Berfrois

Many myths about human nature are successful because they rely on our tendency to assume that: Culture + Biology = Us. Becoming human is not simple arithmetic. A better way to think about what humans do is the concept of potential and performance. Performance is the expression of physical or behavioral traits. Potential is the underlying genetic, physical and cultural factors that affect the potential range of performance. Take for example the length of the long bone in your upper leg (the femur). While the fetus develops in the womb a mass of tissue that eventually becomes the femur is formed largely by the interactions of genes and their material products. During development the shape of the femur is affected by interactions among cells and between different masses of tissues and hormones, which are influenced by the mother’s health and behavior (which are affected by her cultural milieu). After birth, bone growth is affected by nutrition, activity patterns, and exposure to disease, injury and other trauma. The point here is that two individuals with identical potential for the femur (such as identical twins separated at birth) but different life experiences will have femurs that are functionally and structurally different despite being genetically identical. As a behavioral example, take physical aggression in humans. There is a huge range of potential types and patterns of physical aggression that any individual human can exhibit, but the actual performance of physical aggression is influenced by body size, muscle density, gender, health, social and economic histories, cultural patterns, life experience, and the availability of weapons or other tools (minimally).

The point of a myth busting toolkit is to provide the infrastructure to enable one to focus on the actual details of human potential and performance, and why they often do not necessarily line up with peoples’ perceptions about what is “natural” for humans. Our notion of what is natural and accepted as the reality of being human (such as the myths of race, aggression and sex) is influenced by popular assumptions, some misrepresentations of science, and our own, often limited, life experiences. This affects our views of the world and the ways we act in it. Because myths about human nature are powerful and relevant to our everyday lives it is important to understand what they actually are and challenge the assumptions that underlie them.

There are what I term “the big three” myths: race, aggression and sex. But why are the “big three” so important to bust?

“There is Nothing Simple about Being Human”, Agustín Fuentes