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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."
More generally, I think people are going to have to face someday that brain genetics are not somehow special. Just like certain races are shorter, taller, darker, lighter, faster, stronger, etc, certain races (and sexes...) are going to have bell curves that are different shapes. Of course, this doesn't preclude any individual from falling anywhere on the bell curve.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I expect in a while people will start complaining about our unfounded notions of temporal superiority, and we will have to stop believing we are superior to past civilisations.
An example: the british live on a poor island, which was soon depleted of it's natural ressources. In order to avoid starving, they simply went overseas to get the essential ressources they lacked at home. Hence they developped a commercial empire, and the ability to do trading on a global scale was elevated to a "desirable national characteristic", which explains that the anglo-saxons are the most imperialistic people on Earth.
Nearby France is a rich country, overflowing with bountiful ressources. It followed Britain by constituting an empire, yes, but this was just for copycat purposes; it never vitally needed an empire just to survive, and the best illustration of this is, after World War II, when both Britain and France lost their empires, Britain sunk into decadence and decrepitude, whilst France had the highest economic growth during the 30 years following the War.
And this is also why in France, excelling in the Arts and Science is viewed as a "desirable national characteristic", whilst commerce is viewed as a vile, unwholesome, fithy activity.
This amazing book sums up what happens to humans when placed in different geographies. Just like animals, certain traits are more advantageous and lead to increased specialization.
One can only wonder what evolutionary pressures caused well endowed Asian males do die out.
There has been some recent trending toward the thinking that recent human history (the past few millenia, that is) involves our genetic history. Most of it is cited in the article, though--it's a pretty scant number studies willing to even look in that direction. As the article notes, Western societies tend to be pretty sensitive to suggestions that genes predispose behavior or personality traits, because it has so recently been the justification for war, mass murder, and horrific social policies (eugenics).
BUT... the problem, from a scientific perspective, is that the more we learn about genetics the more evidence exists that there ARE behavioral and personality traits linked to our genes. Nobody's talking about master races or anything like that, but there's still a morally offensive (to some, at least) supposition there: Not all men are created equal.
This is a big moral problem for liberal Western democracies. Most European and North American states, and a good portion of nations in the rest of the world, are founded on the basis that every person is entitled to the same basic rights as the rest. The philosophical rhetoric that underlies these claims needs the postulate that all human beings are somewhat equal--nobody is so much better equipped, morally or intellectually or otherwise, that he can take away the political rights of self determination from other men.
Although I'm behind scientific inquiry 100%, and I don't think that these researchers should ever compromise their work for political purposes (well-intentioned or not!), I am a little worried about how this kind of work will affect the new few centuries of government and political thought.
A great book on this subject is Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate : The Modern Denial of Human Nature. He spends a good while explaining the biological evidence for certain traits such as increased intelligence being just as much genetically determined as someone's eye color. He also takes the time to explain why so many people instinctively demonize this stance and why facing the truth about our genetic heritage will actually allow people to live in greater harmony with each other. The explanations are surprisingly clear and he mostly stays away from rhetorical and psychological bubble that so many philosophers often resort to.
Here we go again. This reminds me of the not-incorrect observation by a certain Harvard dean that women, in general, tend to be better in areas not related to math and science. Regardless of the merit of such a claim, the current political climate is such that any observation other than the obvious is regarded as demeaning. Even obvious differences are often taboo. It would be fine to observe, for example, that asians tend to excell at math and science, but mentioning that they're generally shorter than their european counterparts would be considered insulting by some, regardless of the fact that being smaller has many advantages for survival.
I suppose though, in light of our inability to view differences objectively, that it's probably for the best. Invariably, when someone points out differences, one group will use those differences to assert some sort of supreriority over the other. While it would be nice if we could discuss differences with scientific detachment and actually learn something, it seems that the most common trait among humanity -- our desire to be the best; to feel superior -- prevents such objectivity.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Never trust work that moves from the digestion of milk (dependent on a single enzyme in adulthood) to broad cultural generalizations. Why would anyone think that East Asians have been selected for intelligence, unless they buy into a particular cultural stereotype that has been common only in the past few decades, as the East has sent its best and brightest to the West for education? A generation ago East Asians were considered much less mentally capable than Europeans. Both stereotypes are fact-free.
Here's a real howler from the article:
"It is easy to imagine that in societies where trust pays off, generation after generation, the more trusting individuals would have more progeny and the oxytocin-promoting genes would become more common in the population."
Easy to imagine, yes, at least if you are completely ignorant of how societies have actually behaved in history. It's easy to imagine the Earth is flat, if you are sufficiently ignorant.
Trust pays off most in societies that trade under the rule of law, like Rome. And we all know that generation after generation Roman families grew and grew, especially amongst the most properous classes, who benefited the most from trust...
Except they didn't.
Certain types of benefit to individuals result in decreased procreation, as we see in modern developed societies. Rome struggled with declining population amongst the middle and upper classes throughout most of its history, to the extent that laws and other social pressure requiring marriage and progeny were common features even during the late Republic.
Local genetic adaptation to a rice-based diet I can believe. Adaptation to cow's milk is plausbile. But until you show me quantitative, unbiased performance measures of "cultural types" I'll say you're telling the kind of just-so story that faux-evolutionists have been foisting off on the public for generations, starting with Spencer and coming down to the present day in the form of statistically illiterate dunderheads like Charles Murray.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
What the poster fails to mention is that the pendulum has swung to an opposite extreme that isn't good either. We're not all biochemically equal, and that should be at the foundation for our belief that all people are deserving of equal rights. Each life has its own individual existance, even twins.
The tendency I have notice is that those who preach the idea that we're all equal, instead of all equally worth human dignity, is that they tend to favor control of others. In the name of "equality," people have been turned into cogs to fit into some sociologist's "scientific" organization of a corporation or society.
That's why libertarianism is so hard for liberals to swallow. We don't believe that all people are equal. In fact we do believe that some are born with clear advantages over others, and the opposite is equally true. Instead, what should be emphasized is that no one is born with the inherent right to control others, and all arguments for controlling others ought to be based in the highest standards of morality and reason.
Besides, I have been around enough foreigners to know that the majority around the world doesn't really believe this bullshit Western idea that we are all born equal, save for an equal right to be free from all arbitrary controls. Instead of focusing on equality, perhaps we should be focusing on the more pressing need to make the government work more efficiently and in a fairer way, that does not (as it has always happened in the past) end up making it simply a powerful means for the strong to control the weak.
Fitness is purely a function of how well you pass on your DNA. This is mostly, but not purely, about making children. Protecting close blood relatives, including siblings and grandchildren, counts toward your fitness because your close blood relatives share lots of DNA with you.
Our current environment doesn't typically feature starvation, so it's no problem to have more babies than most people consider sane. Welfare can help. You just need to make the babies. Major medical defects like diabetes are no problem. So, fitness today...
Lovely world, huh? Evolution doesn't stop, and it sure doesn't obey our desires.
> Not all men are created equal.
> This is a big moral problem for liberal Western democracies. Most
> European and North American states, and a good portion of nations in
> the rest of the world, are founded on the basis that every person is
> entitled to the same basic rights as the rest. The philosophical
> rhetoric that underlies these claims needs the postulate that all
> human beings are somewhat equal--nobody is so much better
> equipped, morally or intellectually or otherwise, that he can
> take away the political rights of self determination from other men.
Well, actually it's not such a problem. To be "created" equal requires a creator. The idea is that, since none of us is the creator, we have no rights over the lives of one another, except insomuch as we mutually agree. Jefferson was not talking about intellectual, muscular, or moral equality--certainly he knew that some of us are smarter, more powerful, or more virtuous than others.
..with examples like
men who had killed in battle had three times as many children as those who had not.
and
East Asians tend to be more interdependent than the individualists of the West, which he attributed to the social constraints and central control handed down as part of the rice-farming techniques Asians have practiced for thousands of years
I have to say it is pretty badly written. Asians are indeed more community/ society-oriented than westerners who are more individualistic (look at our emphasis on personal freedom and privacy), but that may not all be based on genetics. The level of priority for an asian is Country-> Community -> Family -> ME whereas westerners are traditionally more of ME->Family -> Community -> Country. The asian argument is that without a strong country there cannot be a safe family. However the western priority list above is not something inherent in all westerners, it is just more obvious these days and mostly only in America which the researcher assumes applies to the rest of the western civilisation. A Glance through history would reflect that the Ancient Greeks, Romans, Vikings and even the more modern Britains and Americans have accepted that the country's welfare is in fact more important than their own personal ones, or else nobody (almost) would want to voluntarily enter the Armed forces.
A community-based individual is the by-product or perhaps even the pre-requisite of ancient civilisations. The asians were amongst the first to realise this and never found any reason to change their believe. Thats why they are what they are.
To attribute everything asian to rice is rather immature. This article tells us what we already know - adaptation and evolution happens. But nothing else is new or even believable.
I love humanity, it is people I hate
If you were able to take a baby from ancient times and transplant him to the present, he'd grow up to about the same as the rest of us, because "the rest of us" have enough variation that you'd not notice any difference.
Take 10000 ancient babies and 10000 modern babies though, place them in equal situations, and you'll see a pattern of differences between the groups.
It's easy to prove this for physical attributes like height. The Mayan and Inca people of Central America were very short. If you brought one to the modern world, part of that difference would go away (better food) and part would remain. Maybe the guy is 5'4" instead of the average 5'10", but you couldn't say for sure if it was something particular to an ancient person. If you got 10000 of these people though, and the average was 5'4", then you'd know there was a difference.
Parent was pointing out a contradiction in the article, in which the statement "unfounded notions of racial superiority" is clearly refuted by the article's subsequent arguments which any thinking individual would interpret as a partial founding of the previously unfounded notions.
The fact that you could not tell the difference between what the parent was stating the article supported and what the parent actually believes himself (which was neither stated or implied by any of the parent's statements) is telling. Especially given your apparant predilection toward antisemitism.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I agree with your point, but just for the record, that phrase by the Founding Fathers did not mean "equal in ability" or even "equal in value". It meant that no one is born divine, in the sense of more than human. This was a direct attack on the idea that kings are ordained by God.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Yet somehow "all men are created equal" didn't stop France from imperial/colonial expansion in Africa, nor did it prevent France from trying to conquer Mexico, or the US the Phillipines.
Bypassing that cognitive dissonance is dead simple...you just define the natives/undesirables as "sub-human" and continue on your merry way. Every successful* culture in history did and still does this.
*I think most metrics of cultural dominance can be used here
A few basics:
1. genes govern everything we are and are not, and everybody has a different set of genes (with the exception of twins). Thus, no one is actually created equal, in the sense you are suggesting.
2. although genes on the individual level can vary significantly from another (think John Holmes, think Albert Einstein), there is virtually no difference at all on the group level. This means that if you compare a distinct ethnic group (or "race" as they still call it in the US) with another, you will find a much larger variation within each group than between the groups. This is what scientists mean when they say we are all Homo sapiens sapiens (except for three tiny African tribes, who DO qualify as another sub-species (or "race" as they still call it in the US). What this basically means is that we are all the same on the group level; this is not just politically correct, but also scientifically correct. A few discrepancies such as resistance to malaria, skin color, hair color and other minute genome changes donät change this.
3. we tend to categorize people by their looks. Japanese and Chinese are all small, and this must be because of their genes, right? Did you know that the average height for a European was 150 cm in the 1500s? That it is now 180 cm is of course because of altered diet, and we now utlizie our genetic potential to the maxium. The same goes for modern Japanese and Chinese to a certain extent (do you know who Yao Ming is?), but many Asians have low protein diets and thus don't maximize their genetic potential.
4. TFA mentions that some warriors tend to have three times as many babies as non-warriors, and that this would have a social effect, making the tribe more aggressive on the whole. That is such rubbish that I can't even start to think about its national socialist roots; it doesn't work that way, since others still have babies at a significant rate. If you compare artificial selection measures like milking cows, you would see that one weeds out all the "bad" examples; that doesn't happen in real life, and that is why you don't see natural selection happen before your eyes.
of course
in australia, a bunch of colonists from the murky british isles dropped on a brightly sunlit desert has meant soaring skin cancer cases. am i saying pale people shouldn't wear sunscreen because that would be racist? of course not. that would result in thousands of needless deaths in australia alone ever year
less melanin means you should protect yourself from the sun in other ways. duh. and... what is this supposed to mean to me? what great lessons is supposed to be drawn from this? geographic variations in biochemistry exist
so what? what does it mean? it doesn't have ANY SIGNIFICANCE WHATSOEVER. because race simply doesn't matter
there are many medical conditions which can be shown to be confined historically by geography. sickle cell anemia, thalassemia, lactose intolerance, HIV immunity, rhabdomyelosis vulnerability when on statin drugs, tay-sachs disease, chilblains, vulnerability to gout, etc., ad nauseum. just like nose size (arid or humid conditions), finger length (hot or cold), and skin color (melanin protection from sun), etc., ad nauseum
did you know that on the average, worldwide, men are about 10% darker than females because for females protection from the sun is less important than the critical need for folic acid during early pregnancy, and that can come from the sun? what does this all mean?
nothing!
not a fucking thing! JUST LIKE THIS FUCKING RACIST BULLSHIT
it's little scientific tidbits that don't add up to a whole. all of these little different surface features and biochemical quirks all overlap with each other. you can't draw any lines in the sand that signifies anything meaningful, because all these little quirks you add up have different geographical ranges. it's simply genetic white noise, and it's a quiet signal
meanwhile there is a strong solid tone that is a lot louder: the similarities. so how come the static of surface differences matter so much to some, when if you mapped them they would barely pierce the thick volume of similarities? to focus on these surface statistical perturbations is like someone looking at ripples on the surface of the lake, and completely missing the volume of water in the lake underneath
this is the logical fallacy of racism: ripples on the surface have lessons for us about the volume of water underneath. race is a concept that is silly shallow antiquated nonsense, for if you really truly understood what you were talking about when you bring up medical quirks and statistical anomalies, if you truly had some wisdom behind your words, then the vast volume of medical knowledge and statistics would speak to you of the similarities more than differences, by orders of magnitude
so what the fuck is this article supposed to mean? tell us how ripples on the surface of a lake means something. tell us racists, tell us the deep significance. tell me about sickle cell anemia... what is the lesson for us? what great significance are we supposed to attach to this?
this article is nothing more than a window into the filthy soul of racism, and the fallacies in the reasoning of racists that they overlook to make the evidence fit their presupposed ideas about how much we differ
when the real lesson of all medicine and biochemistry is how similar we are. focusing on the ripples on the surface, versus the volume of water underneath: the fallacy of the "logic" of racism
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
in mirror image. libertarianism has as much a tenuous hold on reality as communism, and doomed to just as much miserable failure
communism holds that altruism, working for the benefit of the group, as something that trumps human selfishness. bullshit. likewise, libertariams holds selfishness, working only for your benefit, as something that trumps human altruism
the truth? human nature is a duality of altruism and selfishness, none superceding the other, and one ignored in favor of the other at the peril of creating a philosophy out of touch with real human nature, and therefore bound to fail as a valuable guiding philosophy in leading your life and building a society
the wisest guiding philosphies for capturing the essence of human nature and harnessing it to maximize human wealth and happiness is to be both altruistic and seflish. capitalism, with social safety nets, as in the usa, or socialism, with a capitalist engine, as in europe.
so beware dear impressionable souls: libertarianism is bunk of the same order and magnitude, in mirror image reverse, as communism. libertarianism is nothing but selfishness with a philosophical bumper sticker stuck on its ass that somehow purports to elevate it to respectability. libertarianism will succeed as soon as human nature is purged of empathy, sympathy, love for one's family, love for one's community, love for humanity itself
in other words, never
the only people who take this shit seriously are earnest but naive college students with too much philosophy classes under their belt and no real life experience, 40-something selfish assholes behind on their alimony payments, and nutjobs who horde guns in the woods and consider themselves to be part of the minutement militia, 2 centuries hence
i wish libertarians and the residual communist idiots would get together on some south pacific island, and leave the rest of us more in touch with the altruistic AND selfish parts of our human nature in peace
libertarianism = loud, useless nonsense, utterly out of touch with human nature
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Britain on the other hand got squat from the Marshal Plan, and struggles to this day with pre-war infrastructure that in nearby countries was destroyed and subsequently replaced.
The British got about $14 - $20 billion of war material from the US via the Lend-Lease program during 1941-1945. This was in 1940s dollars, so it really was a substantial fraction of GDP. None of this was repaid in cash; rather, in return, the US got leases on various British naval bases.
Now, the name "Lend-Lease" is a bit misleading. It was only named that to make the deal palatable to stingy American voters.
The "Lend" part refers to the idea was that the materials (tanks, trucks, ships, aircraft, food, fuel, clothing, etc.) would be lent to the allies, and that when the emergency was over, the allies would give back whatever was still in usable condition. Of course, at the end of the war, almost all these materials had been destroyed or otherwise used up, so basically nothing was returned.
The "Lease" part of course refers to leases on British naval bases. This is not a small matter. These bases have helped the US to project military power on the world ever since then. It is hard to put a dollar value on them.
When the US ended the program suddenly in 1945, there was a remainder of material still on its way to Britain. This was sold for about 10% of its market value. The British government paid for it with a loan at a 2% annual rate, which the UK still has not paid off. (At 2% interest, who can blame them?) Again, this is separate from the Lend-Lease deal, which was repaid in bases, not money.
This was meant to be a good deal for the British, and it probably was. But it had a terrible effect on British industry. Part of the terms of Lend-Lease required that the UK not export the sort of materials that it was being given by the US. People were put to work at other wartime tasks, and so by the end of the war, industrial capacity in the UK was much reduced. Of course, in the US it was the opposite story.
The UK also got more than $3 billion from the Marshall Plan -- which is more than any other country got, but still small compared to the Lend-Lease aid. IIRC, roughly half of this was in the form of a loan that had to be repaid, whilst the rest was basically an outright grant.
Most of this was justified in the US more by naked self-interest than pure charity. Otherwise there would have been comparable aid to the Axis powers during WWII and to Eastern Europe during the Cold War. But there is nevertheless a pretty clear case of American generosity and idealism in the great aid effort during the First World War which saved tens of millions of Europeans from starvation, but nowadays is almost entirely forgotten.
(Well, having said that, I'm not sure that anything short of experiments by sadistic aliens from the planet XYZZY can explain the English, but that's another story...)
Likewise, many European nations are very young, in evolutionary terms, and spent most of the time invading each other, mixing the gene pools substantially. It's actually quite impressive that there is any "national trait" in appearance, all things considered. By all rights, that should have been totally eliminated through wars, raids, invasions and the occasional mass population migration.
I'm inclined to reverse the direction of the theory - that nations did not evolve people to fit the circumstance, but rather people evolved nations to fit their whims.
Under this theory, genetics is quite irrelevant. Rather, you start off with small bands of people espousing a specific philosophy or attitude, and that attracts like-minded people. The bands that become large enough become nations, the smaller bands become yokels to be scorned by the masses.
I do not believe that there is a "work-till-you-die" gene, for example. It's counter-productive. You end up doing less effective work, die younger and are unable to take full advantage of the skills and abilities of those who cannot physically work under such rigors. We can see that although American medicine is the best in the world, and American mental and physical healthcare is highly advanced, more people die in America from stress-related disorders (including stress-related addictions) than do so in any other technological civilization on the planet. From a purely evolutionary perspective, a more efficient, less militant work-ethic should be better adapted for survival.
Clearly, evolution isn't the determining factor in what civilization survives, or indeed becomes dominant. However, no civilization can become dominant without some advantage, and no civilization will maintain a philosophy that doesn't provide it with some payback.
America has a lot of resources, a lot of usable land, a lot of just about anything imaginable. Combine that with a rapid population growth, and you've the makings of a very respectable superpower. The payback then becomes obvious - with that much in hand, it is very easy to accrue both wealth and influence. Those factors alone are enough to describe American philosophies.
But American philosophies didn't evolve out of thin air. They came from the Puritans - known to the English as the Roundheads. The Puritans ruled England after seizing power in a military coup under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, and beheading the King for no better reason than he liked to party too much. (The Royalists were known as the Cavaliers, from which we have inherited the term to be "cavalier".) After Cromwell himself was forced from power, the Puritans fled England for America, becoming the controlling force there.
The Puritans were a strange English sect and really didn't feature much in English history prior to the English Civil War. If genetics plays any role in culture or history, the Puritans evolved in exactly the wrong place and the wrong time. England, by that time, was becoming seriously sick with endless internal religious wars. Strangely, the Puritans managed to move to about the one country in the world that could handle them. This is simply not something genetics can do for you.
I am much more inclined to believe that there is nothing here that needs explaining genetically, that the genetic makeup o
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)