Home » Ethnic Genetic Interests
Category Archives: Ethnic Genetic Interests
Does Exogenous Oxytocin Make Xenophobic People Non-Xenophobic?
2050 words
Oxytocin (OXT) is known as ‘the love hormone’, since it facilitates bonding from mother to child (Galbally et al, 2011; Feldman and Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2017), facilitates childbirth and breastfeeding (since OXT is released in large amounts after nipple stimulation) (Magon and Kalra, 2011), and increases trust in humans (Kosfeld et al, 2005). It is also implicated in some psychiatric disorders (Marrazziti and Del’Osso, 2008; Cochran et al, 2013). OXT, furthermore, also has endocrine and paracrine roles in male reproduction (Nicholson, 1996; Thackare, Nicholson, and Whittleson, 2006), so it is not strictly ‘a female hormone’ (Saladin, 2010). The hormone induces numerous important behaviors that attach the mother—emotionally speaking—to her new child.
A recent study published back in July titled “Oxytocin-enforced norm compliance reduces xenophobic outgroup rejection” (Marsh et al, 2017), purports to observe that, xenophobic individuals administered a nasal spray with OXT and then shown pro-social behaviors to other ethnies (refugees) show a reduction in xenophobic attitudes. First, I will cover the science aspect of it, then, I will cover the ideological aspect of the paper, and finally will address the societal implications this paper may have in the future. I will conclude with my thoughts on both the science and ideology behind the paper (because, in my opinion, there was a clear ideological drive behind the paper, though, the same holds for most other fields).
The Science
In the first experiment, 53 males and 23 females (n=76) were given either the spray with the OXT or a placebo. They were then administered a test that tested how high they scored on a ‘Xenophobia index’. Marsh et al (2017: 9,318) write:
In a separate screening session, we evaluated xenophobia by measuring the attitudes toward refugees based on an adapted assessment instrument developed by Schweitzer and colleagues (33). Adaptions encompassed the wording; for example, “Australian refugee” was replaced by “German refugee.” The assessment instrument contained two inventories, in which participants indicated how strongly they associate refugees with realistic and symbolic threats.
…
The realistic threat scale items encompass different threat perceptions; for example: “Refugees are not displacing German workers from their jobs” or “Refugees have increased the tax burden on Germans.” Responses were coded on a 10-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (“I strongly disagree”) to 10 (“I strongly agree”). All items were recoded such that higher values reflected greater feelings of perceived realistic threats. The term Xi index, which we used for subsequent analyses, refers to a subject’s mean score achieved on the realistic threat inventory.
Higher Xi scores imply that an individual is more xenophobic. For experiment 1, they put the subjects into a lecture hall to establish altruistic norms, which enabled reputation pressures if one was seen to not be generous when giving. Marsh et al (2017) discovered that those who donated to refugees donated 19 percent more money. Further, donations to natives or refugees—including outgroup bias—was not dependant on gender. The bias (19 percent more donation) indicated altruistic actions and was lowest in those with high Xi scores.
Experiments 2 and 3 were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of a random sample of 107 males (mean age of 24). They were administered either the OXT nasal spray or a placebo by a blind researcher. They separated them into high Xi scorers or low Xi scorers (n=53 and n=54 respectively). The OXT administered to low Xi scorers specifically increased altruistic behavior towards the ingroup and outgroup “evident in a 68% (outgroup) and an 81% (ingroup) increase in the donated sums” (Marsh et al, 2017: 9315). However, this effect was not noticed in high Xi scorers, so the researchers wondered if showing pro-social behaviors after being administered OXT would show a change in xenophobic behavior.
So people who scored high on the Xi index and were administered OXT showed no change in altruistic behavior. However, when those who scored high on the XI index were administered OXT and prosocial behavior to the outgroup was seen by those with higher Xi scores, they increased their donations to the outgroup by 74 percent.
Figure 1 shows, clearly, that those who were administered OXT and were exposed to altruistic norms from co-ethnics to the outgroup showed more generosity towards the outgroup than those administered the placebo. It’s also worth noting that these findings (of course) are not generalizable to women.
How does ideology affect this? Of course, both the Right and Left can use this study for their own agendas, but, of course, the Marsh et al (2017) may have biases themselves (everyone has biases, even the most well-known, most respected scientists), so now I will look at the ideology behind this paper through both a Right and Left lens, since political bias permeates our every day lives, and due to this, people won’t be able to think rationally about things, ironically, using their emotions to guide their thought processes/conclusions.
The Ideology
Marsh et al (2017: 9317) write:
The effect of solutions combining selective enhancement of OXT signaling and peer influence would be expected to diminish selfish motives, and thereby increase the ease by which people adapt to rapidly changing social ecosystems. More generally, our results imply that an OXT-enforced social norm adherence could be instrumental in motivating a more generalized acceptance toward ethnic diversity, religious plurality, and cultural differentiation resulting from migration by proposing that interventions to increase altruism are most effective when charitable social cues instill the notion that one’s ingroup shows strong affection for an outgroup. Furthermore, UNESCO has emphasized the importance of developing neurobiologically informed strategies for reducing xenophobic, hostile, and discriminatory attitudes (47). Thus, considering OXT-enforced normative incentives in developing future interventions and policy programs intended to reduce outgroup rejection may be an important step toward making the principle of social inclusion a daily reality in our societies.
This seems pretty bad to me. “If you won’t accept people in your countries, you must take this exogenous OXT while watching your ethnic group show altruistic behavior towards the outgroup so then you too will no longer be a ‘racist’.”
In regard to ref 47, it is a 2001 UNESCO address on ‘racism’. Of course, it begins by stating that “Science – modern genetics in particular – has constantly affirmed the unity of the human species, and denied that the notion of `race’ has any foundation.” This, as regular readers know, is false. Race is a social construct of a biological reality. Self-reported race is a great metric to gauge geographic ancestry (Risch et al, 2002), while Tang et al (2005) showed that self-reported race correlated almost perfectly with geographic ancestry. Though I can forgive this since it is a 2001 address.
Here is the money quote (emphasis mine):
Similarly, respect for others and acceptance of the right to be different should be built in the minds of human beings to replace hostile, discriminatory and xenophobic attitudes.
So it seems that Marsh et al (2017) is the first step in UNESCO’s quest for “[building] the minds of human beings to replace hostile, discriminatory and xenophobic attitudes … I can assure you that UNESCO will work actively to achieve this goal in close cooperation with other UN bodies and specialised agencies, other intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations and with all interested partners.“. This screams social engineering to me, and it seems that the authors would approve of this, especially if you read the Discussion of the paper. This seems to be whatever the Left thinks would make for a better society, they’ll attempt to enact it. People believe they’re the opposite sex? Give them ‘gender-affirming surgery’ (whatever that means). People are ‘racist’? Better strap them down into a chair and shoot exogenous OXT up their nose while their eyes are forced open while watching videos of prosocial behaviors to the outgroup! The numerous possible scenarios that can be thought up due to this paper are mind boggling. For instance, maybe they can use our Internet history and see who the ‘wrongthinkers’ are to forcibly administer OXT to the ‘racists’. But I thought people should be who they are….?
I’d like to know what the baseline levels of OXT in the subjects were. For instance, did the people who had a high Xi score have higher levels of endogenous OXT? Furthermore, were they around people who did not show altruistic behavior towards ‘refugees’? That, then, would show that higher levels of endogenous OXT combined with non-altruistic behavior would increase ethnocentrism (Dreu et al, 2010). OXT has also been called by journalists ‘the love and trust hormone‘ and ‘the cuddle hormone‘, however, the results of Dreu et al (2010) call this into question showing that the hormone may be a cause of inter-group violence along with outgroup derogation. Dreu et al (2010) also conclude that OXT contributes to prosocial behaviors for the ingroup and facilitates outgroup derogation.
So OXT doesn’t make us prosocial on its own; OXT functions as a way to differentiate the ingroup vs. the outgroup, along with giving the in-group more preferential treatment (though other analyses fail to find that outgroup trust decreases; IJzendoorn and Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2011). Dreu et al (2010) also states that ethnocentrism that’s driven by high levels of endogenous OXT “paves the way for intergroup bias, conflict, and violence.” However, the results of Marsh et al (2017) show that OXT may facilitate prosocial behavior.
Conclusion
This study—especially with the discussion and the authors’ citation of the 2001 UNESCO address about “[building] the minds of human beings” is pretty scary. If you don’t go by what society says is ‘good’ and ‘right’ (whatever that means), you’re a heretic and you must be shown the way—forced OXT and watch the altruistic behavior, you don’t want to be ‘racist’ now, do you? We know that those that run our Western countries would like to make us how they think we should be—non-‘xenophobic’, accepting of migration, and they don’t want use to complain about it. So why not attempt to social engineer the populace into conforming to what the government wants?
Of course, over the past decade or so, mass immigration from outside the West has increased. I won’t go into the causes for that since I don’t discuss politics, however, unchecked immigration—no matter what the ultimate cause is—will change the host society. Go somewhere for X amount of benefits? If enough migration occurs to that nation and the native population is displaced enough, how would those benefits continue if those that migrated still exhibit the same behavior they did in their native countries?
This seems to be the start of “If we don’t like what you think or your beliefs, we will attempt to administer hormones to you and force you to watch this in order to cure you of your unnatural (in our egalitarian society) ‘racism’.” Measures such as this have, as far as I know, been spoken about since the turn of the last millennium and the completion of the Human Genome Project. It seems that as more and more migration occurs to the West, more and more anti-migrant attitudes will be had. The plan here seems to be to socially engineer people to be accepting of their replacement. Why? I thought that people should ‘be themselves’, that’s what they tell transgenders, anyway. Why would ‘racists’ be any different? Oh, because it’s not acceptable in today’s increasingly multi-ethnic society.
I won’t go down the path of the naturalistic fallacy (re: ethnocentrism is good and natural because we evolved that way), however, there is, of course, great adaptive significance to such behavior. If you show more altruistic behavior towards the in-group, you’re more likely to show more altruistic behavior to your family members and thusly have a better chance of protecting co-ethnics.
This is a great example of people attempting to enact policies to socially engineer people, a la Brave New World or 1984. Hormones influence behaviors, yes. Further, watching similar others engage in an action facilitates the possibility that they would also take t at same action. Administering exogenous OXT while seeing that would, according to Marsh et al (2017), cure ‘racism’ and make people happy about being displaced in their own countries. Non-Western people are abnormal to our societies, and when migration occurs to the West, this leads to a decrease in social trust in the native population (Putnam, 2007).
The paper (and its results) seem heavily driven by political bias. Will these political biases doom us to further social engineering through administering the populace with whatever hormones are discovered to do what ‘they‘ (the government) want us to do and how ‘they‘ want us to act? All I know is that it’s pretty scary to hear that this is even being talked about. I hope this never comes to fruition.
Chaos and Nationhood with Blacks
1900 words
By: Phil
When critics of the mainstream approach towards modern African-American grievance questions the agency of the population to improve their standards of living, they often cite either how minorities such as poor European immigrants of the Early 20th century assimilated better despite discrimination, or how Black immigrants from Africa occupy a higher mode of living.
While multiple factors contribute to the discrepancy, one caught my attention which struck me a paradoxical but soon started to make sense as I dug deeper. That trait being the lack of effective widespread “unity” among not just Black Americans but many other populations, especially those in Africa.
– The Situation
As for my titular use of “chaos” to describe it, I owe it to an Unz commenter who contrasted it from individualism or collectivism. For an intra-regional example, you have riots or protests regarding threats seen as pertaining to the racial mass, yet you have commonly cited the lack of the same regard for those killed by perpetrators of the same race.
From an inter-regional example I refer to the words of my father that, despite the beliefs of some, there is no “Black America” in which the interests or beliefs of blacks due to having comparatively looser connections than others based on a national level. This is noted by regional variance in ideology between blacks during the Progressive Era or better yet modern African conflicts, many of which can be classified as Christians versus Muslims on the larger scale yet can even be observed on a finer, pre-colonial level of identities (Osaghae and Suberu 2005).
“There are numerous examples of pre-colonial migration, usually stimulated by wars or natural disasters, which have continued to generate bitter conflicts today owing to continuing discrimination against the immigrants by the original settlers. These include the eighteenth century mass migration of Oyo Modakeke into Ife in search of a safe haven from the internecine wars of the Oyo empire; the movement of Urhobo and Ijaw into Warri, where the Itsekiri claim to have been the original settlers; the migration of the Jukun-Chamba from Cameroon to parts of the present Taraba state, originally settled by the Kuteb; and the sixteenth century settlement of Hausa merchants in Zangon Kataf within a territory occupied by the Kataf (Isumonah 2003; Mustapha 2000). “
I attribute three reasons why this would be.
One being geography, as these behaviors are most notable with African nations that often overlap in cultural spheres despite living on a huge continent, and also how Black Americans probably covering the largest area relative to other New World African descent populations thus making diversification more enabled.
The second being the process of slavery in New World populations giving various forms of cultural transmission amongst black slaves by region who as well came through different tribes, either producing the typical “Scot-Irish” Black culture or a “Creole” culture, like the Gullah people of the South East. The Third, the Basal reason, being the effects of Genetic interests at hand as put by RR and how African Diversity works.
-Genetics
Here Razib Khan explains that when Foreign Admixture is removed, African diversity is higher among individuals than for major geographical groups.In other words, while geographically diverse, the actual organization of the diversity in the context of cultural boundaries is more stratified due to the lack of breeding, be it outbreeding or replacement involved in nations.
This suggestion is strengthened by famous blogger Jayman attributing this to the lack of large states in Africa to the lack of especially large states in Africa. Granted, you did have relatively large ones in the Sahel but the didn’t last as long as those in Eurasia, falling mainly due to internal struggles.
In the presence of cultural homogeneity, reflecting of a shared lineage, you see improvements in places such as Botswana (Tswana-Sotho) or Ghana (Akan people) partially due to better cultural, and thus likely genetic, unity due to past nationhoods. Apparently, though for short duration, the Tswana formed a political body as large as France,
This is also consistent with the observations made by Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston, a famous colonialist researcher on African and US blacks, on African born blacks on the sea Islands of the South East, which he describes as of “Yoruba Stock” in semblance.
“Also they are when away from white influence inclined to sparsity of clothing-not nowadays a common trait in the United States negro. They are also pure negroes entirely without any infusion of white blood. Crime is very rare among them.” The Negro in the New World by Harry Hamilton Johnston p. 470
A good modern example would be the demographics of West Africa Immigrants, being principally Akan of Ghana and the Yoruba or Igbo of Nigeria, who each come from relatively well constructed precolonial formations. What is also of note is how their prominence seems to be correlated to the extent in which Cousin Marriage is practiced, possibly reflective of the precolonial patterns of cousin marriage
Application for the U.S population in kin networks, where it does not work.
PP, in which he discussed the ethnocentrism of different groups, said this regarding blacks and kin altruism.
“And yet eventually these extremely different tribes mixed, and so you would have parents raising kids who have genetic variants very alien to their own, and this probably contributed to the breakdown of the black family: it’s harder for kin altruism to get selected when the kids you are altruistic to, don’t resemble you that much genetically because their other parent is so unlike you that they don’t inherit your high degree of kin altruism or inherit it as a recessive unexpressed trait. And when kin altruism gets only weakly selected for, racial loyalty (which is probably just an outgrowth of kin loyalty) is probably weakly selected for too.”
Which would be incorrect. Yes, while crossing over does occur, a child would be overall close to their parent’s overall genetic background on the level of relatedness. Leaping from that neglected detail, he assumes from his evidence of “lack of racial loyalty” would that blacks have less ethnic nepotism and thus weaker kin altruism despite not taking into account of selection occurring within subgroups of various constructs like you see in Africa which would apply to families inside them.
If this theory was even supportable, one would expect the opposite that actually occurs with the percentage of Black children to return to relatives compared to White children.
“Of the 94,483 black children discharged from foster care, 12,860, or 13%, were discharged to a relative guardian. Of the 182,941 white children discharged from foster care in 2004, 20,453, or 11%, were discharged to a relative guardian.Of the 15,087 black children adopted from foster care, 4077, or 27%, were adopted by a relative. Of the 29,244 white children adopted from foster care, 5861, or 20%, were adopted by a relative. Of the 279,421 black kids living in foster care for some portion of the year, 69,888 or 25% were living with relatives. Of the 474,734 white children living in foster care for some portion of the year, 101,300, or 21%, were living with relatives.
So black children getting adopted from foster care are somewhat more likely to be adopted by relatives than white kids (27% vs. 20%), black kids exiting foster care are slightly more likely to be discharged to a relative guardian than white kids (13% to 11%), and black kids in foster care are slightly more likely to be living with relatives than white kids (25% vs. 21%). The differences support the hypothesis that blacks are more likely to utilize kinship care networks, but not by a lot, at least in regard to the foster care system.”
From Audacious Epigone, who also notes that despite the higher likelihood of such networks that doesn’t explain disproportion in foster care. Though evidence for IQ is at best moderate, interpersonal indicators were stronger (Azar, Stevenson, and Johnson 2012)).
“SIP problems were associated with direct measures of neglect (e.g., cognitive stimulation provided children, home hygiene, belief regarding causes of child injuries). Further, for the direct measures that were most closely linked to CPS Neglect Status, IQ did not add significant predictive capacity beyond SIP factors in preliminary model testing. Implications for intervention with PID discussed.”
This is possibly linked to EI scores found to differ between Whites and Blacks (Whitman, Kraus, and Rooy 2014)
“The present work examines applicant reactions to a test of emotional intelligence (EI) using an organizational sample of 334 job applicants. Results indicated that Blacks had higher face validity and opportunity to perform perceptions of EI than Whites, but that Whites performed significantly better than Blacks on the EI test. Although exploratory analyses revealed that test performance was positively related to test reactions, we also found that the magnitude of this relationship differed between Blacks and Whites for the opportunity to perform perceptions. We discuss our findings by offering practical advice for organizations considering or using a measure of EI for selection and assessment.”
Evidence for Kin networks is also supported by more data (Taylor 2013).
“Turning first to findings for family support networks, four significant differences were observed in this analysis. African Americans gave assistance to their family members more often than non-Hispanic Whites, were more likely to have daily contact with their extended family members than both non-Hispanic Whites and Black Caribbeans, and had more frequent interactions with their family than Black Caribbeans. Three general conclusions can be drawn from these findings for family assistance and interaction. First, these findings are consistent with prior work indicating that African Americans have similar or higher levels of involvement with kin than non-Hispanic Whites, but are inconsistent with reports that African Americans have lower levels of family support than Whites (e.g., Hogan et al., 1993). As noted in previous reviews of this literature (Sarkisian & Gertsel, 2004), comparisons across studies are problematic given important differences in the dependent variables used. The present study’s investigation of several dimensions of family support relationships (e.g., enacted support, emotional support, contact, negative interaction) in diverse groups of the population and using a common set of sociodemographic correlates clarifies the nature of race/ethnic differences in these relationships.”
It also found, however, weaker ties outside the family, which strengthen my suggestion of finer stratification of kin ties than just simply less selection.
“Several significant differences in friendship networks were observed in this analysis. Non-Hispanic Whites interacted with their friends and gave support to their friends more frequently than African Americans. Additionally, non-Hispanic Whites received support from friends more frequently than both African Americans and Black Caribbeans. Many of the differences between African Americans and non-Hispanic Whites could reflect basic differences in their levels of involvement in friendship networks. For instance, 16.7% of African-Americans, 16.1 % of Black Caribbeans and 9.7% of non-Hispanic Whites report that they never receive help from friends. Similarly, African Americans (11%) were twice as likely as non-Hispanic Whites (4.7%) to indicate that they hardly ever or never interact with friends. Lower levels of involvement with friends among African Americans could be due to estrangement from friends, isolation from friends or exclusive involvement with kinship networks (Ajrouch et al., 2001). Collectively, these results, and previous research (Griffin et al., 2006; Waite & Harrison, 1992), indicate that non-Hispanic Whites are more likely than African Americans to interact with friendship networks and to identify friends as an important source of support.”
This lack of support was not seen, however, with fictive kin or congregational members. So perhaps wither the perception of relationship or differences in genetic similarity may answer some of these questions.
How Does the Increasingly Diverse American Landscape Affect White Americans’ Racial Attitudes?
1700 words
Last month I wrote about how Trump won the election due to white Americans’ exposure to diversity caused them to support Trump and his anti-immigration policies over Clinton and Sanders. That is, whites high in racial/ethnic identification exposed to more diversity irrespective of political leaning would vote for Trump for President and not Clinton or Sanders. It is commonly said that more diversity will increase tolerance for the out-group, and all will be well. But is this true?
Craig and Richeson (2014) explored how the changing racial shift in America affects whites’ feelings towards the peoples replacing whites (‘Hispanic’/Latino populations) as well as the feelings of whites towards other minority groups that are not replacing them in the country. Interestingly, whites exposed to the racial shift group showed more pro-white, anti-minority violence as well as preferring spaces and interactions with their own kind over others. Moreover, negative feelings towards blacks and Asians were seen, two groups that are not replacing white Americans.
White Canadians who were exposed to a graph showing that whites would be a projected minority “perceived greater in-group threat” leading to the expression of “somewhat more anger toward and fear of racial minorities.” East Asians are showing the most population growth in Canada. Relaying this information to whites has them express less warmth towards East Asian Canadians.
In their first study (n=86, 44 shown the racial shift and 42 shown current U.S. demographics), participants who read the title of a newspaper provided to them. One paper was titled “In a Generation, Ethnic Minorities May Be the U.S. Majority”, whereas the other was titled “U.S. Census Bureau Releases New Estimates of the US Population by Ethnicity.” They were asked questions such as “I would rather work alongside people of my same ethnic origin,” and “It would bother me if my child married someone from a different ethnic background.” Whites who read the newspaper article showing ethnic replacement showed more racial bias than those who read about current U.S. demographics. Whites exposed to projected demographics were more likely to prefer settings and interactions with other whites compared to the group who read current demographics.
In study 2 a (n=28, 14 Dutch participants and 14 American participants, 14 exposed to the U.S. racial shift, 14 exposed to the Dutch racial shift), those in the U.S. racial shift category showed more pro-white/anti-Asian bias than participants in the Dutch racial shift category. Those who were exposed to the changing U.S. ethnic landscape were more likely to show pro-white/anti-black bias than participants exposed to the Dutch racial shift (study 2b, n=25, 14 U.S. racial shift, 11 Dutch racial shift). In other words, making the U.S changing racial/ethnic population important, whites showed that whites were, again, more likely to be pro-white and anti-minority, even while exposed to an important racial demographic shift in a foreign country (the Netherlands). Whites, then, exposed to more racial diversity will show more automatic bias towards minorities, especially whites who live around a lot of blacks and ‘Hispanics’. Making whites aware of the changing racial demographics in America had them express automatic racial bias towards all minority groups—even minority groups not responsible for the racial shift.
In study 3 (n=620, 317 women, 76.3% White, 9.0% Black, 10.0% Latino, 4.7% other race) whether attitudes toward different minority groups may be affected by the exposure to the racial shift. Study 3 specifically focused on whites (n=415, 212 women, median age 48.8, a nationally representative sample of white Americans). Half of the participants were shown information about the projected ethnic shift in America while the other half were given a news article on the geographic mobility in America (individuals who move in a given year). They were asked their feelings on the following statements:
“the American way of life is seriously threatened” and were asked to indicate their view of the trajectory of American society (1 = American society is getting much worse every year, 5 = American society is getting much better every year); these two items were standardized and averaged to create an index of system threat (r = .64). To assess system justification, we asked participants to indicate their agreement (1 = strongly agree, 7 = strongly disagree) to the statement “American society is set up so that people usually get what they deserve.”
They were also asked the following questions on how certain they were of America’s social future:
“If they increase in status, racial minorities are likely to reduce the influence of White Americans in society.” The racial identification question asked participants to indicate their agreement (1 = strongly agree, 7 = strongly disagree) with the following statement, “My opportunities in life are tied to those of my racial group as a whole.”
The researchers had the participants read the article about the impending racial shift in America and had them fill out “feeling thermometers” on how they felt about differing racial groups in America (blacks, whites, Asians and ‘Hispanics’) with 1 being cold and 100 being hot. Whites reported the most positivity towards their own group, followed by Asians, blacks and showing the least positivity towards ‘Hispanics’ (the group projected to replace whites in 25 years). Figure 2 also shows that whites don’t show the same negative biases they would towards other minorities in America, most likely due to the ‘model minority‘ status.
So the researchers showed that by making the racial shift important, that led to more white Americans showing negative attitudes towards minorities—specifically ‘Hispanics’. This was brought about by whites’ “concerns of lose of societal status.” When whites begin to notice demographic changes, the attitudes towards minorities will change—most notable the attitudes towards blacks and ‘Hispanics’ (which is due to the amount of crime committed by both groups, and is why whites show favoritism towards Asians, in my opinion). Overall, it was shown in a nationally representative sample of whites that showing the changing demographics in the country leads to more negative responses towards minority groups. This is due to the perceived threat on whites’ group status, which leads to more out-group bias.
These four studies report empirical evidence that contrary to the belief of liberals et al—that an increasingly diverse America will lead to more acceptance—more exposure to diversity and the changing racial demographics will have whites show more negative attitudes towards minority groups, most notably ‘Hispanics’, the group projected to become the majority by 2042. The authors write:
Consistent with this prior work, the present research offers compelling evidence that the impending so-called “majority-minority” U.S. population is construed by White Americans as a threat to their group’s position in society and increases their expression of racial bias on both automatically activated and selfreport attitude measures.
Interestingly, the authors also write:
That is, the article in the U.S. racial shift condition accurately attributed a large percentage of the population shift to increases in the Latino/Hispanic population, yet, participants in this condition expressed more negative attitudes toward Black Americans and Asian Americans (Study 3) as well as greater automatic bias on both a White-Asian and a White-Black IAT (Studies 2a and 2b). These findings suggest that the information often reported regarding the changing U.S. racial demographics may lead White Americans to perceive all racial minority groups as part of a monolithic non-White group.
You can see this from the rise of the alt-right. Whites, when exposed to the reality of the demographic shift in America, will begin to show more pro-white attitudes while derogating minority out-groups. It is important to note the implications of these studies. One could look at these studies, and rightly say, that as America becomes more diverse that ethnic tensions will increase. Indeed, this is what we are now currently seeing. Contrary to what people say about diversity “being our strength“, it will actually increase ethnic hostility in America and lead towards evermore increasing strife between ethnic groups in America (that is ever-rising due to the current political and social climate in the country). Diversity is not our “strength”—it is, in fact, the opposite. It is our weakness. As the country becomes more diverse we can expect more ethnic strife between groups, which will lower the quality of life for all ethnies, while making whites show more negative attitudes towards all minority groups (including Asians and blacks, but less so than ‘Hispanics’) due to group status threat. The authors write in the discussion:
That is, these studies revealed that White Americans for whom the U.S. racial demographic shift was made salient preferred interactions/settings with their own racial group over minority racial groups, expressed more automatic pro-White/antiminority bias, and expressed more negative attitudes toward Latinos, Blacks, and Asian Americans. The results of these latter studies also revealed that intergroup bias in response to the U.S. racial shift emerges toward racial/ethnic minority groups that are not primary contributors to the dramatic increases in the non-White (i.e., racial minority) population, namely, Blacks and Asian Americans. Moreover, this research provides the first evidence that automatic evaluations are affected by the perceived racial shift. Taken together, these findings suggest that rather than ushering in a more tolerant future, the increasing diversity of the nation may actually yield more intergroup hostility.
Thinking back to Rushton’s Genetic Similarity Theory, we can see why this occurs. Our genes are selfish and want to replicate with out similar genes. Thus, whites would become less tolerant of minority groups since they are less genetically similar to them. This would then be expressed in their attitudes towards minority groups—specifically, ‘Hispanics’ as that ethny will most likely to become the majority and overtake the white majority in 25 years. This is GST on steroids. Once whites realize the reality of the situation of increasing diversity in America—along with their status in the country as a whole—they will then show more negative bias towards minority out-groups.
All in all, the more whites are exposed to diversity in the social context as well as the reality of the ethnic demographic shift in 25 years will be more likely to show negative attitudes towards all American ethnies (though less negative attitudes towards Asians, dude to being less criminal, in my opinion). As the country becomes less white, so to will the whites in America become less tolerant of all minorities and start banding together for pro-white interests—showing that diversity is not our strength. This, in reality, is exactly what liberals do not want—whites banding together showing less favoritism towards the out-group. However, this is what occurs in countries that increasingly become diverse.
The Rise of Ethnocentrism and the Alt-Right: The Rebirth of Selfish Genes
2500 words
Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past two years, you should have come across the Alt-Right movement somewhere on the Internet. What is driving the rise of the Alt-Right and Nationalism in the West? Simple answer: Selfish Genes. We are, at the end of the day, bags of meat trying to replicate our genes and have more children as to increase our genes’ copies of themselves. This rise in the Alt-Right is due to continued demonization of whites. For instance, a Rutgers professor was quoted as saying “All white people are evil, some are only ‘less bad’ than others“. Statements of this nature, said over and over again towards a population that’s about to become a minority (I won’t use any of the estimates as the TFR for populations constantly changes, but it will happen eventually) will eventually have the open-minded ones become sick of what is occurring to people who look like themselves. I hypothesize that more ethnocentric people have higher levels of the brain peptide oxytocin, which in turn leads to higher rates of ethnocentrism. From the article:
Human ethnocentrism—the tendency to view one’s group as centrally important and superior to other groups—creates intergroup bias that fuels prejudice, xenophobia, and intergroup violence. Grounded in the idea that ethnocentrism also facilitates within-group trust, cooperation, and coordination, we conjecture that ethnocentrism may be modulated by brain oxytocin, a peptide shown to promote cooperation among in-group members.
…
Results show that oxytocin creates intergroup bias because oxytocin motivates in-group favoritism and, to a lesser extent, out-group derogation. These findings call into question the view of oxytocin as an indiscriminate “love drug” or “cuddle chemical” and suggest that oxytocin has a role in the emergence of intergroup conflict and violence.
Oxytocin is known as ‘the love drug’. We can then stretch this to ‘love of one’s race/ethny’. Since political beliefs are heritable (though environment is “still key”, we know that we make our environments based on our genes), I hypothesize that those who are genetically more prone to leaning conservative and ALSO have higher levels of brain oxytocin would be more likely to be ethnocentric and follow a movement such as the Alt-Right. Conversely, people who are genetically more prone towards liberalism (neo-liberalism, not old-fashioned real American liberalism) also have higher levels of oxytocin, except instead of directing their altruistic behaviors towards genetically similar co-ethnics, they direct their altruism towards the out-group. Oxytocin as well as which political ideology one is genetically disposed to, can more than likely be the culprit for these current phenomena that we see in America with both right-wingers and left-wingers.
Some excerpts from my article from earlier in the year Altruism and Ethnocentrism:
We can see ethnocentrism in action in our very own society today. Black Lives Matter is one (extreme) definition of ethnocentrism. La Raza is yet another extreme example. The KKK is another. We can see that in these groups, the motivation to be altruistic to one’s own kind far outweighs being altruistic to those of a different race/ethnicity. Altruism/ethnocentrism is a huge part of the woes of America today.
Which finally brings me to this: why exactly do whites in America not have this same altruistic/ethnocentric behavior towards their own?
Rushton answers this question in one of his AmRen talks: Genetic Similarity Theory and Ethnic Nationalism.
He says that he has really thought about it before and has no definitive answer. But, we are a species who ‘follows the leader’ so to speak. He says to look at individual psychology and not anything to do with being more spineless. That we want to be liked and not disliked. We learn many of our social attitudes (social learning). So we look to people who are similar to ourselves (names some Presidents and others), and that those people tell us things, and since they are high status, we believe it. It’s difficult to go against what those at the top of our society say.
He says what is right and wrong is basically what our neighbors are doing. One outstanding example he gives is how when those at the top say “open your borders and allow more immigrants in” since we are social animals we take to it and want to do it because we ‘follow the leader’. With the majority though right now in America (liberalism/leftism/Marxism), that is the ‘societal norm’ for the country. Therefore, everyone follows that one societal norm, for the most part.
The mass media plays a huge role in this, as I have noted in my previous article on what is going on in Europe and why. Telling whites to hate themselves, that whites are the cause of all evils in the world, makes one begin to hate themselves, their families and, of course, their race/ethnic group. Rushton says many people have said that the media is the cause for many whites with the self-hate that they have. He says back in earlier times, the Jews were self-hating in their identity, because they have assimilated some of the disdain for the wider community. He says the black groups have historically hated themselves because they identified with the conception they have of themselves of the white slave masters/white majority have of them.
Though there is a genetic desire to construct (hi social constructs. =^) ) an identity, the positive cues of that identity has to be picked from the culture (notice anything?).
Finally, David Duke asks Rushton “How would one increase ethnic solidarity and ethnic nationalism”. He says it’s common sense when Goebbels had complete control of the media in Germany, ethnic nationalism shot up, ethnic solidarity increased, out-group hatred increased and the German birth rate shot up. He said the images being displayed on television is the cause for the rise in the aforementioned points. He says, for instance, if you show a lot of blonde haired, blue eyed white babies and women being happy with those white babies in the media, showing women that are happy being stay at home mothers and not working in turn, more women will want to go out and have more babies and be stay at home mothers. He says what you see portrayed on TV, what is portrayed by people who look like you in the media, will make you take to it more.
How is our media today? I noted, very briefly in my previous article, that the media is anti-white. Showing things to bring down the morale of American whites is a huge cause of the lack of altruism and ethnocentrism in American whites.All of these anti-white articles you see in the media daily, all of the anti-white things you see on TV every day, all compound to have what we have in our society today: Marxist whites who go along with groups such as BLM, going completely against their genetic interests, because of media socialization.
Rushton’s AmRen talk on ethnic nationalism should be on your list to view. Media socialization plays a huge part in the self-denigration of whites in America. Being told you’re ‘racist’ just because of your ancestry, to being told that you should be “so sorry” for things that transgressed hundreds of years ago (never mind the fact that the chance that a white person who currently lives in America today most likely has no familial ties of any type of slavery that occurred in the beginnings of this (once great) country. Things like this, when told to someone over and over again, will eventually have them embrace ”’radical”’ ideologies (radical in this sense being far outside of the American norms).
This rise in ‘identity politics’ (hate that phrase, both sides do it) has led to the rise of both the far-left and far-right. But, when you really think about it, ‘identity politics’ is a way to show altruistic behaviors towards genetically similar others. Rushton’s genetic similarity theory (based off of Dawkins’s (1976) theory of selfish genes) explains why these differences how our altruistic acts manifest themselves physically. According to Rushton’s theory, we are more likely to help others who share a similar set of genes. That’s not to say that liberals showing altruistic behavior towards non-co-ethnics refutes the GST theory; on the other hand, it strengthens it.
Americans of mixed ancestry made up for ethnic dissimilarity by matching up on the more heritable traits, whereas the correlation is lower for those traits that are more influenced by the environment. Since the correlation is higher for heritable traits, i.e., BMI, personality, alcoholism, aggressiveness, criminality, psychiatric disorders and so on. Since the correlations are higher than in the environmentally mediated traits and since mixed-race couples match on more heritable traits than on the traits more influenced by the environment, this shows us that even though they are marrying outside of their race/ethnicity, they still match up on the more heritable traits and not the traits more influenced by the environment. So even a liberal’s altruistic actions towards non-co-ethnics shows that GST is still in effect.
The main point is this: our genes are selfish AND they want to produce similar genes. Who is more likely to be genetically similar to yourself? A co-ethnic. This is why nationalism is rising—it works!! Nationalism is rising because the people themselves—the vast majority of ‘vehicles’—are in danger of not being able to ‘replicate’ (their genes). So since the ‘vehicle’ is in danger, the ‘replicators’ have one be more altruistic/ethnocentric to a co-ethnic; oxytocin is the mediator of ethnocentrism as a whole. I’d love to see a study conducted on ethnocentrists and non-ethnocentrists to see what the average level of oxytocin in each group is. I’d bet a large sum of money that the ethnocentrists have higher levels of brain oxytocin while the non-ethnocentrists have a statistically lower amount.
Some of the most distinct genes of individuals will, of course, be found in close family—mothers, brothers, sisters, fathers, first cousins, etc. However, against the worldwide variance, the average similarity between people within a single population is on the magnitude of second cousins, so I posit that those with higher levels of brain oxytocin will be more likely to be ethnocentric over others with less of this hormone. See, there is a reason for so-called ‘racist’ (ethnocentric) behavior: since the average similarity between people within a single population is on the magnitude of second cousins against the worldwide variance, this shows why ethnocentric behavior arises.
The rise of nationalism in Europe follows these same patterns. When looking at diversity in the social context, we can see the negative effects of said diversity in neighborhoods (net negative effect, even with the positives that Putnam cites). Knowing the effects of diversity within a homogenous population, we can see the exact cause for the rise of the Alt-Right.
For some people, diversity decreases social trust (this is my opinion) because they see how the out-group acts: increased crime, not assimilating fully to native culture, how many benefits the out-group receives, etc. Then, since it’s drilled into them that ‘we are all the same in the brain no matter where our ancestors evolved for tens of thousands of years’, that all genetically isolated groups must act the same on average. This then causes what Putnam calls ‘hunkering down’—avoiding engagement with the community. This ‘hunkering down’ leads to less social interaction with neighbors and the community as a whole, causing the social trust that Putnam found in his research. Since one of the ways we match on genetic similarity is by culture, when out-groups move in and begin changing the native culture, the ‘hunkering down’ begins to lessen the one way that population propagates its genes—by masking the native culture—which arose for the sole reason of ensuring that the gene made copies of itself with genetically similar others. The increased diversity changes the average person’s perception of their own people since it’s drilled into them that we all have the same mental capacities and behaviors on average (with deviations from said average due to average individual variation; not any inherent genetic racial/ethnic differences).
On the other hand, for one who is more predisposed to lean right who has a higher amount of brain oxytocin on average, sees the negative effects of diversity along with their countrymen getting hurt, negative (natural) feelings then arise. Moreover, seeing how sections of formerly once nice neighborhoods deteriorate when the out-group moves in further drives these feelings. This is one small example from Putnam’s data that shows how diversity negatively affects societies. I’d be interested in a study on racial/ethnic diversity in third-world countries/the East.
This rise we have seen in the Alt-Right is due to the increase of mass immigration to third-world countries. We want to be around genetically similar others—to propagate copies of our genes. With the gene being ‘selfish’, it wants to make copies of genes like itself. Who’s more likely to share similar genes? Parents, brothers, uncles, sisters, brothers, grandparents, first cousins, second- cousins, and third cousins. Since we are related to co-ethnics on the magnitude of second cousins, this shows how and why ethnocentrism evolved. It was beneficial to be more altruistic towards your ‘clan’, and to derogate the out-group since they are genetically dissimilar. This then extends to today in regards to out-groups being derogated—no matter if they’re genetically similar others or if they share the same personalities or hobbies. We want to be around people like ourselves, to better help out members of the ‘team’. The ‘team’ can be anything from race, ethnicity, baseball team, basketball team, football team, hockey team, etc. To understand ethnocentrism, we must understand human evolutionary history. That’s how you understand the rise of far-right or left politics. Genetic similarity theory is that road map to discovering how and why we act the way we do in regards to out-groups.
Any organism strives for the betterment of its group. Any organism will defend that group. Genes cause people to construct ideologies to improve genetic fitness. That one sentence pretty much sums up the rise of the Alt-Right, and along with the negative effects of diversity, you have the recipe for a new right-wing movement.
This growth of “white survivalism” and militant “Christian Identity” groups such as the Aryan Nations, and the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, represent a more extreme response to these perceived threats to the AngloSaxon gene pool. If this overall analysis is correct, one might expect similar correlations in deviations from both genetic and ideological norms in other groups. Preserving the “purity” of the ideology might be an attempt at preserving the “purity” of the gene pool. Are ideological “conservatives” typically more genetically homogeneous than the same ideology’s “liberals”?”
The rise of the Alt-Right shows, in my opinion, one of the main facets of human nature—ethnocentrism. It’s seen with the Ashkenazi Jews and Arabs, to Europeans, Africans, and the pretty much isolationist East Asians. The world is beginning to become more ethnocentric—and selfish genes are in the driver’s seat.
Donald Trump and Ethnic Genetic Interests
1300 words
I don’t post about politics here because this is a HBD and evolution blog, but I figured I’d weigh in on Trump and ethnic genetic interests (EGIs) since the election is today. My co-writer and I proved the existence of EGIs back in May (see comments for discussion) so we know that EGIs exist. Does Trump exhibit EGIs? Yes, he does. But for who?
Donald Trump, in his own words, “is a big fan of Israel” and boasted about being the first celebrity to endorse Bibi Netanyahu. This is very telling for his EGIs, however, he isn’t Jewish so how does this help his EGIs?
Easy. His daughter converted to Judaism back in 2009, and had a child by Jew Jared Kushner. Most Jews don’t look at converts the same as those who were born Jewish, i.e., those who have a bloodline to Israel. However, in a generation or two, no one will know that Kushner’s child is a non-Jew genetically.
Donald Trump has been very critical of Obama who is very anti-Netanyahu. Trump says about Obama:
“I think President Obama is one of the worst things that’s ever happened to Israel. I think he’s set back [Israeli] relations with the United States terribly, and for people and friends of mine who are Jewish, I don’t know how they can support President Obama. He has been very bad for Israel.”
Yes, very bad for Israel. This was said last September before he knew he was going to run. Trump loves Israel and the Jewish people. In his own words:
“I know so many people from Israel. I have so many friends in Israel. First of all, the Israelis are great businesspeople. They have a natural instinct for business and their start-ups are fantastic. I deal with the Israelis all the time, and I deal with people who are Jewish all the time, whether they are Israeli or not.”
Now, you have his daughter who converted to Judaism and married a Jew. Judaism is passed down through the mother, so the fact that she converted before she had her babe means that the kid is officially a Jew.
Moreover, his son, Eric Trump, married a Jewish woman back in 2014. Knowing this—that his adult-aged children have wed Jews—would you say that he has EGIs for his people (Scots-Irish/Germans) or for Jews?
Trump has had contradictory statements regarding the German Chancellor Angel Merkel. A month and a half ago he compared Hillary Clinton, his opponent tonight, to Angela Merkel. However, he recently said that Angela Merkel is “his favorite leader”. But back in August, Trump said “Germany will never be the same again“, alluding to this ‘migration’ crisis.
Back in March, Trump assured that his election would be “good news for Israel“. So knowing all of his comments on Israel as well as his children’s marriage choices, where do Trump’s EGI loyalties lie?
With Israel. I’ve shown that he loves Jews; that two of his children have married Jews; and I’ve shown that, while having contradictory statements against Jews (telling Jewish donors that he doesn’t want their money), can you say that Trump has EGIs for his ethnicity OR his family’s new ethnicity—Jewish?
Finally, back in July, his son-in-law Jared Kushner wrote an op-ed in the Observer, the online webzine that he owns, called “The Donald Trump I Know“, in which he says:
My father-in-law is not an anti-Semite.
…
This is not idle philosophy to me. I am the grandson of Holocaust survivors. On December 7, 1941—Pearl Harbor Day—the Nazis surrounded the ghetto of Novogroduk, and sorted the residents into two lines: those selected to die were put on the right; those who would live were put on the left. My grandmother’s sister, Esther, raced into a building to hide. A boy who had seen her running dragged her out and she was one of about 5100 Jews to be killed during this first slaughter of the Jews in Novogrudok. On the night before Rosh Hashana 1943, the 250 Jews who remained of the town’s 20,000 plotted an escape through a tunnel they had painstakingly dug beneath the fence. The searchlights were disabled and the Jews removed nails from the metal roof so that it would rattle in the wind and hopefully mask the sounds of the escaping prisoners.
My grandmother and her sister didn’t want to leave their father behind. They went to the back of the line to be near him. When the first Jews emerged from the tunnel, the Nazis were waiting for them and began shooting. My grandmother’s brother Chanon, for whom my father is named, was killed along with about 50 others. My grandmother made it to the woods, where she joined the Bielski Brigade of partisan resistance fighters. There she met my grandfather, who had escaped from a labor camp called Voritz. He had lived in a hole in the woods—a literal hole that he had dug—for three years, foraging for food, staying out of sight and sleeping in that hole for the duration of the brutal Russian winter.
…
The fact is that my father in law is an incredibly loving and tolerant person who has embraced my family and our Judaism since I began dating my wife. His support has been unwavering and from the heart. I have personally seen him embrace people of all racial and religious backgrounds, at his companies and in his personal life. This caricature that some want to paint as someone who has “allowed” or encouraged intolerance just doesn’t reflect the Donald Trump I know. The from-the-heart reactions of this man are instinctively pro-Jewish and pro-Israel. Just last week, at an event in New Hampshire, an audience member asked about wasting money on “Zionist Israel.” My father-in-law didn’t miss a beat in replying that “Israel is a very, important ally of the United States and we are going to protect them 100 percent.” No script, no handlers, no TelePrompter—just a strong opinion from the heart.
It seems that every Jew has a Holocaust story that “they’ve never told before.” The Holocaust is really beyond the scope of this blog, however, you can check this out from CODOH on the Novogroduk “graves”. Moreover, here’s a nice thread from CODOH that talks about another “Holocaust miracle” where Trump’s son-in-law says that his Grandfather “lived in a hole in the ground in Russia for three years“. This is all I will say on the matter and I hope you do your own research into these claims from Jared Kushner.
The video that Kushner alludes to is here. The man spoke the truth about Israel. We DO waste our military on behalf of the “Zionist” Israelis. Trump shoots back and says “We will protect them 100 percent.” He calls them “our true friend.” It was just announced back in September that we will be giving Israel 38 billion dollars over the next ten years. OF COURSE they think of us as a “true friend”. We send our people to the Middle East so they can die for Israel in their quest to expand for Greater Israel—war is realizing the Israelization of the world.
Now, PumpkinPerson believes that Trump shows his EGIs through wanting to build a wall and keep out illegal Mexican immigrants. However, I’ve shown above that while he “”MAY”” have the best interests of the American people in mind, he has far more loyalty and allegiance to Israel and the Jewish State.
Does Donald Trump show EGIs? YES! But while he does show EGIs towards his own people, he clearly shows his EGIs more towards the people who his children have chosen to marry. Also, Lion of the Blogosphere, who is a Jew, is voting for Donald Trump, which is protecting his EGIs.
And before anyone asks—yes I voted for Trump. I just hope he does what he says for us and doesn’t pull an Obama and be Hope and Change 2.0 on us.
The Evolution of Violence: A Look at Infanticide and Rape
1700 words
The pioneer of criminology was a man named Cesare Lombroso, an Italian Jew (a leftover remnant from the Roman days), who had two central theories: 1) that criminal behavior originated in the brain and 2) criminals were an evolutionary throwback, a more primitive type of human. Lombroso felt strongly about the rehabilitation of criminals, at the same time believing in the death penalty for “born criminals”. Though, with new advances in criminology and new insights to the brain, it looks like Lombroso was right with his theory of born criminals.
Why are you 100 times more likely to be killed on your birthday? Why are children 50 times more likely to be murdered by their stepfather than biological one? Why do some parents kill their children? Finally, why do men rape not only strangers, but also rape their wives? All of these questions can be answered with evolutionary psychology.
Evolutionarily speaking, antisocial and violent behavior wasn’t a random occurrence. When these actions occurred tens of thousands of years ago, they were because resources were being acquired from these actions. Thus, we can see some modern criminal acts as resource competition. The more resources one has, the easier it is for him to pass his genes on to the next generation (a big driver for violence). In turn, women are more attracted to males who can provide resources and protection (those who were more antisocial and violent). This also explains these prison romances, in which women get into romances with murderous criminals since they are attracted to the violence (protection) and resources (theft).
The mugger who robs for a small amount of money is increasing his odds of resource acquisition. Drive-by shootings in violent neighborhoods increase the status of those who survive the shootout. What looks like a simple brawl over nothing may be one attempting to increase social dominance. All of these actions have evolutionary causes. What drive these actions are our ‘Selfish Genes’.
The more successful genes are more ruthlessly selfish in their struggle for survival, which then drives individual behavior. The individual behaviors that occur due to our selfish genes may be antisocial and violent in nature, which in our modern society is frowned upon. The name of the game is ‘fitness’. The amount of children you can have in your time allotted on Earth. This is all that matters to our genes. Even those accomplishments you think of, such as completing college or attaining mass amounts of capital all fall back to fitness. With that, increasing your fitness and ensuring your genetic lineage passes on to the next generation is greatly enhanced.
Biological fitness can be enhanced in one of two ways. You can have as many children as possible, giving little parental care to each, or you can have fewer children but show more attention and care to them. This is known as r/K Selection Theory. Rushton’s r/K Selection Theory compliments Dawkins Selfish Gene theory in that the r-strategist is maximizing his fitness by having as many children as possible, while the K-strategist increases his fitness by having fewer children in comparison to the r-strategist but showing more parental attention. There are, however, instances in which humans kill children, whether it’s a mother killing a newborn baby or a stepfather killing a child. What are the reasons for this?
Killing Kids
The risk of being a homicide victim in the first year of life is highest in the first year of life. Why? Canadian Psychologists Daly and Wilson demonstrated in inverse relationship between degree of genetic relatedness and being a victim of homicide. Daly and Wilson discovered that the offender and victim are genetically related in only 1.8 percent of all homicides. Therefore, 98 percent of all murders are killings of people who do not share the killer’s genes.
Many stories have been told about ‘wicked stepparents’ in numerous myths and fairytales. But, as we know, a lot of stories have some basis in reality. Children of stepparents are 40 times more likely to suffer abuse at the hands of a stepparent. People who are living together who are unrelated to one another are more likely to kill one another. Even adoptions are more successful when the adopting parents view the child as genetically similar to themselves.
In this study carried out by Maillart, et al, it was discovered that for mothers, the average age of offense for filicide was 29.5 years for the mother and 3.5 years for the babe. Bourget, Grace, and Whitehurst, 2007 showed that a risk factor for infanticide was a second child born to a mother under 20-years of age. The reasoning for this is simple: at a younger age the mother is more fertile, and thus, more attractive to potential mates. The older the woman is the more sense it makes to hold on to the genetic investment since it’s harder to make up for the genetic loss late in her reproductive life.
Genetic relatedness, fitness, and parental investment show, in part, why filicides and infanticides occur.
Raping Your Wife
There are evolutionary reasons for rape as well. The rape of a non-relative can be looked at as the ultimate form of ‘cheating’ in this selfish game of life. One who rapes doesn’t have to acquire resources in order to attract a mate, he can just go and ‘take what he wants’ and attempt to spread his genes to the next generation through non-consensual sex. It’s known that rape victims have a higher chance of getting pregnant, with 7.98 percent of rape victims becoming pregnant. (News article) One explanation for this is that the rapist may be able to possibly detect how fertile a woman is. Moreover, rapists are more likely to rape fertile women rather than infertile women.
One rapist that author of the book The Anatomy of Violence, Adrian Raine interviewed said that he specifically chose ugly women to rape (Raine, 2013: 28). He says that he’s giving ugly women ‘what they want’, which is sex. There is a belief that women actually enjoy sex, and even orgasm during the rape, even though they strongly resist and fight back during the attack. Reports of orgasm during rape are around 5 to 6 percent (Raine, 2013: 29), but the true number may be higher since most women are embarrassed to say that they orgasmed during a rape.
Men, as we all know, are more likely to engage in no-strings-attached sex more than women. This is due to the ‘burden’ of sex: children. Women are more likely to carefully select a partner who has numerous resources and the ability to protect the family. Men don’t have the burden of sticking around to raise the child.
Men are more likely to find a sexual relationship more upsetting in comparison to women who are more likely to find an emotional infidelity as more distressing. This data on Americans still held true for South Korea, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands. Men are better than women at detecting infidelity, and are more likely to suspect cheating in their spouses (Raine, 2013: 32). Unconscious reason being, a man doesn’t want to raise a child who is not genetically similar to themselves.
But this begs another question: why would a man rape his wife? One reason is that when a man discovers his spouse has been unfaithful, he would want to inseminate her as quickly as possible.
There has never in the history of humankind been one example of women banding together to wage war on another society to gain territory, resources or power. Think about it. It is always men. There are about nine male murderers for every one female murderer. When it comes to same-sex homicides, data from twenty studies show that 97 percent of the perpetrators are male. Men are murderers. The simple evolutionary reason is that women are worth fighting for. (Raine, 2013: 32)
A feminist may look at this stat and say “MEN cause all of the violence, MEN hurt women” and attempt to use this data as ‘proof’ that men are violent. Yes, we men are violent, and there is an evolutionary basis for it. However, what feminists who push the ‘all sexes are equal’ card don’t know, is that when they say ‘men are more likely to be murderers’ (which is true), they are actively accepting biological differences between men and women. Most of these differences in crime come down to testosterone. I would also assume that men would be more likely to have the ‘warrior gene’, otherwise known as the MAOA-L gene, which ups the propensity for violence.
The sociobiological model suggests that poorer people kill due to lack of resources. And one reason that men are way more likely to be victims of homicide is because men are in competition with other men for resources.
Going back to the violence on stepchildren that I alluded to earlier, aggression towards stepchildren can be seen as a strategic way of motivating unwanted, genetically dissimilar others out of the home and not take up precious resources for the next generation bred by the stepfather (Raine, 2013: 34).
Women also have a way to increase their fitness, which a brunt of it is through sexual selection. Women are known to be ‘worriers’. That is, they rate dangerous and aggressive acts higher than men. Women are also more fearful of bodily injury and more likely to develop phobias of animals. In these situations, women are protecting themselves and their unborn (or born) children by maximizing their chances for survival by being more fearful of things. This can help explain why women are less physically violent than men and why those murder stats are so heavily skewed towards men: biology.
Women compete for their genetic interests with beauty and childbearing. The more beautiful the woman, the better resources a woman can acquire from a male and this will ensure a healthy life for the offspring.
Evolutionary psychology can help explain the differences in murder between men and women. It can also explain why young mothers kill their children and why stepparents are so abusive to, and are more likely to murder stepchildren. Of course, a social context is involved but we need to look at evolutionary causes for what we think we may be able to simply explain. Because it’s, more often than not, more complex than we could imagine. And that complexity is our Selfish Genes doing anything possible to reproduce more copies of itself through its vehicle: the human body.
Marriage, Divorce and Genetic Similarity Theory
1100 words
Genetic Similarity Theory states that we seek out similar others in order to give our genes the best chance to produce copies of themselves. As Richard Dawkins says in The Selfish Gene, it is genes that survive to the next generation with more copies being found in siblings and related co-ethnics. Therefore, the theory goes, by benefitting genetically similar others, we are benefitting copies of our genes. Speed daters match on genotype, which shows evidence for ability to detect genetically similar others. On a subconscious level, we have the ability to detect genetically similar others.
Assortative mating is a form of sexual selection in which those with similar genotypes and phenotypes mate with each other more often than in would be expected under a random breeding model. One of the numerous ways we match by genetic similarity is phenotype. If the phenotype is similar, more often than not, the genotype is as well. This is what drives friendships and marriages, as well as being the cause for ethnocentrism.
Rushton (1987) showed that humans are able to detect degrees of genetic similarity in others, and prefer those most similar to themselves for friends and spouses than less genetically similar individuals, which is the basis for ethnocentrism. A husband and wife are, on average, as close as fourth cousins. Due to matching by GST, spouses should also match on heritable traits such as IQ, body measurements and personality traits. As McCrae et al (2008) write:
Altruism, Modesty, and Tender-Mindedness are characteristics that most people desire in a spouse (cf. Buss, 1986), but people are most likely to find a mate with these characteristics if they have them themselves. This is an instance of the principle that people with desirable qualities have more options in seeking a desirable mate. At the same time, it seems likely that there is a sense in which disagreeable people may actually prefer the company of their own kind, like the haughty Duke in Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” who disposed of his wife because she was too indiscriminately nice.
Everyone has the perfect spouse in their head that they dream of. However, the type of spouse we end up with will, more often than not, be genetically similar to ourselves. Even spouses who are not of the same race or ethnicity match up on heritable traits such as The Big Five, IQ and physiological measurements.
Divorce is also influenced by genetic factors. Jockin, Mcgue and Lykken (1996) found that 40 percent of the variability in the heritability of divorce comes from genetic factors that affect the personality of one spouse. Traditionalism, extraversion and neuroticism (2 of the Big 5 Personality Traits) are causes for divorce. A few reasons I can think of for neuroticism and extraversion being personality traits correlated with divorce is highly neurotic people are more likely to be stressed, anxious, have hypochondria (the worry of contracting an illness) and obsessive behavior. This can put extra strain on a marriage, leading to both of the spouses not being happy in their marriage, leading to divorce. With extraversion, more extraverted people are more open to meeting others and are more social and talkative. This will lead to feelings of jealousy, causing a strain on the marriage.
The genetic and environmental influences responsible for marriage are different from those that are responsible for divorce. Evidence exists that after mate selection, there may be some protective factors for the couple, such as religion. While other factors that place couples at risk for divorce, such as alcoholism, are also genetic in nature.
Trumbetta and Gottesman (2000) suggested endophenotypes with one being oriented to pair bonding and the other to mate diversification. Pair bonding, obviously, leads to a happier marriage as both spouses are monogamous, whereas mate diversification is associated with multiple marriages. It sounds to me like those who pair bond are more introverted whereas those who have diversity in marriage partners are more extraverted, leading to high divorce rates due to jealousy and cheating. The conclude that there are significant genetic influences on both endophenotypes with unique environmental factors accounting for the rest of the variance,
Spouses, as well as friends, sort on characterisitics such as race, socioeconomics, physical attractiveness, level of education, family size and structure, IQ and longevity. This is the Selfish Gene in action. By seeking out copies of itself (which would be in co-ethnics in higher frequencies), the gene is able to ensure its survival onto the next generation.
Even in couples who are not the same race or ethnicity match on other heritable characteristics. Rushton and Nicholson (1988), tested predictions from genetic similarity theory and found that spouses select each other on the basis of more genetically influenced cognitive tests. It’s known since The Bell Curve came out in 1994 that spouses select each other based on IQ. What Rushton and Nicholson noted in the study was that estimates of genetic influence calculated on Koreans and Canadians predicted assortative mating in European Americans in Hawaii and California. Americans of mixed ancestry made up for ethnic dissimilarity by matching up on the more heritable traits, whereas the correlation is lower for those traits that are more influenced by the environment. The observations on genetic selection were weaker but still had a positive correlation, when the g factor was taken out of the equation. This suggests that we choose mates based on the general intelligence factor. This effect is seen in, for instance, white women who date black men. They, more often than not, have lower average IQs than the mean (100).
Pan and Wang (2011) showed that spouses are similar in academic achievement as well as IQ. 6 out of the 8 traits tested (reading, spelling, arithmetic, vocabulary, verbal and full-scale IQ) showing evidence of spousal correlations.
Humans have a natural instinct to marry genetically similar others. Whether the traits are environmentally or genetically influenced, spouses will match on traits with the highest correlations (BMI, waist size, arm size). Genetic Similarity Theory proposes that these phenomena is not by chance, but was how we evolved. Sexual selection, which is natural selection arising through preference by one sex for certain traits in individuals of the other sex, is the driving factor here. Through sexual selection, we humans were able to gain higer intelligence (for men) and gain higher verbal abilties that allowed to care for children (women). These differences remained even when controlling for geographic location. Spouses and friends being as similar as 4th cousins is no accident, in fact, it is evolution in action.
Islam, Suicide Bombings, IQ and Consanguinity
1650 words
A lot of people seem to confuse causes between ‘Islam’ and behavior that’s just ‘low IQ’. Whenever these attacks like shootings, sexual assaults and rapes happen, that’s due to their low IQ; not religion. I wrote about this in IQ, Inbreeding and Clannishness. All of the behavior you see is due to low IQ. 1) being in an area with a hot climate and 2) cousin marriage has been going on there ever since Jews from the Levant introduced it to them around 200 BC. To quote myself:
Those innate behaviors which result in the favoring in all areas of life, themselves and their family, is a result of genetic similarity because of the closely related genes they share (the father’s brother’s daughter type is the most common in the Muslim world). Also, first and second cousin marriages are more common, which also result in increased altruism for their own family because of the close genetic similarity, but also those in their own group, which is mediated by the brain hormone oxytocin.
In a paper on the mean IQ of Muslims and non-Muslim countries, Donald Templer states that the Muslim world, which used to be have great intellectual achievements from the 7th to 12th centuries, has seen an underrepresentation in highly creative contributions in science journals. This is because of the inbreeding effect (2.5 to 10 point drop in IQ) of close cousin marriage. He ends up saying that genetic factors are more important than social/cultural/religious values (back to the inbreeding, causing defects and lowering IQ) in regards to IQ.
I also put a map of individualism and collectivism in Europe here. You can see that the collectivist countries are fighting back more. The countries/regions where it’s more red roughly matches up to the situation. You can see how in Central, Northern and Northwestern Europe they’re more individualistic, as well as more atheist, than those collectivist countries. So that leads to what we see with this ‘welcome refugees’ signs, as well as, I would assume, more oxytocin in the brain for Europeans, which leads to more altruism towards other peoples. Of course, 1000 years ago, the high altruism was fine due to being a mostly homogeneous society. But when others move in who are not from the area, and who do not have the same biology as you due to certain selection pressures, that’s when the ‘clash of cultures’ commences. Which it’s not really a clash of culture, more like a clash of biology, because 2 groups who shouldn’t live together are being forced to live together.
This also brings me to people who confuse the causality between Islam and blacks. As I said, it’s a low IQ religion (which I have provided enough evidence for my case). So blacks who become Muslim do so because of low IQ. Anything after that doesn’t mean that being a Muslim had them do it. Lets say that Islam never popped up and the same peoples were still there, continuing such close inbreeding, would that be Islam doing it? No. It’s their biology. **
Using environmental factors (Islam, culture) is what leftists do. In my post on behavior not equaling genes plus environment, I showed how people create their own environments based on their own genetics. The environment we put ourselves in is based on our genetics. We can clearly see that Islam is bringing their culture (genetics) to Europe and are incompatible with Europe as well as all Western societies around the world. Due to this, we can see that wherever any population goes, it will be the same from the original place they emigrated from if migration in large enough numbers occurs. A country is only as good as its majority population.
In Non-Western People are Abnormal to Our Societies, I showed how due to differing cultures (genetics), these third-world immigrants coming into our countries cannot readily assimilate due to differing average IQs and other hormones that lead to crime differentials with the native population. Though Arabs are Caucasian, evolving closer to the equator lead to higher levels of testosterone as more exposure to the sun increases vitamin D levels, which is not a vitamin but actually a steroid hormone. These differences in testosterone then lead to more sex attacks with high testosterone combined with low IQ. Lower IQ people are less likely to be virgins than higher IQ people. This shows that higher IQ people have less testosterone and can also hold back urges more than lower IQ people. This then translates over to an increase of sexual assaults by ‘migrants’ to European women. These ‘abnormalities’, though, would be abnormal anywhere. Putting differing cultures (genetics) in a place with a completely different culture will lead to strife due to genetic distance between the two populations.
I wrote in Evolutionary Reasons for Suicide Bombings that Muslims who suicide bomb do so to increase inclusive fitness. The increase in inclusive fitness comes about due to the suicide bomber having no prospects as well as no kids, so he/she is just taking up resources. By committing suicide, they are freeing resources for others who have a better chance to spread their genes. Many suicide bombers come from middle-class backgrounds, which further proves the case for genetic interests being the cause for this. The majority of Al-Qaeda members come from educated, middle-class backgrounds. Even for Palestinian suicide bombers, none of them were poor, uneducated, simple minded nor depressed.
The average IQ for a criminal is 85 adult offenders, 92 for juvenile offenders. What’s the average IQ in the Middle East? 81, around 1.3 SD lower than average, and 4 points lower for chronic adult offenders in America. The lower IQ comes from being more inbred, which then manifests itself in the crime rate. The strife in the middle east can also be traced back to IQ and consanguinity rates in those populations. How inbred a population is predicts IQ as well as how much strife occurs in those populations.
Germany has said they will begin IQ testing their ‘migrants’. If it works well (I highly doubt it will, and if it is, it won’t be implemented well) this could curb some attacks that happen. Since IQ differences between populations are one of the biggest causes for crime differentials (lower IQ is also correlated with higher testosterone) between them, screening for and only allowing high IQ ‘migrants’ in would curb some violent crime and sex attacks if implemented on a wide enough scale. IQ differences between populations are one of the biggest reasons for differences between any population you can think of.
For a comparison, we can use Christian Arabs. Christian Arabs are less inbred than Muslim Arabs, which shows in the amount of terror attacks committed by Christian Arabs, which I can’t find any data for. If anyone has found any, leave a comment. hbdchick then says this about consanguinity between Christian Arabs and Muslim Arabs:
so, the rate of cousin-marriage amongst lebanese christians was 16.5% while the rate for muslims approached double that at 29.6%.
christians married cousins more distant than first cousins at a slightly higher rate than they did first cousins: 8.6% (>1C) versus 7.9% (1C). muslims, on the other hand, favored first cousin marriage: 17.3% (1C) versus 12.3% (>1C). this is a similar pattern found elsewhere in the middle east/arab world. in egypt, for instance, copts tend to marry second cousins while muslims tend to marry first cousins (no, i can’t find the reference!).
there was also more fbd marriage amongst muslims (6.4%) versus christians (3%).
This is directly mirrored in how often we hear about Christian Arab attacks and crime (I haven’t heard of this), showing that consanguinity rates can predict crime rates. Due to this extreme inbreeding, they are more genetically similar, which leads to higher amounts of altruism for their own group, in turn leading to derogation of the out-group. Europeans are, on average, less inbred than Muslims. This is why it’s said that Muslims are incompatible with our societies. They are more clannish and altruistic for their own. Like JP Rushton said, groups will proliferate ideas that are good for their genetic interests.
Even more evidence can be shown with Chechen inbreeding. I can’t find any data on Chechen IQ, so lets use the closest country to Chechnya, which is Georgia with an average of 94. Since inbreeding can depress IQ 2.5 to 10 points, Chechnya’s average IQ should be somewhere around the mid-80s. This shows similarity with the consanguinity rate. hbdchick then concludes:
it’s no wonder, then, that they still engage in blood feuds (just like the albanians). you’d half expect them to build tower houses for protection during clan disputes like the albanians or the maniots.
oh, wait.
Muslim (Arab) populations are incompatible to Western societies due to how inbred they are. Their own societies are built on their genetics, which they then bring to the West and attempt to bring what they’re running from to their new host country.
In conclusion, whenever people say “it’s Islam doing it”, it’s low IQ behavior. Those with lower IQ are more likely to be drawn to Islam. Islam developed after 1300 years after the start of Arab inbreeding. We can draw, from IQ from American criminals, that 85 is the sweet spot for criminality, and since criminality is correlated with low IQ more so than any other variable you can think of. A good example of this is a low IQ person coaxed into committing a crime. It’s an obvious biological difference, the sociopolitical garbage is just that, garbage. The biology drives the politics. Consanguinity rates are one of the biggest factors. You should be concerned with the biology aspect.
Note: When I say “Muslim” I mean Arab. I am also not attempting to “apologize” for terror attacks. I’m simply looking at it through the lens of evolutionary psychology. Most people who read this blog know why Africans act the way they act, and African “migrants” are no different.
Even More Evidence for GST: Speed Daters Match on Genotype
850 words
Your success at speed-dating might be influenced by your genetic make-up and your potential partner’s ability to detect so-called ‘good genes.’ The research team found that participants who were more likely to be asked on a second date had genotypes consistent with personal traits that people often desire in a romantic partner.
Coming off of a successful refutation of JayMan (check comments too), more evidence for our claim came out the other day. Us humans can match on genotype, which we, of course, match with people with other similar heritable characteristics. Since humans match on these traits that are more heritable than the ones that are more influenced by environment, then we can say that we are seeking out partners who are like us, therefore matching on genetic similarity.
Wu, et al (2016) examined 262 Asian Americans in a speed-dating setting. The researchers predicted that there would be considerable matching by genotype between the genders. They found that the gene A118G, which is linked to submissiveness and social sensitivity, whereas for the men, the minor variant with the -1438 A/G allele, which is linked to social dominance and leadership, were shown to have greater success. They also discovered that men and women with genotypes consistent with “prevailing gender norms were more likely to receive second date offers”
The researchers say that “These results suggest that personal attributes corresponding to A118G and −1438 A/G can be detected in brief social interactions, and that having a specific genetic variant or not plays a tangible role in dating success,” Those with the A118G polymorphism had greater capacity for experiencing social pleasure and pain as well as their need to have social contact. This also shows how Men and women with the opposite of each allele (men having the A118G allele and women having the -1438 A/G allele) were seen as less desirable mates, showing good evidence that each allele is gender-specific. Wu also believes this effect could also expand to other social interactions, such as job interviews.
This study shows more evidence for Rushton’s theory of spouses matching phenotypically by genotype. Spouses are as similar as 4th cousins. Spousal genetic similarity is a significant driving force for human civilization, as it selected for certain traits over others that then lead to things such as higher IQ in Eurasian men to beauty in Eurasian women, vice versa for Africans. In Eurasian societies, men hunted and while women took care of the children. Higher intelligence then evolved in men due to needing to strategize, among other things such as surviving the frigid temperatures. Women took care of the children, and thus developed a higher verbal IQ as a result of this. In Africa, women gathered food, selecting them for slightly higher intelligence than their male counterparts. Conversely, the African males were selected for attractiveness (Fuerle, 2008).
Those K-selected have lower birth rates, and thus, must be more rigorous in choosing a mate. Choosing a mate based on intelligence showed that the male could provide food as well as protect the family against predators and other bands of humans. R selected humans have more children and show less care, so they have higher birth rates to counter this. They are less rigorous in mate selection due to need to have more children due to a higher death rate. This is mirrored still, even today in modern society. Human sexual selection is one of the reasons why human evolution progressed to the point is has, with the driver being evolution in harsher climates. Eurasian women needed to be more stringent in choosing mates due to a higher chance of death in choosing the wrong mate. Over time, this lead to a ‘genotype sensor’ if you will, which by matching by certain phenotypic traits (facial symmetry, skin color, height, health, etc), chances for intelligent children, better care and more food will come as a result of this stringent selection by women, which in turn lead to evolution of certain traits in Eurasian men and women.
This shows that these human differences in how we select our spouses to how our civilizations ultimately end up is due to a) climate, b) sexual selection and c) genetics. Passing on the best genes lead to an ultimately better society, and as a result, this lead to those genes that were more successful having a chance to produce more copies of themselves, assuring that society would be run well in the future. This is also why government systems such as monarchies have hereditary rulers.
I have said numerous times that the tendency to favor co-ethnics is the tendency to favor shared genes. Benefiting those similar to yourself ensures that you’re benefiting copies of your genes, ensuring your genetic legacy for the future. Matching with those who appear similar to us by genotype when there is such phenotypic similarity shows that this is a trait we humans have to seek out those co-ethnics genetically similar to ourselves.
Ethnic Genetic Interests and Group Selection Does Exist: A Reply to JayMan
6350 words
JayMan has said that ““Ethnic Genetic Interests” Do Not Exist (Neither Does Group Selection)“. It’s clear from what he says towards the end that he has some sort of bias to attempt to disprove Ethnic Genetic Interests and Group Selection. This will be a definitive refutation of JayMan’s belief of the non-existence of GST and GS. Along with Dr. Swaggins from the CoonU Blog, both of us today will prove that EGI and GS do in fact exist and that JayMan has an implicit bias in the denial of EGI and GS. I will also address JayMan’s comment to me in that same article that I never responded to save it for this article.
I first wrote an article, Genetic Similarity Theory, in reply to his denial of EGI. It was short, but I got my point across with the Price Equation. JayMan then comments:
Ethnic altruism can’t evolve through genetic similarity because the coefficient of relationship between co-ethnics (who aren’t close family) is pretty small. Even kin selection itself is pretty weak in general. How much time do you spend with your second and third cousins?
In-group favoritism likely evolved through individual selection for reciprocal altruism. Overall similarity simply allowed individuals to recognize likely partners for trading favors (shared language and customs may help). This may have even co-opted systems designed to act towards close kin – misfiring kin altruism, if you will.
Rebutting Jayman’s denial of the ethnic kinship coefficient requires an explanation of the concept of relatedness as a whole. How, for example, can I be 50% identical to my father if I’m 99.8% identical to all living humans? The answer is that I am not 50% identical to my father; rather, I am 50% identical to my father by comparison to the baseline level of relatedness of all living humans. If all living humans are 99.8% genetically identical then I’m 99.9% identical to my father. Jayman’s argument that two random co-ethnics aren’t related fails to factor this into account: a calculation of relation needs a baseline level of relatedness for comparison. So he’s correct in stating that two co-ethnics are not similar to one another- but only by comparison to the baseline level of relatedness of their entire population.
Since the ethnic kinship coefficient has been worked out to the equivalent of half siblings, it may be useful to frame the issue in those terms. If I am 25% identical to my half sibling by comparison to any other co-ethnic, it is because there is a quarter of my genome that I share with my half sibling due to our common descent. Specifically, our mutual descent from our mutual parent gives us a specific combination of genes that nobody else is likely to have. 25% of my genome is 100% identical to his alleles of the same genes and the other 75% is as similar to his as it is to any other co-ethnic, but taken as an average across my entire genome, any given allele is 25% more likely to be shared with him than it is everyone else in our race.
The ethnic kinship coefficient works in an uncannily similar way. Instead of inheriting those 25% identical genes from recent common ancestors, the two co-ethnics inherit the same genes due to the fact that people of their race usually have those genes (think melanin, keratin, microcephalin, EDAR, HERC2, or any other gene for which the frequency of alleles differs overpopulation). In spite of that difference in the origin of ethnic vs familial similarity, the mathematics are shockingly similar: according to Henry Harpending in his review paper Kinship and Population Subdivision, “Many studies agree that Fst [genetic distance between populations] in world samples of human populations is between ten and fifteen percent,” with “a conservative general figure” being 12.5%. What’s more, Fst “is computed for each allele at each locus, then averaged over all loci.” In other words, 1/8th of human genetic diversity is at the between-group level.
To put things into perspective, a 1/8th reduction in diversity within a family occurs when two half siblings (25% identical) have a child. There is a 1/16th chance that the common parent will pass a given allele to both children and that both children will pass that allele to their child, and a 1/16th chance for the same to occur for the other allele of the same gene; when computed allele for allele, “diversity” (odds of heterozygosity) goes down by 1/8th among a population that is 25% identical by descent.
One such calculation finds, for example, that a Frenchman is 24% identical to another Frenchman if your baseline for comparison is the genetic similarity between the French and Japanese.
This is the inevitable implication of the central tenet of HBD: that the various races of the world are genetically different from one another. It is also the inevitable implication of Lewontin’s famous finding that 15% of all human genetic variation is racial; if it were 100% then all co-ethnics would be identical and it were 0% then race wouldn’t exist at all. If it were 15%, though, then that 15% would be composed of genes whose alleles vary in frequency across populations; these are genes you share with co-ethnics much more often than you share with anyone else. If you’re more likely to share a lot of genes with co-ethnics than you are with anyone else, then you’re more genetically similar to co-ethnics than you are anyone else. When they sequence the genes of people of different races and compute the odds of similarity locus for locus, you’re much more likely to share some genes (ABCC11, MC1R, etc) with co-ethnics than you are others, but taken as an average across both copies of the entire genome, it’s about 25%. Apply those odds to the 20,000 or so genes in the human genome and the result will be consistent with the data that members of a given race are about 25% identical by comparison to members of other races.
We are not the first people to predict that these genetic differences would result in kin selection expressed as altruism towards co-ethnics and discrimination towards others; to quote an article by the late Henry Harpending posted in March 2012, “In the new diverse community the average person can find someone related as f~0.06, corresponding roughly to a great-grandchild at f=1/16. Suddenly there is a fitness payoff to discrimination.” (In this hypothetical population, an individual is 1/8th more related to a co-ethnic than to the average and 1/8th less related to some of a different race than to the average.) In an ethnically homogeneous population, discrimination of this kind will not occur because the fitness payoff of benefiting one co-ethnic or the other is the same, but in a heterogeneous population, you suddenly have people in whom you have comparatively more or less genetic interest. In December 2012, Harpending and Salter published “JP Rushton’s Theory of Ethnic Nepotism,” a paper predicting that the Fst data would support Rushton’s theory of ethnic genetic interest, by providing evidence for kin selection. Towards the end of this article, I will provide evidence for human altruistic behavior fitting the patterns predicted by kin selection, and I will present a likely animal model for subspecies competition over resources. In the meantime, however, there are more misconceptions to clear up.
JayMan says:
I suppose a key misunderstanding in the matter is the failure to realize that each individual gene contributes to fitness independently. Each gene is “out for itself”, so to speak. It just so happens that in any given organism, genes achieve success by working together (most of the time). As sucheach individual gene’s “aim” is to make more copies of itself. What’s going on in the rest of the genome is tangential to this. ((—>Each gene would be just as happy to mix with any other gene, so long as its own fitness is increased in the process.<—)) (Additions in last sentence for emphasis are mine)
Individual genes don’t always contribute to fitness independent of one another; the venerable Nicholas Wade has pointed out that there is at least one gene which confers different levels of selective disadvantage depending on the other genes they’re mixed up with: an allele that slightly increased risk of heart problems in Europeans causes big problems whenever it introgresses into Africans. Naturally, the population which has had this allele for longer has more genes elsewhere in the genome compensating for its negative effects, meaning that said allele will cause fitness problems after it introgresses into another population. Introgression is just a fancy word for race mixing, though, and there are other problems with it, as follows:
In a study of 100,000 mixed-race adolescent school children, those who identified themselves as such had higher health and behavior instances than those of one race. The effect was still observed even when SES and other factors were controlled for. A problem with an obvious genetic component.
Yet another study done on white-Asian mixes notes that they have a two times higher rate to be diagnosed with psychological problems such as anxiety, depression and substance abuse.
It was found, in agreement that black-white mixes engaged in more risky behavior than did monoracial children. They also observe that mixed-race adolescents are stark outliers in comparison to whites and blacks, which still holds true despite being raised in similar environments to monoracial children.
Fitness doesn’t look increased in that process, seeing how mulatto children show more health problems and negative behavior than monoracial children. And given the data relating to the allele mentioned above, we can’t rule out the possibility that health problems in biracial children arise because their parents’ genes don’t necessarily work together.
There is no impact on one’s fitness from the race of one’s mate (or an offspring’s mate) so long as close relatives are off the table as mates (aside from the fitness impact of the particular genes such mates were bringing in the environment in question). The fitness impact to a White man’s genes if his daughter marries a Black man is the same as if she married an unrelated White man (again, fitness from gene function notwithstanding).
Do you really believe that? As shown above, mixed-race children show more health and behavior problems than do monoracial children. Africans were not selected for resistance to the negative effects of certain European genes as Europeans were, and we have no reason to believe that any race is selected to compensate for the negative effects of genes they don’t even have.
Just the same, the inclusive fitness impact to a White American is the same whether he focuses his altruistic act on an unrelated White American or on a Namibian; it is zero in both cases. If you adopt children rather than have your own, the fitness hit to you is the same whether your adopted children are White, Black, Chinese, or Venezuelan.
Again, this assumes that there are no genetic differences between populations, but there are, so your fitness is probably higher if you adopt a co-ethnic than if you adopt someone else.
Hence, there is no human ethnic group that exhibits ethnic nepotism. This includes Ashkenazi Jews. But these have nothing to do with ethnic nepotism, didn’t arise via kin selection, and don’t depend on genetic relatedness per se. This includes Ashkenazi Jews.
Ashkenazi Jews evolved their nepotism through thousands of years of getting driven out of countries. Along with being barred from certain jobs, this led to them being only able to do banking jobs and those jobs that took more intellect, which they then evolved their higher IQ as well as more group favoritism to help them in societies where they are the minority. This is clearly evident today with Jewish overrepresentation at elite universities; their average IQ of 110 suggests that they shouldn’t be that much of the student body since they’re six times as likely to be geniuses but many more times likely to make it into the top institutions. Odds are pretty good that that’s ethnic nepotism in action. We’re talking about a group of people 38% likely to consider themselves religious but 70% likely to believe the old mythos that the omnipotent, omniscient creator of everything that ever existed prefers them to literally everyone else, and judge whether someone is worthy of this inconceivably lofty status purely on the basis of their genetics; before they had handy-dandy PCR machines and enzymes, Jews determined someone to be Jewish by matrilineal descent, not cultural custom. If the Ashkenazim lacked any ingroup preferences of any kind during their time in Europe, they would’ve literally copulated themselves to death by marrying Gentiles until their population was totally absorbed by ours. What would you call it then, JayMan, if not EGI? They’re one of the best examples FOR the existence of EGI. See, the thing is, if someone is an Ashkenazi Jew, more often than not, they will be more related to each other than some other random person from another population.
This particular fact – that co-ethnics share genes – is why they have a genetic interest in one another.
The Ethnic Kinship Coefficient has been corroborated literally every time anybody calculated Fst values between different human races, and by JayMan’s understanding of kin selection it disproves his assertion that ethnic genetic interests do not exist:
This [relatedness] is the probability that a given relative of an individual possesses a copy of an allele the individual possesses.
Co-ethnics are about 25% more likely to share the statistically average allele than people of different races are, so the Hamiltonian drive to confer benefit on co-ethnics is comparable to the drive to confer benefit on secondary relations (half siblings, grandchildren, etc). In other words, it doesn’t matter that the frequency of altruistic alleles is unaffected by the presence of outsiders, because people have a genetic imperative to assist the genes they share with their co-ethnics either way (and are therefore selected for altruism/ethnic nepotism either way); since they are related to their co-ethnics regardless of context, they are selected for the desire to confer benefit on co-ethnics regardless of context, and they only have a genetic interest in derogating an outgroup if doing so will increase the fitness of the ingroup. This is why Harpending and Salter observe, in the paper linked above, that racial solidarity “strengthens in response to attacks perceived to be aimed at group identity, especially invasion of the homeland and physical harm done to co-ethnics.” Observe Donald Trump or Marine Le Pen excoriating the bureaucrats they deem responsible for an alleged invasion, or Black Lives Matter being more enraged about a Hispanic killing a black than by thousands of blacks killing thousands of other blacks. A supposed shift in altruistic allele frequencies was never the point, and to argue against it is to battle with strawmen.
If altruism is the result of kin selection, then an organism will confer benefit on the criterion of relatedness. If a European man saves a daycare with 8 Asian babies in it from some freak accident, then he saves as much of his own genes as were shared by those babies. If he saves a daycare with 8 European babies in it, he just saved a collection of his own copies of HERC2 or ABCC11 or EDAR or some other such gene which he previously failed to save as well. If he saves 8 of his co-ethnic first cousins, the proportion again goes up, this time by 12.5%. By the same mathematical model we use to explain kin selection (Hamilton’s Rule), we predict and observe that altruism will be expressed to various degrees depending on the degree of relatedness.
The adaptation to this would have nothing to do with magical altruism genes which change in frequency when Japanese people arrive in France. Rather, the selection pressures predicted by the kin selection model would select for organisms that exhibited compassion and cooperation in proportion to relatedness.
The fact that co-ethnics share so many genes means that they do have a genetic interest in one another, if kin selection is real. I personally believe that kin selection is a clearer and more likely explanation for altruism than group selection in most cases, but due to the difficulty of determining causality in processes that occurred thousands if not millions of years ago (namely the original evolution of altruistic behavior), I doubt that the scientific community can put this one to bed yet. For the purposes of this issue, however, JayMan has already professed his belief that group selection has never occurred, meaning that one of a few different things must be true.
- Humans are not altruistic at all. Untrue.
- Humans are altruistic, but not due to kin selection or group selection. Unlikely; we can talk about mutual back-scratching all we want but the fact that people take bullets and jump on grenades for one another means that mutual benefit cannot be our only reason to confer benefit upon others.
- Humans are altruistic due to kin selection. This explanation is consistent with genetics and evolutionary theory; evolution holds that survival is a matter of passing on genes and genetics show that related organisms have many of the same genes. It also has pretty good predictive power (it predicts familial love, racism, and other real phenomena). For these reasons, I’m going to be arguing from the assumption that kin selection is a primary reason for human altruism, and that it, therefore, must exist in humans.
Due to the genetic similarity between co-ethnics, there is a genetic interest between them. Each has a Darwinian interest in the other comparable to roughly 25% of their own survival. Operating from the assumption that kin selection is the reason for human altruism, one would predict one of the following possibilities:
- Humans will prefer to confer benefit to their co-ethnics over others due to the fitness advantage gained by doing so,
- That humans cannot perceive genetic similarity and have therefore been selected to benefit one another regardless of genetic similarity in hopes that they hit the mark by accident,
- Humans do prefer those who are genetically similar but are incapable of perceiving the genetic differences between the various human subspecies, or
- Humans understand the genetic differences between themselves and others but for whatever reason will not take the 25% fitness advantage. I’m going to go ahead and throw this one out.
We know that humans prefer others on the basis of genetic similarity, and we know that nearly all human cultures have considered those of different ethnicities to be “the other,” or at least different in some significant way. We know that people can determine someone’s biological race based on their appearance, in any case, and in his 1996 book Race in the Making: Cognition, culture, and the child’s construction of human kinds, Lawrence Hirschfeld found that even children could do so. All of which means that humans can get a rough idea of genomic similarity (or difference) using phenotype and family history as a proxy, and that race is among the types of genetic difference that humans are capable of perceiving. If humans prefer one another based on the criterion of genetic similarity (they do), and race is a genetic difference that humans can perceive (it is), then we expect humans to generally prefer those of their own race (they do).
Even in studies of bereavement, Littlefield and Rushton (1986) put forth ten hypotheses (I will only bring the ones up that prove the case for EGI) to make the case for Genetic Similarity Theory:
- A mother will grieve more than the father: this is due to the mother having finite number of ova, have a more limited reproductive potential than do men and also bear the burden of bearing children, this shows that each offspring of a mother is more important to the overall success to her genes than the are to the father’s.
- Male children will be grieved for more intensely than female children. This is due to a male having a higher chance to have more children and spread his genes to more progeny.
- Similar children will be grieved for more intensely than dissimilar children. GST explains the phenomenon of assortative mating, the phenomenon that spouses will be genetically similar on those traits more influenced by genetics. One consequence of assortative mating is that one parent may be more similar to the child than the other. This can be illustrated as follows: Rushton and Littlefield: “If a father gives his child 50% of his genes, 10% of which are shared with the mother, and the mother gives the child 50% of her genes, 20% of which are shared with the father, the child would be 60% similar to the mother and 70% similar to the father (Rushton et al., 1984)”. So we can see that depending on the amount of genes a child gets from his parent will infer whether or not they are genetically similar to which parent, and in the case of a possible surprise death, the parent who believes the child looks (shares more alleles in common with) like their selves, will grieve longer and more intensely due to having a greater fitness hit due to the increased GST.
This study shows good evidence that the more genetically similar the child is to the grieving parent, the more strong and intense the grieving process will be. How mothers and fathers will risk their lives for their children, their genetic endowment, shows another truth to this phenomenon: altruism. Altruism for those who are genetically similar to yourself. We can then take this and show that since co-ethnics are closer to each other than they are to distant populations, and that since they are more genetically similar to themselves, the same kind of derogation and suspicion that parents give strangers who come around their children, co-ethnics will give to non-co-ethnics when they appear in their homeland. Robert Putnam’s research corroborates this.
Altruism/nepotism does increase when out-groups come to the land. When this occurs, the native population of the country will, in theory, become more altruistic to co-ethnics since their genetic interests are at stake. This is currently occurring in Eastern and Southern Europe in countries like Hungary, Poland, Spain, and Italy.
The model has pretty good predictive power since it predicts racism and other phenomena, which I’ll dive into now. Applying the kin selection model to humanity we expect that altruism will not only be doled out proportionally with respect to genetic similarity, but also to the number of babies the recipient is likely to have. I wouldn’t do as much for my DNA by saving the residents of a retirement home as I would by saving a daycare. And saving women is smarter than saving men. Hence, when the Titanic sinks, the rallying cry of the day is literally “save the women and children!” (Because the people who didn’t do that throughout our biological history had less of an impact on our gene pool than the ones who did.)
So you’re going to see innumerable charities for the benefit of children, and comparatively, nobody trying to solve the conundrum of how terrible life is in nursing homes for the elderly. On the Forbes list of top US charities, numbers 1-4 all frequently work with children (as do many others) and numbers 5, 6, 12, and 14 are specifically for children. None of them are specifically for the elderly; making sure that Grandpa isn’t miserable and alone registers nowhere in the top 50 items of our society’s to-do list.
And you’re going to see things like this, in spite of the fact that men are equally likely if not a hair more likely to get lung cancer and it’s a big killer in both sexes because people care more about “women” than they do about “people.” And I’m not joking or cherry-picking: Lung Force’s blog is seemingly more about women’s feelings than about lung cancer, no doubt because these people are aware that breast cancer research receives way more funding than prostate cancer research does in spite of similar death rates . In other words, it’s a well-known fact among people whose jobs are to stir up altruism that people will give more resources for the well-being of women than for the well-being of men.
All of which is just another case of altruism that “just so happens” to confer group and/or kin benefit, and does so proportionally to the expected increase in fitness, precisely as kin selection would predict. I would expect people to donate more to co-ethnics as well, were it not for the facts that:
a) It’s fashionable in our society to virtue signal niceness to swarthier folks, and
b-z) Haitian children literally eat dirt for breakfast.
In any case, you can look at where rich nonwhites send their donation dollars, be it the fitness benefit gained by JayZ when he donates to clean water causes in Africa, or by George Lopez in his “contributions to the Latino community“. This isn’t a cherry-picked trend of statistically irrelevant anecdotes: Blacks donate to other Blacks, “Identity-based giving is gaining momentum in the Latino, Asian American, Arab American, and Native American communities,” and “Latino’s motivation to give is embedded in a sense of responsibility and desire to give back to their community.” Much of the work of such people may end up benefiting Whites who happen to be there when a catastrophe hits a bunch of the donor’s co-ethnics (observe a Black donating to Hurricane Katrina; New Orleans is majority black, but not devoid of Whites), or occasionally they’ll donate to other nonwhites. But I’m not holding my breath for the day they raise awareness for the White squatter camps in South Africa.
Basically, any time that a person does a nice thing for another person, it will be proportional to any combination of three factors: genetic similarity, assumed number of offspring, and/or how bad the recipient needs help. All three of these are predicted by kin selection since all three are factors which predict the fitness gained by engaging in an altruistic act.
Importantly, virtually every culture on Earth preferred co-ethnics to others prior to the Communist subversion of the West, at which point accusations of racism became something of a social death sentence. (You don’t believe me on the Communist subversion thing- think it’s a conspiracy? Google up where all of this “social construct” ideology we keep encountering ultimately came from, and look up who’s promoting it today.) One could claim that whether a culture is “racist” or not depends on “culture” rather than biology, and point to the modern West as an example of an “anti-racist” culture, but in that case, it’s one hell of a coincidence that every race on Earth generally preferred themselves to everyone else, and did so for 10,000 years or more if you count prehistory. Considerably more likely is that populations with no ingroup preference are subsumed by other populations who gain a fitness advantage by doing so (they mounted no defense because they didn’t understand the need to do so) and that the majority of modern humans are therefore descended mostly from passionate racists.
Co-ethnics have a real genetic interest in one another due to large amounts of shared DNA, meaning that ethnic genetic interest is real. Humans do act on genetic interests in general, as the family studies show, and they are capable of perceiving racial genetic differences, as the ethnicity studies show; it is, therefore, likely that they will act on these ethnic genetic interests as they do with other genetic interests, because racism is caused by the innate preference for genetically similar people. In other words, racism is a biological phenomenon instead of a cultural one.
That, or nearly every culture ever in the history of forever was racist by pure coincidence.
To put subspecies competition into perspective, I will point out that wolves and coyotes have a Fst value between 0.056 and 0.121 and can interbreed. We can call subspecies and other taxonomic classification a social construct if we like; technically we’d be correct in the case of canids, to whom the words “species” and “subspecies” are doled out in a pretty arbitrary fashion. We can say that the admixture is proof that the wolf and coyote DNA doesn’t care about which other genes it’s combined with, if we like. But everything we say about it does absolutely nothing to change the fact that the biological fitness of coyotes massively drops when they share territory with wolves.
Understatement of the week: the implications of having to compete for the same resources is probably why canids fight for territory. Wolf packs, being direct family, would no doubt have a high Fst with other wolf packs, no different from how I’m more similar to my grandpa than I am my housemates. They fight for territory on a familial level because of genetic interest, and they have been observed fighting for territory on the level of subspecies as well, with a clear genetic interest in doing so. The only difference between them and us in this respect is that our method of acquiring resources relies on commerce rather than hunting, and so we weren’t selected for the propensity to wander around a given territory fighting off other families who intrude. That’s not good for business; in fact, I’d be willing to bet that warfare usually occurs in humans when the profit incentive for conquest is greater than the profit incentive for trade. Humans who don’t engage in a lot of commerce and belong to inbred populations, though, have fewer incentives towards peace and higher Fst values relative to others- and they aren’t above killing the guys from the next tribe over. What a surprise that these village’s conflicts had to do with territory and breeding, both of which have to do with fitness. In any case, humans from populations selected for agriculture and commerce engaging in this sort of behavior is the exception that proves the rule, because the only reason anybody knows about the interfamilial warfare of the Hatfields and McCoys is that it falls under the “man bites dog” rule.
I have this radical view that biological rules still apply to humans, and that we are therefore self-replicating bags of meat smart enough to understand that we are self-replicating bags of meat. I see little difference between wolves reclaiming their old hunting grounds and the Reconquista movement. Coyotes had taken over when the wolves kept getting killed by men; Spaniards took over when a storm of viruses killed off most of the Natives. Even after the Spanish admixture, the Fst values between Whites and the now-mestizos likely falls within the range of coyote-wolf Fst values. Wolves feed their kind with elk and we feed ours ultimately with money; the distribution of elk meat to wolves isn’t good for coyotes and I’m willing to bet that the distribution of money and jobs to other nations and their peoples explains much of our abysmal birth rates in the West (with birth control technologies being another primary factor). We had lots of kids back when there were blue collar jobs you could get fresh out of high school which instantaneously elevated you to the middle class. We could afford to have them, no different from the fact that European nobles had more kids on average than us commoners. If current economic, cultural, and political trends continue, though, then ethnic Europeans might go out roughly 50x faster than the Neanderthals did.
Biological organisms show preference of those who are similar at the level of self (me), family (the Kennedys), tribe or nation (Papuan tribes or Mexico), race or subspecies (Native Americans), and species (I eat pork and kill spiders more often than I eat aboriginal Australians and kill Sentinelese people). All are the same phenomenon (attempts to increase the odds of self-replication at the genetic level), all are predicted with Fst values and Hamilton’s Rule, all are observed in animals to whom “culture” doesn’t apply, and all are observed in mankind.
Now, the question is this: how would GST be detected? Numerous ways. Location, for one. Since up until around 50 years ago, most countries were monoracial, those in your general proximity will, more often than not, be more genetically similar to you than a group that’s 50 miles away. Culture, which is an expression of genetics, is yet another way that GST can be detected. Since culture is an expression of genetics, when that culture is expressed, this shows other genetically similar co-ethnics that this individual shares more genes in common than those who don’t share their culture. There is also matching by phenotype, which goes along with the location aspect. But, as I stated in my article Genetic Similarity Theory as a Cause for Ethnocentrism:
It’s clear that we are more altruistic to people who look more phenotypically similar to ourselves, to pass on and benefit copies of our genes. This evolved in spite of the negative impact on behalf of the altruist. The altruist is helping copies of his shared genes survive so that they may be copied into the next generation of progeny. The tendency to favor co-ethnics is the tendency to attempt to help pass on shared genes, as if the phenotype is similar, more often than not, the genotype is as well. This is the basis for ethnocentrism.
There is also what is called the “Grandmother’s hypothesis” in which the researchers theorize that women live past menopause to help take care of their grandchildren. In doing so, they can then make sure their grandchildren are well-fed and nourished. The researchers state that by using Hamilton’s relation coefficients (what we have been using in this article), that a grandmother should share 25 percent of genes with her grandchildren. Ted Sallis says:
Therefore (and this is the important point), a paternal grandmother, all else being equal, is genetically less related to a grandson than to a granddaughter, and less related to a grandson than is a maternal grandmother. Conversely, a paternal grandmother likely is more genetically related to a granddaughter than is a maternal grandmother, given the certainty that the granddaughter possesses an X chromosome from the paternal grandmother.
The researchers hypothesized that the grandmother’s investment in grandchildren will be directly mirrored by how genetically similar they are to each other. The authors conclude that women live past menopause to help care for their children’s offspring. Since they share 25 percent of their genes with their grandchildren, they too, have a genetic investment in making sure they get adequate nutrition and are well cared for. They found that in 7 previously studied populations that “separating grandchild survivorship rates by sex reveals that X-chromosome relatedness correlates with grandchild survival in the presences of MGMs and PGMs. In all seven populations, boys survive better in the presence of their MGM than PGM. In all bar one population, the PGM has a more beneficial effect on girls than on boys. Our X-linked grandmother hypothesis demonstrates how the effects of grandmothers could be sex-specific because of the unusual inheritance pattern of the X-chromosome.”
This is what this whole debate is about: ability to detect genetic similarity in co-ethnics. Matching by phenotype, culture, and general proximity will, with good chance, bring you together with someone who shares more alleles in common with you and someone who you would feel more altruistic towards since you have a genetic interest in ensuring that some of your genes survive to the next generation.
Mixed-race relationships don’t discredit the existence of EGI/GST, in fact, it helps to strengthen it. Americans of mixed ancestry made up for ethnic dissimilarity by matching up on the more heritable traits, whereas the correlation is lower for those traits that are more influenced by the environment. Since the correlation is higher for heritable traits, i.e., BMI, personality, alcoholism, aggressiveness, criminality, psychiatric disorders and so on. Since the correlations are higher than in the environmentally mediated traits and since mixed-race couples match on more heritable traits than on the traits more influenced by the environment, this shows us that even though they are marrying outside of their race/ethnicity, they still match up on the more heritable traits and not the traits more influenced by the environment.
JayMan brings up the concept of reciprocal altruism as if it negates the effect of racial/ethnic altruism as a whole. It does not. Reciprocal altruism and Genetic Similarity Theory go hand-in-hand as genetic similarity eliminates the need for the reciprocation to occur again. Since two related individuals share more genes in common with each other than two unrelated individuals, this then caused reciprocation and GST to evolve hand-in-hand with each other. To quote Rushton:
Thiessen and Gregg (1980) make the same point. Thiessen and Gregg state that “cooperation among `nonrelatives’ (`reciprocal altruism’) may be based in large part on genetic and phenotypic similarity” (p. 133).
Another reason that GST and reciprocal altruism go hand in hand is that genetic similarity at certain important loci can predict the efficacy of a reciprocal altruistic relationship; Fowler & Christakis find that close friends are as similar as 4th cousins, and Guo et al find the same for spouses. Selecting for phenotypic compatibility means selecting for genetic similarity at the loci which determine the relevant phenotypes (height, IQ, personality and so on). For example, different races of the world differ in Big Five personality traits, and the reason for these differences is likely genetic. If a statistically normal, introverted East Asian prefers to associate with fellow introverts, what are his odds of becoming best friends with a comparatively gregarious Black man? A gregarious Asian or an introverted Black may become fast friends with those of other races, but most of their kinsmen are more stereotypical.
Ultimately, however, what it comes down to is this: if a gene can better ensure its own survival by bringing about the reproduction of family members with whom it shares copies with, then it can also do so by bringing about the reproduction of any organism that it shares genes with. Meaning altruistic self-sacrifice. But, if there is a fitness gain for the altruist, then how is it altruism? Simple. The altruist is just protecting genetic interests. The altruist is just being driven by his genes to save copies of itself. This is basically what we humans are: organisms that only attempt to bring about those with similar genetics to ourselves.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
