bump for later read
I guess genetics affects some organs, but never the brain.
Those are only “interesting” questions because we live in a sickeningly PC society. In a logical society they would simply be “questions”.
“For a variety of reasons, including brutal population pressures, people developed a cluster of traits – nonviolence, literacy, thrift and patience – that gradually became the values of society as a whole. “
Yeah. They developed them. Hauled them out of the ether and put them on like a shirt. Then everything was cool.
Successful societies, before the industrial age, were the result of ample food supplies; by hunting, fishing or agriculture with beneficial water and good weather.
Geography - not genes.
If it is more than a social construct, then what? Would society change for better or worse? The problem with exploring this is that it seems to be the first step to segregation, apartheid and eugenics. It would contradict the rationale behind universal equality, and invite more specific categorizations deeper into genetics and beyond.
How would you feel, growing up knowing that people of your race are generally significantly better or worse to others in certain ways? Are you really going to act towards people of other races in the same way as you would your own, or view them as oppressors or liars or inferior beings?
If it is more than a social construct, and some ‘races’ are statistically more or less able to do certain things than others, wouldn’t that would facilitate self-imposed segregation? Wouldn’t that, in turn, inflame tensions between races?
Wait...Rand Paul will be up in arms about this! It will alienate the African American voters who will never, ever vote Republican anyway...
Liberalism certainly can lead to eugenic ideology and that leads to horrible consequences.
We can breed Border Collies to have a hunger to herd sheep (and everything else that moves). We can even breed them to have specific preferred patterns in how they work the sheep. We breed dogs, horses etc for temperaments and attitudes and even specific preferred behaviors. You can, for example, buy a horse bred to be ‘cowy’.
So why would it shock someone to think that human genetic differences could result in disproportionate behaviors and actions?
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This author asks alot of good questions that I’ve never heard publicly speculated about before because, I guess, everyone else is too afraid or intimidated to dare to even openly wonder about why these things are so.
And I’m really surprised that there seems to be so much hostility to the author’s ideas by some people here.
Isn't this Darwin's Theory of Evolution?
diversity destroys when carried to the extreme.
the darwinnian concept of survival of the fittest is turned on it’s head to the detriment of society and the species
I could simplify this argument.
Culture and social conditions, over time, influence natural selection.
Jews are an excellent example of this in several ways. For example, culturally Jews admire education, and they have a rare cultural acceptance of “good ideas”, no matter *who* thinks them up. Even if their hated enemy has a good idea, they may just adopt it for their own use.
Over many generations this has led to intellectualism being an admired trait, resulting in reproductive preference.
But importantly, while on the surface the flip side of this represents some diminution of physical traits, these are still kept in reserve, so that, for example, in just a generation or two, Jews can become very strong athletes.
But only if they have a cultural impulse to do so.
There is truth to genetics but it’s not pure like Darwin believed.
At this point in our crazy group-fighting world, this kind of discussion is at best unprofitable and at worst outright anger mongering.
Because of how volatile this subject is, and how cruel some tormentors could become with a misunderstood smidgen of the big picture, we as a creation of Gd should focus on individuals and their strengths. We should not let born outer appearances predetermine our thoughts about anyone.
That said, our non genetic child is determined to have her own genes no matter our loving family - she is athletic at a very early age like her genetic forebears and even has some other physical/ medical traits of her genetic relations. Yet I am sure we will have a deep effect on her development as well.
“What if race is more than a social construct?”
What if society is a racial construct?
South Africa was a first world nation until 1994.
““Human evolution has been recent, copious and regional,” Mr. Wade says in his book.”
From a strictly scientific point of view I have no doubt this is true, as it has always been true of every species ever to exist. Why should humans be any exception?
A lack of diversity does not extensive the process of natural selection. That being said I believe culture and technology is a major factor as well far more immediately effecting.
But of course theses factors are themselves in part a result of small genetic factors resulting from as little as hundreds of years of regional natural selection.
There is a Larry Niven short story in which all the stories of Eden are true, several hundred small groups or couples are scattered around a habitable world. The inbreeding results in racial characteristics and weak recessives showing up. Weak ones die out. The most successful groups spread, meet other groups, mingle. Group average increases through hybrid vigor as the genes for greater intelligence or problem solving spread.
The story is set in the then modern time, with a walking-talking IQ test of a robot looking for the smartest people who wouldn’t be missed to collect for the next round.
But the concepts are relevant here. Those with the greatest drive would try to expand. But only the smartest and most capable of learning and adapting would thrive outside their native range. The diaspora, then, are the smartest, bravest, most adaptable. Those groups that continued trade and population exchange had to be smarter to communicate with outsiders and remained healthier and grew smarter through genetic interchange.
Africa, in contrast, has continued tribal cultures with inbreeding and violence. The exception has been along the Mediterranean and Egypt, where there is cultural and genetic interchange with Europe and Asia.
The lower IQ for the population has been constant even when you look at Africans moved to other continents and don’t face the same malaria/disease burden and malnutrition that slowed growth in that continent for centuries.