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Genetic Disorder Removes Racial Bias and Social Fear
People who suffer from a rare genetic disorder called Williams Syndrome have a complete lack of social fear. They experience no anxiety or concerns about meeting new people or being put into any social situation, and a new study by Andreia Santos suggests that they also don't have any racial bias. From the article: "Typically, children start overtly gravitating towards their own ethnic groups from the tender age of three. Groups of people from all over the globe and all sorts of cultures show these biases. Even autistic children, who can have severe difficulties with social relationships, show signs of racial stereotypes. But Santos says that the Williams syndrome kids are the first group of humans devoid of such racial bias, although, as we’ll see, not everyone agrees."
TFA notes this
Santos suggests that children with Williams syndrome don’t develop the same biases that their peers do, because they don’t experience social fear. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, who led the study, says, “There are hyper-social, very empathetic, very friendly, and do not get danger signals.” And because they’ll freely interact with anyone, they are less likely to cultivate a preference for people of their own ethnic groups. Alternatively, it could be that because they don’t fall prey to stereotypes, they’re more likely to socialise with everyone.
I think that's the cause, not because theres some difference in genes that makes you lose racial bias. They're friendly people and open to anyone. Rasism comes from not being open and friendly to people you think are somehow different.
But their complete lack of social fear is also a bad thing because not everyone are so and they might get hurt because of it. It's better than the other way more with geeky people though - I had trouble speaking to people or be open with them and it obviously got in the way of my relationships too. Somehow that changed when I was put in to social situations (with the help of beer) and got myself in to an relationship. Yes, one girl actually fell in love with me and because I acted like an open and social guy I kind of had to continue doing it. It took its time but it made an everlasting change to me, and now I can talk about things openly, be social and be friendly to people.
You call it a "genetic disorder", I call it the "evolution".
They hate everyone equally.
Good. Now we can end racism and breed everyone into one uniform Grey Race that will be the future of humankind. We will preserve diversity by creating uniformity. It will be a victory for equality!
Futurist Traditionalism
Nah. They just turn sideways with their left arms pointed outwards. And in this particular picture, they also bent their elbows sideways, though this is optional.
What I don't envy is the person on top of the ladder taking the photo....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
If you're intrigued by this sort of thing, there's a fantastic SF short by Ted Chiang called "Liking What You See: A Documentary". It's about the consequences and ethics of suppressing a person's ability to recognise (and thus be biased by) physical attractiveness. One of the best things I've ever read.
It's collected in his "Stories of Your Life and Others".
The fear or distrust of "same as us but not one of us" is common.
Many species of social animals (mainly larger predators: wolves, lions, etc.. ) act threatened when confronted with a different pack, pride, colony, etc of their own kind... more so than by the presence of a different species (such as humans).
There's a damn good reason for it too. The group recognizes that other "tribe" of us wants the exact same thing we need to survive.
When I was a kid MOST of my friends were of different races so I never learned to feel any sort of bias on that level. But I learned the difference between the types of kids who would bully other kids and the type of kids who didn't and I saw the bullies as "them".
This is a really cool on-line rather objective test for determining what racial color biases you have:
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/
This really really pisses off people who think they have no prejudice.
*** Spoiler Alert ***
To do well on the test (and get a neutral rating), you really have to accept the racial bias you have and actively prompt yourself to counter it.
First, this is no news, I'm sure Wikipedia's article already says this, and more I have a friend with William's Syndrome. She is really gifted in languages: I am 18, and consider myself above average with 5 languages. She speaks 9, and now she's learning Russian.
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
The not so normal part about that is that he wants a daughter...
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Babies prefer to look at people who look like their parents, or who look like they do. It's not because the baby has a concept of race but because the baby probably never has seen someone who looked like that before. If you are a baby surrounded by blonde white people and an asian face is shown to you then you are going to freak out if you've never seen a face like that before even if the face is beautiful.
Do you actually understand the concept of statistical significance? From your use of the word 'insignificant' I doubt you're really understanding what the article is saying. Statistical significance is a different concept from what is typically meant by 'significance.'
I'm probably oversimplifying a bit, but the error bars on the Williams bar in the figure is sufficiently large to include 50% ('pure chance'). This means that based on the number of children tested, the standard deviation around the estimated mean includes the chance value--therefore, we cannot say with any confidence that the 'true' mean differs from 50% in Williams children.
In contrast, the error bar around the non-Williams children comes nowhere near 50%--that is, there is no reasonable way that resampling would produce a mean of 50%. Therefore the 'true mean' must be significantly different from 50%--and in this case, it is different in the direction of greater bias.
That's completely ridiculous.
Removing a word for a concept does not remove the concept. People have different skin colors. No amount of wishing will change that fact, nor the fact that we can recognize different skin colors.
Teaching people to ignore the color of other's skin is dangerous. It's equatable to abstinence-only sex ed.
Don't teach people that race doesn't exist. That's dumb. Teach that race does exist, but is ultimately irrelevant.
And, yes, racial stereotypes ARE USEFUL. You meet a random person. They look different than you, and speak in a strange accent. Without the use of racial and cultural stereotypes it would not be possible to conclude where that person is from. There are physical differences between people who come from different areas, and by having a concept of, say, a stereotypical Israeli, or Brasilian, of both physical features and manner of speaking, you are able to determine where that stranger is from. That's just useful information. You can gain knowledge through racial stereotypes. You do not necessarily have to proceed from that point to where you're reaching conclusions about the character of that person based upon that information. It's just that last step there that we have a problem with.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
I wonder what the implications of a lack of social fear result in. Would these individuals be more likely to commit asocial activities? A lack of fear of being ridiculed might make one of them come up with a radical theory while it might make another commit a crime without thinking of the social implications.
What would happen if there were no word for race is, you'd have some kids who would be considered "uglier" than some others, and these "ugly" kids would form bonds with other kids considered "ugly". This would be the logical conclusion if race were removed.
Actually if we didn't have the word race, we'd just have France's problem of trying to prove racial bias without using the word.
Removing words will not solve the problem. It just makes it harder to talk about it.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
My ancestors survived by forming a tribe and killing members of the opposing tribe whether they looked like them or not. Tribe is not the same as race. Tribe is a matter of language, culture, and gene pools.
I'm tribal, I'm not racial.
Actually, tests have been done that check for exactly this. Young children consistently will identify with the an illustration of a person the same skin color of them over someone who has a similar body shape to them/their parents. "Race" is artificial but ethnicity is not. It comes down to kinship, if a person has a different skin color than you, they are very likely not related, and therefore a higher risk. This appears to be built-in.
I agree with your post, and thank you for pointing out what statistical significance is.
Still, there is another interesting point to make.
``I'm probably oversimplifying a bit, but the error bars on the Williams bar in the figure is sufficiently large to include 50% ('pure chance'). This means that based on the number of children tested, the standard deviation around the estimated mean includes the chance value--therefore, we cannot say with any confidence that the 'true' mean differs from 50% in Williams children.''
Exactly, but neither can we conclude that the true mean does _not_ differ from 50% in Williams children.
In other words, if this is all there is to the study, we can conclude that non-Williams subjects are biased (at the probability level used to determine statistical significance), whereas Williams subjects may or may not be biased. That's a far cry from the absence of racial bias that the summary claims.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
What I'm saying is none of these social constructs are based on science
Cutting you off right there chief. Albinoism is a lack of melanin in the skin. Melanin can be imperically measured... SCIENCE! The color of your skin, your hair color, and the shape of your eyes are not a social construct.
the group of people they use stereotypes on can just as easily create and use stereotypes as a weapon against them. And I'd go so far as to say this would be the ethical thing to do because the only way to show a bully why something is wrong is to do it to them so they can experience how it feels.
When the jock gets passed up on a job for being too blonde, too fit, too good looking, he will know how it feels and will learn "THATS WRONG!" and when this happens eventually he will learn "THAT IS BULLSHIT! RACE IS BULLSHIT!".
Frankly this rant is the kind of nonsenical garbage that I would expect to come from someone who's mommy didn't hug him enough as a child...
But until he learns that I'm fine with discriminating against him because if someone believes stereotypes should apply to others, it should apply to them as well.
So why should I hire a racist? If they believe in races over believing in genetics then they are no better than individuals who don't believe in evolution.
I don't think people are talking about imbred Billy Bob talking about how he "hates thum darkies". At least not with regard to this particular article. I believe they're talking about instinctual subconscious favoritism, which I believe exists.
As far as I'm concerned they behave as a race, and they think and act alike so the stereotype applies until they decide to grow up.
So you're racist then, since you seem to hate them?
The worst thing you can do is simply sit back and let the dumbest most retarded ignorant among us take control of and hijack all the stereotypes, do all the discrimination, and create countless numbers of victims without consequence. So would I hire someone who I suspect to be a racist?
Indeed, but this isn't helping your argument.
Sure I'd hire this person, but they shouldn't expect to get a high salary or get promoted, they can be the janitor.
And this is completely ethical because only the enlightened should be rewarded. Ignorance should never be rewarded and this is the problem with concepts like race, it primarily rewards the ignorant at the expense of the intelligent.
So you're saying that, without actually knowing for sure, you'd not hire someone on the presupposition that you believe that either they're racist, or you're intimidated by the fact that they're attractive and in shape, and then you go on to accuse THEM of being ignorant?
Frankly, I'm not sure how to respond, but to be honest, it makes me uncomfortable that you're here.
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