You wrote "This kinda reminds me of how peptic ulcers were once thought to be caused by stress until they were found to caused by a virus [3].". First of all, if you read the article you reference, you'll note that Heliobacter Pylori is a bacterium, not a virus. Second, the presence of h. pylori in the gut is not conclusively proven to be a causal relationship for ulcers. That is, in some people h. pylori is just part of the normal gut flora. Further, it HAS been shown that stress is a strong cofactor in peptic ulcers.
"The Chinese have a mob mentality." Uhm, racist flag anyone? Are you really seriously accusing the Chinese of being any different than us? Would you say that someone could look at our behavior in the past decade, and say that we don't also exhibit the same jingoistic behavior?
The Chinese citizens are certainly socially notably different from Western nations; it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture, and to assume that they are just the same as us just because biologically they are no different is silly. People are a largely a product of their upbringing; Americans 50 years ago certainly are different than Americans today.
Several of my friends have spent years working in China and they all comment about how almost no one believes in individualism in the same way that the average American does; that they don't care about civil rights or liberties (or give lip service to such ideals). That really does sound "different than us" to me.
"The Chinese citizens are certainly socially notably different from Western nations; it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture..."
Probably not. Why would it be 100% cultural and 0% biological? Because it makes you uncomfortable to admit any other possibility? I'm sorry, but reality doesn't care about your comfort level. It could be 100% cultural and 0% biological, or 90/10, or 50/50, or 20/80. I don't believe that the 100/0 scenario is very likely, because--despite your baseless assertion to the contrary--there are in fact real biological differences between East Asians and Europeans (or East Asians and South Asians, or any other racial group).
Obviously I can't say for sure, all I can speak to is anecdotal evidence that racially Chinese in America observably seem the same as Caucasian Americans in my experience. Even if there is some genetic difference, it seems clear that the vast majority of the difference is cultural and not genetic.
"Even if there is some genetic difference, it seems clear that the vast majority of the difference is cultural and not genetic."
This is just a rephrasing of the original baseless assertion. The relative contribution of genetic and cultural factors to group differences is not at all clear.
You appear to be arguing that local cultural factors when growing up are not responsible for the vast majority of differences in individual cultural behaviour when compared to genetic differences. From this it would seem safe to assume that you believe that a lot of cultural behaviour is not learned, but is encoded within the genome as some form of cultural predestination, which is then presumably expressed at the neuronal level while growing up. This would seem to fly in the face of pretty much all studies into brain plasticity and childhood development, and also makes no sense given the range of genetic diversity of the population we are discussing, which is one that contains well over a billion people.
What is your position then? As you seem to be just criticising other people's positions without putting forward what you actually think the situation is. If your position is just that we just don't completely know the situation, then that is fair enough, but that doesn't mean that all possibilities are equally likely.
My position is that a 100% culture, 0% biology explanation for group differences is highly unlikely given the fact that statistically significant biological differences do exist between "races" (groups that were geographically isolated from one another until several thousand years ago). Yes, I'm just criticizing, but it's a criticism that needs to be heard. We've allowed ourselves the comfort of believing that there are no inherent differences between groups of people for too long, and, basically, science says otherwise.
Except my response that you flamed me for I specifically said that it could be true that it is not 100% cultural 0% biological. If you are purposefully trolling, it's really lame. If you aren't purposefully trolling then you are trying so hard to push your political point that it is indistinguishable from trolling and isn't going to convince or enlighten anyone.
Watch the video of this riot ( http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDUzOTYzMzQ0.html ) and tell me that it isn't clear signs of mob mentality. The pictures of the damage look bad but when you see the video it looks like a social gathering with people laughing (e.g. ~0:35) and nothing really going on, other than a handful of hooligans causing damage.
No. How exactly are the videos of the Chinese and Canadian riots comparable? The most the Canadians rioters are destroying stuff. The Chinese are barely seen damaging anything.
It sounds like, instead of what is commonly referred to as "mob mentality" (which has a strongly negative connotation), you are suggesting that Chinese people are drawn to large crowds.
"I can't really afford .. but I ... value it" . I sometimes hear this and think, do you really? Customer pays for expensive car, hits the right social standing events, but consulting services get the "I can't really afford" story. Truth is that we don't value consulting on subjective issues because there is little conclusive data indicating that the consulting resulted in increased value.
Your point is that people will only appreciate advice that confers direct results (fancy car->invited to fancy parties). I evaluate advice against where I am and where I am aiming to be, which means that advice that isn't practical now (ie how to sell a company) can still be useful for guiding future decisions.
Perhaps a useful metaphor would be that future-oriented advice is a amplifying lens on the headlights of my business. I can make better decisions, because I can see further down the road.
"asking a doctor for advice about a sickness". Odd example given the poor objective performance exhibited by a significant percentage of medical professionals. I remember a study done evaluating the ability of medical professionals to identify spinal injuries in a CAT scan. Very high false positive rates. Scans of normal uninjured people were labeled as herniated discs, etc. Same story with financial professionals, too much subjective judgement involved. Pick a profession that is more objective, eg: civil engineering, will this bridge stand or not.
The article is pretty much confused drivel with no clear substantiating data. My observations are that India is unable to control the growing fundamentalist Islamic element within its population. Recent riots and pogroms against native North-Eastern Indians (they have a significant East Asian component to their appearance) by Islamic groups is a clear marker of rapidly increasing instability. India as a state is one of those mixed stable-chaos types that is teetering on the brink of disaster. A mafia driven monarchy (Antonina Malno aka Sonia Gandhi) has effectively injected massive corruption into India's state bureaucracy and destroyed the improvements/gains made in the 1990s by civil society types. It is a mess. I would not invest any hope in India unless there's some massive change in their politics.
While you do use words that are technically correct they stand on the far edge of understanding or reflecting the underlying ground realities.
First your take on the Recent riot and pogroms in NE/Manipur/Assam and the rest of the seven sisters seems to indicate that Islamic fundamentalists are the chief culprits.
Yes it is Islamic adherents who are involved. But their presence is not because of religion but because they are illegal refugees/immigrants from Bangladesh who are encroaching and settling in the traditional lands of the indigenous tribes and Indians who live in those areas.
But this is a situation that has been building up for years, and has at its core a socio-economic cause and the religious coherence of the encroachers is a secondary thing.
I could go on about how the Mumbai riots and later the exodus but that is a separate point.
Secondly - Saying that Sonia Gandhi "has effectively injected massive corruption in India's state bureaucracy" is to take the latest head of state and blame her for the creation of a beast that reared its head first in the time of Indira Gandhi in the 1960s (License Raj)
Saying that it is a mafia driven monarchy further simplifies the situation and ignores the effects of the many corrupt parties and their respective leaders in the coalition government.
If anything India was MORE corrupt in the 1990s just prior to the reforms and a short while after.
It was only with the dismantling of power centers and places for the corrupt to seek rents that a lot of the old guard found themselves shunted out.
If anything I would hold Sonia and Congress responsible for being gutless and focusing on consolidating their power base.
But most of all I would single out the swing coalition partners from Bengal above all.
The Communist party that supported the Govt in the first few years constantly and consistently stymied each and every forward thinking disinvestment and reform oriented bill.
Then came Mamta Bannerjee and her equally if not more anachronistic ideas. IIRC she managed to get rid of the TATA Nano plant which would have created large amounts of employment in her home state. Creating a text book lose-lose situation.
I hold these people far more accountable as they crushed a huge amount of political capital and mired the country down into survival and further casteist politics.
