Posted on 06/16/2006 9:32:09 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
CHICAGO -- Last September, Bruce Lahn, a professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago, stood before a packed lecture hall and reported the results of a new DNA analysis: He had found signs of recent evolution in the brains of some people, but not of others.
It was a triumphant moment for the young scientist. He was up for tenure and his research was being featured in back-to-back articles in the country's most prestigious science journal. Yet today, Dr. Lahn says he is moving away from the research. "It's getting too controversial," he says.
Dr. Lahn had touched a raw nerve in science: race and intelligence.
What Dr. Lahn told his audience was that genetic changes over the past several thousand years might be linked to brain size and intelligence. He flashed maps that showed the changes had taken hold and spread widely in Europe, Asia and the Americas, but weren't common in sub-Saharan Africa.
Web sites and magazines promoting white "racialism" quickly seized on Dr. Lahn's suggestive scientific snapshot. One magazine that blames black and Hispanic people for social ills hailed his discovery as "the moment the antiracists and egalitarians have dreaded."
Dr. Lahn has drawn sharp fire from other leading genetics researchers. They say the genetic differences he found may not signify any recent evolution -- and even if they do, it is too big a leap to suggest any link to intelligence. "This is not the place you want to report a weak association that might or might not stand up," says Francis Collins, director of the genome program at the National Institutes of Health.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Others have pointed out, too, that genetic and evolutionary studies may yield unpleasant results.
I think that many purely secular liberals who pride themselves as being above the "superstitious" religious types would be far happier with the concept of all man being equal, endowed by THEIR CREATOR with certain inalienable rights, than the ultimate possible conclusions of the purely scientific, genetic approach.
The line "one nation under God" and the concept that our rights are innate and dervie from God and not the state work to make sure (as much as possible) that THE STATE is not the sole authority.
dervie = derive
It's probably gonna be a zot-fest. Too bad, because the topic is interesting. In the interest of prudence, I'll pass.
Some genes are more prone to mutation than others. An example is Fragile X syndrome, which involves a single gene on the X chromosome. It arises spontaneously fairly infrequently, usually becoming the "pre-mutation" version of the gene (which is symptomless or very faintly symptomatic, i.e. may produce a very subtle impairment in intelligence but not outside the normal range). The premutation version very often spontaneously mutates into the retardation-inducing "full mutation" when being copied from parent to offspring.
J. Philippe Rushton has done a lot of solid work in this area. His publications are available on the website of his university, and one can get his books.
Shades of "The Descent of Man".
Then how come that the sub-saharans are unusually resistant to it? Wouldn't that mean that the mutated [or the "pre-mutated", if you like] version arose between 100K and 40Kyrs before present, for it not to be found there? For if it were there, then the full mutation would be, too.
It's not SUPPOSED to be.
Long response written and not posted.
GGG Ping.
So would many literalist Christians and other theists, whose world view rests heavily on the assumption that behavioral patterns which are viewed as criminal and/or immoral are of entirely spiritual origin, and can be completely remedied by believing the right things.
Both atheistic or agnostic liberals who refuse to admit that anyone is inherently better than anyone else, and religious people who refuse to admit that not all problems can be solved via religious belief and/or practice, are very stuck on the notion that social ills can only be remedied by widespread adoption of THEIR particular set of rules and beliefs. Behavioral/cognitive genetics flies in the face of this concept, hence both groups fight it energetically.
You guys are wimps :-)
Not a wimp. I happen to know something about the subject. It's a bottomless can of worms.
It is very sad that politics blocks research, but the history of research into human intelligence is like the history of research on the outcome of syphilis.
Unless it's science that we personally don't like.
Understood!
I do appreciate the need for, and the role of, science. I think too many see religion as nothing but a negative influence on society.
Dr. King fought injustice with the moral authority of his religious faith too.
But your point is well taken. Thanks for intelligent post.
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YOu telling us that PC trumps evolutionism with these people??
Who'da thunk it.
"Why would the same mutation recently and independetly occur in isolated populations?"Good point.They(mutations) wouldn't occur unless the same influence(variable)were at work in the"isolated populations"that had left sub-Sahara.Rhetorical question:Is there anything that these isolated populations could have had in common to explain the scientists theory?
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