Behavioral Genetics — Robert Sapolsky's Human Behavioral Biology
I've been watching these videos for weeks (see link below). It has completely changed my perspective on people, on human life, on my siblings, my friends, my neighbors, my relationships, and myself. I've been totally blown away and wanted to share.
Get this: Genes coding for proteins, make up only 2% of the human genome. The remaining 98% are regulatory, non-coding, sequences, once thought to be "junk DNA," only a decade ago.
Far from being junk, these regulatory sequences turn gene expressions on and off in response to the environment — through promoters, enhancers, silencers, insulators, and so on.
For example, Sapolsky cites a study of why girls are "bad at math."
Studies in gender-equal countries like Iceland have shown girls performing as well as or better than boys in math.
The misconception of a gender gap is often due to factors like societal stereotypes, teacher bias, and cultural differences in motivation — not ability!
The worst country cited in the study was Turkey, a country widely considered to have significant issues with misogyny — results of the study correlated with the UN's Gender Inequality Index (GII).
If you want somebody, or a group of people, to be dumb, treat them like sh*t!
The variability of gene expressions is also proven widely in the study of twins, whose behaviors co-vary depending on their development.
These videos will probably change your life and improve your relationships and are easy to follow: They go into hormones, mothering, personality types and schizophrenia, the heritability of conservative and progressive voting tendencies and germophobia (crazy!), monogamy, gender identity, religiosity, language, and much, much more.
I've been watching the videos in varying order, it doesn't matter where you start. Here is the one that first piqued my interest a month ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7yw1pHd3as
#humanbehavior #epigenetics #sapolsky
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