Biologists Create Genetic Map of Europe

Death Metal Maniac brings us a story from the New York Times about a team of scientists who were able to relate genetic differences to geographical origins. Countries such as Germany, Austria, and France occupy the central area of the genetic map, with Italy, Finland, and the UK being relative outliers. Quoting: "All the populations are quite similar, but the differences are sufficient that it should be possible to devise a forensic test to tell which country in Europe an individual probably comes from, said Manfred Kayser, a geneticist at the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands. ... Genomic sites that carry the strongest signal of variation among populations may be those influenced by evolutionary change, Dr. Kayser said. Of the 100 strongest sites, 17 are found in the region of the genome that confers lactose tolerance, an adaptation that arose among a cattle herding culture in northern Europe some 5,000 years ago." Update: 08/16 15:11 GMT: Reader iminplaya points out the source article, which contains the technical details behind the study.

Comments

The Clash of Civilizations

[burnitdown]

I recommend two books here:

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, by Samuel Huntington
The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution, by Luigi Cavalli-Sforza et al

Once humans evolved from apes, they went through several stages to create modern humans.

After that, modern humans underwent more aggressive development. This differentiated population groups.

Much like different programming languages are optimized for different tasks, but you can create just about anything in just about any language, human populations are different based on the optimizations that came about through their branch divergence.

This creates ethnicities, nationalities, and clines as mapped by Cavalli-Sforza.

Huntington points out that most of our modern wars have been caused by the nation-state, or an "imperial" grouping by politics that crosses these optimization lines, and suggests that as the superpower age winds down, people will identify with their optimization more than abstract and often illusory political concepts.

This is especially useful in understanding the difference between Georgia, Ossetia and Russia. For those who live in nation-states of an imperial nature, like the United States, Canada, Russia or UK, it's hard to grasp this, but not every country views itself as composed of generic people.

They view themselves as an organic nation, a notion which we may quaintly call "tribalism" yet seems to unite people with values more solidly than financial or political motivations.

The future will be determined by the struggle for these organic nations to define themselves.

All IMHO.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[Anonymous Coward]

Historically, those "organic nations" tend to get shot down hard when they try to turn expansionist or purify their territory of what they consider to be different breeds.

I hope that kind of institutional racism belongs in the past, not the future.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I've recently been reading Will Durant's Story of Civilization, which I can tell you is no mean feat, but is a labor of love as they're so well written. In Volume IV, The Age of Faith. Chapter 4, in particular, "The Dark Ages: AD 566-1095" has some fascinating comings and goings and goings and comings of various tribes all over Europe and the Near East. Magyars, Slavs, Croats, Turks, Mongols, Lombards, Serbs, Belarusians, Bulgarians and a hundred more warring, migrating, interbreeding - it's pretty damn fascinating.

The relevant sections are:

1. The Byzantine World: 566-1095
2. The Decline of the West: 566-1066
3. The Rise of the North: 566-1066

Take a look here for a similar map.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[greg_barton]

The future will be determined by the struggle for these organic nations to define themselves.

Nice try, but you should have just said RAHOWA and gotten it over with.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[ThousandStars]

I'm not convinced that culture, rather than genetics, has more to do with the groupings you describe, but that's a very large subject and one that's caused much strife in the 20th Century. On a lighter note, I really wanted to respond to this: This is especially useful in understanding the difference between Georgia, Ossetia and Russia. For those who live in nation-states of an imperial nature, like the United States, Canada, Russia or UK, it's hard to grasp this, but not every country views itself as composed of generic people.

Quid Plura? has as an excellent post that deserves wider recognition on the subject of Georgia, Ossetia, Russia, and the Middle-ages. As often happens in events like this (see: Kosovo), the problems and issues go back much farther than is commonly reported.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[Anonymous Coward]

"They view themselves as an organic nation, a notion which we may quaintly call "tribalism" yet seems to unite people with values more solidly than financial or political motivations.

The future will be determined by the struggle for these organic nations to define themselves."

If what you are saying is true ... then humanity is doomed unless it can get beyond the kind of tribalism that, in my opinion, may be comforting to people in the tribe, but is far more trouble than it is worth. Far too often tribes decide their neighbors should be exterminated because they are different, or they decide that already-resident "invaders" in their tribe should be pushed out or eliminated ("ethnic cleansing"). I understand why this happens, but it's ultimately stupid, because I think it undermines our long-term prospects for survival as a species (see below).

I'd like tribalism to become genuinely quaint because when it is elevated to the status of a nation-state -- which becomes much easier when you separate into little pieces -- it can become amazingly destructive (witness the disintegration of Yugoslavia). It brings out some of the worst in humanity.

The only ideology I'd like to see survive over the long term is one of tolerance for the fact that people are different and that we must accept some of those differences in order to get along. Sure, divide up into units as we see fit, but respect the rights of the adjacent ones to also exist. If we can't manage to pervasively develop that attitude as a species then we are doomed to fight wars forever, and with the steady improvement of our technology for killing each other that trend is a recipe for disaster, if not near extinction. We can't afford to let our conflicts grow without bounds.

If something derives from the origins of humanity it should be respected as a powerful influence, but it doesn't mean it is worth preserving. Understanding it is worthwhile, yes, but I'd rather see a reduction in the bugs in the human software over time rather than inherit them forever.

Maybe we're smart enough to figure out how to get along, maybe not. I wish I could check back in ~1000 years and see how it turned out. You're right with your implication that we are at a turning point.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[PPH]

The map appears to hint at some interesting ideas with respect to population diversity. It appears that the wealthiest and most productive regions per capita are the ones with the most genetic overlap.

This might be an idea worth testing statistically and on a global basis as well.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[JLavezzo]

"It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens."

"That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and differences of race be annulled--what harm is there in this? ... Yet so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the 'Most Great Peace' shall come."

- Baha'u'llah

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[jmpeax]

I find it very hard to understand how you can think that genetics defines the development of people more than their environment.

You're either seriously misguided or being intellectually dishonest.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[kels]

The future will be determined by the struggle for these organic nations to define themselves.

Isn't that pretty much how the first half of the 20th century was determined?

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[DavidShor]

Seems like more of a coincidence. And considering that they only tested "native" populations, when a huge percentage of the "moneyed" class are immigrants, accentuates this.

15 years ago, Italy had a higher gdp/capita then the UK, which would have thrown the pattern off.

Globally, countries like Singapore, Botswana, and Chile would throw the pattern off.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[pjt33]

For those who live in nation-states of an imperial nature, like the United States, Canada, Russia or UK, it's hard to grasp this, but not every country views itself as composed of generic people.

You sound serious, but when I read this I had to wonder whether you were pulling my leg. If the US views itself as composed of generic people, why is such a big fuss made about Obama being black? How many Canadians do you think don't know that Quebec separatists exist? How many Russians don't know that Russia contains a number of republics with their own titular nationality? How many Brits don't know the difference between England and the UK? And leaving aside your examples, isn't the nature of an "imperial" nation-state that it contains multiple cultural or ethnic groups?

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[Anonymous Coward]

Once humans evolved from apes, they went through several stages to create modern humans.

Ummmm... Just so we're clear here, humans did not evolve from apes. Humans and apes share a common ancestry.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[Anonymous Coward]

Er... If we're going to mention Durant, we should append that the books are rather dated, and somewhat coloured by Durant's worldview. But once that caution is understood, they /are/ great success in their intent: making a large detailed topic understandable as a whole. Highly recommended. Intelligent /.ers will benefit by having their usually fragmentary education in History placed across a full time-map.

A smaller work that is similar in intent, flaws, and overall success is Wells' Outline Of History.

And if you're into useful overviews, Durant's old Story Of Philosophy is another remarkably readable title.

Just take any of these as an introductory layer, and keep Wiki open so you can check what the latest research on any ancient period is.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me one good reason why I shouldn't call you a racist.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Genocide and population transfer has happened all throughout history. One of the most powerful nations today, the USA, succeeded by essentially practicing ethnic cleansing of the native american indian population.

Your "tend to" absolutism has no basis except in modern moral conceptualization.

The fact is that competition (which includes wholesale genocide) between different groups of humans has been a powerful, influential, and determinant of history throughout the ages.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is whether genetics play any role, period. Once that's established we can haggle over price.

Cavalli-Sforza denied there is such a thing as race, but his argument is whistling past the data. The genetic maps he presents correspond very closely to folk interpretations of race. Cavalli-Sforza's maps are almost exactly what Rudyard Kipling would draw.

The genetic distance described by Cavalli-Sforza is not proof of group differences in ability in any particular area. But it is a data set that is _compatible_ with such an outcome.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[Traiguen]

You sound serious, but when I read this I had to wonder whether you were pulling my leg. If the US views itself as composed of generic people, why is such a big fuss made about Obama being black? How many Canadians do you think don't know that Quebec separatists exist? How many Russians don't know that Russia contains a number of republics with their own titular nationality? How many Brits don't know the difference between England and the UK? And leaving aside your examples, isn't the nature of an "imperial" nation-state that it contains multiple cultural or ethnic groups?

I think what he meant with that comment is that the so-called 'nation-states of an imperial nature' have to impose ideologies like multiculturalism and racial egalitarism in order to themselves preserve their unity, the societies within them seeing their inhabitants as 'generic', not in the literal, physical sense, but in the omission of all cultural and racial differences. Which explains why those societies try their best to deny or put a negative context on the examples you just named.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[Traiguen]

If what you are saying is true ... then humanity is doomed unless it can get beyond the kind of tribalism that, in my opinion, may be comforting to people in the tribe, but is far more trouble than it is worth. Far too often tribes decide their neighbors should be exterminated because they are different, or they decide that already-resident "invaders" in their tribe should be pushed out or eliminated ("ethnic cleansing"). I understand why this happens, but it's ultimately stupid, because I think it undermines our long-term prospects for survival as a species (see below).

It seems that you're a bit confused - 'tribalism' is about preserving certain ethnicities and the environment of which they are a part of and it doesn't imply by default the desire to eliminate other tribes, unless, of course, an alien element is deemed perjudicial for said preservation, in which case the affected have all the right to retaliate if the survival of their society becomes compromised.

The only ideology I'd like to see survive over the long term is one of tolerance for the fact that people are different and that we must accept some of those differences in order to get along. Sure, divide up into units as we see fit, but respect the rights of the adjacent ones to also exist. If we can't manage to pervasively develop that attitude as a species then we are doomed to fight wars forever, and with the steady improvement of our technology for killing each other that trend is a recipe for disaster, if not near extinction. We can't afford to let our conflicts grow without bounds.

I think you're misunderstanding the whole point. We can split up according to the tribal principle and still get along with our neighbours in a way that the current economics / profit driven societies would never dream of achieving. If organic societies are all about preservation, then conflicts with other tribes should be kept to a minimum, specially if their goals are the same, the only exception being the case I pointed previously. The current order, on the other hand, is about comsuming all available resources, and because of that it depends on principles like internationalism and imperialism to satisfy that urge, and that kind of interventionism is bound to produce more wars and destruction than any society based on preservation.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Really ? Just because it happened once does not make a pattern. Just because Germany fell ...

It's true, obviously, that states may fall when they completely overstretch their supply lines, however at least some completed sometimes very extensive ethnic cleansing before their fall (including, I would say, the Nazis and especially the Communists, who succeeded in comitting ethnic cleansings that were many times greater than Hitler ever dreamed of. And now the Chinese are doing it again, in at least 2 locations, and to be honest, I don't doubt they're in reality ethnically cleansing more than just Nepal and Xinjang. Why don't you look up just how much their controlled territory expanded since they started ethnically cleansing ? I don't think you're going to want to be honest about it).

But especially bad in this department are the muslim ethnic cleansings, starting with the mainly Jewish arabs, followed by Christian arabs, but quicly moving on to the cleansing of black north africans (still going strong in darfur, called "jihad" by those who perpetrate the killings), or the same muslims' ethnic cleansings in India, which have resulted in pakistan and bangladesh.

But lots of nations knew a very effective way to prevent overstretching of lines. Pick on a single remote nation at a time, only maintaining one "true" logistical line, even if said line spans a great distance. Find out who your competitors are before they get close enough to overrun cities, and eradicate them. That's how the Roman Empire maintained itself over stretches of land that are beyond amazing for over 1500 years.

Others simply took their supply lines with them, cattle, grain, horses, the works. You probably know the names "Alexander the Great" and "Genghis Khan".

In fact, while VERY recent history (ie. America) seems to provide a limited counterexample, it seems to me that the great nations were overrun when they STOPPED their agressive expansionism and ethnic cleansings, and exactly because they stopped expanding. Certainly the western and eastern roman empire fell like this. But also Alexander the great. The Mongols. The Ottomans, the Mamluks, ... The Hindu Kingdoms of India. The Buddhists of China. And now, it seems, the colonial nations (and the ex-colonies).

When examined honestly, history would seem to provide a very compelling argument to start ethnic cleansings of a humongous scale.

And to be honest, if you do believe in darwinism, what exactly did you expect history to provide ? Just because Christian ideals made America (itself a nearly homogenous nation, faith-wise) stop one or two ethnic cleansings (and aided a few others, like the ex-Ottoman Kosovar Albanians cleansing away Serbs).

Each of the named nations btw, lasted at least 500 years, and most 1000 years, which, need I really remind you, is at least double the time America has lasted thus far. I am 100% with you in hoping America has a longer life, but let's keep our egos in check : that's far from a certainty.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[Collapsing Empire]

None. Being a racist does not mean being an asshole to people of different backgrounds. Playing mind games with social stigma will not work.

Acknowledging that, hey, humans spent quite a lot of time apart geographically, long enough to develop genetic differences as adaptations to their environments is a matter of fact. Saying that, if we're different, we're likely to produce different culture is just a matter of pragmatism. I'm pragmatic. I want my people to succeed and want everyone else to prosper to the best of their ability. But, putting people of different backgrounds together causes conflict. Some people do things one way while others do things a different way. Saying that one group should forcibly accept the practices of another is akin to colonialism.

http://slashdot.org/~burnitdown/journal/209417.

Re:The Clash of Civilizations

[duckInferno]

I remember seeing a doco someone had posted to youtube about the migration of humans from Africa to become the diverse set of ethnicities we enjoy today. It's really fascinating to see how much each group of migrators were changed just by their environment; namely, the sun. The further humans got from the equator, the lighter their skin evolved to be to absorb more sunlight for producing vitamin D which is a very essential vitamin. The documentary claimed that the darkest skinned africans and the lightest skinned nordic people share over 99.9% of the same DNA.

Some groups of humans even evolved to be light skinned and then migrated back towards the equator and evolved dark skin again; one example is the south americans, who, being relatively recent arrivals to the locale (about 100 thousand years ago off the top of my head), are still in the process of evolving skin as dark as the africans. It's theorised that the (also fairly recent) use of shelter and clothing has slowed it down for them as well.

I walked away from it with a very pure understanding of just how similar we all are. We all come from the same anscestors. We all quite literally used to be black and living in africa.

Finland?

[wisty]

Hehe. Finland is special. TFA seems to suggest a certain level of genetic ... recycling

Re:Finland?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, when you have to choose between your cousin and a Swede, the choice is pretty clear, isn't it?

Re:Finland?

[aliquis]

To me it's pretty obvious that they are outside because they don't border to any of the countries except a very small part against Sweden, most of their borders is against russia and the baltics (estonia) so they probably have more in common with those.

From the looks of that genome map the borders of the genomes are quite similar to the borders of the countries, and why would Finland be any different?

Though one would expect them to be a little similar to us (swedes), but I guess it's only that we are even more similar to the norwegians and danish people which makes finland look like an isolate island.

Re:Finland?

[kestasjk]

I wonder if it's because they're closer to Russia, and not just because of inbreeding.

Re:Finland?

[maxume]

If I am understanding the map correctly, it is only for the 2 markers that vary most widely across Europe. The rest of the article downplays the overall variation throughout Europe. I would infer that the map does not demonstrate that Finland is wildly different than Europe, but that they have greater variation in those two markers (this goes along with the statement in the article that they would be able to infer origin locations from genetic material, I'm sure there are markers that are more or less unique to certain regions, and so forth).

Re:Finland?

[dvice_null]

Inbreeding is a big part of it. Finland used to be a big forest with swamps and lakes everywhere (and still mostly is), which made moving around very difficult. So we (I'm from Finland also) were isolated not only from the rest of the world. But also our internal parts were isolated from other parts of the country.

As a proof of this, there are several genetic deceases that are more common in Finland than anywhere else. E.g. AGU decease, which is found from around 200 families in Finland and only in about 20 families outside Finland (population of Finland is about 1/1000 of the population of the Earth). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartylglucosaminuria

But one should remember that it is estimated that the human race itself used to consist of a very few individuals, before it started spreading. So we all are distantly very close relatives.

Re:Finland?

[vuo]

So you've managed to turn the whole thing upside down. Let's re-explain it. If you take out a small population from a larger, unmixed one, then mix and mutate the remaining large population, then the small population stands as an "isolate". It's not because of different origins, it's because of different history.

Re:Finland?

[aliquis]

Wtf are you talking about? All I say is that the distance between finland and the other countries have probably made it so that their genome haven't been that mixed with the other countries and that they therefor looks a little different.

But then again I don't get your point at all so.

Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[burnitdown]

Finland is an interesting convergence of east and west. Their language is most closely related to Japanese and Hungarian; their population seems to be halfway between Swedes, Baltics and an Asian precursor.

Max Muller classified the Turanian language family into different sub-branches. The Northern or Ural-Altaic division branch compromised Tungusic, Mongolic, Turkic, Samoyedic, and Finnic. The Southern branch consisted of Dravidian languages like Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, and other Dravidian languages. The languages of the Caucasus were classified as the scattered languages of the Turanian family. Muller also began to muse whether Chinese belonged to the Northern branch or Southern branch.[31]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turan

The language record does not mirror the genetic record, necessarily, but it provides a useful clue.

I'm not sure how this is related to their ability to create quality death metal bands like Amorphis, Demigod, Abhorrence, Demilich, Belial and Sentenced. However, all of Scandinavia is a death metal powerhouse, so it may be "cultural."

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[CRCulver]

Their language is most closely related to Japanese and Hungarian

Finnish is not related to Japanese. Finnish is a member of the Finno-Ugrian/Uralic language family, which does include Hungarian, Estonian and a number of minority languages spoken in Russia on either side of the Urals. Japanese is a language isolate, which some linguists have attempted to group under the Altaic umbrella (e.g. Turkic, Tungusic and Mongolian languages) but with little acceptance. No mainstream Uralicist believes in a genetic relationship between the Uralic and Altaic languages, though of course the Turkic languages influenced several Uralic languages somewhat in terms of lexicon and morphosyntax after Turkic expansion.

The language record does not mirror the genetic record, necessarily, but it provides a useful clue.

Linguists get rather sick of hearing language grouping identified with genes. The speakers of the Uralic languages are widely disparate in terms of "race", with the very Asian Samoyed peoples contrasting with the quite European Hungarians, and the Udmurts have both within the same nation.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[Mortiss]

I'm not sure how this is related to their ability to create quality death metal bands like Amorphis, Demigod, Abhorrence, Demilich, Belial and Sentenced. However, all of Scandinavia is a death metal powerhouse, so it may be "cultural."

I have heard that the large popularity of the death metal in a region is a symptom of a "depressive" culture (along the huge alcohol consumption) brought by the little exposure to the Sun during the year - Winter Blues?
Can anyone comment?

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[LizardKing]

The speakers of the Uralic languages are widely disparate in terms of "race", with the very Asian Samoyed peoples contrasting with the quite European Hungarians, and the Udmurts have both within the same nation.

The difference in race is only really marked when you compare the Hungarians to other Finno-Ugrians. As I point out in another comment, the Hungarians are so mixed genetically because they've lived in a crossroads between the Western European, Slavic and Turkic regions for so long. Their language reflects this, having virtually no similarities to other Finno-Ugrian languages anymore. Many ethnic Finns from the more Northern and Eastern parts of the country still exhibit distinctly Uralic facial features, much like the Komi people and othes that still live around the Urals.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[CRCulver]

Their language reflects this, having virtually no similarities to other Finno-Ugrian languages anymore.

Proto-Finno-Ugric is still mainly reconstructed based on Finnish on one hand and Proto-Samoyed on the other, and Finnish still preserves a huge number of lexemes in common with Mordvin and Mari. It hasn't diverged that much. Sure, one can point to signs of Germanic influence like some prepositions instead of only postpositions, but it's still squarely a Uralic language.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[CRCulver]

Oops, sorry, I thought you said Finnish had diverged so much. Yes, Hungarian is now squarely in the typological orbit of its neighbouring Indo-European languages.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[xaxa]

I'm not sure how this is related to their ability to create quality death metal bands like Amorphis, Demigod, Abhorrence, Demilich, Belial and Sentenced. However, all of Scandinavia is a death metal powerhouse, so it may be "cultural."

I have heard that the large popularity of the death metal in a region is a symptom of a "depressive" culture (along the huge alcohol consumption) brought by the little exposure to the Sun during the year - Winter Blues?

Can anyone comment?

I read in a music magazine that at some point the Swedish government financed youth clubs with musical instruments, to give non-sporty teens something to do. That explains why there's lots of good bands from Sweden.
I don't know if the number of bands in a genre is proportional to the number of fans of that genre (If you gave Japanese kids free instruments, would the ones who like metal be more likely to make a band?)

"Winter blues" is formally known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (looks like a backronym to me). I don't think there's less sun (over the whole year), but the short winter days in the UK really suck sometimes, they must be even worse in Sweden. Of course, there are long summer days too.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[tietokone-olmi]

The metal thing is definitely cultural. Notice how Finland, Sweden and Norway are evangelic lutheran?

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[Hal_Porter]

I have heard that the large popularity of the death metal in a region is a symptom of a "depressive" culture (along the huge alcohol consumption) brought by the little exposure to the Sun during the year - Winter Blues?

Black clothes are also an evolutionary adaption to living in a snowy environment. In prehistoric times, humans who showed a preference for dark clothes were easier to find when they were lost in the snow. Evolution thus selected for this trait.

Moshing is also an efficient way for humans to stay warm in a confined environment like an igloo.

Humans who had the genes for moshing and wearing black clothes thus outbred those who did not.

Also, in most human societies with a harsh climate religion, in this case Satanism, acts as an agent to bind communities together.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[tietokone-olmi]

That doesn't really match. Canada is just as dark during the winter, yet they don't export piles of kill-your-dog-for-satan kind of music. It'd be offset by the bright summers too.

What I'd like to see explained is the amount of hip hop that comes from Sweden. Most of it's made by white people too.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[OriginalArlen]

This explains why Fields of the Nephilim had a lot more fans in, say, Leeds than London. Oh yes.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[Anonymous Coward]

What I'd like to see explained is the amount of hip hop that comes from Sweden.

Is it really a larger amount of hip hop from Sweden than, say, the other Scandinavian countries? From what I know mostly LoopTroop (Rockers), Petter, Timbuktu and Ken Ring is the most known names atleast outside Sweden. Of course there is a bunch of groups not that well known, but I would think that's the situation in most countries.

Most of it's made by white people too.

Not all that strange since the majority of Sweden's population are white people.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[Hal_Porter]

Damnit, I forgot this awesome link

"Stay still, ball sack!"
http://jwz.livejournal.com/913754.html

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[Teun]

Have a look at a globe, in the West the US Canadian border runs on the 49th. parallel, Totonto is located at 43.5 degrees and Montreal at about 45.5.

Compare that with the southern tip of Sweden just above 55 and Stockholm and Oslo north of 59 degrees.

Most of the Canadians live on a latitude comparable to Italy with Rome at about 42 degrees...

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[RonTheHurler]

Here's a unrelated question I've always wanted to ask a language expert.

Ever since I was a little kid (about 40 years ago) I was taught that "Oklahoma" is a native American word for "Red Man". Okla = red, Homa = man.

Now, isn't "Ochre Homo" Greek (or sort-of greek) for "red man"?

Whence the similarity from languages seemingly so far apart?

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, ochre means 'yellow' in Greek, not 'red.'

Secondly, 'homo' is Latin - the Greek word would be 'anthropos'

Thirdly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_cognate

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[bargainsale]

"Oklahoma" is from Choctaw.

In fact, it's the "okla" part that means "people", and the "homa" part that means "red".

"homo" is Latin, not Greek, for "person".

You can easily find lookalikes between the words of any two languages taken at random. The more leeway you allow in variations of vowels and consonants, and the more vagueness you permit in the meaning correspondence, the more purely coincidental lookalikes you can come up with.
Scientific comparative linguistics, in contrast, works by establishing sound-by-sound correspondences matching across lots of different words, eventually making it possible to deduce the earlier common form that has developed into the two different languages being compared.

For example, it's no coincidence that the words for "man" are similar in French, Spanish, Italian and Rumanian:

homme, hombre, uomo, om

because all the words are descended from Latin "homo", just as all the languages involved are modern descendants of Latin.

In the case of the Latin-derived languages, the original ancestor language is a known, written language, but you can compare other languages and reconstruct hypothetical ancestor languages, like "Primitive Germanic", the unwritten ancestor of English, German, Swedish etc.
The key to doing this scientifically and rigorously is to find systematic correspondences among lots of different words.

Unfortunately outside of linguistics, most people are unaware that there even is a scientific study of how languages have developed historically and how they are really related to one another. Many lay ideas about this are based on chance resemblances or general similarities of structure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_linguistics

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[dylan_-]

Ever since I was a little kid (about 40 years ago) I was taught that "Oklahoma" is a native American word for "Red Man". Okla = red, Homa = man.

Now, isn't "Ochre Homo" Greek (or sort-of greek) for "red man"?

Whence the similarity from languages seemingly so far apart?

I'm not a language expert (or language anything, actually), but I checked this out. According to the wikipedia entry for Oklahoma "The name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw phrase okla humma, literally meaning red people."

By checking the entry for Choctaw, it seems that Okla = Men/People and therefore it's probable that Humma = Red. Which removes the coincidence, I'm afraid.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[CRCulver]

The metal thing is definitely cultural. Notice how Finland, Sweden and Norway are evangelic lutheran?

Much Finnish death metal activity comes from areas of the country that are Orthodox.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true.

When I get the hankering to blow somebody's mind, I ask them which city he or she thinks is further north: Paris, or Montreal?

Nobody has ever correctly answered Paris.

Oh, continent-warming ocean currents, so very sensitive to slight shifts in global temperature... But we should definitely keep churning out CO2, because I'm sure Europe would be just delightful with Northern Canada's climate...

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[su6l1m3]

That's a very oversimplistic explanation that fails to take into account, most obviously, the Florida death metal scene, Also worth mentioning are bands such as Sepultura (from Brazil) who helped found the genre in the mid 80's. If your theory were correct, we'd also expect a greater amount of higher-quality death metal from Russia and some of the cloudier/colder parts of the United States (Alaska and Washington-Oregon coast in particular) - places whose influence overall pales in comparison to the larger, more well-known scenes.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[PPH]

Its all ECMA's fault!

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[bergie]

The difference in race is only really marked when you compare the Hungarians to other Finno-Ugrians. As I point out in another comment, the Hungarians are so mixed genetically because they've lived in a crossroads between the Western European, Slavic and Turkic regions for so long. Their language reflects this, having virtually no similarities to other Finno-Ugrian languages anymore.

Actually, there are still some connections. I was amazed when a Hungarian guy in aKademy could effortlessly decipher the Finnish phrase "elÃvà kala ui veden alla."

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[kklein]

Japanese is a language isolate, which some linguists have attempted to group under the Altaic umbrella (e.g. Turkic, Tungusic and Mongolian languages) but with little acceptance.

1) I am an applied (not theoretical, I'll admit) linguist, and I was taught in several classes in both my undergrad and grad programs that Japanese is an Altaic language. Maybe that's a sampling error, but as a fellow linguist, I have never witnessed any controversy over this. Granted, it isn't my area. A quick Wikipedia check mentions controversy, but also points out that most Altaicists include Korean, Japanese, and even Ainu in the Altaic family. It doesn't really sound to me like there is "little acceptance" of this classification.

2) The Altaic family is still the best fit, however, as it has the language moving over northeast Asia, down the Korean peninsula, and then hopping down to Kyushu (the southernmost main island of the Japanese archipelago), where the Korean population exploded due to the much better conditions for rice farming and the application of the rice farming techniques they had developed in the much harsher Korean climate. They started moving northward, taking the land over from the Ainu and incorporating some of their lexicon (just as we Americans did with the Native Americans) as they went. Finally, as an established political power, they began interfacing with China frequently, and adopted their writing system, bringing in Chinese lexicon and morphology, allowing for new Japanese words built from Chinese morphemes (just as English regularly does with Greek morphemes). The lexicon is an interesting hybrid, but the syntactic structure is, and always has been, pretty obviously of Korean origin, and I don't think it's terribly uncontroversial to say that Korean is part of the Altaic family.

3) Finally, whether linguists get sick of hearing language grouping identified with genes or not (I work with nothing but linguists, and it's the first time I've ever heard anyone bemoan this kind of comment) doesn't really matter. Languages are spoken by people. They pass them on to their children during the critical period of language acquisition (now we're getting into my field). Languages do not, of course, have anything to do with genes, but they are highly correlated with them. People breed with those who speak the same language as they most frequently. They then pass that language on to their children. Of course language follows genes. That doesn't mean you can't get genetically different groups speaking the same language family, because of course you can, but to imply that it has nothing to do with genes is silly. Languages don't move by themselves. People carry them. And as people move, and time passes, different populations start to become genetically distinct. None of this is controversial.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[CRCulver]

Wikipedia is worse than useless for comparative linguistics stuff, so just ignore it. I assume you have access to a university library, so we can cite real scholarship. As for Japanese and Korean in Altaic, the inclusion of Korean was widely supported when Ramstedt's work was relatively new (and perhaps it is things of this era that Wikipedia authors were thinking of). However, critical opinion of Ramstedt's work has fallen sharply. I could suggest that you see the review of Halen's biography in Ramstedt in Finno-ugrischen Forschungen for further reading.

I'll reiterate that the position of Japanese is still extremely controversial, and the early 1970s work that attempted to establish Japanese in Altaic provoked an uproar that has never entirely died down. IIRC Cambridge's The Languages of Japan devotes space to that debate. But an even greater problem is that "Altaic" is looking ever less like a real language family. In the early 1990s, several prominent Altaicists came forward to announce that they no longer believed in their own theory. Lyle Campbell's paper in the collection Nostratic: Sifting the Evidence cites a few reversals. Ascribing the similarities between the Altaic languages to areal contact is quite trendy now that Sprachbund theory has come of age. Being a "lumper" instead of a "splitter" is passé.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[CRCulver]

Finally, whether linguists get sick of hearing language grouping identified with genes or not (I work with nothing but linguists, and it's the first time I've ever heard anyone bemoan this kind of comment.

Bemoaning the connection of languages and genes is extremely common in Indo-Europeanist fora. If I were to suggest a publicly visible place: the IEists in sci.lang tear their hair out regularly. Or just look at the attempt to destroy Michael Witzel. This is because Hindutva demagogues try to use genetic arguments to "prove" that the Indo-Iranian languages (i.e. the ancestor of their beloved Sanskrit) could not have entered India from outside, even though it's pretty unanimous now that the IE Urheimat was in the steppes of southern Russia. I did initial training in Indo-European linguistics before moving over to Uralic linguistics because there's more money in it, but I was disappointed to see the same issue here, with genetic arguments used to bolster the work of crackpots like Alinei and Wiik.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[theolein]

I speak some Turkish, and can understand a fair amount of languages all the way to Kazakhstan, since the Turkic languages seem to be fairly close to one another. I don't understand any Finnish or Hungarian, but I did meet a Japanese woman in Turkey who claimed that learning Turkish was much easier for her than learning English as the structure (not the vocabulary, though) of Turkish was much closer to Japanese.

What I do know, and is also probably the reason why numerous linguists have tried to group Finno-Ugric languages in with Tungus and Mongolic (and occasionally Korean and Japanese as well) is that the grammatical structure and syntax of all these languages are very similar. Vowel harmony, the agglutanting way of adding suffixes instead of prepositions and the case systems are common to most of these languages, as well as the general SOV word order.

However, it may be more a case of an historical Sprachbund than real language relationships. Examples of these Sprachbunds (groups of otherwise unrelated languages sharing grammatical features through long time contact) would be Romanian, Albanian and Bulgarian. Bulgarian is a Slavic language, and although the Slavic languages generally have very complex case systems this is almost completely lost in Bulgarian and it also shares the curious feature of having a post-positional definite article with Romanian (Having the "the" after the noun instead of before it).

What I think one should be careful of is that linguistics is famous territory for nationalistic ideas. Linguistic theories have been proposed based on some very weird ideas in order to promote some agendas of racial or nationalistic superiority.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[CRCulver]

Because the Urheimat of the Uralic languages and the Urheimat of the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages were so far apart (many thousands of kilometers), a Sprachbund is highly unlikely. Vowel harmony is quite common across the languages of the world, as is agglutinative typology, so there's no need to suggest any contact between Uralic and the other language families prior to the westward migration of the Turkic peoples.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[Atti K.]

Here. As a native Hungarian speaker, I can tell you that I wouldn't understand that sentence if it were told or written to me by a Finnish speaker. Note that the Finnish and the Estonian sentences are much more similar than either of them is to Hungarian.

By the way, I was in Finland for a few days a while ago, and I can tell you, the language is totally unintelligible to a Hungarian speaker. The funny thing is, the Swedish notices helped me more in Finland than the Finnish ones (since Swedish is also an official language in Finland), because I was also in Sweden before, and speaking English and a little bit of German helps a lot in understanding Swedish.

Re:Turanian/Scandi/Baltic mix

[bergie]

Yeah, I know. I couldn't decipher much of Hungarian either. But in any case, with a bit of thought, and a bit of beer, the Hungarian I was talking with was able to do it.

I can't stand lactose...

[XanC]

...and I won't tolerate it.

oh dear

[thermian]

Good job Hitler never had this kind of info. I can't see that as having ended well.

Re:oh dear

[LizardKing]

It's a shame the information *wasn't* available, as it disproves any notion of Germans being radically different in their genetic makeup from most other Europeans - including Slavic people like the Czechs and Poles.

Re:oh dear

[M. Baranczak]

It's nice to think so, but it wouldn't have made any difference. A "great ideology" never lets facts get in the way.

Re:oh dear

[maxume]

It sort of depends on how you interpret it. He may have decided that most Germans were not pure enough.

Re:oh dear

[LizardKing]

Which would have been pretty rich coming from someone with a surname that's strongly believed to a corruption of a Czech one, and who was also unable to trace his lineage back more than a couple of generations. If I remember rightly, his father Alois was born illegitimately and only had the name of his purported father added to his birth record much later, in order to make it easier for someone (Alois, his father or mother - can't remember) to get married.

Re:oh dear

[Lead Butthead]

It sort of depends on how you interpret it. He may have decided that most Germans were not pure enough.

Then he should "voluntarily enroll" himself in his "final solution" and save the rest of the planet a lot of trouble.

Re:oh dear

[maxume]

Yeah well, his whole ideology was "pretty rich" to begin with.

Re:oh dear

[Anonymous Coward]

The proposition that humans have races with genetically distinct if fuzzy boundaries is in principle a decidable proposition; it may turn out to be scientifically true. Let's say that's the case for the sake of argument.

What then? Since the proposition is a fact, will you then become a Hitlerite? Why or why not?

Unless you're some sort of monster, the answer is "of course not." If that's the case, why don't you extend the same presumption of innocence to your opponents now, for the same reasons you give for deciding not to become a Hitlerite?

Interesting

[LizardKing]

Surprising how far "out there" the Finnish genetic makeup is, considering the long period of integration with Sweden. It's also interesting that this kind of research may give us the final pieces to jigsaw of migration that took place from the Urals to Central and Northern Europe. This great migration of the tribes is what lead to Finno-Ugrian people ending up around the Baltic and in Hungary, but it's still unclear where the tribes "split up", one lot heading north and the other west. The closeness of the Hungarian genetic makeup to other Central Europeans must reflect the massive amount of migration and conquest that occurred across that region (by various Slavic and Turkic peoples in particular), along with a fair bit of Germanic immigration through trading.

Re:Interesting

[CRCulver]

The history of Hungarian migration is pretty clear, actually. The Hungarians were living with their closest Uralic brethren, the Khanty and Mansi tribes, in the south Russian steppes around the beginning of the Common Era. The expansion of the Turkic peoples brought a tribe, evidentally speaking a Chuvash-type language, into contact with some Hungarians, who then learnt horsemanship and began to move west. A number of Hungarians remained behind, and when the Friar Julianus visited the area eight hundred years ago, he was able to communicate with them.

The Hungarian migration to the Carpathian Basin happened fairly recently compared to the spread of Uralic languages to northwestern Russia, Finland and Scandinavia, which must have been complete a thousand years before the beginning of the Common Era.

Re:Interesting

[LizardKing]

It is, or at least was when I was at university, the migration up until the period when Finno-Ugrians were in the Southern Steppes that was unclear. In other words, the initial movements West from the Urals, and the split that saw some go North and others to the steppes - where as you describe, they settled for a considerable amount of time before moving on to the sparsely populated Carpathian basin. I'm going to try and get up to date by reading Cartledge's recent history of Hungary "A Will To Survive" soon, but it's sat unread on a bookshelf for several months now ...

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also interesting to see that there is hardly any overlap between the Netherlands and France, with both populations living in Belgium as a federal state. It might explain the long history of conflicts between both communities resulting in a political crisis today.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

That map actually confirms what was being said some time ago in a radio program I overheard about Finns.

It was stated that Finns are closer genetically with Swedes & Germans than Hungarians or even other people around Baltic sea and it's common mistake to think that it would be vice versa justifiying based on Fenno-Ugric language traces.

According to current undrestanding Finns changed their language for some reason in past, propably before arriving to their current location. Reasons to that switch is still unknown.

ac

ps. myself being 1/8 swede & rest finn.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Sources please.

Re:Interesting

[Reziac]

In my observation, Finns and Ukranians tend to look more alike than Finns and Swedes. I'm referring here to macro traits like skull shape, bone structure, and mannerisms even in people not raised in that culture (and are probably partly dependent on structure, hence genetic). But I seem to recall that a swath of what was eaten by the USSR used to be Finnish territory.

Re:Interesting

[AliasMarlowe]

Surprising how far "out there" the Finnish genetic makeup is, considering the long period of integration with Sweden.

Not all that much integration, really. More of a command, control, tax relationship for a while. Then the Russians took the franchise from the Swedes, and carried on in a similar fashion.
I suspect the Finns would be appear less isolated in that map if Estonia and Northwestern Russia had been included.

Lack of overlap

[Guppy06]

I'm now kind of curious about how such a map of North America would look in comparison, because to me there are some pretty big areas here where there is no overlap (Great Britain, southern Italy, Poland, Sweden...). They've been on the same continent for how many centuries, and they're still so distinct?

Re:Lack of overlap

[xaxa]

Remember travelling was only for the rich until not so long ago. The first inter-city railway was only opened in 1830 (Liverpool to Manchester), before that most people couldn't afford the time or the money to travel further than to the nearest town.

Add to that the language barriers, probably cultural barriers and it's not so surprising.

Re:Lack of overlap

[julian67]

Great Britain might be part of Europe politically and in geological terms but there is the barrier of the English Channel which has kept us safe from French, Spanish and German invasion attempts for 900 years. The last 4 successful invasions of Britain were by the Normans in the 11th century, by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes et al in the 5th/6th century, by Vikings in the 9th/10th centuries and by the Romans in the 1st century. Probably not a lot changed in terms of the genetic profile of the population for many hundreds of years until the mass immigration in the 20th century of people from the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uganda (Ugandan Indians).

Re:Lack of overlap

[Paul Jakma]

That's not really true. E.g. notice the overlap between Ireland, Norway and Denmark, due to some degree to Viking tribes pillaging and then settling in Ireland, in the 600s to 800s (I think - going out on a limb by not checking wikipaedia first). You could go and on in similar fashion.

You can go back further in time and find evidence of trade stretching across Europe and even beyond. Even as far as back as *neo-lithic* (ie late stone age, circa 4k years ago) times, there is evidence of trade routes as stone axe heads known to have been quarried in Northern Ireland have been found in the UK and even the continent.

I'm picking a bit of a nit, cause you're right that travel was less common, but it wasn't confined to rich people and there was still plenty of it thanks to trade and war (e.g. we havn't even mentioned the Romans).

Re:Lack of overlap

[Eudial]

Still, I expected to see more Italian<->British relation/overlap (because of the whole roman deal you mentioned). Looking at British people and Italian people, you can often see the resemblance in facial features hair/skin color, etc. in a way you can't between, say, Italian and German people (naturally, there are Italian looking Germans, but they are to my experience more rare than Britons).

Re:Lack of overlap

[Anonymous Coward]

The USA isn't old enough for this to be as interesting as is Europe's.

But there are definitely enclaves. Amish, Creole, American Indians, those weird fishing island people on the east coast, Germans in the midwest, hillbillies, Baltimore.

Re:Lack of overlap

[julian67]

The Roman legions weren't necessarily Italians, the soldiers would have been from all over Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. I don't know enough about the history to know if there was any great mixing of populations but the Roman occupation was only about 350 years in Britain, compared to many times more in Europe, and there were numerous rebellions and even the complete destruction of Roman armies and cities, so perhaps it was more like a military occupation than a settlement and integration. From what I've read of Roman history all citizens of the empire could attain high position in the military and civil governments regardless of national/ethnic origin but we don't see many Brits making big careers :-) The origin of the Britons in legend claims descent from those who fled Troy under the leadership of Brutus (no, not that one) after it was sacked by the Greeks. The Trojans arrived at Albion, which they conquered/colonised and renamed Britain. We all know that the legend of the founding of Rome is similar, fleeing Trojans in this case being led by Aeneas and arriving in Italy and Aeneas' descendents founding Rome. But I'm sure little of this survives real scrutiny.

Re:Lack of overlap

[fsmunoz]

That resemblance you mention is more likely due to the shared origins of native Britons and Iberians than any Roman conquest. This is well known due to the R1b Y haplogorup distribution that reaches the highest percentages in Iberia and the British Isles (and especially in Ireland).

See this reference for some further info, although the information in there is rather speculative.

Re:Lack of overlap

[Das Modell]

I'd love to know how you managed to get modded troll.

Re:Lack of overlap

[Guppy06]

"Great Britain might be part of Europe politically and in geological terms but there is the barrier of the English Channel which has kept us safe from French, Spanish and German invasion attempts for 900 years."

And yet Ireland shows more overlap with with continent than Great Britain.

Re:Lack of overlap

[julian67]

Ireland has a much smaller population than the UK and was never settled by the Anglo Saxons or occupied by Rome. The Normans invaded it and it was then under control of England and later the UK until the 20th century and there was English colonisation in the form of settlements (plantations) mostly in Munster ans Ulster. But there was also immigration from continental Europe, which would have a much greater effect than similar numbers settling in Britain. The British (English and Scottish) settlers were Protestants, the Irish were Catholics. Never the twain shall meet etc. Ireland has also hosted French and Spanish armies during the wars between Protestant and Catholic states of Europe. The Protestant and Catholic communities have remained distinct. Two or three peoples divided by a common saviour :-)

Re:Lack of overlap

[jc42]

Remember travelling was only for the rich until not so long ago. The first inter-city railway was only opened in 1830 (Liverpool to Manchester), before that most people couldn't afford the time or the money to travel further than to the nearest town.

Huh? By 1830, the British had extensive "holdings" around the world. 50 years earlier, their empire had already spun off a significant English-speaking nation several thousand miles away, across an ocean. The British Empire may have been led by the rich, but it wasn't the rich who travelled around the world to do the dirty work.

The British were hardly the first. About a decade ago, the Icelanders celebrated the 1000th anniversary of their parliament. And, of course, the Romans had a rather significant empire 1000 years before that, one that brought in so many black African slaves as to significantly affect the physical appearance of Mediterranean people (as testified by copious statuary over the Roman Empire's history).

The railroad was significant as a better way to do overland travel. But extensive water-based travel goes back thousands of years, and has never required huge riches. Humans have always lived primarily along major rivers and on the shores of large lakes and oceans. Remains of boats (and houses on stilts) go back many thousands of years.

The idea that "ordinary" people couldn't travel, intermix and interbreed before modern transportation is silly on its face, and contrary to everything we know about our history.

Re:Lack of overlap

[Goat Nutrition]

A lot of the pre-neolithic / pre-agricultural British makeup reflects the fact that the English Channel wasn't there until late in the Mesolithic, and people were settled on the (then) coastline areas of Ireland, Wales, Hebrides, Cornwall, with relatively few people way inland in Eastern England. Later on, Scandi folks were still walking to Eastern England until the Channel really because continuous in the late Mesolithic. That very old 'founder effect' is a lot of what you see in the profiles. Recent historical additions like the Romans and Normans are proportionately small in comparison to that.

Re:Lack of overlap

[Anonymous Coward]

Viking/Norse activity in Ireland was a bit later, 800s to 1000s. (Dublin city was founded by the vikings in 988). After that, the "Normans" (themselves french-norse mixes, of course) took over.

The vikings were peaceful traders for a couple of centuries before they started more aggressively raiding, there was some contact before then IIRC.

Re:Lack of overlap

[yo man]

Well of course there will be Brits of Italian origin... but perhaps what you mean is similarities between Italians and English. I have to say i have noticed very little. Most English are pasty white, some are reddish, and a few are a bit tanned. That's about it. You would of course expect to see a lot more similarities between English and Germans since their origins are similar

Re:Lack of overlap

[Anonymous Coward]

Ireland expanded throughout Europe and the Mediterranean during the time of the Romans though.

Re:Lack of overlap

[xaxa]

There was a *huge* amount less travel before the 19th century. Of course explorers, traders, sailors and soldiers travelled -- otherwise there'd be no mixing at all -- but most people didn't.

And sorry, but most ordinary people really couldn't travel, intermix and interbreed before modern transportation. That's why we have different languages, cultures and nations.

Re:Lack of overlap

[Anonymous Coward]

An Italian moderator who thinks the British are ugly?

Re:Lack of overlap

[corbettw]

You've seen pictures of Irish women, right? ;)

Re:Lack of overlap

[studlyhungwell]

And yet Ireland shows more overlap with with continent than Great Britain.

The fact that Ireland is more genetically related to the Continent could be a result of that Celtic blood. Celts were all over the Continent back in ancient times.

Re:Lack of overlap

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes I have .

Re:Lack of overlap

[Anonymous Coward]

"Safe from invasions"? What an amazing display of ignorance, Romans, Vikings, Normans, Anglians, Saxons... Who do you think they were? The point is the UK has been invaded over and over, by many parties throughout the history, and mostly successfully, the failures have been due to clashes between conquerors.

Re:Lack of overlap

[dave420]

Their position is perfect for collecting stricken vessels looking for safe harbour. After the Armada tried its funny business, many of the ships ended up in Scotland and Ireland. Plus millions of Irish folks left Ireland, so their case is a strange one indeed. Also, and possibly more importantly, Ireland is a Celtic nation, sharing a common heritage with parts of northern France. Wales and Scotland are Celtic, too, but England isn't (except Cornwall), and England has most of the population of the UK. Or something. I don't know :)

Re:Lack of overlap

[TheRaven64]

The Emperor spent a lot of time in Britain during that period. It contained the military capital several times, due to having three legions and the emperor present while fighting the picti and scoti. A lot of roman civilians stayed and married britons after the invasion, and the last Duke of Britain decided to be Emperor of the West at one point, but ended up being killed just before he and his legions got to Rome.

Re:Lack of overlap

[Anonymous Coward]

Ireland stayed Catholic. From what is posted here, it seems that the "different" societies are Protestant ones. Less intermarriage in the last 500 years? Also, Ireland sufferred more N.African piracy than Britain (where does Algeria fit?) and there were the "Wild Geese". But there are lots of Irish in Britain - just consider Liverpool; don't they mix?

Re:Lack of overlap

[popoutman]

Anyone that frequents http://thedailywtf.com/ will tell you of "Irish girl" http://www.bustedtees.com/irish#female

Re:Lack of overlap

[Anonymous Coward]

The last 4 successful invasions of Britain were by the Normans in the 11th century, by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes et al in the 5th/6th century, by Vikings in the 9th/10th centuries and by the Romans in the 1st century.

You forgot the Dutch in 1688.

Re:Lack of overlap

[julian67]

No I didn't forget the "Glorious Revolution". If it happened today we would probably call it a coup d'etat or a revolution rather than an invasion. It's quite unusual for an invader to arrive by invitation, to cede authority to a local parliament and to have the support of most of the local army, the entire navy and most of the civilian population. There was no immigration from Holland, no change in population. Historians are still arguing this one I believe.

Re:Lack of overlap

[jimmy_woo_1980]

Hm, while it's possible that that "Italian" look is due to Roman conquest, I would expect it to be more likely due to later Normand conquest, which also came from a former Roman teritory... Anyway, I don't find that map even remotely accurate or representative for "nation mapping", since it takes way too few samples and even the choice of sampling points across Europe is poor. Germany has 2 X 500 samples taken, which might be OK-ish, but all the rest of Europe only has about 1000 samples together. For instance, Italy has much less and Portugal has only 16. I think this is more of a "proof of concept" paper than a serious "mapping of Europe's genepool" as it claims. It actually is very far from that IMO.

Accuracy of map?

[SystematicPsycho]

The map should have included Russia and other Eastern European areas. Also, one thing that makes me skeptical of the maps accuracy is there doesn't appear to be an overlap between EL and IT2.

Re:Accuracy of map?

[e-Flex]

Yeah, those lazy scientists!

Re:Accuracy of map?

[Anonymous Coward]

Greece and Italy are near each other, but do not overlap.
Not terribly surprising as Greece was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and Italy was not, therefore having more of an East European and Arab influence.

Re:Accuracy of map?

[seyyah]

The map should have included Russia and other Eastern European areas. Also, one thing that makes me skeptical of the maps accuracy is there doesn't appear to be an overlap between EL and IT2.

Agreed. What would have been really interesting would have been Turkey's presence on the map. I'd love to see the amount overlap with overlap with its neighbours - notably Greece.

Re:Accuracy of map?

[SystematicPsycho]

Well that too, there would definately be some overlap in the Anatolian area (Istanbul/Constantinople) and the West cost of Turkey (Izmir/Smyrna). Even include Cyprus in that, Hellenic with a Turkish minority.

Sicily and Southern Italy was originally settled by Greeks (Archimedes of Syracuse is a perfect example).

In terms of Arab influence, even Spain would have some genetic overlap between Northern Africans (Moorish influence).

You could keep going on until the entire world is on a map.

Let's try to link to the source

[iminplaya]

Shall we?

Misleading title

[Stoutlimb]

If this was the USA, it would be like making a map of the pacific states and some midwest states, and calling it a map of the USA. Where's the rest?

The country at the geographical centre of Europe (Ukraine) isn't even on there. Neither is Russia. Not to mention the dozens of smaller states. No wonder Finland is way out there... they're very similar to Russians who aren't on the map, like they weren't even part of Europe. This article is either very bad journalism or serious EU snobbery.

Re:Misleading title

[N3TW4LK3R]

It looks like a map of Europe to me.
Although there has always been some discussion as to where the eastern border of 'Europe' is, the whole of Russia is most certainly not part of Europe. Take a look at some maps. Perhaps you meant to say Eurasia?

Re:Misleading title

[tietokone-olmi]

It also ignores the distinct ethnic groups (e.g. the different groupings of Sami) present in Norway, Sweden and Finland and apparently completely omits Iceland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and other countries that're at least as far east as Finland.

As an amateur with no competence in this stuff whatsoever, I'd say that Finland's outlier status on this diagram follows the sample. The not so nice part is of course that now the papers are going to pronounce Finns as some kind of freaks in Europe, when (as you said) this study excluded a significant chunk of European peoples.

Re:Misleading title

[Paul Jakma]

Stoutlimb meet scope and funding, and likewise..

Re:Misleading title

[Anonymous Coward]

The Eastern border of Europe is defined by physical geography - the Ural mountains.

The Russian Federation as a whole, like the USSR before it, is certainly not entirely in Europe. But "Russia" is really in Europe. Was Britain not in Europe when it owned large chunks of India and America and Australia etc.? No, Britain was always in Europe, but the British Empire, like the Russian Federation, was much larger.

The Russians are currently maintaining it's all one state, of course, but once you get beyond the ural mountains (in fact a bit before), you run into a lot* of noticeably non-russian russian federation citizens, like the various Samoyed and Altaic peoples.

* Well, not that many, the whole stretch is incredibly sparsely populated. Russia kind of controls it by default more than anything else.

Re:Misleading title

[Iloinen Lohikrme]

I disagree with you on regards that samples make Finland separated on the map. To me the result of this study really doesn't come as an surprise. If we look at Finland's geographical location and it's history it would be a surprise if we would be genetically closer to our European neighbors. Geographically we have been isolated by other nations and people, yes other people have traded and had impact with Fins but that interaction have been very small compared as people have had to travel with boat to hear. Notable feature of Finland's geographical location in periferia of Europe was that Mongols didn't invade it. Also after Fins were converted to Catholicism the eastern regions of Finland were more or less in constant war/conflict with their eastern relatives that were converted to Orthodox faith. In addition we should also note the kingdom of Sweden had severe restrictions on who could come and locate to Finland. In example after the Lutheran reformation it was forbidden and punished by death for other than reformed to come or locate to the kingdom. Another example is that Jews were completely forbidden on locating to Finland, only after Finland became a part of Russia were Jews allowed to locate to Finland. In this sense its not a surprise that we are in the edge of the map separated from others.

I also don't think that Finnish position in the edge of the map wouldn't change even if there had been samples from Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine and Russia. The Baltic nations have been in constant touch with Germans, Polish and Russians, but not as much with Finnish or Swedish. It would be interesting to know how close related Fins are to Ukrainian and Russians, but I believe that both of them might be closer to central Europeans as Germanic tribes have originally come from east and more importantly all these nations have interacted quite much with each other, note in example Volga Germans, and of course have endured same invasions as in example Mongols.

It would be nice to have more data and more results from different areas, but then again in a big picture data about such a small populations like Sami people wouldn't really make difference. On a note about Sami people, I read from Helsingin Sanomat that Finland is divided to too genetically different populations, the genetic line goes from Oulu to Kotka. People living in western Finland are genetically more related to Swedish and people living in the eastern and northern section resemble more on original natives that came to Finland. This of course nicely proves that there is something different about those evil bastards from Savo ;)

Re:Misleading title

[Anonymous Coward]

It surprises me that you have a problem being (and being viewed as) different. Do you prefer homogeneity to having a distinct identity?

Re:Misleading title

[tietokone-olmi]

Nah, not really. Journalists however can present matters any way they want to, including "bastard outliers who shouldn't be part of Europe, go back to the USSR damn you". I'm merely anticipating.

Re:Misleading title

[tietokone-olmi]

Man, don't read HS without a keg of salt. A newspaper article is very different from "proof", even if it does follow prejudice.

But the point about geography is well-taken. A gulf does keep people from migrating far more effectively than a border, or even a bunch of bear- and wolf-packed forest.

Italian

[seyyah]

The article is quite light on details, but instead of the Alps, couldn't the reason for the Italian blob being outside the rest of Europe have more to do with it having absorbed a significant Arab/Berber population from North Africa?

The Iberian peninsula is also cut off by mountains but it sits in nicely with the rest of Europe. Of course Spain also had its Berbers and Arabs but kicked them - and the Jews - out rather successfully in 1492.

Re:Italian

[LizardKing]

I wasn't aware of significant, if any, influx of North Africans or Arabs into Italy (the really recent immigration from North Africa hasn't had time to impact the genetic makeup of the population as a whole). The only part of Italy that I'm aware has had a North African or Arab influence is Sicily, where the Sicilian language at least has Arab influences (as well as Latin, Spanish, Norman French and some German influences). There's also a dialect in Sicily that is strongly Albanian influenced, and unintelligible to other Sicilian language speakers, the result of a significant migration of Albanians a long time ago who then remained pretty much in one small region.

Re:Italian

[seyyah]

I meant especially Sicily (and Malta) in terms of direct immigration, but also other parts of southernmost Italy. The contact with North Africa has been a longstanding one, and perhaps long enough for the effects to have spread northwards (over hundreds or even thousand of years). The Alps hypothesis still seems a bit unlikely to me.

Just a thought though.

Re:Italian

[Reziac]

I remember reading that the native pre-Rome population of Italy was mainly of ancient Celtic roots and types, ie. the same as for most of central Europe. But the Romans imported both slaves and commerce partners from North Africa, and subsequent interbreeding is where what we think of as the "typical dark and often curly-haired Italian" came from.

The same applies to Spain -- until the Moors, who left behind a lot of their genes despite being kicked out as overlords, the average Spaniard was light-coloured just like the rest of Europe. The dark Latino type is the product of Moorish crossbreeding.

One occasionally sees blonde, blue-eyed, very Celtic-looking Spaniards even today, the legacy of pre-Moorish Spain.

Re:Italian

[zebul0n]

Very interesting theory:

The same applies to Spain -- until the Moors, who left behind a lot of their genes despite being kicked out as overlords, the average Spaniard was light-coloured just like the rest of Europe. The dark Latino type is the product of Moorish crossbreeding.

So where did Moors the cross-breed with South-American "Latinos", then?
I am not aware of any Moor invasion in South America...

This all goes back to the old enmity between Europeans and Africans, Spaniards and Moors (today's Moroccans), Christians and Muslims, with especially South-Europeans trying to relate to blue-eyed Northern Europeans, whereas genetics tend to show the incredible mix of genes around the Mediterranean.

This is really cultural and you can even see that in North Africa where some Muslims/Jews try even today to identify themselves with Europe/Spain and never to the Middle-East (the starting point of civilization as we know it with the Phenicians/Mesopotamians etc...)

Z.

Re:Italian

[zebul0n]

Renaissance did not happen in Sweden, but rather in Italy in the 15th century for one reason: it is closer to the Arab World, which was much more advanced than Europe (Middle Ages...).

I think we cannot exclude a genetic mix as well during that time, although today's History tends to occult such a thing (genetics will probably prove it)...

Z.

Re:Italian

[Reziac]

The Latin American population is largely Indian (of the American variety).

Latino didn't used to mean "Latin American", BTW. That itself is a corruption of the term as formerly used to mean the darker southern European type.

Damn, now I feel old.

Re:Italian

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look closely ES1 and PT are pretty fringe as well. They have a strong Moor and Jew influx in addition to the Pre-roman base. Southern Spaniards and the Portuguese have dark skin and look very different to northern Spaniards.
Most ethnic jews and Moors would change their surnames to Christian figures or names such as "Moor-slaughterer" "Saints". And many of them survived the Inquisition to this day.

Re:Italian

[Anonymous Coward]

The Spanish are not Latino. The Latinos are dark because of the amerind racial component.

I'm not disputing your claim that the Spanish have absorbed Moorish DNA though.

Re:Italian

[Lord Apolon]

Agreed on principle, but I'd attribute the Renaissance more to the decline and fall of the Byzantine Empire. Many Greeks, including great scholars, fled to Italy in the 15th century, both before and after 1453. They played a major role in bringing the classics back to Western Europe. You're right about Arab science, though.

Re:Italian

[trifish]

Renaissance did not happen in Sweden, but rather in Italy in the 15th century for one reason: it is closer to the Arab World, which was much more advanced than Europe (Middle Ages...).

Arab World world had absolutely nothing to do with Renaissance.

Renaissance was started by citizens of Europe and it was the "rediscovery and rebirth" (= renaissance) of Ancient Greece, its culture, and values. I hope you know Greece is in Europe.

Also, I don't know in which respect Arab World was more advanced than Europe in the Middle Ages.

Re:Italian

[Anonymous Coward]

Arab World world had absolutely nothing to do with Renaissance.

Renaissance was started by citizens of Europe and it was the "rediscovery and rebirth" (= renaissance) of Ancient Greece, its culture, and values. I hope you know Greece is in Europe.

Indeed, and much of that was lost with the fall of Rome. The Dark Ages were dark for science and education, as well-- the process of rediscovery of Greek classical knowledge was only possible because it had been preserved by the Arab world:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050820072406/http://www.medievalhistory.net/islamica.htm

Re:Italian

[trifish]

You're talking about Early Middle Ages when some Christians indeed tried to suppress the heritage of the Ancient Greece and keep it secret. However, the materials were never destoyed. They were there in Europe locked in libraries. However, Renaissance was at the very end of the Middle Ages. Arabs played no role there. Materials from Ancient Greeks were still in the European libraries. When they were rediscovered by Europeans in the European libraries, then Renaissance, more or less, began.

Re:Italian

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking about Early Middle Ages when some Christians indeed tried to suppress the heritage of the Ancient Greece and keep it secret. However, the materials were never destoyed. They were there in Europe locked in libraries.

Yep. Mostly inaccessible to the figures who began the Renaissance - they only started to seek these works out in European libraries after being exposed to the advances in the Arabic world:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus#Culture

However, Renaissance was at the very end of the Middle Ages.

Of course it was 'at the very end of the Middle Ages'; its very definition marks the end of that period. If it had started sooner, the 'Middle Ages' would have been shorter. Let's avoid tautologies, please.

Arabs played no role there.

Read the articles above, and you will see how the Italians were inspired by Islamic advances in many fields. Now you may argue that many of these Muslims were not in fact Arabs, but the spread of that knowledge through the Islamic world is traceable back to Arab nations.

Make no mistake - just because classical books were still present in Europe was not sufficient to trigger the Renaissance. Those works were largely sought out because the process had already begun, not because scholars and artists just happened upon them.

None of this is particularly controversial, it's well-established historically.

Re:Italian

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you by chance an Arab? Because I have no other explanation for the nonsense you're posting.

The only things Arabs did well was damage the Great Pyramids of Egypt (physically stealing the material from the pyramids), which they did not build, but now they act like they did.

Re:Italian

[Anonymous Coward]

> Are you by chance an Arab? Because I have no other explanation for the nonsense you're posting.

No, I'm Polish-Dutch, actually, but I'm not anti-Arab or in denial of history...

Re:Italian

[yo man]

Hmm are you by any chance a retard?

Re:Italian

[zebul0n]

Many classics as you said were not available in the greek language, because they were already destroyed.
The only versions we have today are in arabic: I wonder why...

Moreover, how can you imagine the Arabs just translating these works from greek/latin, with no contribution whatsoever?
Unfortunately, this is what is believed: the Arabs were just translators of ancient texts, and of course, this is totally untrue.

As to the decline of the Byzantine Empire, this is true, but at the same time, there was a new power in the making, the Turks (not Arabs), but they controlled the Arab world as well (except Morocco), and that probably enhanced the communications between both sides of the Mediterranean (and knowledge transfer).

Z.

Re:Italian

[zebul0n]

You cannot rediscover Ancient Greece without reading the texts in arabic, precisely because many of the original greek texts were destroyed, and only arabic translations remained.

As to why the Arab world was more advanced than Europe in the Middle Ages:
mmmhh, let's see: where should I start:
maybe here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age
and the arabic words: algorithm, alchemy etc...

Hell, even "Dune" made references to these names...

Z

Re:Italian

[zebul0n]

trifish: However, the materials were never destoyed.

I hope you realize I can prove the opposite just by showing you a single counter-example, right?

Here it is:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apollonius-Translation-Original-Mathematics-Physical/dp/0387972161

'nuff said.

Z.

Re:Italian

[zebul0n]

I find it difficult to believe Arabs were just translators from greek, and ancient book keepers, which is the traditional view in the West, in general: reasons for this are numerous, and historically based on the antagony between both sides of the Mediterranean, Christians and Muslims.

Z.

Re:Italian

[zebul0n]

You said: many of these Muslims were not in fact Arabs.

"Arab" was not perceived as an ethnic group at that time, but rather as someone who shares the Arabic culture for living in the Arab world, just like roman citizen were not white inhabitants of Italy, but rather citizens of an Empire (some Roman rulers were African), or like you would say "American" today which is obviously not an ethnic group.

But I agree that some of them, especially Muslims from Persia, or Samarkand would not fit today's definition of an Arab.

However, for most Westerners, the line between Muslims and Arab is, I would say, rather fuzzy...

Z.

Re:Italian

[zebul0n]

Actually, the British and French did an excellent job stealing the materials from the pyramids to the museums in London (British Museum) and Paris (Louvre).
Thanks for bringing that up.

Z.

Re:Italian

[zebul0n]

By praising ignorance, you only show who is the retard.

Go read some history books.

Z.

Re:Italian

[Anonymous Coward]

The dark latino type in Spain is more topic than a reality. That type of skin color is normally attributed to gypsies populations -around 8% of the total Spanish population- Normal Spaniards are light colored and blue-eyed people is quite normal -although brown eyes are much more frequent-

Re:Italian

[Anonymous Coward]

Moving artifacts to a museum is what civilized scientists do. You cannot leave the stuff in the pyramids because they would be soon stolen by the Arabs who "guard" it.

In contrast, taking hammers and irreversibly damaging the pyramids is what Arabs indeed did.

Re:Italian

[zebul0n]

Thanks for sharing your racist definitions of what civilization is.

Now, go read some books.

Z.

My wife is Finnish

[an.echte.trilingue]

My wife is Finnish, and this pretty much confirms my suspicion that she and all other Finns are in fact from outer space.

Re:My wife is Finnish

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife is Finnish, and this pretty much confirms my suspicion that she and all other Finns are in fact from outer space.

Please don't let her know that you suspect this, as she might get drunk and kill herself.

HHOS

Re:My wife is Finnish

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, here is some space language for you:
Kahdennessakymmenennessätoisessakerroksessa.
And that reads: At the twenty second floor.
Our language is otherwise fine, but something definitely went wrong with our numerals. :)

Re:My wife is Finnish

[phaxkolumbo]

...apart from the fact that that's slightly wrong. It's two words and not strictly a numeral anymore. "Kahdennessakymmenessätoisessa kerroksessa" would be the right expression. And that includes specifying the location, so it doesn't work out much more difficult or long than a similar expression in English. The Finnish numeral system is decimal-based instead of the 12-based ones in most european languages. Whether that makes it easier to learn or less space-y, I don't know.

Re:My wife is Finnish

[maxume]

There are 7 syllables in the English statement. How many sounds is the Finnish statement using to convey the same information?

Re:My wife is Finnish

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether that makes it easier to learn or less space-y, I don't know.

I believe I'm getting it now...

The "space language" version, as posted by the other AC a bit earlier:
"Kahdennessakymmenennessätoisessakerroksessa."

And here's the Finnish version:
"Kahdennessakymmenessätoisessa kerroksessa"

As you can see, the Finnish version has one space between the two words, while the space language version has none, thus making the Finnish version more space-y than the space language version, and... er...

Well, I think I'm Finnished here. Carry on!

Re:My wife is Finnish

[phaxkolumbo]

I'm counting 15, although a sentence fragment like this is not probably the best way to measure efficiency... it's probably said in the same time as the English one.

Re:My wife is Finnish

[Anonymous Coward]

Yhdyssanat tuottaa mullle aina ongelmia. :)
Run-in words have always been problematic to me, thanks for correct spelling. :)

Re:My wife is Finnish

[maxume]

Sure. I was thinking of the number of sounds as being a reasonable (though superficial) measure of complexity.

Re:My wife is Finnish

[mfnickster]

Did you know there's a language called 'aUI' whose author claims it really is from outer space?

"aUI: The Language of Space: Pentecostal Logos of Love & Peace"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUI_(language)

Re:My wife is Finnish

[ancient_kings]

Agreed. Only space people could have made this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPnGPIMUnus Though, the music is good.

Re:My wife is Finnish

[arclyte]

Unlike the Basque, whom we all know are just descendants of Atlantis.

Re:My wife is Finnish

[AliasMarlowe]

Hey, my wife is also Finnish!

"Kahdennessakymmenessätoisessa kerroksessa" would be the right expression. And that includes specifying the location, so it doesn't work out much more difficult or long than a similar expression in English. The Finnish numeral system is decimal-based instead of the 12-based ones in most european languages.

Where did you get the base-12 idea from? Indo-European languages also have decimal-based number systems (although the French twist it a bit with quatre-vingt-dix and suchlike). There are traditional numeral shorthands based on 2/pair, 12/dozen and 20/score, and time units hark back to the Babylonians, but they are normally expressed in decimal.

Whether that makes it easier to learn or less space-y, I don't know.

Personally, I think Finnish is a 1.0 release, and is in dire need of several patches. Something definitely needs to be done about the partitive case, for instance. I have some grasp on most of the other cases (essive, inessive, adessive, illative, etc.), and the lack of definite and indefinite articles does not trouble me (studying Latin inured me to this particular quirk), but the partitive case regularly trips me up.
And while we're on the subject of numbers, how come yksitoista means eleven, but puolitoista means one and a half? I propose that in Finnish v1.1, puolitoista would mean ten and a half...

Re:My wife is Finnish

[vuo]

Actually you can't ignore the structure of the language. Finnish basically doesn't have monosyllablic words except for common particles; two syllables is the minimum. This feature appears to be very old and integral to the language. So "two" has two syllables "kak-si" and "ten" is "kym-men-" (oblique form, "ten" alone is "kymmenen"). So when English goes twen-ty-two, Finnish has kak-si-kym-men-tä ("two of tens").

The second difference clearly exploited is the case agreement. In fact, "twenty two" is two words "kahdessa kymmenessä". Now because the last has the suffix -ssä, the rest of the entire expression also has the same -ssa, which is repeated for each word. So we get "kuudessa kymmenessä tuhannessa kahdessa sadassa viidessä" ("in 60205") for "kuusi kymmentä tuhatta kaksi sataa viisi" ("60205"). As you can see, this redundancy increases syllable count by 40-50%, without being really "complex" in the same sense of spelling bee words.

Another problem is that although it is not recommended to write together all possible compounds, for some reason all numerals are still faithfully written in long strings like that. You could write, in principle, all genitives together, like in German (think "Donaudampfschiff...").

Re:My wife is Finnish

[BrentH]

So, Linux is an alien operating system? Is that cool or just outright creepy? I for one (don't) welcome our alien Finnish overlords, or something.

Re:My wife is Finnish

[maxume]

I am pretty happy calling a system that requires modifying each word in a phrase based on the last word more complicated than a system that makes much more specific use of word modification. I'm not a linguist or anything, and my only second-language experience is some number of words in Spanish, with a few of the rules.

Re:My wife is Finnish

[daniel23]

> Where did you get the base-12 idea from?
Count silently and you will easily find the answer.

ten eleven twelve : thirteen
zehn elf zwölf : dreizehn
ti elleve tolv : tretten

and besides English, German and Danish you can find the habit of using individual numerals for the first 12 numbers in many (?all) west and north Germanic languages. It gives the strong impression of an original base-12 number system driven out of use by base-10 mathematics but still preserved in the numerals ( and things like a dozend, a gross etc)

counting-0-to-100 gives an overview of numerals used in a number of different languages and this habit of Germanic languages clearly is an exception

Re:My wife is Finnish

[phaxkolumbo]

Hey, my wife is also Finnish!

I feel your pain.

Where did you get the base-12 idea from? Indo-European languages also have decimal-based number systems (although the French twist it a bit with quatre-vingt-dix and suchlike). There are traditional numeral shorthands based on 2/pair, 12/dozen and 20/score, and time units hark back to the Babylonians, but they are normally expressed in decimal.

Fair enough, I was extrapolating too far here (and yes, from French, as well). It's just that 11 and 12 are given specific words in most European languages but Finnish doesn't.

Personally, I think Finnish is a 1.0 release, and is in dire need of several patches. Something definitely needs to be done about the partitive case, for instance. I have some grasp on most of the other cases (essive, inessive, adessive, illative, etc.), and the lack of definite and indefinite articles does not trouble me (studying Latin inured me to this particular quirk), but the partitive case regularly trips me up.

I think the Finnish language codebase needs a total rewrite. I'm a native speaker so I don't have to think about it, but just reading some rudimentary grammar can cause internal bleeding for me. And I couldn't explain "why", really. Funnily enough, the partitive can be used to define indefinite qualities/quantities a bit like the indefinite article. In some cases, of course.

And while we're on the subject of numbers, how come yksitoista means eleven, but puolitoista means one and a half? I propose that in Finnish v1.1, puolitoista would mean ten and a half...

It sort of makes sense... "toista" means "of the second" (kind of) so "yksitoista" would mean "1st of the 20th" (second "decade"), so puolitoista (extremely bad translation follows) "1st half of the second [number]". For instance, in English the expression "first decade of the 21th century" follows this logic (I think).

Re:My wife is Finnish

[Ozrius]

I don't have a wife but my left hand is Finnish.
What do I win?

Disclaimer: I'm not only Finnish but also left handed. Wtf?

Re:My wife is Finnish

[AliasMarlowe]

> Where did you get the base-12 idea from? Count silently and you will easily find the answer.

ten eleven twelve : thirteen zehn elf zwölf : dreizehn ti elleve tolv : tretten

and besides English, German and Danish you can find the habit of using individual numerals for the first 12 numbers in many (?all) west and north Germanic languages. It gives the strong impression of an original base-12 number system driven out of use by base-10 mathematics but still preserved in the numerals ( and things like a dozend, a gross etc)

Definitely not all European languages. In French the transition is at sixteen to seventeen: onze, douze, treize, quatorze, quinze, seize, dix-sept, dix-huit... Also, in Irish, the transition is at ten to eleven, just like in Finnish: deich (10), aondeag (11), dodeag (12), trideag (13), etc. Interestingly, Irish uses somewhat different numerals for counting persons as opposed to other entities - at least for small numbers of persons.

Re:My wife is Finnish

[Atti K.]

Fair enough, I was extrapolating too far here (and yes, from French, as well). It's just that 11 and 12 are given specific words in most European languages but Finnish doesn't.

IANAL (as in I Am Not A Linguist :), but I think that is only in the Germanic languages.

Romance languages (of which Romanian I do speak): no.
Slavic languages: no.
Hungarian (my mother tongue): no.
Greek: no.

I wonder if there's a non-Germanic language which has specific words for 11 and 12...

Re:My wife is Finnish

[LizardKing]

Finnish basically doesn't have monosyllablic words except for common particles; two syllables is the minimum.

Wrong. There's "pää" (head) and "tie" (road) for starters. The agglutinative nature of Finnish does mean that these words often occur as part of a longer word, rauta|tie|asema (railway station, literally "iron|road|station") for example, but they are freestanding words in their own right.

Altaic to Japanese

[burnitdown]

I think this one will be under debate for some time. Japanese inherits from multiple sources; whether it once had an Altaic root or contributing source is still under debate among some linguists, as far as I know.

A better explanation:

There is no such thing as a Finno-Ugro-Ural-Altaic language group.

There are Uralic and Altaic language families, and the Uralic family
divides up into two stocks, Finno-Ugric and Samoyed. The limits of Altaic
remain controversial, with Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungusic constituting
the core group, and Korean, and possibly Japanese being outliers.

The Uralic, and particularly the Finno-Ugric languages within them, are
closely related enough that the relationship can be demonstrated by
application of the traditional methods of comparative linguisics based on
systematic sound correspondences in basic inherited vocabulary. Within
Altaic the number of putative cognates is far smaller, and the distinction
between inherited words and *WanderwÃrter* is not always clear. The
relationship between them is based more on typological similarities than
on the presence of inherited morphemes exhibiting systematic phonological
correspondences. Japanese, and particularly Korean, although undoubtedly
demonstrating some Altaic-like structural features, are both strongly
mixed languages with elements of Sinetic (Chinese) and, particularly in
the case of Japanese, Malayo-Polynesian in their core structures.

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.culture.nordic/2006-07/msg00007.html

Apologies if I did not make that clear.

Europe versus Eurasia

[burnitdown]

Although people are always trying to redraw these boundaries for political reasons, many consider Russia, the Ukraine, et al, to be part of "Eurasia" and not "Europe." Your politics may differ and I doubt some God is going to descend and declare one right and not the other.

Re:Europe versus Eurasia

[Stoutlimb]

I was always taught in school that the eastern boundary of Europe was defined as the Ural mountains. Was there a change and I was not notified? What did your Geography class teach you?

Re:Europe versus Eurasia

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. Eurasia is Europe+Asia, you cant say "part of Eurasia and not part of Europe" - sheesh! Russia, Ukraine and even Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kasakstan are in Europe, by the old geographical definition that is much older than EU. And they very much are in our culture and history as well, just becaus we have had the 20th century with the iron curtain of communism doesnt mean we must forget earlier history.

Re:Europe versus Eurasia

[oliderid]

Living in Brussels and being a belgian, so western european. i don't know a single guy over here who thinks Ukraine is Eurasia. Ukraine is european. Probably eastern european but as european as Brussels or Paris to me. The parent was right, the article is eu-centric.

Actually, Canada leads in metal music

[burnitdown]

Canada's produced quite a lot of influential metal music.

Probably the most common mentions would be Sacrifice, Voivod, Gorguts and Cryptopsy.

Gorguts helped define early technical death metal, along with Atheist, Pestilence, Obliveon, Demilich and others.

Interestingly, the French Canadian portion of Canada produces the best death metal, which is not mirrored in France itself, except through Massacra and Loudblast; however, the French band Supuration sounds similar to Voivod.

Shows what I know

[tietokone-olmi]

Mea culpa.

Re:Shows what I know

[ColdWetDog]

Mea culpa.

Not necessarily. You're probably thinking of that vast expanse of Canada that is populated large by mosquitoes and moose.

Neither appear to be much into heavy metal.

Swedish death metal

[burnitdown]

Sweden basically reinvented the genre after its first wave, pioneered by Americans (Deicide, Morbid Angel, Master) and Brazilians (Sarcofago, Sepultura), after the Germans, Swiss and Swedes invented a proto-death-metal as seen in Bathory, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Sodom and Merciless. Huge influences came from UK/Scottland hardcore punk (Discharge, The Exploited) and American speed metal (Slayer).

Swedish death metal of note: Dismember, Therion, Carnage, Unleashed, At the Gates/Grotesque, Entombed and Uncanny.

The Norwegians almost single-handedly renovated black metal in the early 1990s, with Emperor, Burzum, Mayhem, Gorgoroth, Immortal, Enslaved and Darkthrone.

A useful document is The History of Underground Heavy Metal.

Re:Swedish death metal

[Freultwah]

Add Opeth and Meshuggah to that list. Cannot talk about Swedish metal without those two.

Geographical error

[Anonymous Coward]

Figure 1 grossly misplaces FÃrde (the NO mark). It is in reality quite a bit further north.

Evangelical Lutherans in Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

How do I find out which religious traditions are prominent in which countries?

Re:Evangelical Lutherans in Europe

[xaxa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups
etc

Death metal is totally obscure

[burnitdown]

Good luck finding death metal information except in the underground. No one has heard of it.

The genre probably started 1983-1985, and other than a few standouts that sell over 100,000 albums -- Bathory, Morbid Angel, Deicide, Slayer -- it's mostly small bands that sell 1,000 CDs and conclude it's a smashing success.

Its heyday was probably 1985-1994, and at this point, it's mostly a tribute genre.

For more information, I would use period sources:

http://www.anus.com/metal
http://www.bnrmetal.com/

Re:Death metal is totally obscure

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watershed_(Opeth_album)

Please take note of the release date, the genre and the chart positions in Norway, Finland and Sweden.

Actually, it was, but not as detailed

[burnitdown]

You can find a good summary of pre-WWII and thereabouts European ethnic knowledge summarized in Carleton Coon's The Origin of Races (1962) which used previous knowledge and later archaelogy to derive conclusions. Included a number of photographic plates showing different European archetypes.

What? No Belgians?

[houghi]

Belgium does apparently have no people or are such a rare breed that it would falsify the map.

Re:What? No Belgians?

[Daimanta]

THat comes as no surprise.

Belgians are either "Dutch" or "French". The people in Flanders are Dutch and speak Dutch. The people Wallonia are French and speak French.

There are elements in both societies that want to reunify both nations(Flanders+ The Netherlands and Wallonia + France).

Re:What? No Belgians?

[owlnation]

Almost... there are some Germans too.

Re:What? No Belgians?

[Daimanta]

Let us not forget the Germans in the East Cantons.

Re:What? No Belgians?

[houghi]

I live in Belgium. I am aware of the situation.

On a serious note: it is strange that you say that Belgians are either Dutch or French, because a study like this could look if there is genetic similarities or not. e.g. many people I know that are speaking one language do have the last name that is clearly of the other language.

Also it might be interesting to see if they are actualy, as you claim, French or Dutch or if they are Belgian (or Flemish or Walloon). However my guess is that the study is much too generic to look at specifics. There are many other countries that are also not included.

Re:What? No Belgians?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am NOT Dutch, thank you very much...

I'm Flemish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_people

The dairy board must be so happy!

[voss]

"...Most people switch off the lactose digesting gene after weaning, but the cattle herders evidently gained a great survival advantage by keeping the gene switched on through adulthood."

Behold the power of cheese!

Re:The dairy board must be so happy!

[maxume]

There isn't much lactose in cheese.

That's not Europe

[asCii88]

As you can see in the map, they are missing most eastern europe's countries... I wonder why.

neo tribalism

[globaljustin]

Huntington is certainly an excellent scientist, but his socio-political theories about why wars are fought are better left to experts in that field

Huntington points out that most of our modern wars have been caused by the nation-state, or an "imperial" grouping by politics that crosses these optimization lines

This argument is ridiculously reductive. First, what's the definition of 'war' in this context? I tried to imagine the different ways you can define 'war' and how they'd fit into this theory and none of them work.

This is good though:

as the superpower age winds down, people will identify with their optimization more than abstract and often illusory political concepts.

I don't agree that we're in a 'superpower age' that is 'winding down'...neither are accurate, HOWEVER, the idea that people (at least the younger Americans [felt right, geographically. It just fit. The climate affected everything about me in a positive way. When I moved back to Indiana, the humidity, allergens, etc. just wrecked me. I could feel my immune system changing, I swear. My friends would talk about similar feelings.

How this renewed understanding of geography and sub-species human differences will effect populations long term is a toss up. I feel that to say this genetic-based aspect of neo-tribalism (which itself has several components) will be THE guiding force in macro level human behavior is jumping the gun.

Re:neo tribalism

[Scott Carnahan]

Huntington is certainly an excellent scientist, but his socio-political theories about why wars are fought are better left to experts in that field

I disagree with your first claim. Huntington has a well-established record of fabricating history to suit his ideas. The standard example is his claim that South Africa in the 1960s under Apartheid fit his definition of satisfied society. To back up his claim, he falsely asserted that there were no notable protests or uprisings during this time. Fortunately, there were ample news archives that contradicted him. Unfortunately, people still listen to his bold pseudoscientific pronouncements about societies and their interactions.

You can find the same flavor nonsense in pretty much anything written by his student Fareed Zakaria.

Re:neo tribalism

[emilper]

Huntington was a bloody crook. He took the "yellow fear" stereotypes and put them in "civilization" clothes.

The "clash of civilizations" never happened, not before, and not after he wrote his pathetic article: even now, the most vicious conflicts take place between people that have almost everything in common (ex. Shia and Sunni Muslims).

As to the "genetic map of Europe", I call it a bunch of crap: how come the Fins are so far apart ? Did they select out all the Swedish, the Russians and the Suomi when they took the samples ? There should be a huge overlap between Sweden, Finland and Germany ...

Re:neo tribalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Fins being genetically diverse from the rest of Europe is completely in line with expectation; at least when you assume that genetic diversity and lingual diversity correlate. Suomi (both Finnish and Estonian) and Hungarian are the only two languages in Europe that are not of the indo-european (Indogermanic) family: they are Uralic, which has its roots in the Mongol area.

Since their lingual base is not native to Europe, it is not a far stretch to imagine that their genetic base may have similar non-European influences.

Decades of research?

[GooDieZ]

They don't even have a whole map of europe...

Oh... and Yugoslavia, actually there is no Yugoslavia for last 17 Years, it fell apart in 1991...

Re:Decades of research?

[Reziac]

As I understand it, there never really was a Yugoslavia; it was created as an umbrella over several smaller countries.

Wikipedia: "The first country to be known by this name was the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which before 3 October 1929 was known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. It was established on 1 December 1918 by the union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia."

And now the umbrella has blown away, and once again we have the individual kingdoms of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.

Re:Decades of research?

[GooDieZ]

I'm well aware of Our History. You went back to SHS (State of Slovenes, Croatians and Serbs). Afterwards Kingdom Yugoslavia.
So there is WW II in between, after which Yugoslavia (SFRJ Socialistic Federative Republic Yugoslavia) as such formed and lasted until 1991. Serbia then retained the title Yugoslavia for many years, and slowly desintegrated in those smaller united countries. Remember the war in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Montenegro... Top of the Iceberg is this year's Liberation of the Republic of Kosovo, Which is just a bunch of Albanians which settled on Serbian grounds over last decades.

Back on topic... The research they where doing is not accurate enough in the Balcan part of the map. People only in ex YU are so diverse, so there cannot be single Gene poll.

Re:Decades of research?

[Reziac]

It's a very complex part of Europe, for sure, with many peoples some of whom are relatively recent transplants (like the Albanians you mention). But a cultural or even historical distinction doesn't necessarily mean that the gene pool is also split along those same lines. And the only way to know for sure is to do DNA profiles and correlate the results. With a sample of 2500 for all of Europe, it's likely to be broadly accurate, but will not reflect small local population histories.

Re:Decades of research?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ehm, about Kosovo depends on whom you ask. Some other source may say it's a bunch of serbs that came more in south. And the language studies agree that Slavic populations came in recent times in the balcans as compared with Albanian ones.

A.C. for being able to moderate.

Burnitdown made it up

[guanxi]

I never thought the race-war bozos would make it onto /. It's the usual propoganda: Name check someone prominent (who didn't say anything in support of your argument), add some bogus theory with no support (but imply that it comes from the famous names), through in a little kernel of plausibility (hey, there's racism right? Maybe we are all genetically pre-disposed to hate each other), and stir.

Much like different programming languages are optimized for different tasks, but you can create just about anything in just about any language, human populations are different based on the optimizations that came about through their branch divergence.

See? Hmmm ... seems plausible. But think: Maybe I'm different based on the country I was born in, the way my parents fed me, raised me (the fact that I had loving parents), their wealth and social connections, the forces and choices that formed my personality. My education, the books I read, what I chose to study, my teachers and role models, how hard I worked at it, how well I networked, the career and jobs I chose, the person I married, the city I live in ... Where does this genetic optimization come in?

I recommend the same books as burnitdown, only you should read them and not just name-check them. I read Huntington's Clash of Civilizations when it was first published in Foreign Affairs. It says nothing at all about genetics or "optimization", only super-national cultural groups called 'civilizations', which are genetically diverse (see list here ). You can read more here.

I haven't read Cavalli-Sforza, but The Economist seems to think that his work challenges the assumption that there are significant genetic differences between human races, and indeed, the idea that 'race' has any useful biological meaning at all. Hmmm ... that seems opposite the ideas that burnitdown cited.

So Burnitdown is just talking out of his backside, start to finish. There is no outside support for it at all. I can't even imagine how it applies to Georgia, Russia, and North & South Ossetia. Does anyone know closely their populations correlate genetically? And why, on that basis, would South Ossetians want Russian more than Georgian citizenship? What the heck is 'Russian' genetically, anyway -- the country stretches from Europe to the Pacific; are they really genetically homogeneous?

Whenever I read something like this, I always try to remember: Think of the people who promolgate this theory of inevitable race-war hatred: From Milosovic to Bin Laden (who rails against Jewish people) to the Rwandan Hutu extremists to the KKK to, yes, Adolf Hitler. What have they accomplished? Then think of those who say that humans can integrate and live together regardless of supposed 'race', from Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King Jr., to Mahatma Gandhi and almost any current leader of prominence. Who has been more successful? Whose side would you rather be on?

Did you know that by the 3rd generation, most immigrants to the US marry across 'cultural' lines? Did you know that the rate of interracial marriage has increased ~700% in the US since 1970 [1]?

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Das Modell]

I never thought the race-war bozos would make it onto /.

And once again Slashdotters manage to create accusations of racism out of thin air. It's amazing.

See? Hmmm ... seems plausible. But think: Maybe I'm different based on the country I was born in, the way my parents fed me, raised me (the fact that I had loving parents), their wealth and social connections, the forces and choices that formed my personality. My education, the books I read, what I chose to study, my teachers and role models, how hard I worked at it, how well I networked, the career and jobs I chose, the person I married, the city I live in ... Where does this genetic optimization come in?

As we all know, humans are incorporeal entities that are entirely constructed from culture. Biology? What's that?

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[bsDaemon]

If our lives were closer to natural, it would be more obvious. That tecnhology has enabled us to all but remove the need for evolution, then biological adaptations approach moot.

-- The ancestors of Northern Europeans (and those of us whose ancestors originated there) have light skin and eyes because it was advantageous to have less melonin for Vitamin D production, and blue eyes allow in more light than brown eyes.

-- Africans and other Equitorial people are darker of skin and eyes for exactly the opposite reason. Likewise, being a carrier of Sickle Cell Anemia is an advantage in Africa, as it is a natural protection against malaria (although actually having sickle cell is a drawback)

The fact that we now have sun glasses, sun screen, vitamin supplements and medicine means that "white" people can manage in the tropics and that "black" people can manage farther north.

Of course, when it comes down to fights such as the Yugoslavian war (Serbian and Croation are the same language with different alphabets), Indian/Pakistan (Hindu and Urdu are the same language with different alphabets), etc... the lines are blurry and it becomes an issue of perception more than anything really substantive.

However, to say that evolution and adaption work for animals, but are irrelevant to people is pretty god damned stupid.

However, yes, OP was using sources which don't really back up what he was trying to say.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has noticed his agenda, I can't believe the so-called editors haven't picked up on it yet. He makes sure to hit a few /. hot buttons in his summaries and they accept his submissions, ignoring the often misanthropic subtext.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[DavidShor]

Skin color is obvious enough. The problem is that people try to extend this to intelligence, and use a remarkably dishonest and simplistic biology to reinforce their preconceived notions about race.

The truth is, human beings are remarkably interbred(As long as you are not from the Andaman islands, you likely have a much much closer common ancestor with a Chinese person than you think), and even without that, we branched off into respective continents very recently.

At the same time, intra-race variations usualy are a lot more signifigant then inter-race ones. I recall a study showing that the Scott's and Irish on average, show much lower IQ scores then the English. Yet racists tend to ignore that.

Outside of traits like Lactose intolerance, I don't think genetic variation between races is particularly relevant. And if someone wants to "bravely" point out the results of flawed studies, they are being dicks.

*Disclaimer: Speaking as Moroccan*

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[amilo100]

I do not agree with the above poster - but your counter argument is even more wrong.

Name check someone prominent (who didn't say anything in support of your argument), add some bogus theory with no support (but imply that it comes from the famous names),

You did the same thing below (only using Gandhi's name).

Maybe I'm different based on the country I was born in, the way my parents fed me, raised me (the fact that I had loving parents), their wealth and social connections, the forces and choices that formed my personality. My education, the books I read, what I chose to study, my teachers and role models, how hard I worked at it, how well I networked, the career and jobs I chose, the person I married, the city I live in ... Where does this genetic optimization come in?

Your argument is basically: genetics play no part since my upbringing(environment) plays a part. Don't you believe that genetics can also play a part? You are probably one of those persons who believe that any other argument is heresy and that genetic differences should not be researched.

With this I differ - of course the social environment plays a part - but there are genetic differences between population groups. Research into this should be encouraged and not suppressed (people doing research today are in the same position as Galileo - just look at how E.O. Wilson was treated).

Where does this genetic optimization come in?

Some researchers suggested that evolutionary pressures such as the environment (e.g. long cold winters, etc...) could cause differences in human genetics. The optimization would therefore be on the best evolutionary strategy for this environment. Whether this happened or not is debatable - but you have to admit that it is a plausible scenario.

Think of the people who promolgate this theory of inevitable race-war hatred: From Milosovic

The shit in the former Yugoslavia was because of Balkanization. Among some groups there was little genetic difference. The biggest difference between the groups were cultural issues (such as religion). I think you are confusing nationalism with racism.

to Bin Laden (who rails against Jewish people)

He is a religious fundamentalist. I doubt that you can call him racist because there were Americans, Africans, people from Indonesia, etc... in al-Qaeda. He perceives Israel as a threat to Islam and Islamic populations in Palestine - that is why he hates Jewish people (not because he feels that he is from a superior race).

Then think of those who say that humans can integrate and live together regardless of supposed 'race', from Thomas Jefferson to Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King Jr., to Mahatma Gandhi

I do not know the history of the USA well - but here are a few interesting things WP says about Thomas Jefferson (main article):
âIn this same work, Jefferson advanced his suspicion that black people were inferior to white people "in the endowments both of body and mind."

Mahatma Gandhi was extremely racist against black people (people sometimes ignore this because he did many great things in is life). Here are some quotes from him (most of these appeared in the SA opinion - for an online reference see wikiquote):

About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen.

You say that the magistrate's decision is unsatisfactory because it would enable a person, however unclean, to travel by a tram, and that even the Kaffirs would be able to do so.

Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a cer

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[bsDaemon]

At the same time, intra-race variations usualy are a lot more signifigant then inter-race ones. I recall a study showing that the Scott's and Irish on average, show much lower IQ scores then the English. Yet racists tend to ignore that.

It depends on the racist, I suppose. The Ian Paisleys of the world are a lot fewer than the David Dukes, that's for sure, but all of them do so love that band "Skrewdriver."

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[DavidShor]

I personally doubt that racial differences are very significant for the traits that racists like to talk about. And I would prefer if we spent our grant money on more things .

But, I never heard of that stuff about Gandhi. Thank you for posting it, it was very interesting.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that the rate of interracial marriage has increased ~700% in the US since 1970

Of course, you can't walk down the street without seeing that shit. Oh well, there's gonna be a lot of ugly people with fucked up looking hair in the future.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[burnitdown]

Huntington seems to fall in the primordialist school, believing that culturally defined groups are ancient and natural, however his early work would suggest he is a Structural Functionalist. His view that nation states would remain the most powerful actors is in line with realism. Finally, his warning that the Western civilization may decline is inspired by Arnold J. Toynbee, Carroll Quigley, and Oswald Spengler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_civilizations

I am afraid "quanxi" has not read any of these thinkers, and has no idea that they, too, write of the organic state.

It is not "racism" to note historical trends. Please stop trying to be thought police. You slander me, disrespect yourselves, and block yourselves from any possibility of truth, like religious zealots who hate science.

I think we should approach this situation with honest and open eyes, and not rule ourselves with fear and slander.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, let's not point out the results of "flawed" studies. Let's use real life outcomes as evidence! And you can see my comment as racist or whatever your scared mind will try to do in order to demonize me and my opinion.

If we all originated from africa, then why oh why did Europeans come back to africa many years later with significantly more advanced technology and knowledge than the local populace? I've asked this a million times, and not one person has had the balls to answer it truthfully. Sure, you can sidestep the question, or blame it on environment hardships etc. But we all know it's because slightly higher intelligence was an adaptation that suited a different climate/region/situation. I think we'd all be better off admitting to the "painful" truth and getting over all this unnecessary hostility. I don't understand why people so vehemently oppose the fact that certain people evolved higher intelligence? It really is no different from skin colour. And IQ differences between regions/races is just an inevitable part of evolution.

No, I know why people deny it so much. Because, how do we justify equal rights if not everyone is equal? It's just society's way of keeping things in order. I've learned to deal with it, because we've all evolved beyond our primitive beginnings and we don't need such a simplistic definition. We can all have equal rights and pride, even if we aren't all created equal.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Anonymous Coward]

why oh why did Europeans come back to africa many years later with significantly more advanced technology and knowledge than the local populace? I've asked this a million times, and not one person has had the balls to answer it truthfully.
...we all know it's because slightly higher intelligence was an adaptation that suited a different climate/region/situation.

Jared Diamond has studied the question extensively (using actual research methods instead of your ignorant "we all know" assumptions) and came to quite a different conclusion.

The answer has a lot more to do with values and luck than with intelligence.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[DavidShor]

"If we all originated from africa, then why oh why did Europeans come back to africa many years later with significantly more advanced technology and knowledge than the local populace?"

The physical environment of most of Africa is incredibly hostile to civilization. As evidence, most of the Europeans who tried to settle there during the colonial period failed catastrophically. Crop yields simply are much lower in African soils then European ones.

The exception to this is Southern Africa. But in southern Africa, there simply were no easily domesticated plants to grow. Now that the crops have been introduced, countries in the region like Botswana and Mozambique are growing quickly and doing well.

"I've asked this a million times, and not one person has had the balls to answer it truthfully."

Well, if you already axiomatically decide to disregard all answers except what you already believe...

"But we all know it's because slightly higher intelligence was an adaptation that suited a different climate/region/situation."

Which is why the west managed to do the same with India and China, nations with apparently higher average IQ's? Or why most scientists of the Renaissance were of genetically inferior "Mediterranean" stock? How about the Arab dominance of the sciences during the middle ages?

Frankly, the model you propose doesn't have much explanatory power for world history, and has little purpose other than to further the naive preconceptions of racists.

"I don't understand why people so vehemently oppose the fact that certain people evolved higher intelligence? It really is no different from skin colour."

Unlike skin color, IQ has an enormous and little understood environmental component. While it's possible that there are racial components to IQ, we understand far too little about the genetic and environmental determinants of IQ to draw any conclusions with a reasonable amount of accuracy.

"And IQ differences between regions/races is just an inevitable part of evolution."

I might accept evolutionary explanations for Australian Aborigines or Andaman islanders.

But for everyone else, there has been far too much large scale migration and interbreeding over the last four thousand years for me to support that line of thinking.

"No, I know why people deny it so much. Because, how do we justify equal rights if not everyone is equal? "

Well, people are obviously not equal. I obviously have different genetic potential to swim than Micheal Phelps. Obviously, this doesn't effect my worth as a human being.

The question that puzzles me, is why so many people focus on differences between racial groups as opposed to differences among populations as a whole.

To a large extent, this kind of thinking exists mainly as an attempt to provide legitimacy to racists, who want to reduce diverse racial groups to their imagined statistical median.

You do not seem like a racist. But your sheer enthusiasm and faith in ideas that imply racial supremacy, despite large amounts of scientific uncertainty, sends troubling signals

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Das Modell]

And once again Slashdotters manage to downmod someone without any valid reason whatsoever. I think it's baffling that 99,9% of the people on a computer technology site have no idea what a "flame" or "troll" is. I don't know, I guess most people here are 12 years old and thus not sufficiently aware of Internet culture.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[smarkham01]

Yes Gandhi said those things and many more. But was it racial or cultutal? Kaffir, when used by Gandhi, was a non-derogatory term used to describe most native (non-white) groups in southern Africa. After the British Colonial period ended (roughly 1914)it slowly became a derogatory term. His description of the differences between the Kaffir's educational level, concept of personal hygiene, and clothing selection can been seen as a comparison of one cultural to another, with the person doing the comparison not wanting to see his group, already being discriminated against placed in the same 'class' as those who appear to have a less civilized culture.

Of course Gandhi offered to fight with the British. Among other reasons, he was going to return to his home to practice law, someday. To align himself against the British would leave him branded a traitor, a serious impediment to survival at the time.

While I don't deny Gandhi's racism, I do question your evidence in support of your belief.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[amilo100]

Whether his comments where racists or anti-black-culture I would think that it was extremely offensive for black people.
I doubt these comments were conciliatory in tone (when looking back at the numerous clashes between Indian people and black people).

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[guanxi]

If we all originated from africa, then why oh why did Europeans come back to africa many years later with significantly more advanced technology and knowledge than the local populace? I've asked this a million times, and not one person has had the balls to answer it truthfully.

I've asked millions of times how life began on Earth, and nobody can answer my question. That confirms the "painful" truth that it was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Just get some cajones and admit it. I mean, I know you deny it becasue it's really an uncomfortable truth with uncomfortable consequences. I understand. If we were created a flying ball of spaghetti, with meatball eyes, think of what that says about us!

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[guanxi]

Sure there are evolutionary adaptations, but even this statement takes them too far:

The fact that we now have sun glasses, sun screen, vitamin supplements and medicine means that "white" people can manage in the tropics and that "black" people can manage farther north.

People couldn't even manage before? I seem to recall many Africans brought to Europe and North America, who seemed to manage without much access to medical care. I don't recall the European colonialists bringing their sunscreen and vitamin supplements, but maybe that wasn't in the history books.

Seriously, the adaptations may be helpful, but they are hardly sufficient or necessary for anything of consequence.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[guanxi]

Your argument is basically: genetics play no part since my upbringing(environment) plays a part. Don't you believe that genetics can also play a part? You are probably one of those persons who believe that any other argument is heresy and that genetic differences should not be researched.

You don't know me, so I'm probably not one of the kind of whatever people you are thinking of.

Genetics has a role, but nothing like Burnitdown said. My point was that pointing to genetics and ignoring these other factors is ridiculous. Genetics probably don't affect the traits that Burnitdown hopes they do (not that anyone really knows what role they play), and probably not to a degree that is deterministic of anything important. Just look at any set of siblings, who can range from smart to dumb-as-rocks, from beautiful to homely, from athletic to klutz, all with the same genes.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why ex-slave blacks run 100m in under 10 seconds while the whiteys and Asians that train harder are doomed. Or why 800 is ruled by Kenyans. Why Jews have the most inventions per race? Human races are phenotypically different in significant ways.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Look up the article for Lewtonian's Fallacy. You will find the claim regarding inter/intra racial genetic similarities that you propose to be utterly false.

Scotts and Irish do not have significantly lower IQ than the English.

Perhaps you would like to explain why Ashkenazi Jews have the highest IQ, why the Chinese have high IQ, or why West Africans are dominating endurance running in the Olympics right now.

Race is significant and your attacks on people who desire to protect their cultural and genetic heritage smack of some of some sort of childish emotionalism.

Knowledge of racial differences does not imply racial supremacy theories. It merely implies that there are distinct differences that have everything to do with the environments that different branches of humans encountered.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowledge of racial differences does not imply racial supremacy theories. It merely implies that there are distinct differences that have everything to do with the environments that different branches of humans encountered.

Nobody is claiming there aren't genetic differences between populations, or that the differences can't be quantified.

What's become clear, however, is that those differences can't be attributedto "races." There are simply no genetic markers for the generalizations we make about people. What we call "race" is a social construct, not a biological one.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Agriculture in Europe, actually, has a history of being tough and difficult until the end of the most recent ice age. This likely has an explanation for why whites developed higher IQs than their African counterparts (intelligence as being a useful trait in such a harsh environment, as compared to the lush and resource-rich Africa)
2. Certain African nations, under white rule, were known as "breadbasket" nations for the climate and technical ability (i.e. intelligence) of the people enabled them to be incredibly productive. Africa does not enjoy similar success under current (non-white) regimes. So I would reject you claim that Africa is hostile to civilization or agriculture.
3. Africa has a rich civilizational history. Just because your favorite group, sub-saharan blacks, do not share in culture bearership, does not mean Africa as a whole lacked civilization. Egyptians and the various North African tribes have a very rich cultural history. Perhaps you should open a history book?
4. Technical ability to produce/engage in scientific endavours is a product of already existing IQ traits. That is, Arabs or Europeans involved in scientific endeavours had to already possess individuals of sufficently high enough IQ to have been successful in their pursuits to the degree that they were.
5. Higher IQ, higher athletic ability*, etc. are not racial supremacy arguments. They are acknowledgements of differences. Evolution selects the nessecary traits for survival in a given environment; it is not some sort of linear progression towards some ever-increasing infinence of superiority.

* check out which racial groups are totally smashing the competition in running in the olympics

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Traiguen]

Just look at any set of siblings, who can range from smart to dumb-as-rocks, from beautiful to homely, from athletic to klutz, all with the same genes.

That happens because they don't have the same genes. Genetic recombinations between the same two subjects (mom and dad) don't occur the same way each time. On the contrary, they tend to be quite chaotic and unpredictable. Read more here: http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=138

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you get some "cojones" and actually reply to my points rather than making a joke out of it?

It just shows how immature and ignorant you are about this topic. Go grow up some more before trying take on my arguments, guanoxi.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Anonymous Coward]

The physical environment of most of Africa is incredibly hostile to civilization. As evidence, most of the Europeans who tried to settle there during the colonial period failed catastrophically. Crop yields simply are much lower in African soils then European ones.

And what about the middle east? Your argument absolutely and utterly falls through in that regard. The middle east, if I'm not mistaken, is nothing but desert. And yet, as you said, Arabs dominated the sciences during the middle ages.

Well, if you already axiomatically decide to disregard all answers except what you already believe...

I don't disregard anything. I have an open, critical mind, and suggesting otherwise just because I don't conform to the populist opinion of race equality just shows how low some people will stoop to discredit unpopular theories. I wasn't saying I disregard their answer because I believe it wrong. I disagree with their answer because I believe they have ulterior reasons for not believing in the theory I propose is true.

Which is why the west managed to do the same with India and China, nations with apparently higher average IQ's? Or why most scientists of the Renaissance were of genetically inferior "Mediterranean" stock? How about the Arab dominance of the sciences during the middle ages?

I did indeed say Europeans. And the Mediterranean people do fall under Europe, despite generations of intermixing with middle eastern populations.

Unlike skin color, IQ has an enormous and little understood environmental component. While it's possible that there are racial components to IQ, we understand far too little about the genetic and environmental determinants of IQ to draw any conclusions with a reasonable amount of accuracy.

I for one do think that there are IQ differences between races, but very minor differences. However, I think the main cause of IQ differences between races is simply due to different cultures. Genetic predisposition simply compounds the differences. I think you are attributing a lot of what I said to race, rather than geographically and culturally separated populations. You also misunderstood the quote you quoted me on.

But for everyone else, there has been far too much large scale migration and interbreeding over the last four thousand years for me to support that line of thinking.

I don't deny that their has been interbreeding. I deny the scale that you propose. It may have been a significant amount, and may have even negated certain genetic differences, but the differences are still there. Or at least were, during the colonial period.

Well, people are obviously not equal. I obviously have different genetic potential to swim than Micheal Phelps. Obviously, this doesn't effect my worth as a human being.

I meant different in a non trivial way. Like IQ differences or higher genetic predisposition to violence. Differences that society today has problem dealing with. Even an example of height differences is significant. I can't remember the exact statistic, but people taller than 6ft get paid something like 10% more on average than those below 6t.

You do not seem like a racist. But your sheer enthusiasm and faith in ideas that imply racial supremacy, despite large amounts of scientific uncertainty, sends troubling signals

So then, what makes you right and me wrong? You don't always need extensive studies to be done on a subject in order to make your own opinion.

The question that puzzles me, is why so many people focus on differences between racial groups as opposed to differences among populations as a whole.

I for one never focused on racial groups, I focused on regionally separate groups. They may not be very separate now, but the effects are still there.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[oliderid]

The physical environment of most of Africa is incredibly hostile to civilization. As evidence, most of the Europeans who tried to settle there during the colonial period failed catastrophically. Crop yields simply are much lower in African soils then European ones.

I beg to differ, my grand father had to work in the Belgian Congo, mainly on agriculture goods. The production was simply astonishing.

Most colonial powers turned the local production into "mono-culture", Most countries were dedicated to a single production (cacao, coffee, etc). and that was the basis of the famine in the 70's and 80's. And also a cause of some debts because of the volatile nature of such products...But the African soil (sub-saharian at least) is far from being poor quite the contrary.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Das Modell]

I'm sorry, but modding me flamebait does not prove me wrong. I'm sure you would have figured that out if your cognitive capabilities weren't slightly below a monkey's.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[TheRaven64]

I've read a study that showed the differing IQs between racial groups. They showed around a 5 point difference between random samples from the highest and lowest scoring groups (note for white people thinking of taking up racism as a hobby: we weren't the highest-scoring group).

To put that in perspective, the difference between two random people selected from my class at school (what Americans would call high school) was somewhere between 30-50 points. More important, however, is the fact that my IQ jumped from somewhere in the 120-130 range to 173 after a year of taking verbal reasoning tests every week (I haven't taken a test since I was 14, so it's probably dropped again now). The idea that education plays no part in IQ is quite obvious nonsense - it tests a specialised and narrow mode of thought which has very little to do with overall intelligence. As a component of a general intelligence test, it might have value, but alone it does not.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[TheRaven64]

People couldn't even manage before? I seem to recall many Africans brought to Europe and North America, who seemed to manage without much access to medical care.

And they died in great numbers often at very young ages.

Take a look at the medical reports on black children living in the north of England. A lot of them are suffering from mild cases of rickets due to their inability to absorb enough vitamin D in the lower sunlight. Somewhat depressingly, it's becoming more common among white children in the south because their parents fear skin cancer so much that they don't let them go outside without so much sun block that they don't absorb enough sunlight even to activate the vitamin D they get from eating vitamin tablets.

For the converse problem, take a look at the ratios of skin cancer further south by skin colour - black people are a lot less susceptible. The change of skin colour from black to white was an evolutionary trade - it gave increased ability to produce vitamin D at the cost of increased risk of skin cancer.

I don't recall the European colonialists bringing their sunscreen and vitamin supplements, but maybe that wasn't in the history books

Try reading fashion articles from the period. Having a sun tan was considered very lower-class. A rich white colonist would avoid the sun as much as possible, and if a poor one got skin cancer no one much cared.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[guanxi]

First of all, are all people with brown and black skin genetically the same? I very much doubt it. If you watch the race, you will see white skinned people from other countries running, and if they reach that level, they would beat 99.999999% of people of any skin color. Where is their natural disadvantage? Think of it this way: Americans win the most medals in swimming in the Olympics (or pick any sport where any country wins consitently); are we genetically superior in swimming?

My favorite is basketball. Lots of Americans with white skin think that those with black or brown skin have a natural advantage. The result? Most white skinned players in the NBA are from other countries. Maybe eastern Europeans also have a natural advantage. Do Latinos have a natural advantage in baseball?

Just because we see a pattern does not mean there is causation. Every morning, a rooster crows and then the sun rises, but the rooster isn't making the sun rise.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[guanxi]

Nobody is claiming there aren't genetic differences between populations, or that the differences can't be quantified

At the same time, there is an important distinction to be made: You can take any two arbitrary groups of people, say Ohioans and Indianans, and probably find quantifiable genetic differences between them. But that doesn't mean that someone in Ohio has anything in common, genetically, with his neighbor.

Burnitdown and the AC posting above (probably the same person?) argue that the statistical variations imply that those within each group are genetically the same. I would guess that we all share genes with many, many groups. I probably share gene A with group X, and genes B&C with group Y, etc. etc. Most of all, we share most of our genes with most of humanity, not to mention many non-humans.

In fact, they also want to say that genetic commonality leads to political or social commonality. Humans share 96% of their DNA with chimpanzees [1]. I expect Burnitdown/the AC will join PETA next.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[guanxi]

they died in great numbers often at very young ages.

Come on ... you seem too well informed to think they died due to climate.

We are defining "manage" very differently. These small difficulties (accepting what you say) do not stop people from "managing". Lots of lighter-skinned people have lived in sunny climes and darker-skinned people lived in colder climes, and they managed. The rich white colonialist, tan or not, found a way to stay and colonize -- I've never read that they considered the weather to be an obstacle.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[guanxi]

You're right, they don't have the exact same genes. But their genes are more similar than any other groups of humans.

My point was, if children of the same two parents can vary that much, what does it say about Burnitdown's theory that some broad genetic lineage determines anything of significance.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[DavidShor]

"And what about the middle east? Your argument absolutely and utterly falls through in that regard. The middle east, if I'm not mistaken, is nothing but desert. And yet, as you said, Arabs dominated the sciences during the middle ages."

The Middle East was not always a desert. There was a time when "fertile crescent" didn't seem like a cruel joke. The decline of the middle east actually coincides fairly closely with the decline of their environment.

"I wasn't saying I disregard their answer because I believe it wrong. I disagree with their answer because I believe they have ulterior reasons for not believing in the theory I propose is true."

That is a fair point, since I tend to believe the same of people who talk about your point of view.

"I for one do think that there are IQ differences between races, but very minor differences. However, I think the main cause of IQ differences between races is simply due to different cultures."

If you define culture to include things like dietary habits and preferred alphabet, then I actually agree with you there.

"I meant different in a non trivial way. Like IQ differences or higher genetic predisposition to violence. Differences that society today has problem dealing with. Even an example of height differences is significant. I can't remember the exact statistic, but people taller than 6ft get paid something like 10% more on average than those below 6t."

That is also a fair point. Society does certainly need to rethink how it thinks of genetic inequality.

But once again, I'm not sure why people focus on inter-group differences vs intra-group differences.

For example, based on family history, my neighbor his heavily predisposed to alcoholism. This might have something to do with his Russian heritage, but frankly, I don't see why that is particularly useful, in the presence of knowledge of his family history.

Like you say, these genetic predispositions are serious and determine a huge part of our life. My argument is mainly that our understanding of this would be furthered if we stepped away from traditional racial groupings.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[DavidShor]

"Agriculture in Europe, actually, has a history of being tough and difficult until the end of the most recent ice age."

Agriculture and human civilization barely existed before the first ice age, so I don't see your point.

During the time of European dominance, Europe was indeed productive.

"intelligence as being a useful trait in such a harsh environment, as compared to the lush and resource-rich Africa"

If I had to pick, I'd say Africa is far more hostile to human existence then Europe.

Fast reaction times, spatial reasoning, and long and short term memory(Necessary to distinguish which of the 9 identical looking poisonous snakes is edible) are skills that are far more necessary in Africa then Europe.

These skills are heavily weighted in IQ tests, and if selection pressures had any significant effect on IQ, I'd expect that black people would have higher IQ's then whites.

" Certain African nations, under white rule, were known as "breadbasket" nations for the climate and technical ability (i.e. intelligence) of the people enabled them to be incredibly productive."

It was not so much the intelligence of the white people, so much as the lack of crops to grow. There were no domesticatable crops in southern Africa before whites came. So unless the local natives were smart enough to invent gene therapy, they were out of luck.

"Africa does not enjoy similar success under current (non-white) regimes. So I would reject you claim that Africa is hostile to civilization or agriculture."

The "breadbaskets" were Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, and South Africa. The rest of Africa wasn't particularly amiable to food production.

The white settlers who tried, had their cattle killed by tsetse flies, and their crops fail.

These countries, now under black rule, are actually doing very well(Other than Zimbabwe). In fact, their GDP per capita, health standards, GDP growth, and food production are all higher than they were under white rule(Other than Zimbabwe). They are doing much better than the rest of Africa.

Africa has a rich civilizational history. Just because your favorite group, sub-saharan blacks, do not share in culture bearership, does not mean Africa as a whole lacked civilization. Egyptians and the various North African tribes have a very rich cultural history. Perhaps you should open a history book?

As a Berber, I'm well aware. That has more to do with the presence of crops from the fertile crescent, as well as very fertile fields near our river delta areas.

"check out which racial groups are totally smashing the competition in running in the olympics"

Watching from yesterday, it seems that Ukraine and China seem to be doing pretty well.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[Anonymous Coward]

During the time of European dominance, Europe was indeed productive.

Europe still is dominant. Especially compared to the third world africa.

If I had to pick, I'd say Africa is far more hostile to human existence then Europe.

Well then disregard the whole "environment" was easier crap. The ones that had higher IQ's realized that the climate in africa wasn't suitable so they moved north. While the ones that had lower IQ didn't reason like this. So maybe IQ wasn't an adaption suited for environment. It still doesn't mean those that left africa have equal IQ to those that stayed there.

These countries, now under black rule, are actually doing very well(Other than Zimbabwe). In fact, their GDP per capita, health standards, GDP growth, and food production are all higher than they were under white rule(Other than Zimbabwe). They are doing much better than the rest of Africa.

That is such flawed logic. Not only is your logic flawed, but your facts are skewed if not utterly made up. Lets deal with the logic: The "white colonialists" gave them infrastructure, civilization, education, writing and religion(just a short list). The work was already done for them when they came into power. As for your skewed facts. Well I can tell you for a fact, from experience, that South Africa has been going downhill since the end of white-rule. This will become even more pronounced when only a small percentage of white people is left in the country, then they will have no one left to blame for their poverty and problems.

Africa has a rich civilizational history. Just because your favorite group, sub-saharan blacks, do not share in culture bearership, does not mean Africa as a whole lacked civilization. Egyptians and the various North African tribes have a very rich cultural history. Perhaps you should open a history book?

You'd love to believe that. I have no doubt that north africa, especially north east africa, has a rich culture and history. But you seem to forget that these are the regions of africa that had easy access to Europe and the middle-east. As for africa below that, well, they weren't so lucky. They neither invented writing nor had the ability to grow beyond just having villages scattered all over the place.

Re:Burnitdown made it up

[DavidShor]

"Well I can tell you for a fact, from experience, that South Africa has been going downhill since the end of white-rule. This will become even more pronounced when only a small percentage of white people is left in the country, then they will have no one left to blame for their poverty and problems."

Give me a statistic(That includes the entire population, white and black), that is lower now then it was 20 years ago.

I can't see that as having ended well

[Anonymous Coward]

Not for him if you traced back far enough to a common ancestor group that came out of Africa.

Bring it on

[niceone]

the differences are sufficient that it should be possible to devise a forensic test to tell which country in Europe an individual probably comes from, said Manfred Kayser

As an English / Greek / Irish / Burmese person I say: bring it on!

Re:Bring it on

[slashgrim]

Agent: Sir, the result from the forensic tests says this person is...*dramatic pause*... a mutt.

.

(A joke from a fellow genetic mutt, no offense intended. )

Re:Bring it on

[niceone]

Heh, no offence taken :)

But what about . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . a Swedish Moose? One bit my sister once . . . see the lovely lakes . . .

Did they track the creation of the Idiot tribe?

[DI Rebus]

This vast and mighty tribe seems to have spread everywhere!

Please do not give Daryl McBride any more ideas

[PolygamousRanchKid]

My wife is Finnish, and this pretty much confirms my suspicion that she and all other Finns are in fact from outer space.

Or we will be reading about SCO vs. Outer Space on Groklaw. Seems that them there Finnish/Aliens stole SCO's IP.

sorry for the OT

[Anonymous Coward]

undoing moderation mistake.

Fins

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprising how far "out there" the Finnish genetic makeup is [...]

They're a bunch of sluts.

The Irish are really Germans, apparently.

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it pretty unlikely that the Irish are so closely related to the Dutch and the Norse. Those are two of the most ethnically isolated countries of Germanic descent in the world, while Ireland is certainly the most isolated country of Celtic descent. There should be virtually no overlap, unless those 9th century viking raids had a bigger impact than we thought.

Well, I guess that could explain all those blond Irish lasses...

Re:The Irish are really Germans, apparently.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm. The vikings didn't just raid, they settled in ireland in quite large numbers particularly on the east coast of ireland - they founded Dublin city, for example, a large and prosperous viking trading post. Wicklow and the Deise (Waterford) were also viking towns.

Overheard

[grikdog]

1970 coeds chatting in a bookstore: "That's quite a compliment from someone who believes in eugenics!"

Only 2 eigenvectors of the PCA

[AliasMarlowe]

The map displayed in TFA is based on only 2 eigenvectors. In combination, they accounted for less than half of the total genetic variation of their tiny sample. In other words, there is a lot left unsaid from their analysis.
More seriously, they had samples from less than 2500 individuals in the study. The individuals were from 23 sites in Europe. This is woeful undersampling for the inferences that are being drawn regarding "Finnish" or "Italian" or any other of their sub-populations. The conclusions are questionable, to say the least.

Re:Only 2 eigenvectors of the PCA

[jimmy_woo_1980]

Yeah, and for instance "French" means "Lyon" for them, according to their data. Lyon is just 1 southern city, where the population is likely to be more similar to Spanish or Italian (Lyon used to be the capital of the Roman rule of the region in ancient times). I would expect that if the sample was taken more north, e.g. Paris or Normandy, the similarity would have drawn much stronger towards Germany for instance.

Romania

[slashgrim]

From what I've read, after the Dacian Wars Romania was settled heavily by retired Roman legionaries. I would have expected there to be a stronger correlation between IT1/IT2 and RO.

Re:Romania

[jimmy_woo_1980]

If you check the article, Romania had only 12 samples taken, I don't think the map says anything about Romania under these conditions. Besides the Roman base, in Romania there are also Turkish (later conquests), Arab (one of the Roman legions stationed there was Syriana, an arab legion), Indian (very large gipsy population) influences, among others ...

PCA limitations

[denoir]

While their research is certainly interesting it does suffer from them using PCA for creating the map. PCA is a linear transform that finds the axes of an ellipsoid that encompasses the data. This is an enormous simplification that seldom works well on real-world data. For an illustration of what PCA does and the problems with the simplification, see this. For the math, see this.

Now, the problem is that with such a simplification the resulting map is nearly meaningless. It only shows how things would have been distributed had the genetic data and the geographic data been neatly ordered in a form that could be described with a second degree n-dimensional body (i.e. an ellipsoid). There are much better non-linear methods, such as kernel PCA that most likely would have produced a much more accurate picture. PCA does have its uses and can indeed be used for mapping geo-genetic information, but the data needs to be statistically separated to a very large degree. This is an impossibility for Europe that has a limited genetic diversity and where the overlap between different groups is large.

I'd love to see their data analyzed with a bit more powerful algorithms.

Re:PCA limitations

[iminplaya]

Pure hyperbole!

Accusations of racism are the modern witch hunt

[burnitdown]

I'm sorry, where was there racism?

The point was that ethnoculturalism is on the rise, and Huntington and Cavalli-Sforza document it.

My point was that racism is not correlative to it, if we think clearly, and in that Cavalli-Sforza and I agree: nationalism and the tracking of culture through ethnicity is NOT racism.

It is, however, a view of history that is becoming increasingly prominent, as Huntington argues. Notice how he describes the organic states he analyzes in the course of the book. It is conflatable to my definition above, although his is more eloquently worded.

I think you are making accusations that are not borne out by the evidence, and I question your agenda.

Opeth

[burnitdown]

Good point. Someone else mentioned Opeth and Meshuggah, both of which have made some popular inroads.

As a genre, however, death metal remains small.

Its a fake!

[PPH]

There's no data for Elbonia!

Related

[burnitdown]

Wait a minute, isn't this the 21st? Chronologically, it is. But last Friday, Russia -- like the mad scientist Emmett Brown in "Back to the Future" -- thrust us backward by about 150 years in the Caucasus: into the age of imperialism and geopolitics, resource wars and spheres of influence.

It was strictly 19th-century when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin casually announced that "war has started." In the old days, such pronunciamentos were routine; war, to recall Clausewitz, was just the "continuation of politics with the admixture of other means." (For the specifics, look up: the Crimean War, Prussia's conquest of Germany, the Balkan Wars; then go farther afield to the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese wars.)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121848870627030979.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

It's interesting how history repeats itself. Most notably, the Russia-Ossetia-Georgia chaos reminds me of the start of the first World War.

Re:Related

[A nonymous Coward]

WW I: Interlocking treaties, an assassin, and countries with long winded mobilization plans which were rooted in old ways and could not be stopped once started, at least without losing way too much face.

South Ossetia: No treaties, just power hungry personalities (Russia, USA, Georgia) pushing and nibbling at each other until one of them (Georgia) did something really stupid which made it too tempting for a second (Russia) to resist tweaking the nose of the third (USA) in some weird personal tit-for-tat scheme.

Yup, plenty of similarities there. Why don't you list them for us?

Re:Related

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Yup, plenty of similarities there. Why don't you list them for us?
Actually it's more like the beginning of WWII only do a search and replace w/ the following changes. Germany==Russia, Czechoslovakia==Georgia and Britain/France==United States. Namely, there is little a distant power can do to stop the larger power in central/eastern Europe from gobbling up its smaller neighbors. As for the WWI analogies it is possible that Georgia(Austria-Hungary) believed it had a blank check to attack South Ossetia(Serbia) from the United States(Imperial Germany). HTH

TFAs engage in Jesuitic casuistry

[laburu]

These linked-to articles are intellectually dishonest on two levels:

1. They do away with uncomfortable detail by drawing group boundaries that suggest homogeneous density within. Wouldn't a density plot or a scatter plot of European population genetic substructure be more illuminating?
2. They obscure the true relationships between various peoples by grouping individuals on the basis of their citizenship, and by omitting readily available data about neighboring peoples and European minorities. Wouldn't you like to know how (or whether) Basque, the Jews, and the Armenians - for example - are (or are not) related to various European populations? [If you don't, you probably didn't care about the conclusions in TFA either; so why are you reading this?]

Note that I am not claiming that the studies discussed on the pages I linked to are paragons of integrity and transparency. I wish merely to show that TFAs are giving people a fractional distillate of available information. If you went to school at the Jesuits', you might refer to this sort of clever maneuvering as “interpreting vetted facts” — but I call it “lying with the help of a gratuitous reduction of the data”. If you had any doubts that there is an agenda behind the way data from genetic studies is presented to the public, consider this your wake up call.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

[quote]I have heard that the large popularity of the death metal in a region is a symptom of a "depressive" culture (along the huge alcohol consumption) brought by the little exposure to the Sun during the year - Winter Blues?
Can anyone comment?[/quote]

That's pretty ignorant. Death metal is the complete opposite of depressive. In fact it was partially created as a response to depressive consumerist society. It's empowering and affirms life. Also, saying Sweden or Scandinavia produces more metal is also an ignorant thing to say. They produce far less metal than other countries; though it can be argued that they produce far more quality metal. Well that would be ignorant of me to say because only the higher quality things would make it to where I live. If they do produce more quality metal, that can be attributed to culture.

That's not Europe...

[dirtyhippie]

That's Western Europe. Sheesh, people. Besides the overly PC cultural insensitivity aspect, a lot of the more interesting migrations happened in eastern europe (the spread of the slavs, migration of the magyar, the links between estonians and finns, etc.)

Nibiru says, "BAH! HUMBUG!"

[Rockin'Robert]

Hominids: The common ancestor to HUMANIODS and CURRENT APES?

Wrong version of "The Clash of Civilizations"

[burnitdown]

He's speaking of the Foreign Affairs ESSAY not the WHOLE BOOK, which is what I was speaking of.

Others don't like it either:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011022/said

Culture, not Race.

[eyendall]

It's all about culture. Cultures that can adapt survive and flourish, those that can't fail. Environments change so must cultures to succeed. Cultural competition is the norm else stagnation. European culture is in the ascendancy because it is being emulated by everyone else who wants the material and social values it provides. Note to North American native peoples: join it through assimilation or sink into welfare-induced poverty, depression, and irrelevance.

Pavel

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW, where are Bulgarians? There's a white spot on the map. And what the hell is Jugoslavija?! Clearly Croats, Slovenes and Serbs are not the same people, even historically... This "map" is made by pseudo-scientists...

PETA

[burnitdown]

I'm not the AC, but I don't have negative feelings toward PETA except for their drama mongering.

You make a fundamental mistake: you assume that modern political groupings (Ohioans and Indianans) conflate to ancestral groupings, which as the original article pointed out, is not correct.

There are significant ethnic differences among Europeans, and we are now able to identify where someone's ancestors came from.

In my view, and in my intent, this was never a debate about race, but about the importance of recognizing ethnic origins and preserving ethnic self-determination.

I don't know why you've turned it into a jihad against a position of mine you imagine. You didn't even read the books I cited, but you felt free to call me a racist. You didn't even pay attention to what I wrote, or post any counter evidence, but you flail on with your anger.

Is it possible that as someone displaced from your heritage (common reasons: drug use, abusive parents, failures in life, etc) you have anger at anyone who does possess and enjoy heritage?

Your response to my post was not only uncalled for but it was radically disproportionate AND misinterpreted what I said. You're so angry you can't even think straight. Are you sure your beef is with me, or are you angry at life?

If so, posting on the internet and making slanders isn't going to help you. You need to fix whatever it is that actually upsets you so much. I don't think it's me.

Guanxi made it up

[burnitdown]

Made up, that is, that the original post was "racist," probably because he's afraid of something in it.

The original post (that I made) was about the ethnic differences between European groups. I'm not sure how he went off on this jeremiad about race, but it wasn't a logical conclusion. It was a fearful, reactionary, dramatic one, and I think he's in error.

My intent was never to talk about "race," a term which badly needs a definition for us to even discuss it. I find it more sensible to discuss ethnicities because those we can reasonably define. Does race mean, in the ancient meaning, any group that evolved in a fixed area, for example "Lydians" to the ancient Greeks? Or do we mean the four "root races" which are Euripids, Africans, Asians and the indigenous people of Australia? Guanxi wants to talk about race; I posted an article about European ethnicities and only discussed ethnicities.

The more I think about it, the more it's ludicrous and insane that anyone took his response seriously. He did not read the Huntington book, nor did he read Cavalli-Sforza. What kind of internet drama is that? The only reason people put up with him is that he pulled out the modern equivalent of blasphemy, which is the debate over race, in which you can apparently call someone a "racist" and everyone else panics and mods him down, for fear that they'll be called racists next.

It must be a variant of Godwin's law.

For the sake of ending this, I have found several sources on race for those who want to debate it -- I do not.

* The Race FAQ, specifically "Isnâ(TM)t there actually more genetic distance between populations within the traditional human races than between the major races themselves?"

* The New York Times had a story on how dangerous uninformed discussion about race can be:

At the same time, genetic information is slipping out of the laboratory and into everyday life, carrying with it the inescapable message that people of different races have different DNA. Ancestry tests tell customers what percentage of their genes are from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/11dna.html

Read the full thing, Guanxi, before you call them "racists."

* There's also a lively discussion on race, genetics and culture in various blog posts at Gene Expression blog.

Again, it was not my intent to come here to debate race, but to discuss the differences between European ethnicities, which is something I find interesting. I also find the coming clash between ethnicities and nation-states, as concepts for the basis of the legitimacy of government, to be interesting.

Listen to reason, and ignore hateful, bigoted people like guanxi who want to stifle any discussion on this issue out of fear. You wouldn't put up with censorship from your government, and you wouldn't put up with it from the RIAA or Comcast, so don't do it to yourselves out of fear of saying the "wrong" thing.

Re:Guanxi made it up

[guanxi]

That's not what you said. Actually, you laid out a complex theory, going back to apes, of something you called 'genetic optimization'. Then you said, "people will identify with their optimization more than abstract and often illusory political concepts" like nation-states. You said future conflicts would unfold between "organic nations" of different genetic optimizations. I must have been crazy to read race-war into that; what was I thinking?

Now you mis-characterize your own post as something harmless about "ethnic differences between European groups"-- don't you think everyone can read it? -- just like your mis-characterization of Huntington and Cavalli-Sforza.

You've provided nothing to back up your theory. Calling me names, whining about being criticized, and fantasizing about my motives are not substitutes. I stand by what I said.

Trolls are racist, that's why

[burnitdown]

âoeTrolling is basically Internet eugenics,â he said, his voice pitching up like a jet engine on the runway. âoeI want everyone off the Internet. Bloggers are filth. They need to be destroyed. Blogging gives the illusion of participation to a bunch of retards. . . . We need to put these people in the oven!â

I listened for a few more minutes as Weev held forth on the Federal Reserve and about Jews.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1

I think everyone who wants to know about trolls should read this article. I didn't know that debates like this got Godwin's law applied to them so regularly, even by the trolls themselves.

I have to say that if Quanxi is at roll, or a counter-troll, I've never encountered such paranoid rudeness in my life and had it so tacitly accepted. I don't think the problem is Slashdot, because this must happen on other parts of the net. In general, Slashdot has less trolly activity than any other forum I've been on, but then again I browse at +2 normally.

Re:Trolls are racist, that's why

[Das Modell]

If you browse at +2 you're playing right into the hands of those who abuse Slashdot's moderating system. The vast, vast majority of downmoddings here are completely invalid and illegitimate.

Needs citation

[burnitdown]

However, yes, OP was using sources which don't really back up what he was trying to say.

Really?

Huntington specifically talks about nationalities as united by religion and culture in his book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, which Quanxi admits he has not read (nor did he read the other book cited, the Cavalli-Sforza).

Huntington seems to fall in the primordialist school, believing that culturally defined groups are ancient and natural, however his early work would suggest he is a Structural Functionalist. His view that nation states would remain the most powerful actors is in line with realism. Finally, his warning that the Western civilization may decline is inspired by Arnold J. Toynbee, Carroll Quigley, and Oswald Spengler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations

I think you are mistaken.

Regarding Cavalli-Sforza, he specifically states his work is not political, because he (like I!) did not want to get into the race debate, but only to chronicle population motion.

Can we do that, please, without having internet monkeys fling poo labeled RACIST at us?

IQ by nation

[burnitdown]

At the same time, intra-race variations usualy are a lot more signifigant then inter-race ones. I recall a study showing that the Scott's and Irish on average, show much lower IQ scores then the English. Yet racists tend to ignore that.

I found a list of nations and IQs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

Unfortunately, they do not separate out Scots and Irish from the UK total, so I don't know the answer to your question.

I'm not sure what I think about this IQ research. The fact that Korea and some Chinese top out the list, and African countries bottom out the list, makes me suspicious.

WikiPedia has a more in-depth view of race and intelligence here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence

Again, this is not something I originally came here to discuss, but if you're going to cite, and I quote, "a study" you "recall" but cannot name, we should at least find some common ground on the data we're going to use.

Enough of this nonsense about Gandhi

[yo man]

Actually, Gandhi's reason for being a stretcher bearer was because he was in the medical team, for pacifict reasons, not because the British wouldn't allow him to fight. Furthermore, he and other Indians at great personal risk, attended to wounded and dying Zulus, over the derogatory comments of British soldiers and officers who told the Indian medics to "let the savages die"

Ireland vs. Great Britain

[bill_mcgonigle]

And yet Ireland shows more overlap with with continent than Great Britain.

Family legend has it that my ancestor went to France (from Ireland, ob.) to join up in any way possible to fight the British, found the Marquis de Lafayette was coming over here to fight the British in America, and hopped on a boat. After the war he settled in Philadelphia where people were doing the most anti-British work (though the story neglects the 1780's so that part may be apocryphal).

Anyway, at least some Irish sentiment was more focused on killing Britons than tupping them.

and Technology

[bill_mcgonigle]

Behold the power of cheese!

This is one neat example of people's inventions (cheese making technology) and therefore culture (no pun intended), producing a change in the group's genetics.

Interestingly, the more ancient cheese processes tend to produce lower lactose cheeses than some of the modern processes.

The topic wasn't about race

[burnitdown]

That's not what you said. Actually, you laid out a complex theory, going back to apes, of something you called 'genetic optimization'. Then you said, "people will identify with their optimization more than abstract and often illusory political concepts" like nation-states. You said future conflicts would unfold between "organic nations" of different genetic optimizations. I must have been crazy to read race-war into that; what was I thinking?

The topic isn't about race: it's about European ethnicities.

The point was that nation-state wars are declining, and that the future is people organizing themselves by nations and not nation states.

That's Huntington's point, and it ties into the importance of the article, which is about European ethnicities, not race.

The connection to race is in your head and nowhere.

a bit irrelevant

[jimmy_woo_1980]

I think the map is quite statistically irrelevant for some countries, such as Romania. Here is the table with the number of samples taken from each country: http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/table?uid=PIIS0960982208009561&tableid=tbl1&popup=y Romania (population 23 milion) had only 12 samples taken! In comparison, Netherlands (population 16 milion) had 500 samples taken. Other genetically diverse countries with small (or too localized) samples include France, Italy or Portugal. Of course, as others pointed out, add to this the fact that not all populations were studied, among which populations which had huge genetical influence, especially in South-Eastern Europe (Turkish, northern Slavic, Arab, Maurish, North African, Indian-gipsy etc)... So I find the map totally irrelevant under these conditions...