2050 words
Race: social construct or biological reality? Why can’t it be both? When the Left (let’s use Liberal Creationists, LC for short) says that “race is a social construct”, what do they mean? They mean, obviously, that race is not a biological reality and that most ‘racists’ assume that race is only what we can physically see—the phenotype. However, genotypic differences give rise to phenotypic differences between humans. We can then say, with 100 percent certainty, that even ‘small genotypic differences’ can make ‘big differences in phenotype’ between two almost genetically similar organisms.
The thing that LCs don’t understand is that race is a ‘social construct’, but not in the way that they believe. They believe that since what we call ‘white’ and ‘black’ are genetically different depending on which geographic location you look at, that race must be something constructed by the mind based on the ‘small genotypic differences’ which lead to the ‘large differences in phenotype’. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
See, what we call the ‘races’ are arbitrary. Instead of ‘white’ we can say ‘hulina’, instead of ‘black’ we can say ‘lorux’ (two random ‘words’ I made up on the fly). What we call these biological realities is arbitrary, replacing the common usages of ‘white’ and ‘black’ WILL NOT change biology. This is what they don’t understand. They are correct that ‘race is a social construct’, but the ‘social constructions’ that we have chosen describe genotypic differences between geographically isolated populations. What we call races, ethnies, or anything for that matter, is arbitrary as the genetic underpinnings we are describing will not change if we call them another (arbitrary) name.
We have this article from The New York Times (which I have already responded to) which says:
Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racialclassifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries. Yet, a person who could be categorized as black in the United States might be considered white in Brazil or colored in South Africa.
This goes back to my point about using different ‘constructs’ for these biological realities (though mixed is a better ‘construct’ to use than ‘white’ or ‘black’. ‘Colored’ is a good term as that denotes a white/black mix). Call someone ‘black’ in America and he’ll be ‘white’ in Brazil or ‘colored’ in South Africa. OK? And? Does this change any type of underlying biology that is being described? I do admit that using the term ‘mixed’ is better than the ‘straight terms’ of ‘white’ and ‘black’, however, these ‘constructed terms’ are shockingly correct in describing the biological underpinnings of ‘race’.
I define ‘race’ as a genetically isolated breeding population. Sure, we can still conceive children between racial groups, that, however, doesn’t change any underlying biologic underpinnings. That should be obvious, though.
You have people like Richard Lewontin, of ‘Lewontin’s Fallacy’ fame who say that “because there is more variation within racial groups that the smaller variation between racial groups is insignificant, stating:
“Since such racial classification is now seen to be of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance either, no justification can be offered for its continuance.”
There IS a genetic significance, and there IS taxonomic significance, to quote Dawkins:
It is genuinely true that, if you measure the total variation in the human species and then partition it into a between-race component and a within-race component, the between-race component is a very small fraction of the total. Most of the variation among humans can be found within races as well as between them. Only a small admixture of extra variation distinguishes races from each other. That is all correct. What is not correct is the inferene that race is therefore a meaningless concept. This point has been clearly made by the distinguished Cambridge geneticist A.W.F. Edwards in a recent paper “Human genetic diversity: Lewontin’s fallacy.” R.C. Lewontin is an equally distinguished Cambridge (Mass.) geneticist, known for the strength of his political convictions and his weakness for dragging them into science at every possibile opportunity. Lewontin’s view of race has become near-universal orthodoxy in scientific circles.
…
We can all happily agree that human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations. That is one reason why I object to ticking boxes on forms and why I object to positive discrimination in job selection. But that doesn’t mean that race is of “virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance.” This is Edwards’s point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance.
Strike out. Lewontin, like his colleague Gould and other ideological brother in Marxism Diamond all deny race, first and foremost, for ideological reasons, not scientific ones. Though, this doesn’t mean their arguments should be discarded. On the contrary. They should be deconstructed and shown how and why they are wrong.
In 2002, Risch, et al published a paper that confirms the existence of five racial categories (not three [as is commonly though] as ‘Natives’ cluster on their own due to genetic isolation and Melanesians and Australoids are NOT NEGROID; saying so makes race a true ‘social construct’. Sorry PP), writing:
The African branch included three sub-Saharan populations, CAR pygmies, Zaire pygmies, and the Lisongo; the Caucasian branch included Northern Europeans and Northern Italians; the Pacific Islander branch included Melanesians, New Guineans and Australians; the East Asian branch included Chinese, Japanese and Cambodians; and the Native American branch included Mayans from Mexico and the Surui and Karitiana from the Amazon basin. The identical diagram has since been derived by others, using a similar or greater number of microsatellite markers and individuals [8,9]. More recently, a survey of 3,899 SNPs in 313 genes based on US populations (Caucasians, African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics) once again provided distinct and non-overlapping clustering of the Caucasian, African-American and Asian samples [12]: “The results confirmed the integrity of the self-described ancestry of these individuals”. Hispanics, who represent a recently admixed group between Native American, Caucasian and African, did not form a distinct subgroup, but clustered variously with the other groups. A previous cluster analysis based on a much smaller number of SNPs led to a similar conclusion: “A tree relating 144 individuals from 12 human groups of Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania, inferred from an average of 75 DNA polymorphisms/individual, is remarkable in that most individuals cluster with other members of their regional group” [13]. Effectively, these population genetic studies have recapitulated the classical definition of races based on continental ancestry – namely African, Caucasian (Europe and Middle East), Asian, Pacific Islander (for example, Australian, New Guinean and Melanesian), and Native American.
Pretty damn good for a ‘social construct’, right? Unless the computer somehow consciously knows the result we want and then allocates the clusters according to our desires, but I doubt it. These studies show, definitively, that race as we know it is a biological reality.
They then state in the conclusion:
As we enter this new millennium with an advancing arsenal of molecular genetic tools and strategies, the view of genes as immutable is too simplistic. Every race and even ethnic group within the races has its own collection of clinical priorities based on differing prevalence of diseases. It is a reflection of the diversity of our species – genetic, cultural and sociological. Taking advantage of this diversity in the scientific study of disease to gain understanding helps all of those afflicted. We need to value our diversity rather than fear it. Ignoring our differences, even if with the best of intentions, will ultimately lead to the disservice of those who are in the minority.
One of the best conclusions one can write after an article as ‘controversial’ as that one. We need to embrace our diversity, not destroy it. We need to study it and see how and why we are so diverse, not ruin the diversity making it impossible to study. This also has implications for disease acquisition as well as whether or not one responds to certain drugs (blacks and the drug Bidil, for instance). These inherent differences between races/ethnies need to be studied so we can get everyone the best care they need based on their genetic makeup, without pretending that it doesn’t exist. Pretending that these differences don’t exist does not make them go away.
If race were ‘fake’ and ‘socially constructed’, would there be a success rate of 99.86 percent between self-identified race/ethnicity and genetic structure? Tang et al (2005) write:
We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity. On the other hand, we detected only modest genetic differentiation between different current geographic locales within each race/ethnicity group. Thus, ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population. Implications of this genetic structure for case-control association studies are discussed.
These ‘social constructs’ have some pretty damn good predictive power to guess geographic ancestry (race) 99.86 percent of the time. But isn’t it weird that this so-called ‘social construct’ fits neatly into 4 categories (‘Hispanic’ is not a race, but I assume it would cluster between ‘Natives’ and Europeans, showing that fourth cluster. There hasn’t been enough time for ‘Hispanics’ to cluster into a distinct race, so they cluster in between ‘Natives’ and Europeans)?
If race is a ‘social construct’ as LCs would want you to believe, how do we have these clusters showing this variation? Because they’re genetically similar others. We can then start to wonder about things such as genetic similarity theory and ethnic genetic interests, as they then become a direct result of these genetically similar individuals. Yes we humans are 99.9 percent identical, but what matters is not how genetically distant humans are when being compared with one another, what matters is gene expression. We share over 90 percent of the same genes with dogs, cats, mice, and other great apes. Must mean we are almost all the same and any genetic differences ‘are meaningless’, then!
Think of it this way. People in the same family differ both genotypically and phenotypically. Hereditary traits get passed down through the generations and they stay in that family. If you broaden that to ethnic and the bigger racial groups, you can then see how genetically isolated human populations (key phrase here) do differ, on average, in hereditary traits.
We see racial in sports from swimming, baseball, football, bodybuilding, sprinting, and Strongman. We (somewhat) openly discuss racial differences being the cause for this, yet discussing racial differences in intelligence is taboo.
Liberal Creationists and their denial of race in the modern genomics age is absurd. It’s like people who deny evolution because they don’t understand basic evolutionary theory. Liberal Creationists, too, don’t understand basic evolutionary theory. Race-denialism, when the facts are right in front of you showing how these so-called ‘social constructs’ exist and outright denying them, is very telling. Ideology is the name of the game, not science.
It doesn’t matter how many people believe race doesn’t exist, the underlying realities are still there. LCs can say talk all about changing definitions of race in other countries and the past few hundred years, but this doesn’t address the fact that what we call ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ have real biological underpinnings. What we call ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ is meaningless. ‘Race’ is a social construct, but a ‘social construct’ of a biological reality. Even if we changed, or even eliminated the words from use, actual genetic differences between races will not go away.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
“race is a social construct of a biological reality” — well said!
liberal creationists run around & worry about the spotted owl going extinct, when they should be way more concerned about the white race dying out.
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Thanks.
We should attempt to preserve ALL of life’s diversity, as that’s what makes life so grand. Though, I’m not saying to prevent natural selection (selecting out unfit organisms).
I want the white race to survive, no doubt about it. But if the white race dies out, that’s natural selection in action. (What I’m going to say is controversial in this sphere. But I look at things from an evolutionary perspective without feelings to cloud my views on this matter.) If Arabs/Africans/whoever outbreeds whites, then they were more fit, evolutionarily speaking as the purpose of life is reproduction not production. So, who is fitter, evolutionarily speaking: Arabs/Africans (reproduction) or Eurasians (production)?
Funny how the oft-cited ‘equatorial peoples are r-selected, therefore they’re inferior’ shows, evolutionarily speaking, that they are more successful in an evolutionary sense, than Eurasians.
If whites are to die out, it’s natural selection in action. The equatorial races will have shown that they’re more fit since they breed at much higher rates than Eurasians.
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“I’m not saying to prevent natural selection (selecting out unfit organisms).”
There is no “natural” selection on going for humans. We are, and have been, selecting based upon the environments that we create.
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The environments we make are due to our genetics.
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“The environments we make are due to our genetics.”
The point I want to make is that we are “guiding” our evolution now. The most important features are what we create and what we choose. We are not bacteria under the influence of warm or cold. We are choosing whether we want warm or cold, that is not “natural” in the sense that natural has always been used.
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That doesn’t mean that natural selection stops, we are partly guiding our evolution, but natural forces still dominate. Natural selection will still make changes. Sure we have dysgenic policies that allow the poor and less intelligent to breed more, but even without those safety nets they’d still outbreed higher IQ/richer people. The r-selected people will always have higher birth rates than K-selected people, which is why I say that the commonly stated notion of ‘Equatorial people are inferior due to high birth rates’ is a moronic statement because evolutionarily speaking, they are more fit than Eurasians as they spread more of their genes to the next generation.
Yes we are partly guiding our evolution, but due to how human culture is Lamarckian, each culture has unique selection pressures especially that has unique changes due to the unique pressures of their culture. Blacks make their environments. They make them ghettos. Whites move in and change the environment and feel. A community/country is only as good as its majority population. The majority dictates whether or not the environment will be ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and these processes are driven by genetics.
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“The names we use are arbitrary”
This is not the arbitrariness that I am talking about. The labels are not important. The assignment of race and the assignment of rights and qualities to the races have at times been arbitrary. This is what many people see, an endless history of arbitrariness and self-serving or invalid claims. We now have a solid scientific basis for saying that there are biological differences, but we have the burden of “crying wolf” forever to overcome.
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Rational people will be able to put that aside and recognize the new science for what it is. People will always be resistant to the truth about race differences within and between populations, but those types of people will always be around. Eventually, rational people will come to accept the actuality of race, and from there it’s only a matter of time before they accept the hereditarian hypothesis.
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Hey RaceRealist, Just talking about your reply to pamjoomby above with in regrades to Arabs out breeding whites in Europe.
Do you think the fact that the Middle East has not achieve much in ways of advancement since the 12th Century has to do with the type of people of lower iq breeding over the generations and a culture that does not do well with questioning the faith?
I say this since the different Persian empires (as well as the other older powers such as Babylon in the regions) before the rise of the Arabs into the region had many advance knowledge, technology and in some cases ahead of the West.
They were also the earliest region in the world to start the agricultural revolution, some the earliest writing, new advancements in mathematics, engineering, science, religion and culture (as well as military). This would of take a lot high iq people within the population to come up with the new advancements and an a some what average to high population to adapted to the changing technological and cultural changes.
If say the empires of Byzantine (I know the The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire but most of the empire) and Sasanian not get conquer by the Arabs. In your opinion (since we really can not know) what do you think would the average iq in the Middle East be today if such events either did not take place or revolutions push back the invaders?
And do you think the this might be the fate of much of the world (or just the west) that the future could become like the movie idiocracy?
Thank you again for answering the last lot of questions I had before.
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It has to do with inbreeding, which was introduced to them by Jews from the Levant around 2000 BC. Inbreeding > low IQ > susceptibility to violence > suicide bombing (increases genetic fitness). Higher IQ people are more likely to be atheists. Lower IQ people are more likely to be religious.
Of course. If you look at every great civilization in antiquity, what do they have in common? They were all pretty much in the same general area. The great civilizations of the past all were in warmer climates, especially so for the Maya, Inca, and Aztecs.
I know about the Arab achievements in science, I’m going to write an article on it soon. It’s funny how people deny it.
Inbreeding depresses IQ by 2.5 to 10 points. Let’s say it decreases IQ by 7 points. So increase the average to 91. Parasite load, disease, and nutritional deficiencies also effect IQ so add 3 to 4 more points. I’d say between 90-95.
I have a pretty bleak, but in my opinion realistic, view of society. The world as a whole is getting dumber. I see the world getting dumber but certain countries—the Chinese for example—engineering high IQ people in the future. Idiocracy is definitely the most likely possibility, though.
Any time.
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One aspect of the “race is a social construct” is that the social and political placement of mixed race people has, and does, vary over time and place. People with a little knowledge of history and observations of racial stratifications in the US and other countries can see that the classifications are arbitrary and more dependent upon economic, cultural and political conditions more than anything else. This knowledge inclines some people to push back against “scientific” racial categories as nothing more than the latest arbitrary classification scheme.
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I get that. Which is why people (rightly) bring it up as an argument against the existence of race. Clarifications, what we call racial and ethnic categories, are arbitrary and what we call them doesn’t matter.
The names we use are arbitrary, but that doesn’t change underlying genetic structure. As I’ve shown, our perception and intuition on the ‘social construction of race’ is an almost perfect predictor of race and ethnicity. So their argument makes no sense, as even if we changed our words, underlying genetic structure won’t change. That’s what they don’t get.
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Dear Race Realist, but in a certain sense, cannot we say- we as a whole Indoeuropeans- that we are an inbreed too? Our genetics shows we are the most homogeneous people on Earth, and if you consider our history, for us it has always been normal to speak about Klans, Gentes ( Stirps ), Teuta ( Brotherhood ) and so on. Ancient names for our Indoeuropean tribes.
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You’re talking about the Yamna, right?
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yes of course
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All the clustering doesn’t replace a firm genetic definition for each race and none actually exists, neither does a morphological definition: very few people fit the stereotype of their race. And clustering can from zero to thousands of races depending on the genetic distance threshold you decide as a race separator.
Race is a social construct because not all phenotype difference has the social consequences that race has in the West, some multiple-phenotype societies like India or Madagascar don’t have race consciousness, blond swedes are not seen as a separate social group as dark-haired swedes. Black skinned Africans are not a separate group from brown-skinned Africans, and so on.
So yes, the only firm definitions of race are social, and they vary according to the culture. Many African Americans are white to the African eye, they are Mulatto, Pardo or even sometimes white in Latin America but they are black by US standards.
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Race is defined by ancestry, not phenotypic traits. Phenotypes only correlate to race.
Of course not, but the underlying biological reality still exists.
Yes I discussed that. Does that change genetic structure? They’d cluster between Europeans and Africans. Like how ‘Hispanics’ cluster around different places between the three races due to differing amounts of admixture (hence, ‘Hispanic’ is not a racial category, but denotes culture and language). Genetic structure does not change, so misconceptions about race due to the naked eye is meaningless.
I’ve shown that, in the US at least, self-identified race is a great predictor of actual genetic ancestry.
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“Race is defined by ancestry, not phenotypic traits. Phenotypes only correlate to race.”
Still, there is no definition of race by ancestry, no genetic marker is both common and exclusive to the members of a race, and that’s the only situation that could define race in genetics.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t read your post, so maybe you’ve been through this.
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“Yes I discussed that. Does that change genetic structure? They’d cluster between Europeans and Africans. ”
They’d cluster between Europeans and Africans but they can be significantly genetically closer to Europeans or Africans than their phenotype suggests. Mixed race people are never a perfect 50% of each.
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Another factor that affects the outcomes of race mixing is which of the parents transmits more dominant alleles to the child. I believe, but I’m not sure if it’s actual science, that the African genome has more dominant alleles than the European one, resulting in mixed children that are “functionally” closer to their African parent. Anyway, the only thing that matters in HBD terms is how much non-neutral DNA varies between groups.
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Races differ on allele frequency. Certain genes are more common in certain races than are others. Gene expression also matters.
Of course. Recombination is never 50/50 from both parents. It varies widely.
This is also why I keep trying to stress to PP that Melanesians and Australoids aren’t Negroid. What are your thoughts on that?
I’ve heard this constantly over the years as well, I doubt that it’s actually true.
Non-neutral DNA meaning alleles that code for phenotype? There are distinct phenotypic differences between races and differing genes expressed as well as differing sections of the genome under recent selection in Asians, Europeans and Africans. Nicholas Wade talks about this in his book A Troublesome Inheritance.
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“Races differ on allele frequency. Certain genes are more common in certain races than are others. Gene expression also matters.”
True, but that doesn’t make a definition, that makes a general profile (a cluster) but not a definition.
“This is also why I keep trying to stress to PP that Melanesians and Australoids aren’t Negroid. What are your thoughts on that?”
In my opinion, they retained a phenotype close to Africans because of the similarity of their environments. But all other alleles that were not under natural selection evolved so that the two populations are genetically very distant. It’s like sharks and dolphins, Bats and birds, they look a like, but are worlds apart when it comes to genes.
“Non-neutral DNA meaning alleles that code for phenotype? ”
Yes, this is what I mean. Most genetic variants are neutral, natural selection and genetic drift cause the most between-group variation, random genetic drift itself is thought to be the largest contributor to between-group variation, it can even beat natural selection if alleles have a selection quotient that is too small.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift#Genetic_drift_versus_natural_selection
“Nicholas Wade talks about this in his book A Troublesome Inheritance.”
This is really really really bad science.
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They still cluster together in PCA. The cluster are what we call ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’.
It’s slightly similar but I’ll never confuse one for the other. They are the most genetically distant population from Africa, though. Just because their phenotypically ‘similar’ doesn’t mean that they’re phylogenetically close. They underwent different selection pressures and there is climate variation as well.
They look similar, ie wings and structure with bats and birds and dolphins and sharks with fins and body proportions because they come from a common ancestor. Bird and bat wings have different evolutionary origins, though. Dolphins and sharks do share a common ancestor.
Evolution occurs through migration, mutation, genetic drift and natural selection. Migration can occur for a multitude of reasons; mutations are completely random; genetic drift is random and selection occurs on heritable variants already current in that population. Even then, faster evolution means more racial differences, and it is due to drift and genetic isolation. So the longer there is genetic isolation, the more ethnic differences there will be. This will eventually extend to racial categories.
Have you read it? I read it last month. He says that the third part is speculative. The second part is the science of race, and the first part is about the evolution of man.
Mr. Wade explicitly warns the reader that these latter chapters, unlike his presentation of the genetics of race, must speculate from evidence that falls far short of scientific proof. His trust in his audience is touching: “There is nothing wrong with speculation, of course, as long as its premises are made clear. And speculation is the customary way to begin the exploration of uncharted territory because it stimulates a search for the evidence that will support or refute it.”
Book Review: ‘A Troublesome Inheritance’ by Nicholas Wade
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“They still cluster together in PCA. The cluster are what we call ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’.”
Geneticists don’t use the notion of race in humans or any other animal. They loosely use the term “population”. The fact that population difere in allele frequency is not a matter of debate, what is debated is the effect of theses differences on various traits.
“It’s slightly similar but I’ll never confuse one for the other.”
Me Neither, I would not even confuse East African, West African and Southern African, I can even guess West African sub regional phenotypes with respectable accuracy. And those Afrocentrist saying Papuans are black are disconnected African Americans who know nothing about Africa.
“Bird and bat wings have different evolutionary origins, though. Dolphins and sharks do share a common ancestor.”
Bats and dolphins are both mamals, they are closer together and to humans than they are to sharks (fishes) and birds.
“Even then, faster evolution means more racial differences”
No, it means more population differences, with groups within a race also becoming more distant within a race.
“So the longer there is genetic isolation, the more ethnic differences there will be.”
This is not the current trend, I’ve seen official statistics on race mixing and even in Mississippi, 10% of newborns are Mulattos, at this pace the South-East will become Brazil in less than a century.
“Have you read it?” I have not, but I’ve been through a lot of reviews that were unanimously critical of his work, not on moral grounds but methodological grounds.
” And speculation is the customary way to begin the exploration of uncharted territory because it stimulates a search for the evidence that will support or refute it.”
Speculation is legitimate when it comes from specialists, when it comes from laymen, it is little more than ideology.
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Race, population, gobbledegook, it doesn’t matter what we call these clusters or differing allele frequencies. Which traits do you think are not due to differences in allele frequency?
They do look distinctly different; anyone who says they can’t see any difference or that they ‘look alike’ has no idea what they are talking about.
I was talking about the evolution of their wings since that was the example that you brought up.
Racial differences then follow.
Really? Do you have a source? Interracial marriage is increasing, at 7 percent for whites, 19 percent for blacks, 28 percent for Asians and 58 percent for ‘Native Americans’, but generally, people stay with people who are like themselves.
You should read it, he goes through the recent science on race and explains it well; I’ve checked his references. Can you give me some examples of critiques of the book?
It should still be taken seriously as a theory.
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I must attract your attention on genetic drift and its implications for the genetic basis of racial differences in behavior.
HBD tends to see genetic variation in almost exclusively Darwinian terms, but the reality is that natural selection can only act on alleles that have a very strong selective effect. That doesn’t fit well with the heritability of IQ that lies on thousands of genes of very small effect each and that couldn’t resist genetic drift if they ever give selective advantage. Human population size has been very small for much of our history, and that’s only when we became more protected from the elements that our population size became large enough to favor natural selection over genetic drift. So there is very little room for a Darwinian interpretation of racial differences in behavior.
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Behaviors are influenced by hormones. Hormones differ between the races. Therefore the races differ in behavior. Looking at different cultures you can see that there are different behaviors. You can see that there is a ton of variation in behavior by ethnicity. Gene expression matters, distance doesn’t matter as much.
Evolution is happening faster for humans, so there will continue to be more differences between human populations.
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“Behaviors are influenced by hormones. Hormones differ between the races. Therefore the races differ in behavior.”
Hormones are highly mediated by environment too, it’s not just genetic.
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Of course. Like when one sees a predator, hormones spike so they can choose to fight or flight. Wouldn’t you think that would have a selection effect for certain behaviors to be able to hunt better or get away from predators?
When a predator is seen, this is an example of environment increasing testosterone. Testosterone also increases in group situations, another evolutionary advantage.
Ancestral environment plays a part in behavior between groups.
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“Which traits do you think are not due to differences in allele frequency?”
Any trait that significantly overlaps between populations and that is at least moderately affected by the environment, any trait for which there is more variation within races than between races is more likely to have very little genetic origin. On the contrary, traits with very low malleability, little between-group overlap, and near-universal within group frequency are likely to be due to differences in allele frequency due to natural selection.
“Racial differences then follow.”
No, it decreases the relative importance of race since it creates even more variation within races relative to variation between races.
“Really? Do you have a source? ”
Yes, I do. It’s somewhere on this website
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/births.htm
“but generally, people stay with people who are like themselves.”
Despite clustering in “vastly” different genetic populations, lol.
“Ancestral environment plays a part in behavior between groups.”
Current environment plays an even more important part. Unless I missed something, the relationship between behavior and gene variants is not proven at population levels. There is the MAOA thing that is disputed but its prevalence is only 5% in Black americans, nothing to conclude on a selective adaptation, and we don’t even know about its prevalence in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, all that we know is that the slave trade and the plantation economy hired lots of white felons.
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Critiques of Wade’s book.
http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/a-troubling-tome
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How does race have no predictive value? Self-reports predict genetic ancestry well enough, 99.86 percent rate, as a matter of fact.
It doesn’t matter that we ‘evolved locally and spread quickly’, there has been substantial human evolution in the past ten thousand years. Intermixing of peoples on the ‘border’ of the clines, say Eurasian populations in Central Asia, does not show that race doesn’t exist. This ‘social construct’ has an extremely high success rate and even then, the study of human diversity is crucial for knowing whether or not a drug will work in a certain individual, how would this occur if race weren’t “a biological construct for understanding human diversity”?
These ‘rapid changes’ are more often than not attributable to better nutrition. That still doesn’t refute the genetic hypothesis. Economic development follows better nutrition.
Sure thing.
Serious?
We are born helpless due to our large brains. This can be self-reinforcing, driving high intelligence. Humans became so intelligent due in part to having to care for helpless babes, who were born with bigger heads.
Even then, for us to have smaller brains we would have to eat significantly less kcal. The evolution of our big brains is driven by kcal—mainly cooking meat which allowed us to extract more nutrients to feed our brain as Laden brings up.
A favorite of mine.
I have a different interpretation. The grandmother lives raise the children to ensure their genes pass to the next generation.
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“How does race have no predictive value? Self-reports predict genetic ancestry well enough, 99.86 percent rate, as a matter of fact.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_clustering#Similarity_of_group_members
” They found that though these individuals could be classified very accurately to continental clusters, there was a significant degree of genetic overlap on the individual level, to the extent that, using 377 loci, individual Europeans were about 38% of the time more genetically similar to East Asians than to other Europeans.”
Africans are 36% of the time more genetically similar to Europeans than to other Africans.
“It doesn’t matter that we ‘evolved locally and spread quickly’, there has been substantial human evolution in the past ten thousand years. ”
Yes, that’s just because our population has exploded. Since evolution happens in each new generation (even MZ twins, evolve different mutations). But more evolution doesn’t mean more natural selection contrary to what Wade seems to argue.
“This ‘social construct’ has an extremely high success rate and even then, the study of human diversity is crucial for knowing whether or not a drug will work in a certain individual, how would this occur if race weren’t “a biological construct for understanding human diversity”?”
First, it is true for some drugs, not all drugs. Moreover, many of these effects do not extend to whole races, genetic variance between ethinc groups of the same race is greater than variance between races. So a gene that makes a given drug more efficient in Yorubas is not supposed to be as efficient in Igbos, it can even be just as efficient in Italians while completely efficient in Hausas.
” We are born helpless due to our large brains.”
Human brain size has significantly shrunk in the last 20 millennia though. Is it related to our rapid evolution during that same period ?
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking
“I have a different interpretation.”
Good, and the reviewer has his own, plus a PhD in the field.
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“there has been substantial human evolution in the past ten thousand years. ”
In fact I think that you, Wade and many HBDers are falling victim to syllogistic fallacy reasoning this way:
1- There has been substantial human evolution in recent history
2- Natural selection is an aspect of evolution
3- More evolution means more natural selection
That’s fallacious.
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From the paper:
For example, an African will be more dissimilar to an Asian individual compared with another African individual ~65% of the time. c | Distribution of the mean number of pairwise differences of STRs per locus of individuals within (black line) and between (red line) populations summed across Africans, Asians, Europeans and Native Americans. There is substantial overlap between the distributions, but the mean number of repeats per locus between individuals from different populations is frequently greater than between individual from the same population.”
DECONSTRUCTING The RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GENETICS AND RACE
You’re right, I should have clarified.
Africans have higher rates of hypertension and heart disease. A lot of it is caused by diet but there is also a genetic component involved.
You’re right that natural selection begins anew every generation. How are you defining “evolution”? Evolution occurs through migration, mutation, genetic drift and natural selection. All four of these have occured recently in human populations.
Yes. Hawks says our brain has been shrinking for 28ky. I’ve shown that cite to PP when talks about “progressive” evolution when he talks about evolutionary “progress”. The rise of agriculture is a main cause of the explosion of obesity and other disease of civilization.
Are. Multiple interpretations not possible? Is what I said incorrect based on the data?
Think so?
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“Africans have higher rates of hypertension and heart disease.”
Once again, that’s not all Africans, not all cardio-vascular disease and not in the same magnitude among all African groups.
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/regionalepidemiologyofhypertensionfinal2-150211003507-conversion-gate02/95/regional-epidemiology-of-hypertension-in-the-gulf-36-638.jpg?cb=1423615223
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/regionalepidemiologyofhypertensionfinal2-150211003507-conversion-gate02/95/regional-epidemiology-of-hypertension-in-the-gulf-35-638.jpg?cb=1423615223
“For example, an African will be more dissimilar to an Asian individual compared with another African individual ~65% of the time.”
If races existed, that would be a perfect 100% of the time. Us humans are 100% of the time mor similar to each other than to chimps, hence we are different species, one term geneticists use, but race is not one of them.
“How are you defining “evolution”? ”
Envolution = genetic change in an individual or more frequently, a population.
Mutation is the leading force of evolution, each generation undergoes genetic change compared to their parents. Hence, a large population will evolve more than a small population, and a population that reproduces more frequently evolves more than a population that reproduces at a slower pace.
Since reproduction generally happens in local areas, the genome primarily diversifies within local areas due to mutation. Nigration leads to inter-mariage, and inter-mixing population evolve to be closer together and more distant to their source populations. They then create their own mutations that after generations will make them a separate cluster to their source populations. Inter-continental genetic distance is just a measure of how long and how much two populations have been separated, note that no separation has been perfect. We’ve been nomads for the most of our history and even settled populations have been in contact with nomads, great migrations and invasions occurred, armies raped. The global picture is that many many genetic markers only weakly correlate with race. Natural selection plays a minimal role in human genetic variation. If it was the primary force, genetic distance would correlate with similarity of the environment irrespective of geographic distance.
“The rise of agriculture is a main cause of the explosion of obesity and other disease of civilization.”
It appears that brain have shrunk just as much in hunter-gatherers
“Multiple interpretations not possible? Is what I said incorrect based on the data?”
It is, I just trust the specialist better, as I do whenever I need advice.
“Think so?”
Yes I do, just because natural selection occurred doesn’t mean it occurred as fast as evolution as awhole. It’s much slower than mutation, the part of individuals that don’t survive and don’t reproduce in any population is always much smaller than the rate to which new mutations appear or genetic drift occurres.
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Excuse me. I know Africa is a huge continent. I was mainly talking about American blacks, the West African-descended ones. Rates of hypertension and heart disease are pretty high. I’d assume that it affects black women the most due to their higher rates of diabesity.
In this instance, recognizing that certain ethnic groups can benefit from different medications is an extremely useful tool; we just have to accept the usefulness of race.
Race, cline, population, gobbledegook, that word choice doesn’t matter; genetic structure does. It’s obviously the amount of DNA that differs between us and chimps, as well as the ‘small’ 1.5 percent difference in our genomes, as well as the differences in gene expression.
No qualms with your definition of evolution. 100 percent on point.
Unknown.
First, you would need to identify, empirically, similarity of environment. Then you would need to use the same statistical method to infer genetic distance.,
Source?
We can discuss the paper as well.
Of course. But, evolution happens faster near the equator. Mutations do occur more frequently when natural selection is weak or absent. So even if natural selection played a minimal role in human evolution (which I doubt), changes would have occurred faster due to the low to non-existent force of natural selection.
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“I was mainly talking about American blacks, the West African-descended ones.”
So you should have written African-Americans.
“In this instance, recognizing that certain ethnic groups can benefit from different medications is an extremely useful tool; we just have to accept the usefulness of race.”
Say ancestry instead. Because French Canadians have high rates of Tay Sachs disease doesn’t mean all whites have to be screened for the disease. Because African Americans have more susceptibility for some drugs doesn’t mean Nigerians and Haitians will have too.
“Race, cline, population, gobbledegook, that word choice doesn’t matter; genetic structure does.”
No, let’s take the Jews as an example, I’m pretty sure their different communities that are spread worldwide cluster together more than with their neighboring populations.
But are Jews a East African race like the Ethiopians ? A Central European race like the Ashkenazim or a Mediterranean race like the Sephardim ? Clusters are just clusters, not races.
“Natural selection plays a minimal role in human genetic variation.
Unknown.”
Relative to mutation and genetic drift, that’s a well established fact.
“It appears that brain have shrunk just as much in hunter-gatherers
Source?”
Yes
“Quite simply, the first farmers were not very successful at eking out a living from the land, and their grain-heavy diet was deficient in protein and vitamins—critical for fueling growth of the body and brain. In response to chronic malnutrition, our body and brain might have shrunk. Many anthropologists are skeptical of that explanation, however. The reason: The agricultural revolution did not arrive in Australia or southern Africa until almost contemporary times, yet brain size has declined since the Stone Age in those places, too.”
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking
Moreover, the decline began before any form of agriculture emerged. My opinion is that a less energy-demanding brain, a lean brain provides some survival advantage.
It is, I just trust the specialist better, as I do whenever I need advice.
We can discuss the paper as well.”
Well, I guess that’s what we’re doing…
“But, evolution happens faster near the equator.”
Are you talking for humans or life in general ?
“Mutations do occur more frequently when natural selection is weak or absent. So even if natural selection played a minimal role in human evolution (which I doubt), changes would have occurred faster due to the low to non-existent force of natural selection.”
Can you rephrase that part ?
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I know that. Just like sickle cell anemia isn’t strictly a disease that Africans get. It’s based on geography and poverty, not race. And Tay Sachs is largely a Jewish disease. Certain ethnic groups are more prone to certain diseases than others, environment can explain some as well as genetics.
Jews as in Jews as a whole? Sephardic, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi? They’re similar because they come from the same core group. You’re treating Jews as a cultural group when the subgroups are genetically distinct groups.
When you say “Jews” you mean where do Jews (Sephardic, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi) cluster? I’ve no idea. I’d assume in the ME cluster, though pulling close towards southern Europe, mainly southern Italians. These clusters, though, denote what we call “race”.
True, but natural selection and what it did for Man are still unknown. Let’s say that natural selection was weak or nonexistent for most of human evolution. Mutations occur faster when natural selection is weak or nonexistent. Along with genetic drift and migration this is the cause for human differences. Natural selection doesn’t even need to be a factor in human differences (though it is, just not as much as the other three evolutionary processes).
Ugh I reread that article and forgot about that. Thanks. I’ve cited that article to PP when he talks about big brains being the tell that evolution is progressive. The changes occured in Australia as well, even when agriculture recently got to them.
Why do you think this is the case? Maybe there’s an upper limit that our brains have reached and they are slowly decreasing? Or, maybe, because we strive on group cohesion, we didn’t need our brains to be as big and powerful so they decreased in size because we have others to bounce ideas off of? This also lessens the metabolic demands of the brain, we’d be able to use kcal for other bodily processes.
If you think about the results, that grandmother’s survive past menopause to take care of their grandchildren, it jumps right out at you that this is evidence for genetic similarity theory. The grandmother survives past menopause to make sure her descendants have a better chance to also pass their genes on. The genes “want to make copies of themselves”, to use a metaphor, and that’s one way this occurs. Its a great hypothesis, extremely thought provoking.
Life in general.
Unlike PP, I don’t have an anthropcentric view of evolution.
Natural selection, as I’m sure you know, isn’t the only way for allele frequencies to change. Complexity arises when natural selection is weak or nonexistent. Keep in mind that after bottlenecks occur is when this would happen. Think of the bottleneck comics OoA and the Toba extinction event.
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“Tay Sachs is largely a Jewish disease.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay%E2%80%93Sachs_disease#Epidemiology
“Mutations occur faster when natural selection is weak or nonexistent.”
I’m not sure, what I know is that mutation happens every time a new individual is born. If a variant is under natural selection, it will prevail over alleles that do not provide advantage, but it won’t change the mutation rate at other unrelated loci.
“Why do you think this is the case? Maybe there’s an upper limit that our brains have reached and they are slowly decreasing?”
In my opinion, if a brain is too demanding in terms of energy, it will be disadvantageous in terms of food scarcity. So brains that consume less energy all while being similarly efficient will be selected for.
“If you think about the results, that grandmother’s survive past menopause to take care of their grandchildren, it jumps right out at you that this is evidence for genetic similarity theory. The grandmother survives past menopause to make sure her descendants have a better chance to also pass their genes on. The genes “want to make copies of themselves”, to use a metaphor, and that’s one way this occurs. Its a great hypothesis, extremely thought provoking.”
Honestly, I don’t know, I wasn’t even aware of this theory before our conversation, so maybe I’ll share my thoughts when I get more insight about it.
“Unlike PP, I don’t have an anthropcentric view of evolution.”
Oh ok, nothing to object.
“Complexity arises when natural selection is weak or nonexistent.”
Sure, natural selection pushes toward local uniformity and trans-regional differentiation.
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When you say “Jews” you mean where do Jews (Sephardic, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi) cluster? I’ve no idea. I’d assume in the ME cluster, though “pulling close towards southern Europe, mainly southern Italians. These clusters, though, denote what we call “race”.”
What if the Ethiopian Jews, Yemeni Jews, Indian Jews cluster with European Jews ?
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I did say that it’s largely a Jewish disease. A lot of Jewish diseases are due to inbreeding. I know that French, Cajun and Irish people get it too, but it’s more prevalent in Ashkenazi populations, 1 out of 27 Ashkenazi children will be diagnosed with it.
Here’s quote from the article.
Suppose an animal has a gene that carries out two different functions. If mutation results in some offspring getting two copies of this gene, these offspring won’t be any fitter as a result. In fact, they might be slightly less fit due to a double dose of the gene. In a large population where the selective pressure is strong, such mutations are likely to be eliminated. In smaller populations, where selective pressure is much weaker, these mutations could spread as a result of random genetic drift (see Natural selection is the only means of evolution) despite being slightly disadvantageous.
You’re right. The brain is the most metabolically demanding organ we have. It says 25 percent of our daily kcal consumption. 500 to 600 kcal per day is used to power the brain. If energy isn’t plentiful in an area then bigger bodied organisms will be selected against. The smaller bodied organisms will live on.
Have you ever heard of island gigantism and dwarfism? Pretty interesting. If you look at H. floresiensis, he evolved either from erectus or habilis. What’s interesting here is that floresiensis’s body and brain both shrunk from their ancestor. Reason being, there was less energy on the island. This is one thing that directly refutes PP’s idiotic and unscientific more branches, more evolved, more progress, etc. Floresiensis proves that there is no upward trend in brain size; brain size is directly related to how much kcal are in the area you’re at.
Exactly this. Natural selection is an elimination process that’s repeated anew every generation. That’s not ‘progress’ or ‘goal directed’, it just happens. But I guess intuitions are better ways to analyze phylogeny than expert testimony.
Do they? I’ve not seen PCA graph on that. If they did, it’d be due to the ME similarity.
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“Have you ever heard of island gigantism and dwarfism? Pretty interesting.”
Yes I’ve heard of it. Speaking of brains , I think they began to shrink after the ice age because increased temperatures led to demographic growth, demographic growth in turn caused resource competition, including food scarcity, even at the hunter-gatherer stage. Agriculture didn’t improve the situation because humans always live up to the Malthusian limit. Agriculture possibly has worsened the situation because of the nutritional imbalances it brought.
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In smaller populations, where selective pressure is much weaker, these mutations could spread as a “result of random genetic drift (see Natural selection is the only means of evolution) despite being slightly disadvantageous.”
Yes, I’ve been aware of it for a while. PP is blocked in a radical Darwinian view of evolution, but reality is more nuanced. Natural selection doesn’t only depend on on the beneficial effect of an allele but on some other enabling factors too.
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Agreed on all points. I just read a book about human evolution and nutrition. Talked about evolutionary mismatches. We aren’t evolved to eat the processed garbage we eat today. That’s why obesity has risen. Our bodies need to use fat for energy, not carbs as when carbs are there for energy, the body prefers glucose instead of fat. Agriculture most definitely caused a shrinkage in brain size.
Brain size is predicated on the amount of availabile energy in that location. If energy is low, body and brain size will be small.
He read it in Race, Evolution, and Behavior and Lynn said East Asians are “the most evolved race”. My brain hurts reading his interpretation on phylogeny.
Reality shows that evolution isn’t progress. If it were, there’d be a consciousness guiding it, or something like that. There isn’t. Evolution meaning progress is retarded, no basis in evolutionary biology. The terms need to be discontinued.
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“If it were, there’d be a consciousness guiding it, or something like that. There isn’t. Evolution meaning progress is retarded, no basis in evolutionary biology. The terms need to be discontinued.”
You know, PP’s approach to HBD topics is more religious than rational. You can discuss with him a little bit but there is always sometimes when his arguments become dogmatic.
“I’m right because Rushton says the same thing”
“HBD would argue that…”
“This = that, period”
That’s tiring.
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However, PP is globally right thinking that for the most of hominid evolution, increasing brain size has been the only way to increase intelligence. What he won’t understand is that the brain is very demanding metabolically speaking. So of course, if something happened that could make our brains less energy demanding without impairing intellectual performance, it had to be selected for.
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oops I need to do a correction. Acctually, the ice age most likely triggered the decrease of brain size which started 28ky ago, while ” ice sheets reached their maximum positions in about 24,500 BCE.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum
So the ice age created food scarcity through cold temperatures in temperate regions and drought in tropical regions. Neanderthals might not have had the genetic material for decreased brain size or were simply unable to compete against homo sapiens’ already smaller brain.
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Most atheists put their faith in evolution. We all have faith and we all need to believe in something.
That’s being too set in your ideas. That’s appealling to authority anyway.
My favorite example is an asteroid hits the earth and dirt particles block out the Sun. What would happen? Who would be more likely to survive and what kind of traits will the survivers gain and lose due to this event after tens of thousands of years? That means decreased food production and consumption which also means decreased nutrient consumption. Nutrients and hormones drive brain growth so if there are less of both, brain size will decrease over time. Meaning, it’s dependent on an environment with a diverse amount of food and nutrients to ensure brain growth as well as sufficient calories during childhood to drive the growth hormones for a bigger brain. Brain size is just as much about environment as it is genetics. If sufficient kcal or nutrients aren’t ingested, you won’t be able to reach full potential and over time it gets selected for in that environment.
So if there is less energy around for an organism with a large brain, smaller organisms in that species will survive and over time will replace the bigger population, probably speciating as well. The best example of this is the peppered moths in the UK.
Another good hypothesis for the decrease in global brain size is how since the earth has warmed since the end of the LGM, we need to evolve smaller brains. I wonder if brain size and temperature track on that long of a scale.
I think it’s the second option. Defintely that H. Sapiens could survive with less kcal. I think brain size will continue to decrease around the world. If there are two organisms in one niche and one needs less kcal to survive, it’d be more likely that the one that can survive with less kcal would win, which is what happened with H. Sapiens and Neanderthals.
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“Another good hypothesis for the decrease in global brain size is how since the earth has warmed since the end of the LGM, we need to evolve smaller brains. I wonder if brain size and temperature track on that long of a scale.”
Brains started to shrink before the peak of the ice age. Warmer temperatures afterwards likely reinforced this trend. Another factor to consider is that bigger brained babies are at higher risk of dying at birth.
So there are multiple forces that might have selected against too large brains.
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And human babies being helpless longer than other animals is another reason why our brains got bigger. Large brains lead to premature newborns, parents need to be more intelligent which requires a larger brain. It’s a self-reenforcing cycle.
Of course there are numerous factors involved in brain shrinkage. Energy being a crucial part, which amount of caloric energy available will predict brain size and is predicated on the climate of the area.
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Yes, that sounds correct.
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Ouch. Just….: Ouch. Over 130 geneticists have signed a letter to the New York Times saying that Nicholas Wade’s book A Troublesome Inheritance is inaccurate and misrepresents their work. This includes the authors of articles that are central to Wade’s argument. When the very scientists your book relies on announce that that book is wrong? Ouch. Read below the fold for the gory details.
“http://savageminds.org/2014/08/11/geneticists-think-nicholas-wades-a-troublesome-inheritance-is-wrong/”
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That’s nice. You should buy a copy, read it, and we can discuss it. Or we can discuss some things from his book. What would you like to discuss? I have a copy for quotes.
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I won’t discuss a book that I won’t read. I have other interests in life than debating HBD, trust me. Right now I’m sick to the point that I can’t even sleep so I’m killing time on the internet, but that won’t last.
And believe me, I’m feeling perfectly OK with the letter of 130+ geneticists and the many reviews I’ve read. This book is absolutely not a must read. What surprises me however is that you don’t seem to be aware that the book caused such a backlash from the part of the specialist community.
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Just got some questions though.
In his book, Wade speculates on why the West became so dominant in the last 6 centuries.
In your opinion, what part did the invention and spread of printing machines take in the west’s technological and intellectual explosion ? Does Wade even make mention of it ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#The_Printing_Revolution
And instead of studying human capital in qualitative terms, does Wade even mention the quantitative availability of human capital across different regions ? Does it means something to Wade that Africa was (and is still) severely underpopulated compared to Europe, India, the Far East, the Middle East or Mesoamerica ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates#By_world_region
in 1500, Africa (including Arab North Africa) had only 47 million inhabitants for a 30 million sq km area (1,6/km²). Meanwhile, Europe had 78 million on just 10 million km² (7,8/km²) France alone had 16 million, 1/3 of Africa’s total. Does it mean something to anyone in HBD ?
We could actually have a long conversation…
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Yes, he mentions it:
“Islamic rulers long kept challenges away by forbidding the printing press and squelching troublesome lines of inquiry. In Europe, interest in new knowledge was not confined to an elite but pervaded societies in which literacy was becoming more widespread. By 1500 there were 1,700 printing presses distributed in 300 European cities in every country except Russia. (16) (Pg. 61) In the Ottoman Empire, a decree of Sultan Selim I specified the death penalty for anyone who even used a printing press. Istanbul did not acquire a printing press until 1726 and the owners were allowed to publish only a few titles before closing down.” (pg. 228)
“China, unlike the Islamic world, did not ban printing presses, but the books they produced were only for the elite. (pg. 230)
“China too would have seemed fertile for science. The three inventions cited by Thomas Bacon in 1620 as the greatest known to man—the compass, gun powder, and the printing press—were all Chinese in origin.” (pg. 227)
I think it was imperative for our understanding and knowledge of the world as a whole. To be able to share knowledge more readily. The ability to spread new ideas faster also helped as well. Few societies develop independently, and scientific knowledge is based on building off of the work of others. One thing I don’t understand is people who say that Arabs have on scientific achievements, or that it’s a myth. Social institutions do impede knowledge attainment sometimes, as is evidenced by China and Islamic countries.
Wade does argue something you may agree with in regards to your last paragraph as well:
In Africa, population numbers were higher than in Australia, agriculture was quickly adopted and settled societies developed. From these gradually emerged more complex societies, including primitive states. But because of low population density, these political states did not enter the phase of political rivalry and sustained warfare from which empires emerged in Mesopotamia, the Yellow River Valley, and, much later, in the Andean highlands. The population of Africa in 1500 was only 46 million. The soil being mostly poor, there were few agricultural surpluses and so no incentive to develop property rights. For lack of the wheel and navigable rivers, transport within Africa was difficult and trade was small scale. For lack of demographic pressure, African societies had little incentive to the skills that trade stimulates, to accumulate capital, to develop occupational specialties or develop modern societies. The phase of state and empire building had only just begun when it was cut short by European colonization. (pg. 225)
Of course it means something.
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OK, so Wade acknowledges some very basic demographic, technological and historical facts that make the differences in civilizational development self-evident to specialists. So his speculations about genetics are nothing but than ideology, they bring nothing more to our understanding of the world.
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Wade clarified that the 2nd part of the book was speculation. Look at Gary Taubes. He’s a science journalist. He has an insulin theory of obesity. What does he know? He’s just a science journalist right? However, Dr. Jason Fung is right there with him in the hormonal theory of obesity. Does that make Taubes wrong with his theory because he’s a journalist? Or does debating the data mattwd
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“Does that make Taubes wrong with his theory because he’s a journalist? Or does debating the data mattwd”
I agree with you, but is there widespread agreement with Wade’s thesis in the specialist community ?
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Not that I recall, I’d have to see. If I recall correctly, a few specialists wrote positive reviews.
But a theory’s worth should be predicated on debate. The data and conclusions that have been come to should be debated. A theory should never be discarded before it had been debated.
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But it has been debated. And if Wade were a serious guy, he could have asked for peer review before publishing. But he wanted to make money and spread his ideology.
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The genetics part of his book is outstanding, I’ve checked references and he’s on point. The second part is what is extremely contested. There’s nothing wrong with theorizing, if you’re wrong, oh well. BUT if you’re RIGHT, especially on something of this magnitude, you’ve just made a Darwin-like discovery.
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“BUT if you’re RIGHT, especially on something of this magnitude, you’ve just made a Darwin-like discovery.”
Most specialists don’t think so contrary to Darwin’s theory (refined in the light of modern findings) is pretty much agreed upon.
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Darwin better be agreed upon. It’s idiotic to not agree.
I reread his speculation on human society again last night. I think it is great speculation. Could he be wrong? Yes. Could he be right? Yes. Once we understand the utility of genes and allele frequencies and how and why they differ within and between populations then we can start to test this hypothesis.
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“Darwin better be agreed upon. It’s idiotic to not agree.”
I hope I didn’t make you think I claimed there was still debate over Darwin’s general theory. Lol.
“Could he be wrong? Yes.”
When he said “primitive races” would be exterminated by “advanced races” he was certainly wrong. The Africans, Native Americans, Pacific Icelanders and even the Eskimos are increasing their numbers whereas Whites and Asians are on the verge of extinction. Anyways, what rules the world is money.
Is there more money to make by exterminating the masses of Africa and India or by converting them to mass consumerism ?
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Haha not at all. Creationists love quote mining people, Darwin and Gould specifically. They’re idiots. They don’t believe evolution because of their faith. And any kind of reason, like irreducible complexity, to believe there is a creator is based on a non-understanding of certain processes. Hilariously enough, the originator of this idea is a biochemist. Ugh.
I agree.
I believe it’s evolution in action. Whites and Asians have less children while peoples from equatorial climes have more children. From an evolutionary perspective, the point is reproduction, not production. Knowing this, if one organism dies out while the other lives and continues breeding, what’s that mean? Who’s ‘superior’ in this one specific context using this one specific variable? The organism that passes on more of its genes.
Of course by converting them to conservatism.
Question for you. What, if anything, do you think could ameliorate Africa’s problems and put the continent on track to have fewer children and be able to do their own infrastructure? Clearly, getting rid of disease, parasites and optimal nutrition are key, and when those are amleiroated then their IQ will rise. Lynn says 67 to 70. Wicherts et al say 80. So by getting rid of those aforementioned negatives, we can expect them to have an IQ between 85 to 90. More then enough to take care of themselves.
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“What, if anything, do you think could ameliorate Africa’s problems and put the continent on track to have fewer children and be able to do their own infrastructure?”
Many things, I’ve been to some conferences on that matter.
First, one thing that is essential is to redistribute incomes more fairly. Developing countries are stuck in Victorian era savage capitalism.
Social security and decent wages can lead to increased tax revenues from sales tax/VAT which in turn can be invested in education, training, healthcare and infrastructure.
Along with increments in tax revenue, redistribution mechanisms expand consumer markets, which attracts investment that creates even more income and tax revenue.
Now why aren’t governments trying to do that ? Most third world countries are kleptocraties, foreign interests and local robber barons take much advantage from the situation and the masses are too uneducated to make enlightened political choices if allowed to vote in transparent elections.
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“What, if anything, do you think could ameliorate Africa’s problems and put the continent on track to have fewer children and be able to do their own infrastructure?”
African fertility is not the main problem, the reason why Africa’s population is exploding is because mortality is shrinking. Africans can’t have less children, it is their only social security, children help in the fields, in small informal businesses, they do house chores. Since most Africans can’t bu machines or hire employees, they need children, and they need them for their old days too.
Declines in fertility will have positive effects on educational efficiency, child and maternal health, and overall human capital development. But without state-organized social security and higher incomes, Africans can’t afford to have fewer children.
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This article was in Science magazine today. Some quotes because it won’t be available soon:
The long-run poverty and gender impacts of mobile money
Abstract: Mobile money, a service that allows monetary value to be stored on a mobile phone and sent to other users via text messages, has been adopted by the vast majority of Kenyan households. We estimate that access to the Kenyan mobile money system M-PESA increased per capita consumption levels and lifted 194,000 households, or 2% of Kenyan households, out of poverty. The impacts, which are more pronounced for female-headed households, appear to be driven by changes in financial behavior—in particular, increased financial resilience and saving—and labor market outcomes, such as occupational choice, especially for women, who moved out of agriculture and into business. Mobile money has therefore increased the efficiency of the allocation of consumption over time while allowing a more efficient allocation of labor, resulting in a meaningful reduction of poverty in Kenya.
Nearly 10 years after its launch, mobile money is ubiquitous in Kenya. It is used by at least one individual in 96% of Kenyan households (with a total of 5 million households in the country, 96% of which have a mobile phone). These individuals have access to 110,000 agents (3) who provide deposit and withdrawal services. In a country with only 2700 automatic teller machines (ATMs) (4), the agent network has been an essential factor in the success of M-PESA (5). Recently, additional financial services have been deployed over the M-PESA network, including M-Shwari (in collaboration with the Commercial Bank of Africa), a bank account offering savings and credit services accessed entirely through the M-PESA platform, and Lipa na M-PESA, a retail payment facility (see supplementary text).
In contrast, more basic financial services such as the ability to safely store, send, and transact money—taken for granted in most advanced economies, and which in the form of mobile money have reached millions of Kenyans at unprecedented speed over the past decade—appear to have the potential to directly boost economic well-being. We have shown that access to mobile money has lifted as many as 194,000 households out of poverty, and has been effective in improving the economic lives of poor women and of members of female-headed households. Our evidence, and earlier work, suggests that these impacts derive from a more efficient allocation of labor, savings, and risk. On the other hand, we do not find any evidence that mobile money increased the overall safety and convenience of households’ store of value. Although providing external sources of capital to such populations could, of course, have even larger impacts, our results suggest that having a private, low-cost means of managing financial resources is also necessary and can itself meaningfully reduce poverty rates among vulnerable groups. For women, the route out of poverty might not be more capital, but rather financial inclusion at a more basic level, which enhances their ability to manage those financial resources that are already accessible. Thus, although mobile phone use correlates well with economic development (28–31), mobile money causes it.
I agree. What do you think about China’s large presence in Africa?
What about having too many children while not being able to care for them combined with the lack of good nutrition, disease and parasite load? Do you not agree that those three variables have to be addressed first?
If the women become better educated, fertility will decrease. This is happening in the Middle East. Women who go to school longer obviously don’t have time to have children since they’re at school/work/etc. So as women become more educated the birth rate will decrease as an effect of better education.
Social security and programs like that have to be instituted first though. Mobile money looks to be good for Kenya.
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Interesting link about Kenya, initiatives of this kind may help a little, but the structural changes that are needed are more profound.
“What do you think about China’s large presence in Africa?”
It’s overrated. China is far from being colonizing Africa, it has even somewhat retreated these last years.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/chinas-investments-in-africa-whats-the-real-story/
In my opinion, it is good that African countries have alternatives to trade with the west. See Zimbabwe, they were collapsing in the early 2000s, they were strangled by international sanctions, so they traded with China and recovered to their pre-crisis levels soon afterwards.
The only bad thing I have to say about China is that they make deals with the worst dictators, but the West has not been better. To me the China colonizing Africa narrative is pure anti-Chinese propaganda.
“What about having too many children while not being able to care for them combined with the lack of good nutrition, disease and parasite load?”
They are able to care for their children by their own standards. African kids don’t ask for smartphones, laptops and designer’s clothes. Like the West’s Obese people, Africans are not aware of their malnutrition, they eat the same staple foods and the cost of feeding a child is much lower than the income you get from his work.
If African countries adopted a Chinese-like one child policy, they would need to immediately give the necessary farm implements (or monetary equivalents) to compensate for the loss of workforce due to the forced fertility drop.
“If the women become better educated, fertility will decrease”
Only if better education has sufficient economic returns, otherwise they’ll have to work the fields and procreate for more farmhands.
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If you are discussing peoples, rather than geography, you shouldn’t include North Africa. North Africa was part of the Roman Empire, part of the Mediterranean world. There is very little connection between North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa other than they are on the same landmass.
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Sure iffen, but there are no estimates of Sub-Saharan Africa proper.
Currently, Africa, south of the Sahara accounts for 4/5 of Africa’s population, but that’s due to recent rapid growth. In the past it probably has hosted just half of Africans or 23,5 million inhabitants.
The Sub-Saharan area occupies approximately 2/3 of the total, that’s 20,000,000 km².
Density: 1,15 inhabitant/km².
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Afrosapiens, here. Nicholas Wade was on Stefan Molyneux’s show the other day.
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I’ll watch it later on, I already hove some videos in my daily schedule.
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I think I’m not far from recovering from my strep throat, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep our conversations going on when I’m back to my usual activities. That’s ironically unfortunate because I’m reading a lot about stereotype threat and other things that I would have liked to discuss with some not too stubborn HBDer if you know what I mean. I might be miserable until tomorrow so maybe I’ll give feedback on the video and share stuff too.
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Interesting read. However, can you tell me who exactly can be accepted into the group called the “White” race? Are things like Caucasoid/White/European interchangeable terms refer to the same race?
Arabs ,Middle-Easterners and Indians are classified as Caucasoid by most Eurocentric anthropologists but they are not considered White due to darker skin tone, Islam and terrorism?
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The ‘white race’ clusters together:
Here’s a good example.
Genes mirror geography within Europe
‘White’ is used for specifically Europeans. MENA peoples share deep ancient ancestry with Europeans, however. Which is why the ‘Caucasoid’ term gets used. Though that’s not really a good term either.
If you’d like to know more about terrorism and suicide bombing read Evolutionary Reasons for Suicide Bombings and Islam, Suicide Bombings, IQ and Consanguinity.
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[…] this statement here was the beginning of the end of his shitty argument on Entine’s book. Race is a social construct of a biological reality, and there are genetic differences between races—however small (Risch et al, 2002; Tang et […]
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