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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024

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I think my own position regarding the role of genetics in life outcomes is pretty consistent with common biodiversity positions, which typically aren't hard genetic determinism. The effects of both environment and personal choice are sufficiently obvious that I don't see how anyone could sustain a serious claim that everything is genetically determined, environmentally determined, or under complete individual control. Genetic and hereditary characteristics define outer limits of capacity and shape tendencies. Environments define the range of available outcomes. Personal choices and elements of randomness fill in the rest. Using that toy model for most outcomes, including fitness and weight, provides results that are pretty consistent with observed reality.

I don't know how anyone that has ever put meaningful effort into improving at anything could land on hard genetic determinism as the only governor of their outcomes. I have literally zero doubt that if I elected to shift from my primary sport being running to weightlifting that I would lose aerobic fitness and gain muscle mass. I suppose the claim is that the only reason I'm even capable of doing that in the first place is purely deterministic and then we're into some goofy argument about whether free will exists. Suffice it to say I don't buy the claim that decision-making literally doesn't exist.

With regard to the accusation that my positions are shaped by what results in feeling good about myself - yeah, sure, probably, that seems like an unavoidable consequence of being human. Even so, I don't think that desire to feel good about myself has twisted my understanding of the world to anywhere near the degree as the morbidly obese individual that claims they're healthy anyway and that weight can't be controlled.