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Post by Ganbare! on Sept 21, 2009 21:48:45 GMT -5
Do you think genes determine preference and ability for certain occupations or is it mostly education/conscious choices?
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Post by milkman's baby on Sept 21, 2009 23:32:29 GMT -5
Well if being tall and muscular is in your gene pool, you have a better chance at becoming a NBA player I guess. But as for mental capabilities, I have no idea. I would argue more for the nurture side than the nature side, though. Environment is just too powerful.
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Post by Ganbare! on Sept 22, 2009 12:49:23 GMT -5
I remember reading an old academic paper hinting that genes and occupations were correlated but it wasn't conclusive enough to define which has more influence... Anyone know more?
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Post by betahat on Sept 22, 2009 13:05:08 GMT -5
As I mentioned in another thread: "The intergenerational correlation of lifetime income is about 0.5. On average, your own test scores (IQ,SAT,etc.) are about 50% due to your parents IQ (both directly through genetics and through the effect of their IQ on your family income) and about 50% due to the part of your parents' wealth that is uncorrelated with their IQ."
To the extent that IQ is correlated with some occupations, there is undoubtedly some genetic influence. The same can be said for other heritable attributes besides IQ, like body characteristics. Or eyesight - our own Maverick the fighter pilot clearly managed to avoid the poor eyesight Asian gene that I got from my papa.
On the whole, I would say genetics are more likely to exclude you from certain professions - poor Phil might be too short to be a runway model, my eyesight is too poor to be a fighter pilot like my white grandpa, Ganbare couldn't put on enough bulk to be a sumo wrestler or offensive linesman, etc. I think it is much less likely to put you into a certain profession. The fact that many children of lawyers become lawyers, doctors become doctors, professors become professors, blacksmiths become blacksmiths, musicians become musicians, etc. is MUCH more due to nurture than nature, because the skills to become are lawyer are similar to the skills to become a doctor or a professor (good at reading, reading comprehension, memorization, written communication, etc.).
I would say on the whole the the genetic component of occupation is probably most evident in physical traits like body size and eyesight. Things like math skills, verbal skills, and general intelligence are both (a)less heritable, and (b)useful for such a wide range of occupations that I can't see how they really point you towards one career or another.
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Post by Ganbare! on Sept 22, 2009 13:21:50 GMT -5
You often hear the story of the son of an 'enter profession here' ending up as an actor and that their family tree spanned several actors in previous generations. In my opinion this shows there is a certain degree of sensibility to certain occupations that are genetic.
For instance, I barely know my extended paternal family nor my own father at all, thing is my sister has a huge leniency for business even though my mother tried all that she could to push her into law, turns out almost everybody from my grand-parents to my uncles and aunts and cousins are managers or entrepreneurs (that's around 20 people).
And our upbringing has probably nothing to do with anything since both my mom and older brother are big on hard sciences.
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Post by betahat on Sept 22, 2009 14:33:46 GMT -5
I thought your mom ran a restaurant, i.e. a business? Now you're saying your mom is into law and sciences?
Anyway, the fact that your brother does science and your sister does business (and you do whatever it is you do now) doesn't really imply that it's genes or family - presumably you all shared the same. [Maybe there is an argument about birth order somewhere in there.]
Especially in Asian families, business often runs in the family but not necessarily because of genes - it's because of all the networks and the presumption that you will continue or extend the family business. At least that's how it was on my Asian/business family side. I think the same thing is true for the entertainment biz - the children of entertainers have a huge leg up in terms of name recognition, early opportunities, and access to their parents' networks. Do you think Bush got to where he is because of the "President" gene in the Bush family or because of daddy's connections?
The only way to solve this really is with adopted twin studies, but I don't know what they have to say about occupational choice. Unlike IQ, which is easy to measure and one dimensional, it is probably too hard to measure similarities/dissimilarities in occupational choice to reach any firm conclusions about genetics and occupational choice from such studies.
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Post by Ganbare! on Sept 22, 2009 14:41:38 GMT -5
I thought your mom ran a restaurant, i.e. a business? Now you're saying your mom is into law and sciences? Anyway, the fact that your brother does science and your sister does business (and you do whatever it is you do now) doesn't really imply that it's genes or family - presumably you all shared the same. [Maybe there is an argument about birth order somewhere in there.] Especially in Asian families, business often runs in the family but not necessarily because of genes - it's because of all the networks and the presumption that you will continue or extend the family business. At least that's how it was on my Asian/business family side. I think the same thing is true for the entertainment biz - the children of entertainers have a huge leg up in terms of name recognition, early opportunities, and access to their parents' networks. Do you think Bush got to where he is because of the "President" gene in the Bush family or because of daddy's connections? The only way to solve this really is with adopted twin studies, but I don't know what they have to say about occupational choice. Unlike IQ, which is easy to measure and one dimensional, it is probably too hard to measure similarities/dissimilarities in occupational choice to reach any firm conclusions about genetics and occupational choice from such studies. She does but she hates it ! I'm not completly convinced by your explanation though you do raise interesting questions about family connections but it's a bit simplistic to claim that everyone either have or use them.
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Post by betahat on Sept 22, 2009 16:04:32 GMT -5
Family connections work better in some jobs than others. In business and entertainment and government they matter more, since a large part of those jobs is networking anyway. They don't help so much in doing science or academia or sports or classical music - there it's more likely parental influence, where it exists, occurs through other means like exposure to ideas, values, and habits as well as direct tutoring.
Of course I'm generalizing. I never got any job through family connections (but then my parents are academics in different fields, so their networks are worthless to my professional advancement) but my brother got his law firm job this summer through his girlfriend's dad, and was 0 for 150 through "cold" (non solicited/introduced) applications. I like that some organizations like the World Bank and UN have really strict rules against nepotism, because it is so rampant in government in so many places. Though of course sometimes that will be unfair (and nepotism still occurs in those organizations at the margin).
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Post by palaver on Sept 23, 2009 0:33:40 GMT -5
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Post by betahat on Sept 23, 2009 10:26:36 GMT -5
Is that Simba? Why not give another lion a chance, like Scar? Why does King of the Jungle always have to be hereditary?
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Post by Subuatai on Sept 25, 2009 6:59:53 GMT -5
My dad has a Masters, and my mum has a Ph.D. According to genetics, I should be smart, and be earning 100k a year with only 40 hrs/week work sitting my ass in the office. I turned out to be dumb instead, and earning 100k a year only by 84 hr/s week doing physical jobs.
So err...
^The latter in my opinion.
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Post by Ganbare! on Sept 25, 2009 15:03:26 GMT -5
You are stereotyping, there's hasn't been such thing as a white-collar job at 40 hours/week for decades. Maybe 45, probably 50 but never 40 hours.
isn't 84 hrs/w illegal unless you're self-employed ?
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Post by betahat on Sept 25, 2009 18:41:26 GMT -5
I thought there was, in France anyway. But maybe that was always more of a legend (or maybe those jobs exist but they aren't "white collar" in the sense of being 100K per year)
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Post by admin on Sept 25, 2009 21:33:08 GMT -5
You are stereotyping, there's hasn't been such thing as a white-collar job at 40 hours/week for decades. Maybe 45, probably 50 but never 40 hours. isn't 84 hrs/w illegal unless you're self-employed ? I think if you have two jobs you can easily bypass that restriction. Two full-time jobs, a new marriage and a new baby - honestly, I don't know how he does it, but if he's taking care of everyone and everything...my hat is off to him!
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Post by catgirl on Sept 26, 2009 2:16:02 GMT -5
Not quite sure about that! My mum is a housewife and I'm studying medicine. My parents are divorced and I didn't grow up with her.
Maybe genes have some percentage of influence over somebodies personality traits etc, but I think the environment has alot to do with carreer choice and such.
There was some kind of study about a black child from a family where none of his family members were well educated or something like that, and he was adopted by some professor. He grew up to become very well educated and went to a good university.
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