Human universals

[andrewducker]

I've been involved in discussion with a few people about how much of human behaviour is genetic and how much is cultural. I tend to go for a 70-30 split in favour of genetics, with culture defining how we express the intrinsic nature (or fail to express it, depending).

If you're of the cultural persuasion, you'll find both this and this interesting.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I'd go 70s/30 also, but in the reverse direction. There are a few obvious ways in which the description of Universal People is at odds with a number of human cultures (one obvious example is the cultures that don't recognize or give significant status for fatherhood [typically using the mother's brother instead]). I'd read about similar efforts before and they simply don't work anywhere close to as well as the proponents suggest. IIRC, Brown's ideas were largely discredited not long after they were written.

One of my favorite cultural theories is explicitly evolutionist - the idea isn't that culture evolves in any set manner, but that successful cultural traits (ie ones that aid people who possess this train in their survival) survive and unsuccessful or negative traits die out. This theory alone can explain much of the similarity between human cultures.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

The second of the articles you linked to used Chomsky's UG as an example of the sort of innate behavior he was talking about. Here's a very interesting link to a discussion of genetic determinism that also comments on Chomsky's UG