Slashdot Mirror
The Twists of History and DNA
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times has a piece today talking about the possible connection between genetic evolution and history." From the article: "Trying to explain cultural traits is, of course, a sensitive issue. The descriptions of national character common in the works of 19th-century historians were based on little more than prejudice. Together with unfounded notions of racial superiority they lent support to disastrous policies. But like phrenology, a wrong idea that held a basic truth (the brain's functions are indeed localized), the concept of national character could turn out to be not entirely baseless, at least when applied to societies shaped by specific evolutionary pressures."
It is a problem. The second we find the causes of certain things in genes, there will be high pressure to eliminate them. Sure Hitler went out of control when he started killing off all the Jews and homosexuals and non-Aryan people, but there are other more humane ways. Such as sterilization. If it's found gene X when configured in manner A increases the likelihood of someone becoming a serial killer to 90%, there aren't many arguments you can come up with to say "we should keep that gene in that configuration in our gene pool."
That's the scary thing. If gene's do affect our behaviour to a large degree, it is difficult to argue for people with those genes being allowed to continue to breed.
according to your own observation, elephant >> human size. this means that africa should be the most populated continent and not eurasia. please revise your theory and try again.
It turns out they were wrong to do this but really the posturing about 19th century beliefs being based on little more than base prejudice isn't much better than Lewontin and Gould. The Boasian anthropologists were just as politically motivated as their counterparts of the late 19th and early 20th century. The Boasians were more successful in putting forward their agenda not because their arguments were more sound but because they, like Lewontin and Gould, had better public relations.
Men of Darwin's era weren't as stupid as we wish they were and we wish they were stupid because if they weren't then we would have to face how much damage has been done to scientific progress in the fields of human culture in the name of fighting racism and prejudice.
The real question is how can we get beyond this nonsense and come to consilience between various fields of human knowledge of humanity so we can make human societies more sustainable and humane?
Seastead this.
Well, it doesn't work for me, bubba. I have no problem pointing out bullshit when it happens, and I certainly don't go around licking jewish arses like many people are very fond to do.
Must be because I live in a place where the jews don't control much of the media (thanks to a prominent State-owned media organization that is the standard against which private media is compared to) and thus the media has no problem reporting abhorrent jewish behaviour so the people can make BALANCED AND INFORMED judgments towards the jews, and thus, dismiss the customary "ANTISEMITE" accusations (such as yours) as nothing but a smokescreen of bullshit.
If you fucking stupid yankees got out of your shithole more often and see the world otherwise than through your rosy media glasses, you'd get a clue that the jews inspire a healthy dose of disdain outside the USA.