Is it in the Genes?

[Busyman]

[QUOTE=JPaul]

I do

Ok thanks for chiming in, everyone.

[Busyman]

As for sexual preference, what I know has been proven is that we, operating on our senses of smell (phermones) and sight, pick individuals that A) have genetic material most different to ours, most especially the genes that govern our immune defense, as that makes for a better immune system in a possible child. This is also a safe-guard against inbreeding. B) We pick individuals we either associate with something positive (some trait our parents might have had, for instance) or who we find exotic (this again promotes diversity, although people do tend to avoid something too exotic, I think, though this is just a personal observation), sometimes opposites attract, and sometimes we seek comfort in that which is familiar. C) We avoid assymetry as far as we can, as an assymetrical body-shape or a face can be a tell-tale sign of illness or damage which would make for a bad partner.

To complicate things further we can override all of these instincts (in some they aren't working properly, think of parents that abuse their children and such) if the situation calls for it, say if our only means of genetic survival means we have to mate with someone who doesn't fit all the criteria, maybe because the population is too small.

I agree with most of what you said except most of the above.

In A), where has it been proven that we choose folks based different genetic material? A man wants to jump in pussy (for the most part). While it's ideal not to fuck your sister or first cousin to make sure there isn't a baby with 3 eyeballs, one wouldn't know it in a blind study.

In B), people choose others for mishmash of reasons.

I agree with C) but mainly because MOST of us tend to avoid people that look weird to us....not necessarily signs of illness.

We can override instincts but I don't think A, B, AND C are really instincts but are cultural phenomena.

[hobbes]

I don't think that the fact that steak smells good is proof of anything you've inherited.

It was just an example.

Let us take the opposite approach- feces.

We perceive it to smell "bad" because it is nutritionally bereft and contains chemical which are harmful. Anybody mistake a toilet filled with feces for a
large bowl of soup?

On the other hand, rabbits eat their own poop. Do you think they do this because they have a concious understanding that there are important vitamins in their feces. No, they are programmed to eat them. Not all of them, just the ones that smell "good" (contain nutrients).

There is no absolute good or bad smell, babies don't need to be taught not to eat their poop. It is programmed. It is no different than a tendon response, when the doctor hits your knee with a reflex hammer. Stimulus in, reflex out.

Again, the steak situation was just an example of a general concept not an absolute, that we have instinctive responses to certain smells.

Things that are not essential to survival , such as eating steak, can be modified by life experiences. I got sick on potato chips one year and stopped eating them for the next 5. Some people died of food poisoning at Jack in the Box when I was a kid, I still don't eat there.

It is called "learned aversion". Steak can be substituted by many things, so it is not essential.

But how many people do you know that won't drink water? Who taught you "thirst"? When you're dehydrated, who taught you to drink water and not maple syrup. How come only water "quenches" that thirst.

Well then, why doesn't water smell/taste? It is chemically too small and it is always present to some degree in the mouth. Something that is stimulating a receptor all the time, tends to extinguish the response to that stimulus.

And as Snny pointed out, we respond to stimuli that we don't even conciously perceive. Phermones go below our radar, but we resond to them just the same.

We are all just robots in denial.

[JPaul]

[QUOTE=Busyman]

Ok thanks for chiming in, everyone.

What be chiming in.

You made a sweeping generalization, which was patently incorrect. I refuted it based on my own personal liking for the smell. I can also state that I know several people who like the smell of steak, both raw and cooked.

You were wrong, just accept it for once and move on with your life. It isn't always a competition.

[Snee]

As for sexual preference, what I know has been proven is that we, operating on our senses of smell (phermones) and sight, pick individuals that A) have genetic material most different to ours, most especially the genes that govern our immune defense, as that makes for a better immune system in a possible child. This is also a safe-guard against inbreeding. B) We pick individuals we either associate with something positive (some trait our parents might have had, for instance) or who we find exotic (this again promotes diversity, although people do tend to avoid something too exotic, I think, though this is just a personal observation), sometimes opposites attract, and sometimes we seek comfort in that which is familiar. C) We avoid assymetry as far as we can, as an assymetrical body-shape or a face can be a tell-tale sign of illness or damage which would make for a bad partner.

To complicate things further we can override all of these instincts (in some they aren't working properly, think of parents that abuse their children and such) if the situation calls for it, say if our only means of genetic survival means we have to mate with someone who doesn't fit all the criteria, maybe because the population is too small.

I agree with most of what you said except most of the above.

In A), where has it been proven that we choose folks based different genetic material? A man wants to jump in pussy (for the most part). While it's ideal not to fuck your sister or first cousin to make sure there isn't a baby with 3 eyeballs, one wouldn't know it in a blind study.

In B), people choose others for mishmash of reasons.

I agree with C) but mainly because MOST of us tend to avoid people that look weird to us....not necessarily signs of illness.

We can override instincts but I don't think A, B, AND C are really instincts but are cultural phenomena.

It's just what some scientists whose work I read said, maybe they are all wrong, though. Who teh feck knows.

Most of what I wrote there is based on empirical data gathered through (hopefully) appropriately conducted research though, and some of it is apparently based on statistics.

If you are interested, there have been a couple of tv-series about the mechanisms of physical attraction, both on the discovery channel and on bbc.


@hobbes: I hadn't considered the rabbit poop, but you may have a point there. Regarding our own droppings (we're just animals really, so I might as well call it that) I recall being told (think it was in psychology-class) that infants find all unfamiliar smells frightening/bad, and that smells that become familiar become good, if we start to associate them with something good.

In theory, following this, since we don't have any use for it, we'd never learn how to associate the smell of it with something good, and therefore our perception of it would either remain that it was bad, or we'd be neutral to it as it isn't a threat, either. After that it would be a matter of culture. But all of this is debateable, of course.


Your point about water is interesting too, it's definitely part of our programming to want to drink, the suction reflex babies have proves this, the question is whether we can ever say that our drinking water in particular is something we inherited or not, maybe someone might say that we learned to want that particular fluid (I'm with you there though, I think human beings have an instinct for it, people certainly seem to respond to the sight of water in a certain way).

Thirst is definitely normally a part of human programming. Incidentally, I was born without it, as I don't really feel thirst. I can't tell you how many times my mother have had to tell me to drink something when I was a kid, nowadays I tend to drink at regular intervals (I think I've learned to pick up on when I haven't drunk enough, somehow, but it isn't the same thing as regular thirst as I understand it) without having to be reminded about it, but I had to learn it.

[Busyman]

I don't think that the fact that steak smells good is proof of anything you've inherited.

It was just an example.

Let us take the opposite approach- feces.

We perceive it to smell "bad" because it is nutritionally bereft and contains chemical which are harmful. Anybody mistake a toilet filled with feces for a
large bowl of soup?

On the other hand, rabbits eat their own poop. Do you think they do this because they have a concious understanding that there are important vitamins in their feces. No, they are programmed to eat them. Not all of them, just the ones that smell "good" (contain nutrients).

There is no absolute good or bad smell, babies don't need to be taught not to eat their poop. It is programmed. It is no different than a tendon response, when the doctor hits your knee with a reflex hammer. Stimulus in, reflex out.

Again, the steak situation was just an example of a general concept not an absolute, that we have instinctive responses to certain smells.

Things that are not essential to survival , such as eating steak, can be modified by life experiences. I got sick on potato chips one year and stopped eating them for the next 5. Some people died of food poisoning at Jack in the Box when I was a kid, I still don't eat there.

It is called "learned aversion". Steak can be substituted by many things, so it is not essential.

But how many people do you know that won't drink water? Who taught you "thirst"? When you're dehydrated, who taught you to drink water and not maple syrup. How come only water "quenches" that thirst.

Well then, why doesn't water smell/taste? It is chemically too small and it is always present to some degree in the mouth. Something that is stimulating a receptor all the time, tends to extinguish the response to that stimulus.

And as Snny pointed out, we respond to stimuli that we don't even conciously perceive. Phermones go below our radar, but we resond to them just the same.

We are all just robots in denial.

Cool steak wasn't a great example. Food, water, and shit are better ones.

The type of food one likes (and even water for that matter nowadays) makes us not so robotic.

[Busyman]

[QUOTE=JPaul]

What be chiming in.

You made a sweeping generalization, which was patently incorrect. I refuted it based on my own personal liking for the smell. I can also state that I know several people who like the smell of steak, both raw and cooked.

You were wrong, just accept it for once and move on with your life. It isn't always a competition.

Great, a JPaulism.

Ok then I was wrong.

Everyone does think steak smells good.

[Busyman]

I agree with most of what you said except most of the above.

In A), where has it been proven that we choose folks based different genetic material? A man wants to jump in pussy (for the most part). While it's ideal not to fuck your sister or first cousin to make sure there isn't a baby with 3 eyeballs, one wouldn't know it in a blind study.

In B), people choose others for mishmash of reasons.

I agree with C) but mainly because MOST of us tend to avoid people that look weird to us....not necessarily signs of illness.

We can override instincts but I don't think A, B, AND C are really instincts but are cultural phenomena.

It's just what some scientists whose work I read said, maybe they are all wrong, though. Who teh feck knows.

Most of what I wrote there is based on empirical data gathered through (hopefully) appropriately conducted research though, and some of it is apparently based on statistics.

If you are interested, there have been a couple of tv-series about the mechanisms of physical attraction, both on the discovery channel and on bbc.

It's just that some conclusions are made because they fit and necessarily because it's right.

I mean I choose someone based on genetic material?

Maybe you are right, as long as that a good amount of that genetic material is in her ass.

[JPaul]

[QUOTE=Busyman]

Great, a JPaulism.

Ok then I was wrong.

Everyone does think steak smells good.

I think you'll find that those and such as those have agreed that it is being mankerized.

The JPaulism is a fantasy, an urban myth if you will. It has only ever existed in the head of those who cannot achieve that which you so easily accomplished.

The admission of fallibility.

[vidcc]

Why are people using the fact that different people like different to suggest that proves genes have nothing to do with liking or disliking things when we all have uniqueness in our genetics?
Genes are not purely the way they are in the individual because of what is passed on by parents. Some genes can be missing or "corrupted". There is no absolute.

So an argument against hobbes "smell=food" point because not everyone likes the smell of steak is flawed because we don't all have identical genetics...similar yes but not identical...we are not clones.

Behaviour can be instinctive and learned, but it is our genetics that decide how our brain develops and therefore how we learn. Some people can operate a computer with almost instinctive ease but not a stove.

Why do some people like some things others don't like?....because we are not genetically identical