Gene Found to Explain Repeated Mistakes 299
palegray.net writes "A December 6th article in Nature explores the relationship between a specific gene and those of us prone to repeatedly making the same mistakes. From the article: "Drug addicts, alcoholics and compulsive gamblers are known to be more likely than other people to have this genetic mutation ..." The gene results in the development of fewer D2 receptors in the brain, a condition which the study has shown leads to a lessened ability to learn from experience." So no complaining about dupes and typos: it's genetic!
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Re:Now, for the most useful one (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now, for the most useful one (Score:4, Interesting)
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1000 years of wars, infighting, sellouts, torture, serfdom and broken promises by those in power, and you still don't get it?
There are differences between the systems 1000 years ago and the current systems.
We don't count on the politicians to be perfect. If you do, you'll inevitably be extremely disappointed, since they are people like other people. They'll look out for themselves just like most people do. Plus many of them love power. We count on that, and adjust our system in such ways that their self-interest will work in our favor.
There's no need to expect extraordinary idealism and then be surprised and despise them for bei
Bitching about politicians is patriotic. (Score:3, Insightful)
I still wonder what you'd prefer instead
Bitching about politicians is patriotic and an American birthright. If Jesus Christ were President, we would bitch about him too, and he'd never make it over 50% in the polls unless He bombed someone.
We know our form of government is the best and our country is the best, but, if we don't keep bitching about
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We adjust our system in such a way that their self-interest will work in our favor.
I know there is a prevailing linguistic theory that us wear the white hats, and them wear the black hats, it's what every cartoon narrative teaches our young children. Nevertheless, I'd be interested to know what lever of power they don't already control. If you meant that we the people write the constitution, you haven't been following the trend in America lately toward legislation that honors the constitution with glowing phrases and a one finger salute.
Re:Now, for the most useful one (Score:5, Insightful)
American's hate all forms of government. We just hate ours the least. I doubt hating our government officials is a uniquely American phenomenon either. Perhaps our two party system makes it a bit more pronounced, but I find it hard to believe that no other country shows disdain for its leaders. Also hating ones leaders fits well into the belief that government is a necessary evil.
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that way the evil is emphasized.
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Government - as implemented in the US system - isn't necessary; you're just habituated to it. We could have a lot less invasive system, and quite a few more checks and balances with regard to the politicians doing stupid things, without our society coming apart or changing in any negative way.
Re:Now, for the most useful one (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Now, for the most useful one (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, let's look at that. The press discovers behavior X, for instance, voting themselves a raise constantly. Reports it to the people. The people have no method to control, punish or regulate this behavior. So the one thing the people can do is vote a politician out on the next cycle. This has to be done one at a time, because if you live in state A, you can't vote on the politician from state B. This also has to be done in the face of perceived good the politician has done in other areas for the locals. If successful, the political party, another entity the people have no power over, promptly provides a new candidate set with the same sets of inclinations, while rewarding the first politician with a lucrative seat on a thinktank or something similar for their service to the party. The people choose from this set, and we're right back where we started.
This is why the press doesn't work to police the system. The best it can do is knock off a politician here and there, but that has no significant effect on legislation or the behavior of the group because no law or other output from the group can be affected by the actions of any particular member. Remember: They're misbehaving as a group.
That's why we're getting laws that proclaim the Internet is a terrorist threat, the USAPATRIOT act (which very few legislators bothered to read), numerous unconstitutional laws, that's why the head of a committee very much responsible for affecting regulation of the Internet thought it was a "series of tubes", and so forth on the legislative front. There's no means for us to change any of that.
That's why pork and bill stuffing continues unabated; that's why PACs and corporations continue to purchase laws with money, sex, junkets, etc. on the manipulation front. That's why senators feel free to hardly ever show up in the senate when running for president or (fill in the blank) on the "duty" front. These things are blessed by the political parties, and that means that you will never have a candidate that doesn't support them, albeit tacitly.
Further, that's why the press feels free to try to manipulate the election process - because the only difference it will make is how responsive the system is to the corporations that own the press. So they're quite intent on getting the most corporate friendly candidate in there, it can affect their bottom line. Watch how they behave, and have been behaving, with regard to Ron Paul for a terrific current example of this kind of behavior. Poll manipulation, sidelining in debates, failure to mention in (otherwise) general coverage of the candidates... if you actually pay attention, it could hardly be more obvious. The problem is, and has been for quite some time, that paying attention doesn't solve the problem. We have no mechanism that can solve the problem; the system has evolved to lock us - the citizens - out.
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I don't see this kind of divided thinking in a lot of other countries. One thing about Americans is that they have a sort of egalitarian blindness - they assume that the differences between the people below them and themselves are based on
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While other might not be as disappointed in their leaders, they don't really go around praising them either. So what you end up with is a disproportional outlook on things. Those that wrap themselves in this usually cannot see any opposing opinions and end up limiting their views to more restrictive and flaky position
Re:Now, for the most useful one (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, here in Sweden the members of the government, the ministers, have no right to give orders to authorities. Ministers decide about policy, and are expressly forbidden from meddling in the day-to-day matters of the authorities. That's to limit the influence of the power-hungry. The only exception is when an authority asks for a policy decision, and also some exceptional authorities such as the one that manages embassies and foreign affairs.
This arrangement complicated matters a lot when a Swede was released from Guantanamo. The US demanded guarantees from the Swedish government that he would be supervised. Since the government is expressly forbidden from giving any such orders they couldn't give any such guarantees.
It would make more sense for you Americans to simply expect your politicians to be selfish like everybody, and not despise them for that, and instead despise your system if it doesn't provide suitable checks and balances. Which I think it doesn't.
Re:Now, for the most useful one (Score:5, Insightful)
+1 insightful, buddy. But the average American confuses the system with the nation. Despise the system? Then you're being unpatriotic. Another built-in design problem is that as you say, we should change the system so that the politicians have checks and balances. But we can't do that; only the politicians can. This is a deep and serious design flaw.
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But we can't do that; only the politicians can.
If you wait for the politicians to do it you're doomed. They have no incentive for that. It's not in their self-interest. You'd need a whole bunch of Mahatma Gandhis in all the decisive positions, and you can't expect that. So don't wait for the politicians. It just won't ever happen.
You need a different solution [slashdot.org]. No, I don't know exactly how to get from here to that solution. But I'm quite sure that getting that to work is far easier and far more likely than getting the politicians to change the system.
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One very unfortunate part of the US system is the widespread belief that institutional checks and balances make sense and are sufficient. If instead you saw the media as crucial, you'd demand more from your media, and your media would see this as a selling argument.
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Direct democracy is unfortunately no solution. With that system only people who have lots of leisure time get a say. People who work very hard and are always tired don't have energy, and therefore don't get a say.
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Politics explained (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Politics explained (Score:5, Funny)
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> just one or more of the following:
>
> 1) sex and a more
>
> 2) drugs (to make those D2 receptors more active)
You forgot...
3) Rock and Roll
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Re:Just what we need (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Just what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Trust me. I do neuroscience for a living. When you're preparing the publication for submission, you always work your hardest to ensure that everything is accurate and properly phrased to be crystal clear about the limitations and drawbacks of the findings, only to have a reporter read nothing more than the abstract and get everything wrong. Don't blame the societal excuses on the scientists. People inclined to take the easy way out don't end up with PhDs, research careers, and articles in Nature.
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Re:Just what we need (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Knowing the roots of these behaviors gives us a way to short-circuit the negative ones.
Re:Just what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem is that humans on average are not designed to sit still for hours at little desks and move little symbols on flat bleached trees. A "problem child" may have been a brilliant hunter in an earlier era. I've seen families where one kid is almost an angel and the other from the same parents is a hyper mess. Whips and chains may work in the short term, but create a disturbed personality later in life.
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I rather suspect that if a hyper child spoiled more than one hunt with uncontrollable noise, running about, and blathering, that said child would become dinner. Or a lone nomad at an early age. Like three.
Be grateful for modern society. Otherwise you'd see hyper kids enjoying such advanced treatment regimes as being tightly swaddled and hung from a hook.
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I did not say, or imply, that such would be a bad thing. The parent post to mine was engaged in some amusing (to me) speculation that a hyper child might have been a "great hunter." In so doing, my impression was that they were attempting to recast the social defects of a hyper child into something positive. I was pointing out that in reality, said child were more likely to be ostrac
Re:Just what we need (Score:5, Informative)
Daughter was 9, and hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains. Daughter pointed, and whispered "See that deer?" We looked, puzzled. Daughter: "That deer on the hill - no not that hill, the hill behind the other hill behind that hill." Focused 12x binoculars right where she pointed. Yep, there was a deer there, laying down in high grass, about 2 1/2 miles away. With binoculars, you could see just her head and neck. Daughter "She's pregnant!". Deer stood up, waddled a few feet - appeared either preggers or seriously overweight. Asked daughter "Was she standing up when you first saw her?". Daughter: "You can tell she's retaining fluids, like mommy did with me!".
We've tested this various ways since. Take my daughter to a place where there are exposed fossils, and she can find dozens of specimens in the time it takes most people to find one. Fill a tabletop with a hundred intricate knick-knacks, glass figurines and such, let her look at it casually for a few seconds, and then leave. Let people rearrange a few items, take a few, or add a few new ones, then let her reenter the room and ask her to describe the changes (Do this without telling her it's a test).
So it's nice you regard the speculation about 'great hunters' as amusing. I've heard it and similar from a lot of observers who think it is often objectively true. Doubtless not in nearly all cases, and yes, I have seen ADHD children whose behavior was eternally annoying to simply intolerable for even the shortest exposures, but given your remarks, you would doubtless be amazed by how often this sort of claim comes up. Many of the reports aren't from parents or guardians of the subjects in question. There's a large subset of ADHD kids that focus quite well to absolutely superlatively in some other settings, just not in school.
While we're at it, a lot of these kids are regarded as needing medication by some female teacher, and any male teachers in the environment disagree, often strongly. Male teachers are 80% less likely to recommend an initial physician's visit than women, and even more likely to have the opinion that the child needs an outlet for his or her energies more than medication. Guess which gender was historically likely to be leading a hunting party?
In my daughter's case, there is only one group of people who were shown objectively to be wrong. That's the teaching staff who repeatedly warned that her behavior would only worsen if she was taken off Ritalin, who were 180 degrees off axis. The exceptional 7th grade math teacher who saw her at a midnight public astronomy workshop, and said, "If she's like this when she hasn't had a pill since noon, get her off the pills and she can skip bonehead math and be learning calculus by her junior year." was apparently right. The people who dealt with her in the summer that year, and were offering her chances to volunteer at a local museum were right (and sad that their insurance wouldn't let them offer an apprenticeship to a child with her diagnosis). Outside of school, we saw very little ostracism, either by other children or adults. Sure there was some, she's a geek of the old block after all.
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No, I didn't even address two children, much less causes. I talked about a (one) hyper child, that's all. Are you hallucinating?
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No, no. It's just obsolete usage. It's been replaced with "call a lawyer."
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Is it? Or is it that we have a religious cult worship of overwork? I'm with Bertrand Russel, Socrates and Buckminster fuller on this one, people work so much their relationships with their fellow human beings absolutely suck.
Justification for India's old caste system? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've read that the original idea behind India's caste system (a long, long time ago) was that different people were qualified for different jobs. I.e., ruling, manual labor, trade, etc. The idea was to basically codify this reality. (I don't believe that caste was originally imag
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Funny that wikipedia article also refers to Dysgenics [wikipedia.org].
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All these magic "genes" they find that "cause" behavior tend to have something like 1% to 20% of the total causes to the behavior. But the media always reports it as "The God Gene!" "The ADD Gene!" "The Novelty-Seeking Gene!"
Must be widespread.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Back on topic, I think this is very interesting reaearch. Dare one even hope for the possibility of a cure?
Re:Must be widespread.... (Score:5, Funny)
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The "state of the world" is the best it's ever been.
- war is at an all-time low
- wealth is at an all-time high
- poverty is at an all-time low
- pollution is lower than it has been in hundreds of years
- life expectancy is at an all-time high
- people are far healthier than at any time in the past
- Many of the worst diseases are eradicated or cured outright
- Death by starvation is unknown in the majority of countries -- it simply does not happen.
- etc., etc., etc.
It is real
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When western civilization burst onto the world scene starting around the 15th century, the main exports were backsliding and hobbesianism. India, which had been the economic center of the world, suffered an economic collapse. Central and southern America suferred an even more severe economic colla
Dupe (Score:2)
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Not to put too fine a point on it (Score:4, Insightful)
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In the future, the tolerant will tolerate the intolerant.
all the best,
drew
Correlation != Causation (Score:3, Interesting)
Human behavior is simple... (Score:2)
I find that the following two axioms explain much of what I observe in human behavior...
1: Thinking is hard.
2: People are lazy.
That's all here is to it.
Re:Human behavior is simple... (Score:4, Funny)
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I think you're talking about the use of religion, once the mythos is crafted. I was, admittedly far too tersely for it to be obvious, referring to the genesis of religion.
Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oddly enough, it only became really pronounced AFTER she stopped drinking - gene activation?
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She can't drink anymore, so she finds other ways of shooting herself in the foot, trying her hardest to ruin and wreck things for herself.
Is this because of some rogue gene? I seriously doubt it. This is what is known as a character flaw, one that is unfortunately very serious.
I hope that she is able to eventually work her way through all of the nonsense she's pulled in on top of herself. It is rare that someone
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A character flaw is, by definition, something that we are responsible for.
More than one way to Rome. (Score:5, Insightful)
The road called "genes" isn't the only one that can take you to Rome. There are plenty of others. If life was like a golf green, genes would be the contour and speed of the green. Learning, society and environment would be the skill of the golfer, the putter, the wind, etc.
Do Petty Criminals Also Lack D2 Receptors? (Score:4, Interesting)
A news site (Score:2)
into the ground.
Here's a good summation of the story (Score:2)
I guess this explains ... (Score:5, Funny)
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new category to moderate (Score:2, Funny)
Genes vs. Memory capacity (Score:2)
Two words (Score:2)
Intelligent design
So can we call this... (Score:2)
Mmmmm..... donuts.
DNA Test (Score:2, Interesting)
oh, wait...
Bah (Score:2)
I prefer to think of that as the triumph of optimism over experience.
All men are born with that (Score:2)
If you don't have 2 missing genes, you must be gay off course. For most geeks it is unknown whether or not they are missing some genes.
Isn't this backwards? (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't addiction the result of the brain learning too well that getting a certain stimulus triggers the pleasure/reward sensation? It's only a "mistake" when the stimulus turns out to be a false positive. The same "addicted" reaction to a drug that short-circuits the reward sensation might cause a person to acquire and maintain very good habits for needed nutrients or acquiring resources. It's a tradeoff between locking in behaviors that consistently produce rewards and the risk that you are locking in slowly self-destructive behaviors that only seemed to be a reward. A person who can break addictions easily may also tend to randomly stop doing useful, rewarding things.
It's called the "Surge" gene (Score:2)
CowboyNeal option? (Score:2)
Employers (Score:2)
Going to end up with a world of 'unemployables' as DNA technology improves to a frightening point of accuracy.
The lengths I'll go through to prove I RTFA. (Score:2)
"Fortunately we determined we were both negative for the A1-allele," Dr. Klein admitted with some relief, with Ullsperger adding, "We double checked just to make sure."
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Re:Genetic databases of individuals... (Score:4, Interesting)
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That depends on how seriously you want to hold to the axiom that "all men are created equal"
(I think this will be one of the fundamental choices we face as a society - do you allow discrimination based on uncontrollable birthrights or do you waive any liabilities a person is born with and only allow them to be judged by their actions/risks after birth)
consider the databases for sale (Score:2)
Imagine targeted advertizing. The casino industry won't have to waste advertizing on people like me. They can just target the people most vulnerable.
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Already doing it... (Score:2)
While I understand your point we have already been doing this to some extent for the past 100 years or so. As technology has improved people who would never have survived to reproductive age have managed to do so. A genetic weakness to measles, polio, TB etc is no longer a problem thanks to vaccines and infections are far less dangerous thanks to antibiotics so people with weaker immu
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Socialism means the end of progress; I though Nazi example should have taught us as much.
Oh no, I know it. (Score:3, Insightful)
We've pretty much run out of Flynn effect. IQ is predicted to drop a point or so each year based simply on who is having the kids. (IQ is not recentered, and thus not fixed at a mean of 100)
It won't keep up forever. It can't, because society can not be sustained with stupidity. Industry will eventually collapse. We're so interconnected these days that it will be a bit of a chain reaction.
In the coming disaster, survival will mean having all the old-style surviv
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YOUR KIDDING!
Note Willy..
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