That man Dawkins

Me too!

Can I come with you, Granjura?

Nellie

Well if he is watching - maybe he'll invite me for dinner! That would be fabulous.

If Dawkins Googles himself, he might have come across this thread. Are you there?

This forum should praise the existence of Richard Dawkins.

Look at the activity it has generated. Look what opportunities it has given to Gransnetters to exercise their brains, vent their spleens, argue, discuss calmly, upset each other and then apologise.

Well its about the only good thing I can think of to say bout him and his views!

Thank you, Greatnan.

I don't have any precise information or evidence, but I have been reading and hearing quite a lot recently about how events and circumstances in foetal development / birth / early childhood can "hardwire" certain tendancies into the brain. There also seems to be some research that says that intensive therapy (physical and psychological) can change the behaviours.
The book "The Shallows", which is about how using the internet is changing the way we think, has got some interesting stuff in it about parts of the brain can change what they do; for example if someone becomes blind the part of the brain used for visual processing will change and do something else.

I am sorry you were hurt - it was entirely accidental.

I wasn't annoyed, Greatnan. I was hurt.

Oh,, dear, Anagram, if you keep looking for slights you will be very unhappy. I am rather slow at posting and if you look at the times of our posts you will see how close they are. I genuinely did not notice your post. I am far too interested in this fascinating subject to bother trying to annoy anybody.

Yes come over to the fluffy threads Anagram it's warm and cosy over there

Don't worry, johanna - I'll stick to the 'fluffy' threads in future!
(I know my place)

ana

Oh, I see....

Thanks, Greatnan I was listening to part of a programme on radio 4 this morning, in which the researcher being interviewed (the government advisor who got sacked after saying horse riding is more dangerous than taking ecstacy) said that we don't even have the equivalent of an alphabet to enable us to develop a langauge to start discussing the complex processes that take place in the brain. We know so litte yet about how the chemicals circulating through our respective bloodstreams affect our personality and behaviour.

So I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you were not deliberately ignoring me, Greatnan.

But of course, my post was actually in reply to when's.

Flickety makes some interesting and relevant comments on the Older People Drinking thread.

That was the programme I referred to in my post, Greatnan.

No, I don't think criminality is genetically determined but I watched the programme in which the researcher said there was a gene for a propensity to aggression - in fact he was concerned to find that he himself had that gene. I am not a scientist, so I can only give a layman's view of what he said, but I think his conclusion was that the gene would only be likely to come into play if the person had very bad early experiences. I thought of Ian Brady. This kind of research into the mind is still in its infancy and I don't know if the findings can be replicated. Perhaps the researcher was completely mistaken.
I am not sure which part of my post you don't agree with Bags. Is it not the case that mood-altering drugs have been found to affect the brain permanently? And behaviour certainly changes under the influence of drugs.

There was a Horizon programme about this subject:

Are you good or evil?

It was very interesting.

Greatnan I am interested in your comment about a criminality gene, as I've always thought there may not be such a thing. Criminality is socially constructed and defined and certain acts may be crimes under one legal system and not others. Propensity to violence and psychopathic traits may be present in law-abiding people who manage not to act on them. I have always believed that certain personality types may be generally criminal, and that this is down to their interaction with the environment, but I wonder whether you are thinking that personality is wholly genetically determined? It's a fascinating subject

I knew that Feetlebaum but thanks all the same. I've done a fair bit of research in my time, both at a teaching/academic level but also something involving a huge number of statistical tests when I did my M.Sc. in Psychology. Always hoping for a significance level of 0.001 rather than 0.05. I seem to remember anything higher than 0.05 meant results were not significant.

So I do understand the process and how important it is to scrutinise the methodology of any piece of research which seems to suggest that something or other has been 'proved' which is why when Bags said 'I expect that's already been proved' I made my comment.

More info at the actual MedicalXpress article.