Posted on 05/11/2005 9:03:13 PM PDT by beavus
A study published in the current issue of Journal of Personality studied adult male monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins to find that difference in religiousness are influenced by both genes and environment. But during the transition from adolescence to adulthood, genetic factors increase in importance while shared environmental factors decrease. Environmental factors (i.e. parenting and family life) influence a child's religiousness, but their effects decline with the transition into adulthood. An analysis of self-reported religiousness showed that MZ twins maintained their religious similarity over time, while the DZ twins became more dissimilar. "These correlations suggest low genetic and high environmental influences when the twins were young but a larger genetic influence as the twins age" the authors state.
Participants for this study were 169 MZ and 104 DZ male twin pairs from Minnesota. Religiousness was tested using self-report of nine items that measured the centrality of religion in their lives. The twins graded the frequency in which they partook in religious activities such as reading scripture or other religious material and the importance of religious faith in daily life. They also reported on their mother's, their father's, and their own religiousness when they were growing up. They were also asked to report on the current and past religiousness of their brother. The factors were divided into subscales-- external aspects of religion, like observing religious holidays, that might be the most susceptible to environmental influence and internal aspects, like seeking help through prayer, that might be the most susceptible to heritable influence. The external items were found to be more environmentally and less genetically influenced during childhood, but more genetically influenced in adulthood. The internal scale showed a similar pattern, but the genetic influences seemed to be slightly larger in childhood compared to the external scale and so more consistent across the two ages. "Like other personality traits, adult religiousness is heritable, and though changes in religiousness occur during development, it is fairly stable," the authors conclude.
intelectual capacity to form groups is far different than preset to affiliate with some particular groups. So groups which advocate "racial purity" have a tribal advantage? That went out with the kkk.
This is also akin to the homosexual arguing they exist as some form of "helper drone" to human society.
Perhaps we should be declaring homsexuals a metally deficient because they do not have the mental ability to associate orgams with members of the opposite sex.
Nice try, but it doesnt fit here. I didn't bring up the non sequitur, only responded to it once it was repeatedly made.
Impressive. In one post you reveal a lack of understanding of eugenics, genetics, free will, Calvinism, and this particular study.
This is also akin to the homosexual arguing they exist as some form of "helper drone" to human society.
Hilarious! To you every response to a Rorschach test is "homosexual", isn't it!
Okay, let's hear your version.
So if anyone uses the word "homosexual" in any instance whatsoever, they are fixated?
No doubt that there is a potential genetic role for each personality trait, but testing for them without observing specific genes can be folly. Trying to measure anything indirectly always includes the possibility that you're really measuring something else.
...turned out Schizophrenia was a medical condition that was largely genetic.
In cases where conscious control is not a part of the behavior, yes, we can measure genetic influence. But when evaluating the genetic basis of something under as much conscious control as religiousity (and some would throw homosexuality into this as well), we run the risk of minimizing environmental factors. One of the big flaws of twin studies is that they just assume that a pair of fraternal twins and a pair of identical twins, raised by similar families, are going to have the same environmental influences placed upon them. It simply isn't true, identical twins (or fraternal twins that are commonly assumed to be identical) have GIANT amounts of pressure put on them to be two copies of the same person.
My ex-wife was an identical twin, and further, she and her sister were albino (legally blind because of it), and pigeonholed even more than most identical twins. I've seen up close the amount of pressure they get to be like each other, it even comes from the other twin when one starts to 'stray' away from what they've been doing.
Genetic influenced behavior does not contradict free will.
When they keep bringing it up in unrelated contexts, yes, they are.
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