Darwin’s unexploded bomb

The Spectator ^ | 5/6/14

[BenLurkin]

[ClearCase_guy]

This hostility faced by those with troublesome ideas is, of course, itself explained by evolution.

Our cultural values are explained by genetic evolution? How magical!

[Balding_Eagle]

I’m trying to figure out what relevance your post has to the subject of the article?

[BenLurkin]

[Balding_Eagle]

Well, OK, you could just say you don’t know either.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

I note the author says nothing about whether evolution as described proceeds forwards or backwards. My belief is that it is becoming retrograde and much of what formerly passed as “advanced civilization” is actually going backwards. And yes, it can definitely go quickly.

[BenLurkin]

[ClearCase_guy]

Second Law of Thermodynamics says you’re on to something.

[exDemMom]

I note the author says nothing about whether evolution as described proceeds forwards or backwards.

Evolution cannot be described as going backwards or forwards.

I saw recently that the size of the human brain has been shrinking. This can be explained by the effect of civilization: since so many survival functions are now delegated to society, people do not have to devote as much brain mass to survival. So people with smaller brains can still survive and pass their genes to their offspring.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Among them is the recent knowledge that evolution can take place far quicker than people once thought. Greg Cochran and Henry Harpending, in their book The 10,000 Year Explosion, argued that human evolution had sped up since the advent of the first cities. The drastic changes in our ancestors’ environment created new evolutionary pressures; among them were selection for qualities that were beneficial in our larger communities, such as lower levels of aggression, deferred gratification (vital for farmers), a greater willingness to trust people outside of close kin group, and the qualities required for craftsmanship, finance and various other complex skills. Thus civilization had increased the rate of evolution, and was continuing to do so

Communities breed out aggression! Really? Like the Romans were not aggressive slaughtering millions and stealing their wealth and making slaves of the survivors.

One can admire Jewish culture and the Jewish work ethic, but the idea that this enormous level of achievement is purely cultural, while possible, certainly does not pass the Occam’s razor test. As Wade says, ‘People are highly imitative, and if the Jewish advantage were purely cultural, such as hectoring mothers or a special devotion to education, there would be little to prevent others from copying it.’ They haven’t.

So why do Jews (Semites) succeed whereas Arabs (Semites) live in squalor. Did the success gene split 1400 years ago or did the Arabs accept a cult bent on destruction? Whenever I hear "Occam’s razor test", I know the writer is attempting to appear logical where there is no logic.

Does the Negro fail because he has dumb genes or is it that he accepts the culture of sustenance of the War on Poverty pursuing non intellectual pastimes.

[Balding_Eagle]

Is that what you hide behind when discussing the book ‘The Bell Curve’ also?

[Texas Songwriter]

This hostility faced by those with troublesome ideas is, of course, itself explained by evolution. As Wade mentions earlier on, we are social creatures, and we have evolved behaviours to live as such: ‘One is a tendency to criticise, and if necessary punish, those who do not follow the agreed norms.’ That is partly why, as a species, we find it easier to talk about how the world should be, rather than how it is.

Evolutionarily speaking, did the troublesome ideas evolve first, or did the tendency to criticize those troublesome ideas evolve first? Was it this mystical convergent evolution? Does evolution select for troublesome ideas and criticisms of those ideas or, as we have been proselytized to believe that evolution selects for the 4 F's…….fleeing, fighting, feeding, and reproduction. In the human genome where is the gene for criticizing an idea?

[Patton@Bastogne]

.


Does the Negro fail because he has dumb genes or is it that he accepts the culture of sustenance of the War on Poverty pursuing non intellectual pastimes.


Clarence Thomas, Condi Rice and Allen West answer that question for me ...


.

[BroJoeK]

The author discusses Jews in the context of “race”, but Jews are not a “race”. Most are Caucasians, some are other races.
The fact that Jews have endured “natural selection” (i.e. for higher IQs) does not make them a different “race”.

Indeed, what is said of Jews can so be said of Americans in general — less than 5% of the world's population, we create over 25% of the world's wealth, and contribute disproportionately to science, etc., etc.

Does that make us a different “race”? No, it just means we are especially talented at bringing out the human potentials in all of our races.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

‘People are highly imitative, and if the Jewish advantage were purely cultural, such as hectoring mothers or a special devotion to education, there would be little to prevent others from copying it.’ They haven’t.

That would be for the same reason they have not copied other culture success stories. Because it is hard work, because it forces you to interact with people who may not like you and it means taking risks.

These are all things that most humans avoid.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

If you don’t know enough history to understand then you do not know enough history to understand the explanation.

[wetphoenix]

~‘People are highly imitative, and if the Jewish advantage were purely cultural, such as hectoring mothers or a special devotion to education, there would be little to prevent others from copying it.’ They haven’t.~

Why would one group copy another? But you surely can await people copying one another within one group.

Their argument is absolutely illegitimate.

It is absolutely clear that difference between groups are solely cultural and there is no legit clues to prove otherwise.

Of course you need some intellectual and physical qualities for more achievments but if some ethnicies generally lacks that it is cultural as well.
If Muslims are leaning to inbreeding you can await a number of underforming freaks within their societies. If some other group doesn’t value education and gaining valuable skills and underperforming as a result it is exactly cultural.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

The same is true of the Chinese, who across Asia and now the rest of the world have formed highly successful business communities and, like the Jews, have suffered attacks from jealous neighbours: ‘If Chinese business success were purely cultural, everyone should find it easy to adopt the same methods. This is not the case because social behaviour, of Chinese and others, is genetically shaped.’

So both groups put a high emphasis on education and learning and both have notable success but aside from that they have little in common. Yet this person jumps to a rather strange conclusion that it must have nothing to do with culture but with genes.

Of course the fact is that there are a number of other cultures in Asia that are successful but are not Chinese. But they do all place a high emphasis on education and learning.

But in places that have the same genetics but place no emphasis on education and learning there is a marked lack of success.

This study is totally devoid of anything that resembles logic and reason. A third grader could pick it apart.

I know it plays to certain peoples desire to assume that they are "special" but they delude themselves.

[LearsFool]

Most Darwinists know next to nothing about the man, nor what he wrote, nor why.

Wasn’t it Galton, Darwin’s cousin, whose views form the basis of eugenics? And of course Darwin himself claimed that most races are not evolving, and should therefore be weeded out of the gene pool, lest evolution march backward “into the swirling mists of the dawnless past.”

This gave the elitists - for the first time in history - a SCIENTIFIC basis for exercising rule over the unwashed masses.

Darwin’s bomb is not unexploded. Most people just don’t hear it.