Posted on 03/12/2006 4:38:20 AM PST by Pharmboy
Edited on 03/12/2006 2:16:46 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
EAST ASIAN and European cultures have long been very different, Richard E. Nisbett argued in his recent book "The Geography of Thought." East Asians tend to be more interdependent than the individualists of the West, which he attributed to the social constraints and central control handed down as part of the rice-farming techniques Asians have practiced for thousands of years.
A separate explanation for such long-lasting character traits may be emerging from the human genome. snip...
If so, scientists and historians say, a fresh look at history may be in order. Evolutionary changes in the genome could help explain cultural traits that last over many generations as societies adapted to different local pressures.
snip...
But like phrenology, a wrong idea that held a basic truth (the brain's functions are indeed localized), the concept of national character could turn out to be not entirely baseless, at least when applied to societies shaped by specific evolutionary pressures.
In a study of East Asians, Europeans and Africans, Dr. Pritchard and his colleagues found 700 regions of the genome where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection in recent times. In East Asians, the average date of these selection events is 6,600 years ago.
Many of the reshaped genes are involved in taste, smell or digestion, suggesting that East Asians experienced some wrenching change in diet. Since the genetic changes occurred around the time that rice farming took hold, they may mark people's adaptation to a historical event,
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Mysteries of the Genome.
More reasonable than many think. Essentially we are domesticated critters with very high, and until recently localized, selection pressures.
So, the NYT discovers little brown brothers in a bowl of rice.
And it turns out rice converted Uncle Ben. Made him less independent, more cooperative.
Quittin' tiiiiiiime!!
Because of the NYT agenda, I have to assume that this is their latest attempt at justifying socialism. i.e., the Chinese are communists because they are genetically programmed to be communists.... and the stuff about the Jews is too creepy.
This allergy can be fatal ~ particularly to humans living North of 30 degrees where cows can't. Fish then become almost the only source of vitamin D.
So, one might ask, just how rapidly did the fish allergy gene variant get worked out of the human system in this environment? Was it 7,000 years ~ the date of the oldest Sa'ami petroglyphs, or was it 10,000 years ~ the date of the last big glacial meltdown? Could it have been earlier even?
These numbers are pretty much consistent with the numbers cited in the article.
BTW, the "creepy" stuff is actually pretty dreadful if you are the younger sister in a family that wants you to marry your uncle so the family fortune can be protected in the next generation.
I would not argue generalities about what you said, but a few specifics: no way is allergy to fish 48%; and, we do not need much sunlight to make vit D in our skin, which, by the way, is more effective than the dietary D. So, even the Danes or Swedes with a bit of exposure to the sun make all the D they need. We did have a rickets problem in Chicago almost 100 years ago, but that was only among African Americans.
The whole business is genetic. Still, it's a serious enough problem in the higher latitudes that there is, in fact, a human population where it has been almost completely eliminated by the process the Evolutionists refer to as the demigod "Natural Selection".
Cows need grass, and there's little forage in those areas. Reindeer can eat lichens and mushrooms, of course, that it takes a gazillion of those critters to support a handful of people.
BTW, the Swedes, for the most part, are NOT the same people as the Norwegians. They just happen to speak the same language!
Nope--no way. You have bad information. I have been in health care for 35 years and this would be considered a reasonable source. I am sure there are others:
1: J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2004 Jul;114(1):159-65. Related Articles, Links
Comment in:
J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2004 Jul;114(1):127-30.
Prevalence of seafood allergy in the United States determined by a random telephone survey.
Sicherer SH, Munoz-Furlong A, Sampson HA.
Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, Division of Allergy and Immunology, Department of Pediatrics, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029-6574, USA. scott.sicherer@mssm.edu
BACKGROUND: Seafood allergy is potentially severe, but the prevalence of this group of food allergies in the US population has not been determined. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of seafood (fish, shellfish) allergy in the United States. METHODS: We performed a nationwide, cross-sectional, random telephone survey by using a standardized questionnaire. Criteria were established in advance to define seafood allergy by report of convincing symptoms and physician evaluation. RESULTS: A total of 5529 households completed the survey (67.3% participation rate), representing a census of 14,948 individuals. Fish or shellfish allergy defined by established criteria was reported in 5.9% (95% CI, 5.3%-6.6%) of households and among individuals as follows: 2.3% (95% CI, 2%-2.5%) for any seafood allergy, 2% for shellfish, 0.4% for fish, and 0.2% for both types. Seafood allergy was more common in adults compared with children (2.8% vs 0.6%; P <.001) and in women compared with men (3.6% vs 2%; P <.001). Recurrent reactions were reported by 58%, dyspnea or throat tightness was reported by more than 50%, and 16% were treated with epinephrine. Despite this level of acuity, only 8.6% were prescribed self-injectable epinephrine. The rate of reactions to multiple fish among those with any fish allergy was 67%; for Crustacea the rate was 38%, and for mollusks the rate was 49%; only 14% with crustacean allergy reported a mollusk allergy. CONCLUSIONS: Physician-diagnosed and/or convincing seafood allergy is reported by 2.3% of the general population, or approximately 6.6 million Americans. Affected individuals typically report recurrent and sometimes severe reactions, indicating that seafood allergy represents a significant health concern. Copyright 2004 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology
The more you write, the worse it seems to get. The Norwegians and Swedes speak different languages, but are close genetically. It is the Finns that are not Scandinavians, perhaps that is whom you were thinking of. And, while sunight is down low about 4 months/year, we make D and store it in the liver--fair skinned people do not need much exposure.
I was surprised that the gene most associated with seafood reactions was in 48% of the population, but all that means is that it isn't all that important ~ that the demigod "Natural Selection" is neutral when it comes to that gene.
On the other hand, the demigod changes his mind up in the Northernmost latitudes.
There, when your primary dietary substance is a dead fish with an occassional reindeer, a fish allergy of any degree is definitely a problem ~ a fatal one too.
BTW, I have not found any information of a clinical nature concerning Eskimo fish allergies. Possibly no one bothered to look.
I posted a peer-reviewed source from the allergy literature. If you can't back up your claim, I understand.
However, Old West Gothic has other variants. One is in Iceland. One is in Sweden. One is in various parts of Finland. And one of them is in Denmark (or maybe two since one of them has a tremendous German vocabulary) Old West Gothic as spoken in United Kingdom is extinct.
These guys humor themselves that Old West Gothic has changed into mutually unintelligible languages. Whenever I've needed a translation (of any version of Old West Gothic) into English (where I could not figure it out myself) I've tossed it to a Norwegian, Swede or Dane to work it out.
Still, when you take a look at the origins and lifestyle of the people in the various countries, the Norwegians stand out in several respects. One is that they have the highest percentage of Sa'ami ancestry, and the lowest percentage of Norse ancestry.
Norwegians also have had a very high percentage of the population engaged in whaling and fishing for dozens of centuries ~ and there's little farming as you and I would know it that can take place in the greater part of the country where people live.
Norwegians eat fish. Other people eat other things. Norwegians eat fish. That's what they had for a very long time. Even the Sa'ami are supposed to carry around a frozen fish in their jackets as an emergency ration. I don't know how true that is, but every book about the Sa'ami always notes the fish in the jacket.
Later research available in Scandinavian publications (on the net, in English) concern genes associated with fish allergies.
Not everybody with the gene shows a reaction ~
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