shaped by experience. Theres not much that can't be explained by this model, as we know that the neuron attachments change with experience. So the framework in a general sense is there, but chagnes with time for every 'center' of the brain with experience. Get the idea?
So to say that the mind is something ethereal and removed from the physiology is a bit silly. To say that the social context and experience has something to do with it is not. Nature provides the canvas, nurture paints the picture. Sure it's a bit deterministic, but only to a point. Physiology places limits on behaviour (think Kinsey: "the only unnatural sex act is the one you can't perform"), or the similarities in the patterns of language, but theres a lot of room to play around within the limits.
Now I also find it a bit disquieting and simplistic to break down this enormously complicated system into some cell interactions, but look at it this way: If you work under the assumption that things can be made this simple, doesnt that open the door for infinitely more progress in research? Instead of sitting around philosophizing about it, you can run a quantifiable test. Its just a different research PROGRAM, and what seems to be a very productive one.
Just for the record, I do believe the universe can be broken down into very simply explained pieces through science. Its not egotistical, its ambitious, and whether I am proved right or wrong, I still win, because then I find out the answer. I also believe there is a bigger something out there, not in the sense of religion, more of a gestalt of all these little pieces.
Dang, long post.
Posted by: uR at March 10, 2005 01:58 AM