It seems like eons ago, but there was a time when people believed that you could tell everything about someone by just looking at them. Judgments were made based on what were believed to be influencing factors. Although some may call this prejudice , stereotyping or worse, there is some truth to the fact that biology does influence who we are in ways we may never have realized…. and sometimes with little regard to our environment. This wasn’t unknown to the ancient Greeks.
Hippocrates wrote: “You will find, as a general rule, that the constitutions and the habits of a people follow the nature of the land where they live.”
The father of medicine, Hippocrates, was stating a simple truth from his time. Basically, what and who we are today is the result of long periods of exposure and interaction with our environment. For example, today, many of the people in Scandinavia and Europe – to a lesser degree- carry with them a resistance to the Black Death. Over time, a gene(s) for resistance to the plague gained a greater foothold in the population.
We may all be ‘equal’ in the eyes of our lord, but we all don’t have the same abilities, levels of intelligence, skills, aptitude or potential. Populations differ as do individual people. After all, we live in a diverse world.
Today, it is recognized that certain hereditary factors can have a profound influence on a person’s outlook, health and behavior. Correlations within families regarding suseptability towards types of diseases and some mental illnesses are becoming better understood.
Some researchers have pointed to the presence of high ‘testosterone’ in men as a precursor for aggressive and violent behavior. They were in error, the truth is a bit more complex. High levels of testosterone in adult men have little correlation to violent behavior, per se. What has a some correlation is “prenatal testosterone.”
A high level of prenatal testosterone during pregnancy has some very interesting correlations.
For example, when a man’s index finger is significantly shorter than his ring finger there is a correlation with ‘physically aggressive behavior’. Does this mean every man with a shorter index finger displays ‘physically agressive behavior’… of course not. What it does mean is that ‘statistically’, it IS significant.
With three daughters, I may now ask their dates…. “Show me your hands!”
Roger Freberg
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