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Are Caesarian Sections Affecting Human Evolution?
1100 words
Our brains are the most metabolically demanding organ we have, sapping 5-600 kcal per day (25 percent of our daily energy needs). Due to how cost-efficient the brain is, it only would have evolved if it gave us a bigger fitness advantage (which it obviously did). In the news a couple of days ago, it broke that C-sections may be affecting our evolution. But in all of the articles I read about it I didn’t see any one of them talking about how C-sections may affect human evolution in America between race. Clearly, if C-sections are having this effect on the country as a whole, there must be racial differences as well. Could this have an effect on brain size between race in America?
C-sections have increased in frequency since 1996. Clearly, if there is any selection it’s for more narrow-hipped women and bigger-brained babies. The regular use of C-sections has led to an evolutionary increase of fetopelvic disproportion rates by 10 to 20%. (Mitteroecker et al, 2016) Fetopelvic disproportion is the inability of a babe’s head to pass through the mother’s birth canal. This is because the head—and along with it the brain—is too big, leading to emergency C-sections. Mitteroecker et al (2016) also say (which slightly amused me):
Mitteroecker et al (2016) also say (which slightly amused me):
Neonatal size and maternal pelvic dimensions influence fitness (i.e., reproductive success) of the newborn and the mother in multiple ways. Undoubtedly, relative brain size had increased during human evolution in response to directional selection. Recently, it has also been suggested that the large human brain may be the result of runaway selection for the childcare of infants that are born prematurely because of their large brain (12). It is unclear whether any of this selection still persists after the slight decrease of brain size in the late Pleistocene. However, birth weight, which correlates with brain size at birth, is strongly positively associated with infant survival rate (13) and has also been reported to correlate negatively with the risk of multiple diseases (14). Reducing neonatal brain size by shortening gestation length seems to be equally disadvantageous: Delivery before term clearly increases the likelihood of impaired cognitive function in later life (15, 16).
Brain size is decreasing. Associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin John Hawks also states in his blog post, Selection for smaller brains in Holocene human evolution, where he says (contrary to Pumpkin Person’s assertion) that human brain size has gotten smaller in the past 10,000 years:
The available skeletal samples show a reduction in endocranial volume or vault dimensions in Europe, southern Africa, China, and Australia during the Holocene. This reduction cannot be explained as an allometric consequence of reductions of body mass or stature in these populations. The large population numbers in these Holocene populations, particularly in post-agricultural Europe and China, rule out genetic drift as an explanation for smaller endocranial volume. This is likely to be true of African and Australian populations also, although the demographic information is less secure. Therefore, smaller endocranial volume was correlated with higher fitness during the recent evolution of these populations. Several hypotheses may explain the reduction of brain size in Holocene populations, and further work will be necessary to uncover the developmental and functional consequences of smaller brains.
The reduction in brain size began around 28 kya and accelerated around 10 kya after the dawn of agriculture. The planet getting warmer also played a part in the decrease in brain size, which also allowed for the beginning of agriculture. Anyway, I’m sidetracking, I will return to this point in the future.
Large brains were also selected for since we needed to care for helpless babies. Natural selection for large brains led to more premature births which itself selected for even larger brains.
One-hundred years ago, a narrow-hipped mother who was pregnant with a big-headed baby would have died. Narrow-hipped women with big-headed babies can now survive, transmitting genes for both big brains and narrower pelvises. This is natural selection currently at work as we speak.
One thing that I obviously didn’t see in any article I’ve read on this matter is how will this affect racial differences in brain size? Which race has the most C-sections and will that select for bigger heads and smaller pelvises in that population?
Black women are substantially more likely to deliver by C-section than are white women (pg. 4). Though, one reason that C-sections occur is due to obesity. Black women are the most likely to be obese, which is part of the reason why they have more C-sections. If this trend continues, I could see a slight uptick in black brain size, as even smaller hips get selected for in black women, along with an increase in brain size. That’s one reason why Africans have smaller heads and brains than East Asians and Europeans: they have narrower hips which allows for better athleticism. Conversely, Europeans and East Asians have wider hips which allows for bigger-brained children but hampers athletic ability.
While on the topic of race and C-sections, Asian female-European Male couples have higher rates of C-sections. The obvious explanation is that the Asian woman’s pelvis is too narrow to birth bigger babies. In the study, Asian female-white male couples had babies that had a median weight of 8 pounds, while Asian-Asian couples had babies that had a median weight of 7.1 pounds and finally Asian male-white female couples’ babies had a median weight of 7.3 pounds. However, Asian female-white male couples had an increased rate of C-section deliveries, proving that a significant differences exist between sex of the parent (whether the father or mother is Asian or white influences birth weight) which leads to increased C-section rates due to the white father passing clearly influencing the birth weight more, thusly making it difficult for his Asian partner to birth the baby. There are 100 deaths per 100,000 live births per year in the U.S., a rate of .1 percent. Clearly, though the death rate is low, C-sections lead to maternal mortality and since Asian females are more likely to have a C-section when the father is white due to the baby being bigger, the mortality rate is slightly increased when this interracial pairing occurs.
C-sections are causing natural selection, favoring for bigger heads and narrower hips. This helped us, evolutionarily speaking, as human bipedalism is promoted by a narrow pelvis. C-sections could possibly select for bigger-brained African Americans. Though brain size has decreased in the past 10,000 years, our brain size will slightly increase over time due to this selection pressure. Asian women and white male couples have C-sections more often. Pretty good case against race-mixing, if I don’t say so myself.
Social Sciences and the Denial of the Evolution of Human Behavior
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What causes people to deny the evolution of human behavior? The denial of evolution’s effect on human behavior got a kickstart from E.O. Wilson’s book that attempted to unify the social sciences—Sociobiology: A New Synthesis—and there was a heated debate about Wilson’s thoughts on where the study of sociobiology would go. Sociobiology was almost immediately rejected by social scientists upon its release, while Wilson and others believed that by providing a model of underlying evolutionary influences on humans, if integrated into their models, would cause a unification of the social sciences. if integrated with social scientists’ and cultural anthropologists’ study of the effects of culture on human behavior,would unify them. The social science have been seen as incompatible with sociobiology, due to focusing on how culture shapes behavior, while disregarding any evolutionary explanations in behavior. I will discuss the study in the paper The Lack of Acceptance to Evolutionary Approaches to Human Behavior, which discusses the history of sociobiology, the sociobiology wars, a questionnaire given to UK university students on the evolution of human behaviors. The main aim of the study was “to evaluate whether there is evidence that studying certain academic disciplines, specifically the social sciences and sociocultural anthropology, correlates with rejection of the relevance of evolution to human behaviour.”
Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton, coined the term eugenics in the late 1800s. Galton was interested in Darwin’s idea of heritable behavioral characteristics, but entered soon to be muddy waters when he suggested that only positive traits be selected for while attempting to weed out deleterious ones. The authors of the paper, Perry and Mace, say that Darwinian and Galtonian ideas were used to “to justify right-wing capitalist ideology and racist immigration policy (ROSE and ROSE 2000; LALAND and BROWN 2002).” This is describing what occurred in the early 1900s with the acceptance of eugenics in the West. They bring up so-called “culturally biased IQ tests” that were regarded as proof for innate differences between the races (they aren’t biased) which the lead to immigration restrictions for certain races and ethnicities in the 1924 immigration act.
They then bring up how Social Darwinists believe that evolution is progressive and whites were the “most evolved race” (yawn). They believed in evolutionary progress and a unilinear track to evolution.
They then bring up the infamous Franz Boas who stated that differences between societies were purely cultural which regarded behavior as shaped by culture, shifting the burden of proof from nurture to nature.
E.O. Wilson’s book Sociobiology was the first attempt to fuse animal and human studies “using neo-Darwinian evolutionary approaches to understanding social behaviour. . .” Why should mankind be swayed from studying himself, thought Wilson. Wilson wrote that evolutionary history has resulted in selection for certain genetic predispositions for in modern behavior. Hamilton’s kin selection and inclusive fitness theories (also the base for genetic similarity theory/ethnic genetic interests) were a backbone to Wilson’s new approach, using them to explain interactions between individuals. Other important ideas for the new synthesis was Dawkins’s selfish gene theory, which uses the metaphor of bodies being vehicles for genes (the replicator) and the idea of reciprocal altruism from Trivers, which accounted for cooperation amongst unrelated individuals (also integrated into Rushton’s genetic similarity theory). Perry and Mace write on page 109:
Behavioural traits, like physical traits, can be genetic adaptations, and genes influencing phenotypic traits which result in higher inclusive fitness for the organism will be selected for and will propagate in future generations. Using this basic principle of natural selection, WILSON (1975; 1978) claimed that many human behaviours, for example male promiscuity, incest avoidance and hostility to strangers, are genetic adaptations (BATESON 2008).
Typically enough, Sociobiology was hated by the left and had good reception from biologists. At the forfront of the discontent for the book were the usual suspects: Gould, Lewontin (these two led a “Sociobiology book club”), Rose, Kamin and others. The group accused Wilson of being a eugenicist, supposedly linking it with racism, biological determinism and Nazi policies. Wilson denied these accusations, not knowing what had occurred due research such as this. (pg 110).
On page 113, Perry and Mace write:
From an evolutionary perspective, culture has a biological basis and is expressed as socially transmitted information grounded in psychological capacities for symbolic thought, language and learning (RICHERSON and BOYD 2005; CRONK 1995; GINTIS 2007; MESOUDI, WHITEN and LALAND 2006).
Eloquently stated. Culture is passed down from generation to generation as a sort of phenotypic matching for genetically similar others. Culture survives each generation and is passed down from parents to siblings, grandparents to siblings, and so on. Whichever culture provides a society the best chance to survive and pass on its genes will be one that prospers in a society. A people (most likely) will not adopt a culture that’s the opposite of what is good for them fitness-wise. Of course culture that’s transmitted from generation to generation can be Darwinian if it has an impact on fitness. So the question is really this: What is the evolutionary basis for that people’s behaviors and their cultural norms? What happened in that people’s evolutionary history for them to pick up these customs that theoretically increased their fitness?
An online questionnaire was given to students and faculty at the UCL and UK universities over the summer of 2007. The questionnaire was made to gather information on the student’s attitudes towards science, evolution along with their application to human behavior, religious belief and education. The final sample was 7621 individuals after the removal of faculty.
Perry and Mace put forth three hypotheses:
a) A social science background will decrease acceptance of the relevance of evolution to human behaviour. Conversely, a biological / scientific background will increase acceptance.
b) Greater knowledge of evolution will increase acceptance of evolutionary approaches to human behaviour.
c) Religious belief will decrease acceptance of the relevance of evolutionary theory applied to human behaviour.
Below are some questions from the questionnaire and their factor loadings:
a) Component Variables – Acceptance of the Relevance of Evolution to Human Behaviour
The evolutionary history of humans is relevant in studying human behaviour (q. 39) .659
Human behaviour can be explained in the same way as that of other animal species (q. 32) .587
Humans are a species of animal, related to other species (q. 29) .430
I am interested in the theory of evolution (q. 20) .416
The social sciences provide a greater understanding of humans and their behaviour than evolutionary theory (reverse) (q. 40) –.727
b) Component Variables – Religiosity
Would you describe yourself as religious? (q. 12) .880 Were you brought up with religious views? (q. 13) .776
A spiritual / supernatural influence can explain the nature of life and the world (q. 19) .766
Table 2 of the study shows that current discipline is the best predictor, explaining 9.1 percent of the variance in Acceptance of the Relevance of Evolution to Human Behavior. In that particular percentage of variance, the most important significantly negative predictor of Acceptance of the Relevance of Evolution to Human Behavior ” is studying social sciences (compared to disciplines unrelated to science and human behaviour).” What this indicates is that social scientists are more likely to reject evolutionary explanations for human behavior, followed by religious studies and sociocultural anthropology. Though, of course, biological science, biological anthropology, and psychology had the strongest positive relationship with the Acceptance of the relevance of evolution to human behavior. Not too shocking.
Also discovered was that as religiosity increased, acceptance for evolutionary explanations for human behavior decreased. Those with stronger religious beliefs are more likely to reject evolutionary explanations for human behavior.
Surprisingly, Perry and Mace write:
Holding left-wing political views has a positive relationship with Acceptance of the Relevance of Evolution to Human Behaviour. This result does not support the commonly held assumption that individuals in favour of evolutionary approaches to human behaviour have a right-wing bias.
They also discovered that, within the social sciences, knowledge of evolution was the most important predictor of the acceptance of the relevance of evolution to human behavior. How much exposure one is given to evolutionary theory strongly predicts whether or not they believe if it shaped human behavior? This can be remedied by better teaching the theory of evolution to our youth.
The number of years studying social science has a significant negative relationship with accepting that evolution has shaped human behaviors. The Boasian belief that only culture dictates behavior still permeates our universities today. These results, Perry and Mace write, may show that these beliefs are culturally transmitted themselves. Bias against evolutionary beliefs in human behaviors increases the longer one studies social science.
The results of this questionnaire show that exposure to evolutionary theory needs to occur at a younger age, as knowledge of evolution is low which is one variable that leads to the non-belief of evolution on human behavior. Moreover, what the study showed was that it wasn’t the beliefs of those individuals that had them select the courses, suggesting that it was a bias towards sociobiology was transmitted to them culturally. This shows how left-wing biases run high, at least in certain UK universities, which then clouds an individual’s judgement due to getting an adequate education about evolution and growing up in an environment that explicitly denies evolution for religious reasons. Religion showed a negative relationship with believing that evolution has shaped human behavior. Religious people are very likely to deny evolution, due to being ignorant of evolution’s processes or outright denying it because it contradicts the Bible.
Sadly enough, only 62 percent of Americans believe humans evolved over time, with 33 percent of them believed that humans and other living things evolved solely due to natural processes. Twenty-five percent of US adults believe that evolution was guided by a supreme being while 34 percent of Americans reject evolution entirely and believe that humans and animals have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. Fifty-seven percent of evangelicals believe that Man has always existed in his present form with half of Mormons and about 75 percent of Jehovah’s Witnesses rejecting evolution. Fifty-eight percent of Southern Baptists and sixty-seven percent of the Seventh Day Advent Church denied that humans evolved over time. Conversely, 30 percent of protestants, 29 percent of Catholics, 16 percent of Jews and 15 percent who don’t affiliate with a religion share the same view. This Pew Poll shows that evolution denial correlates strongly with religious affiliation.
Whatever the case may be, teaching evolution at a younger age can increase knowledge of evolution among people who may choose these majors, and may even persuade them from not choosing them since they will learn that biology is a better explanation for human behavior, with human culture largely coming from biology (there is a Lamarckian aspect to human culture). Evolution clearly caused differences in human behavior, and the denial of this reality has impeded our understanding of human evolution and human nature as a whole. Once people are more educated in evolutionary theory they can stop clinging to full-on cultural explanations for behavior and embrace the reality that evolution is the cause for human behavior and sociocultural differences. The social sciences, specifically cultural anthropology, is at the forfront of the denial of evolution in human behavior, and once the public as a whole has a better understanding of evolution.
People need to stop denying scientific truths: that man is the product of natural forces. Once our societies become better educated as a whole in evolutionary theory, we will then see a reduction of religious behavior as well as enrollment in cultural anthropology and sociocultural anthropology—at the very least radically changing the base of those disciplines.
Explaining the Black-White Prostate Cancer Gap
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The black-white prostate cancer gap: genetic? Environmental? Both? Over the years, countless studies have been carried out—mostly on testosterone—to find the cause of the disparity between American blacks and whites. Numerous research has shown that black Americans’ test is substantially higher than white Americans (Ross et al, 1986; Winters et al, 2001; etc). However, studies with larger samples showed this was not the case. In a sample of 3,654 whites and 585 black Vietnam veterans shows there is a 3 percent difference favoring blacks (Ellis and Nyborg, 1992). The gold standard—a meta-analysis on 14 relevant studies (which I will discuss tonight) shows that the difference in (free) testosterone is nowhere near what Ross et al (1986) say, but was substantially lower at 2.5 to 4.9 percent (Richard et al, 2014). The meta-analysis, which was done due to the conflicting figures in each study showed that the gap in testosterone.
Obviously these people weren’t genotyped for racial ancestry, so the authors included studies that only included racial descriptors:
If races/ethnicities included in the study were referred to as ‘black’, ‘African-American’, ‘non-Hispanic black’, ‘white’, ‘non-Hispanic white’ or ‘Caucasian’. We did not include men of Hispanic or Asian origin.
Since we know that self-identified race is an almost perfect predictor of genetic ancestry, and the meta-analysis included studies that used the only the descriptors for race/ethnicity then the fact that this is done on American sample shows that testosterone is not as high as commonly thought in blacks when compared to whites (13 percent higher free testosterone).
In this sphere, one of the most common things said is that testosterone is one of the biggest causes of the black-white crime gap. High levels of testosterone ARE linked to higher crime rates, and blacks commit the most crimes, therefore blacks MUST have substantially higher levels of testosterone to account for the difference, right? Wrong. As I’ve shown above, Richard et al (2014) show that even after controlling for age, the difference in free testosterone was 2.5 to 4.9 percent. Black American males have an annual death rate from prostate cancer 2.4 times higher than whites (Taksler, Keating, and Cutler, 2012). If testosterone—one of the main possible culprits—does not explain the higher rate of prostate cancer mortality in American blacks in comparison to whites, what does?
Diet/environment and smaller genetic effects. People who have lower income cannot afford high-quality food, so they, therefore, have to buy low-quality, high carb, highly processed foods which lead to nutrient deficiencies. Drewnowski and Specter (2004) showed that 1) the highest rates of obesity are found in populations with the lowest incomes and education (correlated with IQ); 2) an inverse relationship between energy density and energy cost; 3) sweets and fats have higher energy density and are more palatable; and 4) poverty and food insecurity are associated with lower food expenditures, lower fruit and vegetable intake, and lower-quality diet. All of these data points show that those who are poor are more likely to be obese due to more energy-dense food being cheaper and fats and sugars being more palatable.
One important nutrient that people are often deficient in is vitamin D. Due to the name, people assume it’s a vitamin. It’s really not. It’s a steroid hormone. Vitamin D promotes calcium absorption, maintains normal calcium and phosphate levels, promotes bone and cell growth, and reduces imflamation. Black Americans have numerous ailments that are associated with low vitamin D intake.
Black Americans have a lower intake of vitamin D in comparison to white Americans. This is due to low dietary intake of vitamin D and less sun exposure. Dark skin pigmentation reduces vitamin D production in the skin, as dark skin requires more sunlight in order to produce vitamin D. Rickets is a common a common problem for blacks as when the mother is pregnant, she doesn’t get sufficient vitamin D so when the baby is born, it is deficient.
One variable that Dr. Joseph Mercola brings up is that black women don’t breastfeed as much as white women (though the gap is beginning to close a bit) causing rickets (as well as the lack of availability of vitamin D for the baby due to darker skin needing more sunlight to acquire adequate vitamin D).
Pretty much a great case for why race and geography should inform vitamin D intake. This is pivotal for our understanding for racial/ethnic differences in disease acquisition, why these differences occur and what can be done to prevent them.
Elevated levels of testosterone in black men comparison to white men are supposed to explain the higher rate of mortality in black men compared to white men. Except Richard et al (2014) showed that the testosterone gap wasn’t as high as previously thought (at 2.4 to 5.9 percent higher). The deficiency in vitamin D explains this phenomenon. Low vitamin D is linked to aggressive prostate cancer. This is the cause for the disparity, not higher rates of testosterone.
Are There Race Differences in Penis Size? Part II
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I haven’t completely discredited the notion that Rushton and Lynn may be correct on this variable, but I’m highly skeptical. Hormonal data doesn’t show it. Hormones like IGF-1 and androgen don’t show the differences between races that would lead you to believe that Rushton’s Rule applies here.
PP is at it again, citing the same studies, not providing primary sources, and not addressing what I say to him about hormones in regards to penis size. Hormones affect the body in different ways, and different races have different levels of hormones. This is what I will discuss today.
Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) is a hormone that, as it’s name implies, is structurally similar to the hormone insulin. IGF-1 is “partly responsible for systemic GH activities although it possesses a wide number of own properties (anabolic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and cytoprotective actions).” Laron and Klinger (1998) showed that children with Laron syndrome who stopped receiving IGF-1 injections showed reductions in penile and testicular size and they returned to pretreatment serum levels. This shows the effects of IGF-1 on sexual organ size.
Knowing this about IGF-1, for Rushton’s theory to be plausible, Blacks would have higher levels, Asians the lowest, and whites in the middle, skewing towards Asians. Platz et al (1999) investigated whether there were racial differences in circulating IGF-1 and insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 3 (IGFBP-3). IGFBP-3 binds IGF-1 and 2, with a dysregulation of IGFBP-3 correlating with cancer. IGFBP-3 is the main transporter of IGF-1 and 2 in the blood stream. The researchers tested men whose self-described ancestry (we know that self-describer ancestry is a great proxy for race, having a 99.86 percent success rate) African American (63) a random sample of Asians and Caucasians (75 respectively) aged 45 to 78 years old. Caucasians had the highest levels of IGF-1 (224 ng/ml), Asians (208 ng/ml), and African Americans (205 ng/ml). The IGF-1:IGFBP-3 ratio was greatest in Caucasians and lowest in Asians. This study was carried out to see if IGF-1 had an effect on prostate cancer. The 13 percent difference in IGFBP-3 between blacks and whites may account for the higher levels of prostate cancer, as IGFBP-3 can control IGF-1 bioavailabilty.
PP also cites Ross et al (1986) showing that blacks have “19 percent higher testosterone”, attempting to use this as evidence for the theory in favor of an inverse relationship between brain size and penis size. He seems to think that total testosterone matters, when what matters is free testosterone.It’s also 15 percent circulating testosterone, 13 percent free testosterone in that one study. Free testosterone is biologically active, and is able to exert its effect by passing through a cell and activating its receptor. Speaking of free testosterone, in this meta-analysis of 23 studies on black-white differences in testosterone, Richard et al (2014) showed a 2.5 to 4.9 percent difference in free testosterone and concluded that that difference was not enough to account for the racial disparity in prostate cancer. So it’s either black Americans have lower levels of IGFBP-3 or diet/environmental factors that cause this racial disparity in prostate cancer, not testosterone.
Rohrmann et al (2007) showed that testosterone differences between blacks (n=363) and whites (n=674) did not noticeably differ (5.29 ng/ml and 5.11 ng/ml respectively). Mexican Americans (n=376) , on the other hand, showed a higher average rate (5.48 ng/ml) over both cohorts. Blacks had higher levels of estradiol than whites (40.80 pg/nl and 35.46 pg/nl respectively). Blacks also had a higher level of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHGB) (36.49 nmol/liter) than whites (34.91 nmol/liter) and Mexican Americans (34.91 nmol/liter). That may account for some of the racial disparity in prostate cancer, but it’s not testosterone (which shows that ‘higher levels of testosterone’ as PP says, isn’t proof of any racial differences in penis size).
The Kinsey data is nonrepresentative and nonrandom. We have comparative sizes for certain ethnies, and the only statistical difference is between Nigerians and Koreans and Czechs. Rushton and Boegart didn’t mention that blacks danced less than white college students, blacks are more prudish regarding nudity, more likely to have a prostitute as a sexual partner and less likely to want large families (Weizmann et al, 1990). A study on certain CAG repeats shows that Africans cluster with East Asians on two measures, contradicting Lynn’s hypothesis. French Army Surgeon, lol (see Weizman et al 1990 from above):
This work is filled with internal contradictions. For example, an average African Negro penis is said to be 7 3/4 to 8 inches long on p. 56, while on p. 242 it is stated that it “generally exceeds” 9 inches. Similarly, while the French Army surgeon announces on p. 56 that he once discovered a 12-inch penis, an organ of that size becomes “far from rare” on p. 243. As one might presume from such a work, there is no indication of the statistical procedures used to compute averages, what terms such as “often” mean, how subjects were selected, how measurements were made, what the sample sizes were, etc.
I think I’ve shown that there are no “””racial””” differences in size with the Veale et al 2014 study and the Orakwe and Ebuh (2007) study. As far as I see, two statistical differences exist between Nigerians and Koreans and Czechs. But there’s not enough “””quality data””” to say “this race bigger than that race”. To believe there are racial differences in penis size or that there is even an inverse relationship between penis size and brain size takes a huge leap of faith to believe.
There are, without a doubt, average differences in a lot of things between races; hormones being one of them. Any differences between races in IGF-1 have no effect on penis size (IGF-1 is, however, one reason why black girls reach menarche at a younger age than white girls. Will write more on that in the future.). Africans were more similar to Asians that Caucasians on two of the five androgen indicators that Dutton (2015) tested. The Kinsey data is nonrepresentative and nonrandom and that is what PP continuously references. I’m highly skeptical leading towards no based on my knowledge of hormones and how they work in the human body. Testosterone does not explain any racial differences in penis size, and does not explain any differences in prostate cancer acquisition (though, other hormones do).
Are There Racial Differences in Penis Size?
1800 words
Do racial differences in penis size exist? The average person may say yes, due to viewing porn and hearing ‘stories’ from their friends, ie anecdotal accounts. But is this true? JP Rushton was at the helm of this resurrected idea, stating that an inverse relationship existed between penis size and brain size. He cites a WHO study on condom size showing that African countries get the biggest condoms, yet I cannot find the paper discussing it. PP wrote an article, Non-black men are so jealous of black penis size, citing the same study Rushton (1997) cited in his book Race, Evolution, and Behavior. I will discuss PP’s musings on racial differences in penis size.
A pet peeve of mine is that a lot of non-black men in the HBD blogosphere believe everything that professor J. Philippe Rushton said about ethnic differences in IQ and brain size, but when it comes to black men having the largest penis size, they suddenly turn into HBD deniers, ranting and raving about how the research is wrong. Well, I’m sorry but HBD is not here to serve your racist supremacy, HBD is here to celebrate ALL RACES, NOT YOURS ONLY!!!! If the data shows that black men have the largest penis size, then shut up and get over it. What kind of man gets jealous over another man’s penis size anyway? A sick, twisted, perverted sinful one. Healthy well adjusted normal guys don’t even know how large their penis is, and couldn’t care less, because they have other things going for them like a girlfriend, a career, and sports, and their mind’s not in the gutter. The only legitimate reason to care is for science, so here are the FACTS:
Exactly, the only reason to care is for science. And the science shows no differences. What data shows differences in penis size? Something you can directly access right now without relying on a secondhand source to prove your claim?
According to data from the World Health Organization Global Programme on AIDS Specification and Guidelines for Condom Procurement (1991, p 33, Table 5), assuming a normal distribution, I estimate the average white American man has a penis length of 162 mm (SD = 19) , and the average African American man has a penis length of 170 mm (SD = 19). (since 5% of black men are longer that 200 mm, and 2% of white men are, while 27% of white men have penises shorter than 151 mm, while 15% of black men do).
No hyperlink to the study? Why do you rely on a secondhand account? Why didn’t you show the table?
Just found some information on the WHO study he cited. The information from which the WHO data is derived is derived from American blacks and Caucasians, not any subjects from Europe or Africa. He also asked 150 people on a Toronto shopping mall what their penis size was (back to garbage self-reports), and finally, who is this French army surgeon he brings up? So many questions.
Also, PP, asking the questions and questioning his data and what he wrote isn’t “disagreeing on him on this and agreeing with him on everything else”, as you of all people know how critical o am of Lyn and Rushton. Yet you seem to eat up everything they write, thinking they can never be wrong. Why is that?
Rushton (1997) writes on pg 169 of Race, Evolution, and Behavior:
Data provided by the Kinsey Institute have confirmed the black-white difference in penis size (Table 8.2, and items 70-72 of Table 8.4). Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues instructed their respondents on how to measure their penis along the top surface, from belly to tip. The respondents were given cards to fill out and return in preaddressed stamped envelopes. Nobile (1982) published the first averages of these data finding the length and circumferences of the penis for the white samples was smaller than for the black sample. (Flaccid length = 3.86 inches [9.80 cm] vs. 4.34 inches [11.02 cm]; erect length = 6.15 inches [15.62 cm] vs. 6.44 inches [16.36 cm]; erect circumference = 4.83 inches [12.27 cm] vs. 4.96 inches [12.60 cm] respectively.)
Self-reports? Please. Self-reports are notoriously embellished. Moreover, the amount of black Americans in the Kinsey study was in double digits.
I can never find certain papers online, so that really hinders any further discussion on this.
If anyone can find any of these papers, leave a comment.
Harvey, P. H., & May, R. M. (1989). Out for the sperm count. Nature, 337, 508-9.
Short, R. V. (1979). Sexual selection and its component parts, somatic and genital selection, as illustrated by man and the great apes. In J. S. Rosenblatt, R. A. Hinde, C. Beer, & M-C Busnel (Eds.), Advances in the Study of Behavior, Vol. 9. New York: Academic
When it comes to scrotal circumference, I don’t have exact figures, but Rushton cites scholars showing that Africans exceed Europeans: Short, 1979; Ajmani, Jain & Saxena, 1985.
I found Ajmani et al (1985), they state that in 320 healthy Nigerians, average penile length was 3.21 inches, while scrotal circumference was 8.37 inches. PP says he didn’t have exact figures, but they were in Rushton’s references (which I see he didn’t check). Rushton doesn’t cite data on European scrotal circumference so how is that saying that ‘Africans exceed Europeans’ when only Nigerians were examined? Remember: studies are only applicable to the demographic tested. Extrapolating that data on to the whole of Africa makes no sense. Moreover, any data on Europeans is only for that specific ethny tested. Unless the whole of the European continent is averaged out, you cannot say that these differences exist.
This doesn’t even touch on Lynn’s “data” on penis size:
Lynn attempts to justify his belief that there are differences between races in penis length on the basis that European and Asian males have lower levels of testosterone than Africans and that the “reduction of testosterone had the effect of reducing penis length, for which evidence is given by Widodsky and Greene (1940).” Widodsky and Greene (1940) is actually a study of the effects of sex hormones on the penises of rats. This is hardly convincing evidence that there are racial differences in testosterone levels or that a reduction in penis length ever occurred in human history.
Lynn’s claims about differences in penis length between races build on earlier claims by Rushton and Bogaert (1987). The Rushton and Boagert paper is striking for its use of non-scholarly sources (Weizmann, Wiener, Wiesenthal, & Ziegler, 1991). These include a book of semi-pornographic “tall tales” by an anonymous nineteenth century French surgeon that makes wildly inconsistent claims about genital sizes in people of different races. Lynn also refers to this book without mentioning any problems with this as a source of information. Another odd data source cited by Rushton and Bogaert is an article authored by a certain “P. Nobile” published in Forum: International Journal of Human Relations. This publication is better known to the public as “The Penthouse Forum”, a popular men’s magazine. [This is pretty well known and embarrassing that Rushton did that.]
The data sources that Lynn uses in his recent paper are hardly much better. One of them is a book by Donald Templer (another self-professed race realist[1]) called Is Size Important? Templer is not a urologist but a psychologist so why he would claim to be an authority on this subject is unclear.[2] Lynn’s other source is the world penis size website. These are both self-published sources that have not been independently verified. A blogger named Ethnic Muse has carefully examined this site’s references and found that a number of articles listed on the site either do not exist under the name given or do not discuss penis size at all. There are also numerous discrepancies between the values provided by the website and the actual values given by the references.[3] Therefore, the information on this website cannot be trusted and no conclusions should be drawn from it.
Pretty embarrassing for race-realism, to be honest. Looks like the data from “P. Nobile” is from a Penthouse webforum that he ‘published’ his ‘results’ in, instead of a scholarly journal. Rushton did state ‘forum’ (not stating it was the ‘Penthouse forum’, though), but why should we take this as proof of anything?
The sadder one is multiple ‘references’ of Lynn’s that either don’t exist or don’t discuss penis size. Why trust these ‘sources’, when they aren’t controlled scientific studies?
Veale et al (2014) write:
It is not possible from the present meta-analysis to draw any conclusions about any differences in penile size across different races. Lynn [31] suggest that penis length and girth are greatest in Negroids (sub-Saharan Africans), intermediate in Caucasoids (Europeans, South Asians and North African), and smallest in Mongoloids (East Asians), but this is based upon studies that did not meet our present inclusion and
The greatest proportion of the participants in the present meta-analysis were Caucasoids. There was only one study of 320 men in Negroids and two studies of 445 men in Mongoloids. There are no indications of differences in
racial variability in our present study, e.g. the study from Nigeria was not a positive outlier. The question of racial variability can only be resolved by the measurements with large enough population being made by practitioners following the same method with other variables that may influence penis size (such as height) being kept constant. Future studies should also ensure they accurately report the race of their participants and conduct inter-rater reliability.
This meta-analysis was only done on Caucasians, but from the previous study on 320 Nigerians cited from Rushton (Ajmani et al, 1985) and 445 Mongoloids, no racial differences were found. When an actual study gets carried out on this, I doubt that there would be any differences between races.
Orakwe and Ebuh (2007) again test Nigerians (5.2 inches), then compare them with Italians (4.92 inches), Greeks (4.79 inches), Koreans (3.78), British (5.11 inches), and American Caucasians (4.9 inches). The only statistical difference was between Nigerians and Koreans. They conclude:
There is the possibility of racial differences in penile sizes, but there is no convincing scientific background to support the ascription of bigger penile dimensions to people of the Black race.
I wouldn’t say there is a ‘possibility’ that it’s true, based on a population of Nigerians. We can say that ethnic differences may exist between Koreans and Nigerians, but to extrapolate that to all five races and say that racial differences exist and that it fits neatly into Rushton’s outdated 3-way racial model is incorrect. It wasn’t a representative sample of Nigerians (and I obviously don’t have access to the methods of the other papers, I will update this in the future when I find more data), and the bigger sample of the two samples that I cited showed a smaller size.
Do racial differences in penis size exist? We can’t really come to a conclusion based on the data we currently have. Using “””data””” from the Penthouse webforum and a self-reported survey online is embarrassing and the data shouldn’t be used in the discussion of whether these differences exist. The only reliable data on Africans, as far as I know, is on Nigerians; the study with the higher n showed a smaller length. The data so far, shows that no difference exist exists (Veale et al, 2014: 983).
Race Is a Social Construct of a Biological Reality
2050 words
Race: social construct or biological reality? Why can’t it be both? When the Left (let’s use Liberal Creationists, LC for short) says that “race is a social construct”, what do they mean? They mean, obviously, that race is not a biological reality and that most ‘racists’ assume that race is only what we can physically see—the phenotype. However, genotypic differences give rise to phenotypic differences between humans. We can then say, with 100 percent certainty, that even ‘small genotypic differences’ can make ‘big differences in phenotype’ between two almost genetically similar organisms.
The thing that LCs don’t understand is that race is a ‘social construct’, but not in the way that they believe. They believe that since what we call ‘white’ and ‘black’ are genetically different depending on which geographic location you look at, that race must be something constructed by the mind based on the ‘small genotypic differences’ which lead to the ‘large differences in phenotype’. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
See, what we call the ‘races’ are arbitrary. Instead of ‘white’ we can say ‘hulina’, instead of ‘black’ we can say ‘lorux’ (two random ‘words’ I made up on the fly). What we call these biological realities is arbitrary, replacing the common usages of ‘white’ and ‘black’ WILL NOT change biology. This is what they don’t understand. They are correct that ‘race is a social construct’, but the ‘social constructions’ that we have chosen describe genotypic differences between geographically isolated populations. What we call races, ethnies, or anything for that matter, is arbitrary as the genetic underpinnings we are describing will not change if we call them another (arbitrary) name.
We have this article from The New York Times (which I have already responded to) which says:
Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racialclassifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries. Yet, a person who could be categorized as black in the United States might be considered white in Brazil or colored in South Africa.
This goes back to my point about using different ‘constructs’ for these biological realities (though mixed is a better ‘construct’ to use than ‘white’ or ‘black’. ‘Colored’ is a good term as that denotes a white/black mix). Call someone ‘black’ in America and he’ll be ‘white’ in Brazil or ‘colored’ in South Africa. OK? And? Does this change any type of underlying biology that is being described? I do admit that using the term ‘mixed’ is better than the ‘straight terms’ of ‘white’ and ‘black’, however, these ‘constructed terms’ are shockingly correct in describing the biological underpinnings of ‘race’.
I define ‘race’ as a genetically isolated breeding population. Sure, we can still conceive children between racial groups, that, however, doesn’t change any underlying biologic underpinnings. That should be obvious, though.
You have people like Richard Lewontin, of ‘Lewontin’s Fallacy’ fame who say that “because there is more variation within racial groups that the smaller variation between racial groups is insignificant, stating:
“Since such racial classification is now seen to be of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance either, no justification can be offered for its continuance.”
There IS a genetic significance, and there IS taxonomic significance, to quote Dawkins:
It is genuinely true that, if you measure the total variation in the human species and then partition it into a between-race component and a within-race component, the between-race component is a very small fraction of the total. Most of the variation among humans can be found within races as well as between them. Only a small admixture of extra variation distinguishes races from each other. That is all correct. What is not correct is the inferene that race is therefore a meaningless concept. This point has been clearly made by the distinguished Cambridge geneticist A.W.F. Edwards in a recent paper “Human genetic diversity: Lewontin’s fallacy.” R.C. Lewontin is an equally distinguished Cambridge (Mass.) geneticist, known for the strength of his political convictions and his weakness for dragging them into science at every possibile opportunity. Lewontin’s view of race has become near-universal orthodoxy in scientific circles.
…
We can all happily agree that human racial classification is of no social value and is positively destructive of social and human relations. That is one reason why I object to ticking boxes on forms and why I object to positive discrimination in job selection. But that doesn’t mean that race is of “virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance.” This is Edwards’s point, and he reasons as follows. However small the racial partition of total variation may be, if such racial characteristics as there are highly correlated with other racial characteristics, they are by definition informative, and therefore of taxonomic significance.
Strike out. Lewontin, like his colleague Gould and other ideological brother in Marxism Diamond all deny race, first and foremost, for ideological reasons, not scientific ones. Though, this doesn’t mean their arguments should be discarded. On the contrary. They should be deconstructed and shown how and why they are wrong.
In 2002, Risch, et al published a paper that confirms the existence of five racial categories (not three [as is commonly though] as ‘Natives’ cluster on their own due to genetic isolation and Melanesians and Australoids are NOT NEGROID; saying so makes race a true ‘social construct’. Sorry PP), writing:
The African branch included three sub-Saharan populations, CAR pygmies, Zaire pygmies, and the Lisongo; the Caucasian branch included Northern Europeans and Northern Italians; the Pacific Islander branch included Melanesians, New Guineans and Australians; the East Asian branch included Chinese, Japanese and Cambodians; and the Native American branch included Mayans from Mexico and the Surui and Karitiana from the Amazon basin. The identical diagram has since been derived by others, using a similar or greater number of microsatellite markers and individuals [8,9]. More recently, a survey of 3,899 SNPs in 313 genes based on US populations (Caucasians, African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics) once again provided distinct and non-overlapping clustering of the Caucasian, African-American and Asian samples [12]: “The results confirmed the integrity of the self-described ancestry of these individuals”. Hispanics, who represent a recently admixed group between Native American, Caucasian and African, did not form a distinct subgroup, but clustered variously with the other groups. A previous cluster analysis based on a much smaller number of SNPs led to a similar conclusion: “A tree relating 144 individuals from 12 human groups of Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania, inferred from an average of 75 DNA polymorphisms/individual, is remarkable in that most individuals cluster with other members of their regional group” [13]. Effectively, these population genetic studies have recapitulated the classical definition of races based on continental ancestry – namely African, Caucasian (Europe and Middle East), Asian, Pacific Islander (for example, Australian, New Guinean and Melanesian), and Native American.
Pretty damn good for a ‘social construct’, right? Unless the computer somehow consciously knows the result we want and then allocates the clusters according to our desires, but I doubt it. These studies show, definitively, that race as we know it is a biological reality.
They then state in the conclusion:
As we enter this new millennium with an advancing arsenal of molecular genetic tools and strategies, the view of genes as immutable is too simplistic. Every race and even ethnic group within the races has its own collection of clinical priorities based on differing prevalence of diseases. It is a reflection of the diversity of our species – genetic, cultural and sociological. Taking advantage of this diversity in the scientific study of disease to gain understanding helps all of those afflicted. We need to value our diversity rather than fear it. Ignoring our differences, even if with the best of intentions, will ultimately lead to the disservice of those who are in the minority.
One of the best conclusions one can write after an article as ‘controversial’ as that one. We need to embrace our diversity, not destroy it. We need to study it and see how and why we are so diverse, not ruin the diversity making it impossible to study. This also has implications for disease acquisition as well as whether or not one responds to certain drugs (blacks and the drug Bidil, for instance). These inherent differences between races/ethnies need to be studied so we can get everyone the best care they need based on their genetic makeup, without pretending that it doesn’t exist. Pretending that these differences don’t exist does not make them go away.
If race were ‘fake’ and ‘socially constructed’, would there be a success rate of 99.86 percent between self-identified race/ethnicity and genetic structure? Tang et al (2005) write:
We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity. On the other hand, we detected only modest genetic differentiation between different current geographic locales within each race/ethnicity group. Thus, ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population. Implications of this genetic structure for case-control association studies are discussed.
These ‘social constructs’ have some pretty damn good predictive power to guess geographic ancestry (race) 99.86 percent of the time. But isn’t it weird that this so-called ‘social construct’ fits neatly into 4 categories (‘Hispanic’ is not a race, but I assume it would cluster between ‘Natives’ and Europeans, showing that fourth cluster. There hasn’t been enough time for ‘Hispanics’ to cluster into a distinct race, so they cluster in between ‘Natives’ and Europeans)?
If race is a ‘social construct’ as LCs would want you to believe, how do we have these clusters showing this variation? Because they’re genetically similar others. We can then start to wonder about things such as genetic similarity theory and ethnic genetic interests, as they then become a direct result of these genetically similar individuals. Yes we humans are 99.9 percent identical, but what matters is not how genetically distant humans are when being compared with one another, what matters is gene expression. We share over 90 percent of the same genes with dogs, cats, mice, and other great apes. Must mean we are almost all the same and any genetic differences ‘are meaningless’, then!
Think of it this way. People in the same family differ both genotypically and phenotypically. Hereditary traits get passed down through the generations and they stay in that family. If you broaden that to ethnic and the bigger racial groups, you can then see how genetically isolated human populations (key phrase here) do differ, on average, in hereditary traits.
We see racial in sports from swimming, baseball, football, bodybuilding, sprinting, and Strongman. We (somewhat) openly discuss racial differences being the cause for this, yet discussing racial differences in intelligence is taboo.
Liberal Creationists and their denial of race in the modern genomics age is absurd. It’s like people who deny evolution because they don’t understand basic evolutionary theory. Liberal Creationists, too, don’t understand basic evolutionary theory. Race-denialism, when the facts are right in front of you showing how these so-called ‘social constructs’ exist and outright denying them, is very telling. Ideology is the name of the game, not science.
It doesn’t matter how many people believe race doesn’t exist, the underlying realities are still there. LCs can say talk all about changing definitions of race in other countries and the past few hundred years, but this doesn’t address the fact that what we call ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ have real biological underpinnings. What we call ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ is meaningless. ‘Race’ is a social construct, but a ‘social construct’ of a biological reality. Even if we changed, or even eliminated the words from use, actual genetic differences between races will not go away.
What If the Hereditarian Hypothesis Is True?
1800 words
In 2005, Linda Gottfredson published What If the Hereditarian Hypothesis Is True? in the journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law defending Rushton and Jensen’s (2005) conclusions on the black-white IQ gap. This gap in intelligence between the races has been noticed since the IQ test’s inception 100 years ago. What if the hereditarian hypothesis is true—what if there are genetic differences in intelligence between races? How should society handle such a ‘discovery’ if one were to occur?
In Rushton and Jensen’s opus paper, they didn’t set out to prove that the hereditarian hypothesis is true, rather they set out to prove that the hereditarian hypothesis—which states that 50 percent of racial differences in intelligence come down to genetic factors with environment dictating the other 50 percent—is more tenable the culture-only hypothesis—0 percent genetics 100 percent environment. Gottfredson states that the hereditarian hypothesis becomes scientifically plausible “only after five evidentiary requisites have been met”: “IQ differences among same-race individuals represent (a) real, (b) functionally important, and (c) substantially genetic differences in general intelligence (the g factor), and mean IQ differences between the races likewise reflect (d) real and (e) functionally important differences on the same g factor.” (Gottfredson, 2005: 311) The past one hundred years of intelligence testing has proven all of this. The black-white differences in intelligence are on subtests that are more heritable, proving a genetic component.
The hereditarian hypothesis has been proven by adoption studies such as the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, to differences overall in IQ tests, to differences in life success etc. Environmentalists believe it’s ‘racism’ or ‘classism’ that’s the cause for racial/ethnic/class differences in achievement, when a genetic explanation makes a lot more sense.
The Denial of the Hereditarian Hypothesis
The denial of the hereditarian hypothesis has greatly harmed American society. Before the push for multiculturalism in the 60s, a genetic reason for racial/class differences was widely accepted. Minorities couldn’t perform well in school in comparison to whites because they had lower innate g. The difference in g causes differences in wealth attainment, salary, mortality, fitness, educational attainment, and other pertinent achievements. This then leads to programs with an abysmal ‘success rate’, such as Head Start. Head Start does not work, its gains fade away in a few years after the program. It’s time to stop Head Start, because it makes people believe that parental intervention can have any kind of effect on a young child, when it’s shown that these so-called gains fade away in a few years as the heritability of intelligence increases. Individuals differ on g, races differ on g, there are differences in achievement and more people in one SES bracket and other people in another SES bracket and it’s down to g. Denying the hereditarian hypothesis wastes taxpayer money as more and more money goes towards programs like Head Start that don’t do anything to close any of the gaps they promise to close.
Academic achievement in math, science, art, humanities, and second language were all shared by the same genes. They found that 60 percent of the results in GCSE scores were attributed to genetic factors. Genes and not upbringing had more of an effect on the scores one receives on the GCSE.
Moreover, other behavioral traits such as psychopathology and personality also account for genetic influence on GCSE scores beyond that predicted by intelligence. This shows that ‘nature’ wins out in the nature-nurture debate. If individual differences in test scores are largely determined by genetics, why not the black-white difference?
Individuals nor groups are ever ‘equal’ in terms of any capacity. One will be better at something than someone else, and that will largely be determined by genetic factors. Training and repetition brings out the best in one that’s genetically inclined to excel. We accept genetic differences for differences in sports, such as sprinting and distance running. They are genetically inclined to excel at those competitions due to fast and slow twitch muscle fibers. Take Usain Bolt. Do you think anyone can train to get to that level? Do you think random Joe can just wake up one day and decide to try to be the fastest man in the world? If you say no, you’re a hereditarian. Of course Bolt’s training makes him better, but without his genetics, he wouldn’t be the fastest man in the world.
Now take the genetic differences from sports (that any sane person would recognize), and think about that in regards to brain power. We are talking about 2 groups that have been genetically isolated for tens of thousands of years. They had to do different things to survive and both faced different selective pressures that would have an effect on intelligence.
The worldwide differences in IQ between East Asians, Europeans and Africans; an inverse correlation between the race differences and brain attributes and black-white-East Asian differences in body maturation; . 2 and .4 correlations with skull size and in vivo brain volume, moderately high correlation of .6 to .7 of different IQ test’s g loadings on the magnitude of the black-white-East Asian differences as well as the measures of the subtests being rooted in biological and genetic processes; rising heritability of IQ; differences in crime, gestation, and sex ratio at birth, law-abidingness, marital stability; and a genetic divergence of world population groups during evolution. The most telling one is the last one, genetic divergence of world population groups during evolution. These differences in the brain are rooted in genetic factors. The hereditarian hypothesis fully explains within and between group differences in achievement and intelligence. No “culture-only” hypothesis could ever convince me otherwise.
Richard Nisbett has attempted to say that the hereditarian hypothesis is wrong and that culture-only theory is the only game in town. He couldn’t be more wrong. Citing studies like Moore and Eyferth to make your case against the hereditarian hypothesis won’t get you anywhere. They had a smaller sample size, and some of the subjects were extremely young. Environmentalists use these studies to say that the difference in IQ comes down to a type of ‘ghetto’ environment that saps American blacks’ intellect and that raised away from that type of environment, they’d be able to score on par with whites. Except that’s not what was found in the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study. This is the only study to test the children again at age 17, when genetics would be taking its full effect. The racial gap in intelligence still stayed the same (Rushton and Jensen, 2005: 258). I’ve written about the strong evidence for the hereditarian hypothesis in regards to adoption studies and how they support the hypothesis that genetics, and not culture, are the cause for differences in intelligence.
If the Hereditarian Hypothesis is Accepted What Policies Should Change?
If the general public were to ever accept a genetic hypothesis for individual and group differences as a whole, then affirmative action and other such programs that shoehorn kids with lower ability into schools should be abolished and these spots should be filled on merit. Sure there would be fewer blacks and more whites, Jews, Asians, than blacks, ‘Hispanics’ and others but that’s how a merit-based society looks, not one based on feelings and imaginary causes of racism as the culprit for any types of intellectual downfalls. When we come to our senses with genetics and educational achievement and intelligence—which should be coming soon due to the advent of CRISPR—then America can start to become less polarized, in my opinion, on the so-called ‘racist system’ ‘holding down’ minorities. Maybe if people/groups accepted they were less intelligent and it was due majorly to genetic factors, then some of this racial animosity between groups in America will die down. That’s an extremely far reach, though, and I can see them then arguing that accepting by accepting the hereditarian hypothesis then we should continue these programs.
That’s an extremely far reach, though, and I can see them then arguing that accepting by accepting the hereditarian hypothesis then we should continue these programs due to genetic differences. They would say “Well, as a group, we are less inclined to make it into higher areas of learning so we, therefore, should continue to receive these benefits.” To that I would say you’ve been taking advantage of these benefits for 50 years and what’s changed? Billions of dollars have been spent on affirmative action and related cases since the 60s and what has changed? These groups still complain and talk about being oppressed by ‘the man’ not getting what they want. Yet there is an ongoing racial preference for blacks and ‘Hispanics’ over whites and Asians in US medical schools. This is all an effect of affirmative action and the policies it brings to American institutions. Admission into places of higher learning should be completely merit-based, not based on what racial/ethnic group you belong to. That in and of itself is continuing the so-called ‘racism’ and ‘prejudiced attitudes’ that people complain about since they insist on having special privileges based on their ancestral background.
If we were to accept the hereditarian hypothesis as a country, I’d hope to see an abolishment of affirmative action, Head Start, and related programs that do not work. The acceptance of the hereditarian hypothesis would only be a net gain over time, as people would learn to not blame ‘the man’ on their problems, but would look to better themselves in ways that accentuate their strengths. Since any attempt at raising scholastic achievement has failed due to the heritability of intelligence and how it increases as one ages (which is why Head Start doesn’t work and should be abolished) once this is accepted then other avenues can be taken to address these issues that don’t focus on attempting to raise scores. Gottfredson states at the end of her paper that we should have targeted intellectual support for those with an IQ below 80. She also says we should make some jobs less complex, ie “inadequate or overly complex labeling, instructions, and forms”, target training and education towards people with that level of intelligence, and provide more assistance in daily living matters, This can increase their QoL and ability to attain meaningful employment.
She sees a more positive outlook in the future than I do. I see things become more stratified as automation rolls out. This will have the lower IQ people out of work, while the higher IQ people still are sitting well at the top due to the increasingly complex society that we make for ourselves. Accepting the hereditarian hypothesis can ease this slightly by targeting programs at the less intellectually inclined as well as attempt to soften the claims of ‘racism’ when this starts to really become noticeable. The only way to explain such a disparity is with a genetic hypothesis, at least 50/50 genetics culture. The culture-only theory has no leg to stand on. Once we accept that individual and group differences are due to genetics, then we can begin to accept some of the differences in our society in terms of class and race.
Evolution Denial
1500 words
People who deny evolution don’t understand evolution, whether due to complete ignorance or because they don’t want to believe that we ‘evolved from monkeys’ (wrong, and goes completely in line with the old and outdated “march of progress“), or that we evolved in Africa from paleo-Africans. Well, the funny thing about science is that things are true whether or not people believe in them or not. In the past ten days I’ve come across two people who’ve denied evolution (surprise surprise, both religious). Even in the year #2016 people still deny something that has tons of explanatory power behind it, it shows they do not want to believe it because ‘we came from monkeys’. Evolution deniers deny evolution due to ignorance and a need to believe the Bible, that we were created for a purpose and placed here by a Creator, however. there is no evidence for this viewpoint so I cannot personally believe it.
I was in Starbucks the other day when I was drinking my coffee working on something on the laptop when I heard someone say that evolution was wrong and that he didn’t believe in evolution. So I went over and started talking to the kid. He was no older than 18. I asked him why he denies evolution and he says because of his religion. Then I started to go through the natural selection process—how new variants are selected for in populations. I told him there is 4 ways that evolution can occur: migration, mutation, genetic drift and natural selection.
I then gave him this example: take a population of 100 wolves. They live in a temperate climate. 50 of those wolves migrates northward and stay genetically isolated for 100kya. Over time, they incur phenotypic changes and adapt to the environment. They then wouldn’t be able to interbreed when they became a new species. (Or if they did conceive, it would be sterile.) Evolution occurs through mutation, migration, genetic drift and natural selection.
Now take a species of bird with long beaks. They need long beaks to get nectar out of the flowers. Over time, the environment changes and the birds’ food source dwindles away. Now they need to find something new to eat. The way the birds’ beaks currently are, they won’t be able to crack open nuts. However, the ones with shorter and stubbier beaks will be able to crack open nuts and eat nuts. So, over time, the birds with the shorter beaks will breed and be more successful since they can eat more food. The birds with the long beaks then die out while the birds with the shorter, stubbier beaks prosper since they were more fit and able to survive better in the new ecosystem.
Natural selection can only select on what heritable variants are already in that population. So since the birds with the stubbier beaks could survive better than the birds with longer beaks, the stubby beak trait, let’s call it Gene B, gets selected for while the long beak trait, let’s call it Gene A, becomes less prevalent in the bird population because it’s not as useful.
Let’s just say that my examples didn’t sway him and he still disbelieves evolution “due to his religion”.
A woman started talking to me last week about some random things. Then we started talking about our interests. I told her of my interest in biology and evolution and she says “You don’t think we evolved from monkeys, do you?” I laughed and said no, that’s a huge misconception. I told her that we didn’t evolve from monkeys, we just share a common ancestor with chimps. This answers the oft-said “If we ‘evolved from monkeys’, why are they still around?” She then invited me to a Bible Fellowship this past Sunday, and I said yea sure, I’ll go. So I went to the Fellowship; there were a lot of nice people there. Two men gave some talks, speaking of some of their personal experiences all while citing different quotes in the Bible. The man speaking said “And I looked down at my hand and thought ‘Wow, this is amazing. How did my hand get like this? The only way possible is for it to have been designed.'” I facepalmed so hard hearing that. People who ask such simple questions like that, that can be explained by evolution, clearly have no understanding of biology, so they then make the leap that goddidit because they can’t wrap their heads around the fact that evolution is the cause for how we came into being today.
I left the event shaking my head, how can people be so willfully ignorant in #2016? We have the answers to almost all of our questions in a few seconds, how can people be so ignorant about natural processes that occurred to have us humans arise from completely different organisms?
Finally, this brings me to those who deny evolution because evolutionary theory says we “descend from chimps” and that evolutionary theory says we all share a common ancestor in Africa going back a few hundred thousand years. People deny evolution due to this because they don’t want to admit that they “descend from a monkey”. Complete ignorance, and an emotional statement at that with no factual backing.
Intelligent Designers (IDers) may say there is a lack of transitional fossils to prove human evolution. This shows more ignorance. there are plenty of these fossils. This claim was made in the 1800s, when there were hardly any available. Since then, many have been discovered. Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus africanus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo heidelbergensis are all ‘transitional fossils’:
Sometimes called “the only transition which matters”, this mustn’t be thought of as a transition from chimps to humans, but rather, as a transition from the-common-ancestor-of-chimps-and-humans to humans. Chimps themselves have had time to evolve and change since we parted ways, and so “the ancestor we last shared probably differed substantially from any extant African ape” (White et al, 2009).
Another way we can see that humans and chimps/apes descend from a common ancestor is looking at our chromosomes. Chromosome 2 is currently one of the most studied chromosomes, and for good reason. Apes have 24 chromosomes while humans have 23. Why do apes have one more chromosome? This signifies a fusion event sometime in the distant past in the LCA between humans and apes/chimps. Chromosomal evidence also proves common descent between ape/chimps and humans. Fossil evidence proves it, chromosomal/genetic evidence proves it; why they denial?
“We conclude that the locus cloned in cosmids c8.1 and c29B is the relic of an ancient telomere-telomere fusion and marks the point at which two ancestral ape chromosomes fused to give rise to human chromosome 2.”
Moreover, there is evidence for universal common descent as well:
Here I provide the first, to my knowledge, formal, fundamental test of UCA, without assuming that sequence similarity implies genetic kinship. I test UCA by applying model selection theory to molecular phylogenies, focusing on a set of ubiquitously conserved proteins that are proposed to be orthologous. Among a wide range of biological models involving the independent ancestry of major taxonomic groups, the model selection tests are found to overwhelmingly support UCA irrespective of the presence of horizontal gene transfer and symbiotic fusion events. These results provide powerful statistical evidence corroborating the monophyly of all known life.
A process called allopatric speciation shows how genetically isolated organisms can become distinctly different. This occurs when biological populations of the same species are genetically isolated, no longer sharing a similar environment. If these geographic barriers are removed, the two may not be able to breed, denoting a new species. Speciation is not based on degree of morphological difference:
I analyze a number of widespread misconceptions concerning species. The species category, defined by a concept, denotes the rank of a species taxon in the Linnaean hierarchy. Biological species are reproducing isolated from each other, which protects the integrity of their genotypes. Degree of morphological difference is not an appropriate species definition. Unequal rates of evolution of different characters and lack of information on the mating potential of isolated populations are the major difficulties in the demarcation of species taxa.
When biological populations of the same species become genetically isolated with a geographic barrier, over time they will both diverge, incurring different pheno and genotypic traits and eventually, they won’t be able to breed anymore, denoting speciation. This is how macroevolution occurs.
To deny evolution because of religion or because you don’t want to believe that Man evolved from the same ancestor as apes/chimps makes no sense at all. It’s denying all of the facts we have on evolution, and human evolution. How could you willingly deny the fact of evolution and what facts you do accept you twist it into evidence for Intelligent Design? It makes no sense. People don’t understand evolution because they don’t understand biology:
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution—Dobzhansky
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.
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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.
Human Culture is Lamarckian
1650 words
Before Darwin thought up his theory of evolution, there was another game in town: Lamarckism. Lamarckism is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it has acquired in its lifetime to its offspring. His theory was wrong, obviously, because organisms pass on traits through genes, while what an organism acquires throughout its lifetime is not inherited by any future offspring. However, just because Lamarck was wrong on how traits were passed down doesn’t mean that Lamarckism has no utility in our understanding of ourselves. (Lamarckism is also a precursor to the new and budding field of epigenetics—“the study of heritable gene expression that does not involve changes to the underlying gene sequence”, see here for another view on epigenetics.) Human culture is Lamarckian in a sense—along with memes are why cultural change put such strong selective pressures on humans.
Lamarckism is the inheritance of acquired characteristics, the transformational pattern of evolution and the concept of directed changes. Thinking of about this in a way that pertains to human culture, we can say that cultural tendencies starting at 1 generation can be passed down to successive generations; culture can transform itself in the blink of any eye, really, and completely change how people’s live as well as how they evolve; and finally directed cultural change (ie if a new cultural trait passed down will continue in successive generations). Stephen Jay Gould wrote in his 1996 book Full House:
In this sense, I deeply regret that common usage refers to the history of our artifacts and social organizations as “cultural evolution.” Using the same term – evolution – for both natural and cultural history obfuscates far more than it enlightens. … Why not speak of something more neutral and descriptive — ‘cultural change,’ for example?
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But cultural change, on a radical other hand, is potentially Lamarckian in basic mechanism. Any cultural knowledge acquired in one generation can be directly passed to the next by what we call, in a most noble word, education.
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This uniquely and distinctively Lamarckian style of human cultural inheritance gives our technological history a directional and cumulative character that no natural Darwinian evolution can possess.
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This uniquely and distinctively Lamarckian style of human cultural inheritance gives our technological history a directional and cumulative character that no natural Darwinian evolution can possess.
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Human cultural change is an entirely distinct process operating under radically different principles that do allow for the strong possibility of a driven trend to what we may legitimately call “progress”.
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The common designation of “evolution” then leads to one of the most frequent and portentous errors in our analysis of human life and history – the overly reductionist assumption that the Darwinian natural paradigm will fully encompass our social and technological history as well.
Gould also wrote in his essay “Bully for Brontosaurus“:
I am convinced that comparisons between biological evolution and human cultural or technological change have done vastly more harm than good — and examples abound of this most common of all intellectual traps. Biological evolution is a bad analogue for cultural change because the two are different for three major reasons that could hardly be more fundamental.
First, cultural evolution can be faster by orders of magnitude than biological change at its maximal Darwinian rate — and questions of timing are of the essence in evolutionary arguments.
Second, cultural evolution is direct and Lamarckian in form: [t]he achievements of one generation are passed directly to descendants, thus producing the great potential speed of cultural change. Biological evolution is indirect and Darwinian, as favorable traits do not descend to the next generation unless, by good fortune, they arise as products of genetic change.
Third, the basic topologies of biological and cultural change are completely different. Biological evolution is a system of constant divergence without subsequent joining of branches. In human history, transmission across lineages is, perhaps, the major source of cultural change.
Great explanations on how human culture is Lamarckian; education is one of the most important aspects of how we transfer ideas from one generation to the next. Put in that context, since education is how we (partly) teach our culture to the next generation, culture and education are both inherently Lamarckian.
Gould, being the Darwinist that he is, obviously accepts that H. Sapiens arose through Darwinian/Mendelian changes as a result of the long-term evolutionary process. But, he asserts, culture is more Lamarckian—that is, it can be literally passed down from one generation to the next. When you really think about culture, this is how it works. Human culture is a Lamarckian, not Darwinian process.
We do have gene-culture co-evolution, which explains that human behavior is a product of two interacting variables—genetics and culture. When you really think about it, this is correct. Culture is the environment that we make for ourselves. The environments we make for ourselves are dependent on our genetics, therefore any cultural change SHOULD coincide with a change in genotype (since culture is phenotype). But when a new cultural tendency is introduced from an outside source, it can be especially powerful (like all cultural traits), enough to change the environment and, with it, make a new selective pressure that spreads new and beneficial mutations in that environment.
I, however, don’t think that ‘evolution’ is a good term for cultural changes. “Evolution” in this sense implies “progress”. Progressive evolution makes no evolutionary sense, so, in this case, cultural change makes much more sense than cultural ‘evolution’ (Gould, 1996); implying a teleological meaning to anything and everything is ridiculous, when what we’re really doing is anything to survive and pass our selfish genes on to the next generation. Culture, on the other hand, can be transferred to one person from another from generation to generation (in a Lamarckian way or in terms of memes).
As I stated in my article about Stephen Jay Gould’s tirade against hereditarianism, I fully understand exactly why Gould espoused anti-hereditarian views—his and Eldredge’s punctuated equilibria theory, which is when an organism spends a long time in stasis before a quick genetic change (like what happened with human brains, a long period of stasis before a quick change) which he obviously applied to Man after we became ‘Man’ around 50kya and his (correct) views on human culture being Lamarckian. In my opinion, Gould assumed that since culture was Lamarckian and we all have ‘the same brains’ (we don’t), that the only differences between Man comes down to his culture. We know this is not true as differing selection pressures led to differences in brain size and, in turn, differences in culture. The diverse array of culture that Man has is a testament to the different evolutionary selection pressures that we had to weather in the differing environments that we settled in coming out of Africa.
There is also one more way in which culture can be spread: memes. (I wonder how many of the people who use the term ‘meme’ know where it originated [The Selfish Gene, 1976] or even who coined the term [Richard Dawkins].) Take, for example, birth control. The Catholic meme of birth control can have adherents of said meme not take birth control, facilitating the “reproductive success” of the meme, so to speak, which does the same for the memer. Thusly, in this context, memes are subject to the same evolutionary selection pressures— so if a meme is ‘unfit’ it gets ‘thrown out’, just like if a meme is ‘fit’ it stays in the culture (eventually becoming a new selective pressure for that population), which makes new pheno and genotypic changes in that population completely independent of all other genetic changes throughout the world in genetically isolated human populations. Memes are one huge way that culture gets transmitted between generations, and even differing human cultures. Memes are a form of Lamarckian inheritance
Finally, this brings me to human races. We all have different cultures, we all have different genetics and we all have different memes that we pass to the next generation. Differing human cultures arise from differing selective pressures in that ancestral environment. These differing selective pressures in the environment led to differing institutions between the modern-day races—which is why some populations are less ‘advanced’ (whatever that means) than others; because they didn’t have the right selective pressures to select for those strong institutions like what occurred in northerly climes. Each race and ethny have their own memes, their own ways of getting new cultural information to the next generation. This, in turn, leads to even more differing selection pressures betwixt the isolated human populations leading to even more distinct pheno and genotypic change amongst them.
Human culture is Lamarckian. Lamarck’s theory is perfect for the multi-generational transmission of cultural information. Along with memes (a form of Lamarckism), these two phenomena both shape human culture as well as behavior (along with genetics). Moreover, Lamarckism is pretty much an archaic form of the new and budding field epigenetics (which the jury is still out on that for me, I’m leaning towards no [see Steven Pinker for more information on this]). Lamarckism is the inheritance of acquired characteristics, the transformational pattern of evolution, and the concept of directed changes. These three variables perfectly describe human culture, describing it as change, and not evolution, which is the perfect way to put it. Differing human races also have different memes which permeate their culture and, given enough time, put new and different selective pressures on the population that is pushing a certain meme. This forces new differences between human populations on top of the already genetic differences from isolated evolution.
Lamarck was wrong to say that acquired traits during an organism’s lifetime carried over to the next generation, but his theory perfectly explains the transmission of human culture from generation to generation. If there is an inheritance of acquired traits, along with the transformational pattern of evolution and the concept of directed changes, therefor, human culture is Lamarckian.
All of these are true, so human culture is Lamarckian.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
