Slashdot Mirror
Nature Vs. Nurture: Waging War Over the Soul of Science
derekmead writes "Wherever determinism appears, controversy attends, raising specters of days when colonialists, eugenicists, public health officials, and political idealists believed they could cure the human condition through manipulation and force. Understanding those fears helps shed light on the controversy surrounding a recent paper (PDF) published in the American Economic Review, entitled, 'The "Out of Africa" Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development.' In it, economists Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galor argue that the economic development of broad human populations correlate with their levels of genetic diversity—which is, in turn, pinned to the distance its inhabitants migrated from Africa thousands of years ago. Reaction has been swift and vehement.
An article signed by 18 academics in Current Anthropology accuses the researchers of 'bad science' — 'something false and undesirable' based on 'weak data and methods' that 'can become a justification for reactionary policy.' The paper attacks everything from its sources of population data to its methods for measuring genetic diversity, but the economists are standing by their methods. The quality of Ashraf and Galor's research notwithstanding, the debate illustrates just how tricky it's become to assert anything which says something about human development was in any way inevitable."
Economists tend to be interested in how human behaviour relates to the study of money. Which is not exactly a neutral research direction.
It was also an economist (Herbert Spencer) that studied Darwin and to give us the famous "Survival of the Fittest" instead of the more accurate "Survival of the Fit".
Not to be picky, but the url to "An artile signed by 18 academics" is http://www.jstor.org/action/cookieAbsent "cookieAbsent" doesn't exactly look like it was ever supposed to work. Does someone have a link to the actual signed article?
Clearly, the African continent is home only to the most primitive peoples. It's not a place that would birth historically powerful, flourishing civilizations whose large-scale engineering feats would be regarded among the "wonders of the world" millennia later. Oh, wait...
This is one of the reasons that the whole idea of "scientific consensus" or "the science is settled" bugs me. People try to act like science is a completely rational activity. It's simply not: it's a human activity, fraught with all the prejudices, biases and shortcomings — as well as the wonder and majesty and achievement — that implies. Here is an excellent example of exactly that.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
It seems to me that genetic diversity and cultural diversity would be related. In other words, cultural isolation and genetic isolation tend to go hand-in-hand.
Therefore, if the argument is that economic development is correlated to genetic diversity, then it is also necessarily correlated to cultural diversity. This now frames the issue in a more intuitive way; The more ideas and ways of looking at the world you bring to the table, the more diverse your solutions and creativity, and the more developed your economy becomes. This seems to be broadly supported by history as well, since the most prosperous trade often occurred when and where cultures mingled freely.
And now that the genetic element has been effectively abated, the controversy evaporates. You're welcome.
=Smidge=
An article signed by 18 academics in Current Anthropology accuses the researchers of 'bad science'—'something false and undesirable' based on 'weak data and methods' that 'can become a justification for reactionary policy.' The paper attacks everything from its sources of population data to its methods for measuring genetic diversity,
If you missed that part of the summary, you might try leaving the fertile crescent and seeing if it makes sense afterward.
The summary's typical inflammatory crap. THe paper takes an existing economic hypothesis ("Genetic diversity plays a role in economic development, and there is an optimal amount of diversity which has a net positive effect. There are also suboptimal amounts which have negative effects.") and then tries to justify it by pointing out that certain _genetic regions_ of the globe (not geographical, though they tend to fall along those lines) are better off than others.
Most importantly, this study does not correct for external factors, and as is typical for most of the junk that economists push, it assumes that if there's a correlation, that correlation will hold true no matter how many factors are not analyzed in the data. Further, it's a bunch of "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" arguments with some handwaving to hide the stark (and, at least from the references in the paper, unsupported) assumptions they make.
Is it bad science? Sure. But economics isn't a science, and if you disagree, you probably don't have a degree in a hard science.
"The quality of Ashraf and Galor's research notwithstanding, the debate illustrates just how tricky it's become to assert anything which says something about human development was in any way inevitable.""
Let me fix that for you:
"Data be damned. If two people with degrees say it, they must be pioneers of truth hunted by the system, and if you say their argument is weak and laughable, you can't even see how deep your own bias runs!" Thank you, Slashdot. Sometimes I forget that you got bought out by sensationlists.
Hmm, what field of "science" most deserves those quotation marks? Macroeconomics, or cultural anthropology?
This is seriously a tough one.
He talks of certain events happening repeated in different groups and at different times. For instance, the development of crops and the different rates of adoption of those crops, even by neighbors who can be assumed to genetically similar.
This really has nothing to do with fear, anymore than saying that a light bulb is turned on by a human flipping a switch and not a human praying to a god who then allows the flip to be switched. It has to do with a long line of research that shows simplifying variation amount humans is problematic, and mostly a result of forcing generalities. For instance, asian people are short and thin is a genetic disposition. But when fed an western diet, many become tall and fatter.
We all know that economist are basically are free to say whatever they want, because really, they make no testable conclusions. Cutting income does increase the amount of stuff we can buy, because, really,, how can we say that it is the conclusion that is incorrect and not just that we are too stupid to apply it. OTOH, if a geneticist says something, and it later proved false, the gentisist is not free to go around and say that her failure is caused by the lame media, and not bad science.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"racist, sexist, homophone!"
It's all just personal taste of course, but that's the first thought I had when I saw those new Window's Nokias. ;)
a)If this is the case, then, the most economically successful (based on the premise described in the Slashdot article, I haven't read the paper) would be the Native Americans on the East coast, as they came from Africa, through Asia, across the Bering Strait, and then across what is now the United States, putting them about as far from Africa as you can get. While the American natives had a far more advanced culture than classic stereotypes portray, I'm not sure you could call it more economically advanced than the Europeans had when they landed here, as the Europeans had already invented such advanced economic developments as usury, debtor's prison, embezzling, and insurance fraud. I have not heard of any Native American cultures having developed those vital economic tools prior to contact with Europe, but I will accept I could be wrong.
b)I'm absolutely certain the xenophobic far-right will seize with gleeful delight on a study that says "exogamy, multiculturalism, and mixing of ethnic groups/continual intermarriage is the key to success". (That was sarcasm.)
c)Given that, I'm not sure why the left, which presumably favors multiculturalism, mixing ethnic groups, etc, would OPPOSE a study that says, "Yes, the more genetically diverse your population is, the better off you're going to be."
d)"Argument from consequences" is a severe logical fallacy. If the paper is factually wrong, then, prove it wrong -- but don't say, "This can't be true because it would be BAD if it was true." That's the equivalent of saying, "I know my spouse isn't cheating on me, because I'd be utterly heartbroken if they were. That proves they're not."
The wrong link in the summary should be http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/669034
Wherever determinism appears, controversy attends, raising specters of days when colonialists, eugenicists, public health officials, and political idealists believed they could cure the human condition through manipulation and force.
Well that sounds pretty epic ... also, very confusing. "Cure the human condition"? "Manipulation and force"? What does any of that have to do with this paper? Also, I find it counter-intellectual to take a paper that has been submitted for peer review and renounce it along with colonialists, eugenicists, public health officials and political idealists just because it contains correlated determinism. You're free to attack it based purely on what it says but to say that just because it suggests determinism in humanity's history doesn't mean that they are Nazi scientists and Ku Klux Klan members.
Curiously the article accompanying this paper leaves out a key detail. From the paper:
This study therefore employs cross-country historical data on population density as the dependent variable of interest in the historical analysis and examines the hypothesized eect of human genetic diversity within societies on their population densities in the year 1500 CE.
(emphasis mine) Okay, after reading the article I would have said this study is obviously overlooking the British Empire that came back and started to systematically colonize the world despite it being further from the cradle of civilization than the very people it was colonizing. So 1500 CE was prior to a lot of the counter examples I could think of but I also feel like China and Japan had to be fully operational at these points in time and I wish I could pull up GDP numbers for 1500 but, gosh darn it, they weren't very good at record keeping at this point in time.
I think that if these authors had placed their time frame in pre-Holy Roman Empire or pre-Zoroastrian times they would have met with less kick back from their academic community. Personally, I feel like we as humans by 1500 CE had already transcended the epoch period where our intelligence removed us from the uncaring hand of nature. Granted, that was a long struggle, but I think it's foolish to say that "At not time in humanity's history has our genetic diversity played a role in our survival." We are of the animal kingdom, the mistake this paper made was trying to bring that too close to the present. We had already had inventor-geniuses. History had already shown that technology like the Romans roads could be critical in enforcing dominance on other cultures.
The paper attacks everything from its sources of population data to its methods for measuring genetic diversity, but the economists are standing by their methods.
Welcome to academia. I mean, when it comes to publishing papers on historic events you can't exactly take their experiment and run it 50 times in your own lab to independently verify your results, can you? So I would imagine that economists, social sciences, historical studies and the like are filled with disagreeing camps that can't rectify their differences.
The quality of Ashraf and Galor's research notwithstanding, the debate illustrates just how tricky it's become to assert anything which says something about human development was in any way inevitable.
Or perhaps if you publish something about the past and you make flimsy assumptions, you can almost guarantee your "colleagues" will roast you alive.
Geographer and author Jared Diamond, for example, who wrote Guns, Germs, and Steel, has been branded an environmental determinist who cuts culture and colonialism too much slack with regard to the rise and fall of civilizations—criticism that has been renewed recently with the publication of his new book, The World Until Yesterday.
So you're saying an author is being attacked for his theories not being 10
My work here is dung.
Clearly, the African continent is home only to the most primitive peoples. It's not a place that would birth historically powerful, flourishing civilizations whose large-scale engineering feats would be regarded among the "wonders of the world" millennia later. Oh, wait...
Um, the article was confusing, it showed like a White Pride info graphic ... yet if you read the paper, the genetic diversity is noted as being increasing over time the closer you are to the birthplace of humanity (as pictured here the heterozygosity is reduced the further away from Africa). The second part that the article woefully left out was that this article examined the year 1500 CE.
My work here is dung.
There is no escaping that we, as humans vary widely in terms of potential of all sorts whether it be for learning, violence or what have you. We know we can breed dogs and other animals to have specific behavioral characteristics and abilities. Is it so far fetched that humans, also being animals, would demonstrate the same variances and potentials based on breeding? But breeding is just the basis. Since we as humans have an amazing ability to teach and learn, additional variabces exist based on how much a community of humans values certain behaviors whether it is physical strength and violence (sports?) or more passive advancements (academics, getting good jobs?) or even merely physical appearance (models, entertainment?).
It is both. It has always been both and until humans evolve into more purely intellectual creatures, it will always be both. And we *ARE* the living planet of the apes. The gorillas are more suited to certain roles while the chimps are more suited to others. And the damned orangutans are ruling everything.
When scientists in the "hard sciences" use terms like "settled science" it should be taken with the understood "... unless of course we get new evidence."
"Settled science" means that just about all scientists agree that the existing evidence leads to a given conclusion, and that the evidence and logical arguments have already been picked to death and barring actual new evidence or some currently-inconceivable way of interpreting existing evidence, the "scientifically settled conclusion" will be treated as scientific fact.
Newtonian physics was "settled science" for centuries ... until new data rolled in that made scientists think "um, that's odd, this data doesn't match the known laws of the universe, and we've looked at this new data over and over again and it's not a case of a bad measurement. Perhaps what we thought was fact isn't," at which point previously-settled science became ... unsettled.
As for the "soft" sciences, well, it's probably unfair to use the term "settled science" at all. A less-definitive phrase like "most psychologist agree that..." or "the social anthropology community generally accepts ..." are sufficiently strong to allow the layperson to treat the "generally accepted scientific idea" as fact, while giving scientists the wiggle room to quickly admit they were wrong if it turns out they are.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
this is a war between scientists and a bunch of postmodernists parading around in lab coats shouting down results they don't like (cultural anthropologists.)
Umm, no. I take it you didn't even read the summary of either paper.
The economists claim that “the high degree of diversity among African populations and the low degree of diversity among Native American populations have been a detrimental force in the development of these regions.” In other words, that only populations with the "right" amount of genetic diversity (i.e. matching Europe) are likely to be successful. The rest of the scientific community points out that they have defined their terms in a way that gives the results that they want, and ignore existing standard means of measuring genetic diversity.
Open source advocate Eric Raymond, author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar and The Art of Unix Programming has entered the Nature-Nurture debate, stating here:
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
You too can use the rigorous methods of this paper to prove your own theories explaining why European culture is the best!
Ingredients:
(A) a measure of economic/social/cultural development that puts Europe on top, 1500-2013CE (plenty to choose from; Europe was really good at conquering/enslaving/looting over this period)
(B) a second characteristic correlated with "Europeanism" (in the paper's case, genetic diversity based on migratory distance from Africa --- pick another to support your own pet theory).
Method:
Plot (A) vs. (B). Note the graph peaks around the maximally-European value of (B).
Conclude that having just the right value for (B) was a cause for Europe's maximal (A).
Yay! Now you too can "prove" why nice-sounding attributes (like "optimal genetic diversity for cultural cooperation") put Europe (deservingly!) on top, instead of bothering with the distasteful details of actual history (genocide, colonialism, neo-colonism, ...).
...based on the dynamics of the AGW arguments here, attacking methods and data and conclusions is tantamount to attacking the Scientific Method.
I disagree, I started following climate science in the early 80's, became convinced it was a serious problem in the mid 90's, and started posting on AGW somewhere around 2000, The (often raucous) AGW debate on this site has overall been a good example of how science works over time to defeat self-interested propaganda (eg: I can't remember the last time I heard the "volcanoes" canard on slashdot). I think at the very least most people who have followed the slashdot debate are better informed because of it, I know I am.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I have degrees in both "hard" and "soft" sciences.
I disagree that economics isn't a science - it is. Whether or not this paper is bad science is beside the point from your rather broad generalisation to the whole of economics. You seem to be mistaking the inherent difficulty of the subject with the quality of the practitioners.
The distinction between "hard" and "soft" is usually the ability to conduct experiments to verify your hypothesis. In "soft" sciences people get really annoyed when you arbitrarily experiment on them. Something about "ethics". But, for some reason, hydrogen atoms never get annoyed when you experiment on them. And that makes for a world of difference in what you can achieve. But that doesn't change the underlying fact that people are forming hypotheses and testing them and applying the scientific method to the whole shebang.
So now, let is talk about your familiarity with economics. You seem to claim to have read and understood a bunch of it with your statement "is typical for most of the junk that economists push". So, how much have you actually read? Or do you just read the Slashdot summary and claim expertise based on that?
I can't remember the last time I heard the "volcanoes" canard on slashdot
Is that something to do with ducks floating in volcanoes, so they're witches and therefore liberal pro-AGW fanatics?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Practitioners of a scientific discipline know that the first mistake outsiders often make is a failure to familiarize ones self with the often quite large body of peer reviewed published research in that field. The economists who authored the original article have fallen into that common blunder here.
When two disciplines come into conflict it is often a good idea to pay heed to the discipline whose field of expertise and history of research best covers the bone of contention. The central conflict here is over two variables - genetic diversity, and population density at various times in history and prehistory. Anthropologists have a long established, peer reviewed record of research into genetic diversity and human migration; economists do not. Anthropologists (specifically, archaeologists) have a long established, peer reviewed record of research on population estimation throughout history and prehistory across the globe; economists do not.
As a result, the economists who wrote the original paper got both their genetic diversity AND population density estimates wrong, so their work is essentially worthless. The rebuttal by the anthropologists goes ino great detail on these errors often resulting from long outdated sources or complete lack of awareness of published literature in the relevant areas of research.
N.B. dupe since I unintentionally wasn't logged in originally