Criteria for Natural Selection
I just read a New York Times Article on how a lot of personality is likely genetic. It didn’t seem like much of a surprise to me. Smart parents have smart children, skinny parents have skinny children, risk-taking parents have risk-taking children, etc. etc. What I find interesting is that if personalites are inherited then that means they are selected through the evolutionary process just like the rest of our genes. What’s interesting is that the only thing that our genes are selected on is our ability to procreate. If you had the choice to control what criteria different genes are selected on (like in the design of genetic algorithms), I would think you would choose something better than simply the ability to find a mate and live long enough to procreate. Things like selecting non-violent personalities, creative personalites, etc, would seem like better choices.
June 20th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
Interesting idea, but it sure could get some people pissed off if you suggest that we DON’T select something that’s in their genes…I guess the question is who’s doing the selecting? If it’s the parents, I suppose that’s not too bad, as long as they all make different choices, but what if they selected the genes for one kid and had another just by rolling the dice? Might the kid who was by chance feel less loved?
June 21st, 2006 at 9:56 am
Well I wasn’t really advocating that we start trying to change natural selection, thats why its “natural”. And choosing things like creativity or non-violent personalities almost certainly would be genetic.
But people are already doing some of this stuff. People are genetically screening their children and deciding whether to have the baby or not based on any diseases they might have, but soon I’m sure they’ll be able to get information on personality and height and other things.
And in general, in being able to find a mate, you have to have some attractive qualities. So even though people select their mate based on appearances and personality and stuff, since they each choose differently it still works out overall.