'Aggression' slur angers Maoris (Are poor people genetically criminal?)

[IntiRaymi]

'Aggression' slur angers Maoris

Wednesday 09 August 2006, 13:16 Makka Time, 10:16 GMT

New Zealand is facing a domestic violence crisis


New Zealand's indigenous Maori population have reacted angrily to a researcher's findings that Maori have a high representation of a gene linked to aggression.
Speaking at a genetics conference in Australia, Rod Lea said that Maori men were twice as likely as European men to carry mono amine oxidase, describing it as a "striking over-representation" of what has been described as the warrior gene.
Media reports of Lea's findings have outraged Maori leaders who said they only reinforced "Once Were Warriors" cultural stereotypes, a reference to a harrowing 1994 movie about domestic violence in poor Maori families.
"I've been asked by reporters whether this gene is the reason why we're a violent race, why we feature so highly in criminality rates, that we're predisposed towards aggression," Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia said in a statement.
"Once were gardeners, once were astronomers, once were philosophers, once were lovers," she said.
Lea, a genetic epidemiologist at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research in Wellington, the New Zealand capital, said the gene had also been linked to such risk-taking behaviour as smoking and gambling.
"I believe this gene has an influence on behaviour of humans in general, but I also believe that the influence is rather small," Lea told New Zealand's National Radio on Wednesday.
.....
There is more in the article:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AC4EE384-4F37-451B-81F4-E67DC0D5DF02.htm

Are the conclusions of the scientist, Rod Lea, inspired by racism? This reminds me a bit of the early studies of criminality, where correlations were drawn between the skull geometry and criminal behavior.


On edit: Added link

[Book Lover]

1. Link or website please?

Thanks!

[IntiRaymi]

2. You got it!

[theophilus]

3. Of course poor people are not genetically criminal! Rich people are! n/t

[IntiRaymi]

4. Self selection based on a greed gene?

Hmmmmmm......

[Sherman A1]

5. Sums it up rather well

[elehhhhna]

6. The Maori were herded into slums (think Indian reservations here)...

& crime & booze * drugs do affect the greater pop. of slums.


The Maori were a pretty insular civilization not all that long ago, and considering a "survival of the fittest" it is possible theory they carry a bit more of some sort of gene which, if carried by white males, would be dubbed the "Leadership" or "Honor" or "Strength" gene. The genetic angle here might be true...but the labeling of it stinks all over.

[KittyWampus]

8. It's called The Warrior Gene. Are you suggesting that's a slur in America?

saying someone has the 'Warrior Gene'?

[elehhhhna]

10. Yes. If not it should be.

It is NOT a positive connotaion. Who named it? All labels are man made.

[KittyWampus]

13. "It should be"? I agree, but we're in the minority. Aggression's desirable

in traditional Maori societies and in America as well... who wants to be labeled 'French'?

[elehhhhna]

17. I beg to differ. Agression is NOT a trait that most women

want in their mates, and THAT'S where it counts in the long run.

Unless the man is a rapist in South Dakota.

[KittyWampus]

26. So women don't like men who work out, play sports, drive fast cars

all ways to channel and exhibit aggression?

What about rap music and rap stars?

What about professional sports figures?

Polticians who start wars?

SUV's were marketed specifically to people appealing to their subconscious using aggressive cues.

[elehhhhna]

35. I completely get your point. I'm talking AGRESSIVE behavior,

not macho(ish) trappings. The OP is linking agression with violence and crime. Particularly against ones family & presumably society at large.

MOST women are NOT attracted to that, imo & observations.

[KittyWampus]

37. The REASEARCHER does no such thing. It's strictly the opening poster

and other people reading more information into the scientific study that isn't actually there.

Aggression and risk taking are NOT neccessarily linked to criminal behavior and yet it seems the opening poster, you and some Maoris are quick to make that assertion. Why is that?

Below are the sole quotes from the researcher who simply says the Maori have a higher incidence of the 'Warrior Gene' which influences, to a small extent, aggression and risky behavior.

Lea, a genetic epidemiologist at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research in Wellington, the New Zealand capital, said the gene had also been linked to such risk-taking behaviour as smoking and gambling.

"I believe this gene has an influence on behaviour of humans in general, but I also believe that the influence is rather small," Lea told New Zealand's National Radio on Wednesday.

"We have to be clear that behavioural traits such as susceptibility to addiction, aggressive behaviour, risk taking, all those sort of things, are extremely complex and they are due to numerous factors including non-genetic environmental factors like upbringing and other lifestyle factors," he said.

[elehhhhna]

42. Here goes:

"Aggression and risk taking are NOT neccessarily linked to criminal behavior and yet it seems the opening poster, you and some Maoris are quick to make that assertion. Why is that? "

You. Read your next paragraph " ...have a higher incidence of the 'Warrior Gene' which influences, to a small extent, aggression and risky behavior."


Your next para, from the article: "Lea, a genetic epidemiologist at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research in Wellington, the New Zealand capital, said the gene had also been linked to such risk-taking behaviour as smoking and gambling." The two examples the oh-so-fair-and-balanced Lea cites (selects?) are not generally viewed as positive traits/habits.

The title "Warrior gene" also just flat-out reads negatively to me. It could always be worse--Aggression or Hostilty gene come to mind--but when applied to an underprivileged mostly-displaced native population (in a Colony, to top ot off!) "Warrior gene" sounds a bit scary and crazy.

Please, if you have more links to this subject, cough 'em up. I find it fascinating.

[Sinti]

7. Strikes me as a continuation of the old eugenics notions

Now, however, they have the genome mapped out and can say that violent/poor/less-intelligent people have these genes or those genes in common. Racism is schoolyard name calling compared to the potential for abuse this type of stuff has.

War Against The Weak

[KittyWampus]

9. Again, you seem to be under the misconception that Aggression

isn't considered attractive or a plus in Western society... or at least in America.

[elehhhhna]

11. I get your point. I prefer not to have or raise kids with a

"warrior" gene, if it means what I THINK it means.

How do they define "Warrior" & what are the other "catagories"?

[elehhhhna]

15. Okay I read the whole thing and...

what utter bullshit.

Given that the Maori race is not extinct and is in fact growing, "Genetics" is not an answer that explains comparatively high rates of child injury that, proir to modern medicine, would have bred itsself out or wiped the entire race out.

[Sinti]

12. Being genetically predisposed to crime and violence is attractive?

Is this your suggestion?

[KittyWampus]

14. "The Warrior Gene" is about Aggression which can be channeled into

legal or illegal means.

Is War illegal?

Is Rugby illegal?

[Sinti]

25. This particular article doesn't make that case, however

This is not the first time I've heard of this kind of study. It is considered a defect, at least by some, and those studies have been related to "violent" behavior.

I don't know anything about the Maori folks specifically, but it strikes me that hard living contributes to violence and aggression much more than any genetic factors. Children with this gene, who have also been beaten, are more aggressive. What they fail to say is that children without this gene that have been beaten are more aggressive and have the same type of brain anomolies... therefore I still see it as trying to suggest that people are genetically predisposed to violence and criminal behavior.

Similar studies can be found:

Scientists Discover Gene Linked To Aggressive Behavior in Humans - LA Times

The discovery of what has been dubbed the "aggression gene" marks the first time a specific genetic defect has ever been linked to violent tendencies in humans. It adds to a growing -- and hotly debated -- body of evidence that indicates biological factors, as well as social and environmental causes, contribute to violent behavior.

Link: http://www-tech.mit.edu/V113/N51/agression.51w.html


The Violence Gene - Discover Mag

With swelling prison populations, researchers are trying to understand the biology behind aggressive behavior. National Institute of Mental Health scientist Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg is looking for clues to how genes wire our brains early in life.

"One of the most fascinating things," Meyer-Lindenberg says, about this field of science called psychiatric genetics, "is how it is possible that genes encode for molecules that affect something as complex as behavior, even psychiatric illness such as depression and social behavior."

He's focusing on a specific gene that was previously linked to impulsive violence. A study in 2002 found that subjects with a particular form of a gene had a significantly higher risk of violence, but only in certain populations.

Link: http://www.discover.com/web-exclusives-archive/violence/


Aggression-related gene weakens brain's impulse control circuits - NIH

A version of a gene previously linked to impulsive violence appears to weaken brain circuits that regulate impulses, emotional memory and thinking in humans, researchers at the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have found. Brain scans revealed that people with this version – especially males – tended to have relatively smaller emotion-related brain structures, a hyperactive alarm center and under-active impulse control circuitry. The study identifies neural mechanisms by which this gene likely contributes to risk for violent and impulsive behavior through effects on the developing brain.

snip

Several previous studies had linked increased serotonin during development with violence and the L version of MAO-A. For example, a 2002 study* by NIMH-funded researchers discovered that the gene's effects depend on interactions with environmental hard knocks: men with L were more prone to impulsive violence, but only if they were abused as children. Meyer-Lindenberg and colleagues set out to discover how this works at the level of brain circuitry.

snip

"Heightened sensitivity in brain circuits important to cognitive inhibition and memory for negative emotional information may contribute to increased vulnerability of men with L exposed to abuse during childhood," suggested Weinberger. "Since only men showed gene effects in several of these circuits, this could lead to a situation where multiple brain control mechanisms are impaired and contribute to manifestly violent behavior, a kind of genetic double jeopardy."

Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-03/niom-agw032006.php

[elehhhhna]

20. don't miss my post 15 & please comment.

this is interesting. Maori are one of the many obscure (but fascinating to me) subjects I know a little tiny bit about.

[Sinti]

27. I would be curious to know how much lead and other toxins are

present in their water system. It's well known that toxins tend to cause unnatural violence rates - they damage the brain, cause slow learning and degraded impulse control.

Care to share a bit about the Maori?

[elehhhhna]

31. Okay...

IIRC they are believed to have come from Hawaiian Isles, via boat (duh) and have a strong seafaring fishing culture. They worship their Ancestors more actively than any other diety, and have a long, imaginative oral history. Family & group pressure keeps society in line. They were fairly brutal(who isn't?) if not persisitent in warfare w/ each other and also in their punishments for certain violations of Taboos -- "tapu" in Maori language.

They have an ancient, beautiful, moving 'religious' music and dance culture.

Whalers, missionaries, and Eurpoeans screwed them over in the ususal ways, in that order.

They are brown and "mysterious" and looked down upon. More or less openly.

Etc.


They're like many other native cultures we could mention.

[Sinti]

33. Yep, they sound like a lot of cultures - Japanese come to mind (pre-war)

among others. I wonder if they have some cool mythology and such. I bet they do -- we all tend to have some - some is more creative than others. I'll have to look into that Being in New Zealand, I expected the "dream time" stuff like the Australian Aborigines - love that POV :)

[elehhhhna]

34. Apparently their cool mythology is very hard for outsiders to

grasp because some of their concepts are just not easily accessible.

[KamaAina]

43. Actually thought to have come from eastern Polynesia

the confusion arises from the use of the term Hawa'iki for the ancestral homeland. The word actually means "the next place"; the Hawai'i from which this post originates is sometimes called Hawai'i nei, "this Hawai'i".

edit: for the geographically challenged, Hawai'i (nei) forms the northern tip of the "Polynesian triangle", with Aotearoa (New Zealand) in the south and Tahiti and neighboring islands in the east.

[Laughing Mirror]

16. Certainly are a violent agressive people, the Maoris

Provoking wars all over the world, their military installations colonizing practically every country on the planet, have recently invaded Lebanon and taken over Irak, Afghanistan, and threatening to nuke Iran ..

[elehhhhna]

18. Best. Post. Ever.

[Igel]

19. The correlation between the gene and

an increased level of violence wasn't identified by this study. The conclusion--if it's reported correctly, but the reporting seems straightforward enough--isn't predicated on racism, it's predicated on deductive logic. Do valid conclusions qualify as racism? Hardly.

But the conclusion is also statistical in nature, saying next to nothing about any individual.

If the study's reported correctly, it's being politicized, and the science behind it is decried not because it's proven bad, but because the results are politically unacceptable. Because it can't be accepted given our preconceptions and what we believe, the science must be wrong.

That sounds stunningly like when paleoanthropological findings are dissed by creationists.

Or when computer science or genetics are banned because they're "bourgeois".

[elehhhhna]

21. excellent post, thank you.

[IntiRaymi]

23. Let's extrapolate this study on Maoris to a different group:

The Palestinians.

[elehhhhna]

24. Go ahead.

[IntiRaymi]

28. It was rhetorical.

[elehhhhna]

29. Pls. elaborate. I don't get it.

[IntiRaymi]

30. OK, since you asked for it.

It is my impression that the State of Israel has been using racism to justify, in the minds of the People of Israel, that the treatment of palestinians is valid.
Clear?

[elehhhhna]

32. Got it .I agree.

Massive psyops using the best marketing techniques (American tax) money can buy.

[Odin2005]

36. Good post.

As a biologist I cringe every time a hypothesis or finding is dismissed on ideological grounds instead for proper scientific reasons. The most well known example of this when when Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson got DEATH THREATS (which sadly, I must say, came mostly from left-wingers, especially people of a Leninist bend) in the late 70's when he went against the blank-slatist orthodoxy in his book Sociobiology.

It is politically popular to say we stopped evolving mentally 50,000 years ago because it allows scientists to avoid having making the suggestion that different populations have different "average" personalities, thus not risk a politically motivated attack by the PC police and end up lose your funding.

[Marr]

38. That's fascinating.

I'd never heard anything scientific about different human populations having different "average personalities", but if there's actual science to back it up, I'd be interested to read it.

There was a book that came out a few years ago about sports and race, and how the top contenders in certain sports are overwhelmingly more likely to come from certain populations (West Africans and long distance running, Eastern Europeans and power lifting, etc.). I thought it was interesting, and it certainly seemed well researched and sourced, but that book caused quite a negative reaction in some quarters.

[Odin2005]

39. I read about it in a recent book on modern human prehistory.

The book's called Before the Dawn and in one chapter the author talks about finding different versions of a gene coding for a brain development signaling protien Microcephalin (as the name hints, certain mutations on the gene can cause the disease called Microcephaly) being found in different populations.

[Marr]

41. Thanks for the title- I think I'll pick that up.

It's odd- I see alot of acceptance for the notion that personality traits might run in families (studies of twins are often cited, for instance), but not when it concerns larger groups.

[Rex]

22. Let's see, warrior & risk taking sounds like the capitalist gene IMO.

Sounds like simple adaptation to me.

[bridgit]

40. what does that researcher say about Abramoff, Ken Kay & the bfee...

:shrug: