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Humanity's Genetic Diversity on the Decline
jd writes "In a study covering five different periods of history, from 300 AD to the present day, and geographically spread across much of Europe, scientists have extracted the mitochondrial DNA from a sizable number of individuals in an effort to examine changes in diversity. The results, published in the Royal Society journal is intriguing to say the least. 1700 years ago, three out of every four individuals belonged to a different haplotype. In modern Europe, the number is only one in three. The researchers blame a combination of plague, selection of dominant lineages and culturally-inflicted distortions. The researchers say more work needs to be done, but are unclear if this involves archaeology or experiments involving skewing the data in the local female population."
The underpinning of science is the faith that the pursuit of knowledge can better the human condition, that, at some level, there is an objective truth. It follows that you must also believe that mankind is honest enough to have a class of people whose job is to determine what truth is.
All of those points are debatable, depending on what one's values are.
History is told at each point in time by people who complain the most. So, we say that middle ages life sucks from our perspective, as, we're sold on the idea that living longer and disease free is the ultimate way to live, and the people that sold us on that idea were those peasants that weren't happy about being peasants. One has to imagine that, for much of history, there were plenty of peasants that were pretty happy, otherwise, people would not have been peasants.
I am endlessly shocked by those on the left wing that cannot imagine this simple point. To them, of all of all people, the idea of having a scientific community more or less running things is non-negotiable. In their defense of that concept, liberals have to point become the real religious fanatics of our time. One look at the nominating process for a Democratic president can tell you that the Inquisition is alive and well on the left wing.
Conservatives, on the other hand, can take science as another faith, simply because they can affix a dollar value on the value of knowledge versus their own enjoyment of a particular cultural tradition. So, in a sense, today's conservatives, by seeing science as another choice, have, at some level, a much wider and healthier view of the human condition than do their fanatical liberal counterparts. Unfortunately, conservatives bring that package with a lot of cultural package when it comes to asserting the rights of others. So, we are afflicted with liberals who lack the imagination to see a whole world view, and conservatives that see that world view, but really, only for themselves.
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