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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.
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.
DOn't forget that France and all the other countries in Western Europe that were occupied (including West Germany) benefited from Marshal Plan money that bought them new steelworks, railways, etc to replace the old ones that were destroyed. 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.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
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.
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.
Actually the UK did receive help from the US after the war. Not as much as the rest of Western Europe but it also didn't the level of destruction that the rest of Europe did. It was an extension of the Lend Lease program and not the Marshal Plan but it did get some help.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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.
One can also only wonder at the evolutionary pressures producing large numbers of white boys obsessed with comparing their penis sizes to males of every other culture.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
One can only wonder what evolutionary pressures caused well endowed Asian males do die out.
its the food silly...
ordered according endownment:
1. Africans (eat elephants)
2. Americans (eat hotdogs)
3. Asians (eat rice)
note: rabbits eat carrots which are about their own body-length. And now you know why they breed so fast.
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.
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.
I'm guessing you were posting tongue in cheek, but just in case:
Um, Mongol hordes conquering three quarters of Eurasia? China was basically one long war for centuries, Japan liked to play "Guess who's Shogun this week" and Korea kept coping it from both sides. Not exactly a history that suggests a lack of testosterone in any measure.
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
Well, not to accuse any culture of having an unusual history... there is a connection between reproductive strategy and penis size in the animal kingdom.
/Not to say there is a real size difference or that this is how it happened.
Promiscuous creatures tend to have large penises. Big schlongs (especially with the shape of the penis head) can remove some competitor's man-juices while insuring ideal placement of his own; and greater numbers of sperm increase his chances of reproduction, rather than some of the other guys working the same womb.
In contrast, creatures that force females into harems have smaller dicks. Males beating each other to gain alpha-male status is where all the pressure is at for these guys. The size of the penis and testicles atrophy to almost the minimum necessary in order to reproduce under nearly ideal (read: sole access to the female) conditions.
While gorillas developed huge upper bodies to do the beating, human beings may have developed culture to do the same thing (kings and the wealthy get lots of women, etc.).
I believe that every human is equal mentally
Sorry, but this isn't true. Genetics does play a major role in mental abilities. Take depression for example. It's a true medical condition that involves a serotonin imbalance. Depression DOES affect ones mental abilities. Thankfully however, the right medication can put your mental status and abilities in the "normal" range if treated. This is just only one example, and there are many more. Point is, everyone has slight differences in brain chemistry that is just enough to affect neural activity.
So yes, some people are better off than others when it comes to processing and storing information. It's a fact of life.
Life is not for the lazy.
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
(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)