Talk:Wiki Family Tree

western bias in trees

I'm no specialist in the subject, but I think that the concept of 'tree' only re-inforces the myth of the nuclear family and of the 'lineage' and regal claims associated with it... Everybody is fascinated by the question 'where do we come from' but in many cases the social relationships outweight the genetic ones. A genetic tree is the 'simplest approach' to the issue, but fails dramatically in many cases where a society has other values and structures... --Xavi 10:46, 23 July 2007 (EDT)

But it sounds like the proposal is to extend far beyond the nuclear family, and to enhance the concept of family networks, not individual subgroups. And there is value to the genetic tree model; knowing who you share genes with is fairly valuable information when it comes to altruism and reproduction. --Nikki 15:09, 23 July 2007 (EDT)

Oh I agree, I just wanted to raise the point that we tend to be taught (and thus think) that a family is the nuclear one (ie:mom+dad=children). When truth is more varied and rich than that simplistic model. A much better article is Wikipedia-Family for what I meant (particulary I was hinting at the kinship terminology).

As for genetic altruism, once you enter the social realm, the genetic data is almost irrelevant. I don't think that we think in genetic terms, they may influence some level of decisions, but in general I would say that we base on social relationships, not genes. If not, humanitarian activism would be a genetic dead-end... ;) --Xavi 17:16, 23 July 2007 (EDT)