Evolution and Humanity

[Leevan]

Recently I read Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray along with Race, Evolution and Behavior: A Life History Perspective by J. Philippe Rushton. The books examine the evidence of physical, historical and empirical differences among the races. IQ has been found to be largely hereditary, brain sizes vary among the races along with bone density and structure. Muscle composition differs, hair texture varies, testosterone levels, etc. etc. To assume that inherited physical factors don't play a role in success or failure for an individual in modern society is almost ridiculous. It appears that some people are simply fit or unfit for aspects of the norm. With this in mind, how would society look absent a state? Even in an era of peaceful parenting, maturity, freedom and independence? It appears as if the results may skew towards not just the individuals that are more intellectually capable but races overall. And while it's not impossible for a member of a race to exemplify qualities that are not common to his background, society, might be more prone to bypass him (racial profiling--time is limited).

 

 

[jpahmad]

Recently I read Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray along with Race, Evolution and Behavior: A Life History Perspective by J. Philippe Rushton. The books examine the evidence of physical, historical and empirical differences among the races. IQ has been found to be largely hereditary, brain sizes vary among the races along with bone density and structure. Muscle composition differs, hair texture varies, testosterone levels, etc. etc. To assume that inherited physical factors don't play a role in success or failure for an individual in modern society is almost ridiculous. It appears that some people are simply fit or unfit for aspects of the norm. With this in mind, how would society look absent a state? Even in an era of peaceful parenting, maturity, freedom and independence? It appears as if the results may skew towards not just the individuals that are more intellectually capable but races overall. And while it's not impossible for a member of a race to exemplify qualities that are not common to his background, society, might be more prone to bypass him (racial profiling--time is limited).

 

Without the state, everyone's IQ would increase in a few generations.  Everyone, every race, would fully utilize their genetic assets and those that produce the most value to society as a whole would reproduce the most, thus, passing on genes that are useful to society.

 

In a nutshell, there would be no propagation of "negative" traits in a free society.

[shirgall]

"Luminous Beings are we, not this crude matter."

 

http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2015/04/cern-researchers-confirm-existence-force

[Leevan]

Without the state, everyone's IQ would increase in a few generations.  Everyone, every race, would fully utilize their genetic assets and those that produce the most value to society as a whole would reproduce the most, thus, passing on genes that are useful to society.

 

In a nutshell, there would be no propagation of "negative" traits in a free society.

It seems to be the result of physical differences. Literally, brain sizes differ. East Asians tend to have larger, heavier brains; even their hips tend to be wider to accomodate larger baby heads. If evolution is the cause, adaptation won't be as quick as a few generations.

[Sal9000]

Here's genetics 101 for you. Genes don't produce absolute outputs but relative ones. What the outcome is, gets shaped by the enviroment (basically anything outside the DNA is now seen as enviroment).

Lets assume you have two plants of the same species. To make it simple, we assume they have a growth factor that can be determined precisely and that enviroment can also be quantified. 

Plant 1 has a growth factor of 100%, plant 2's factor is 150%. 

Lets have a look at different scenarios.

Both plants are subject to good enviromental conditions (enviromental value: 2). This gives you an absolute value of the plant's height as 200 and 300 respectively. 

Both plants are subject to bad enviromental conditions (enviromental value: 0,1). The output is 10 and 15.

Now for the interesting part. The enviromental factors differ for the plants. Plant 1 has good conditions (enviromental value 2) = 200 while plant 2 has poor conditions (enviromental value 0,1) = 15. 

Another scenario might be that plant 1 is subject to bad conditions (enviromental value 0,1) = 10 while plant 2 enjoys good conditions (enviromental value 2) = 300. 

While we can (so far) only determine absolute values (IQ eg), we have to do some research when finding out about the genes that determine the relative value. While this is simple for monogenetic traits in a controlled enviroment (think of the height of plants), it is pretty hard when it comes to a polygenetic trait in a complex enviroment (IQ in society). 

To make it worse, monogenetic traits are inherited seperately. Though this is common knowledge since Mendel, few realize that. Polygenetic traits are also inherited seperately, but since this relies on the single genes that make up the trait, the result is hard to calculate.

[jpahmad]

It seems to be the result of physical differences. Literally, brain sizes differ. East Asians tend to have larger, heavier brains; even their hips tend to be wider to accomodate larger baby heads. If evolution is the cause, adaptation won't be as quick as a few generations.

 

I'm not saying it will be even across the board.  Of course some races will be more prone to this or that.  However, it won't matter.  The market will decide which traits are useful.  High IQ comes with its burdens just like any other trait.  

[Leevan]

Here's genetics 101 for you. Genes don't produce absolute outputs but relative ones. What the outcome is, gets shaped by the enviroment (basically anything outside the DNA is now seen as enviroment).

 

Lets assume you have two plants of the same species. To make it simple, we assume they have a growth factor that can be determined precisely and that enviroment can also be quantified. 

 

Plant 1 has a growth factor of 100%, plant 2's factor is 150%. 

 

Lets have a look at different scenarios.

 

Both plants are subject to good enviromental conditions (enviromental value: 2). This gives you an absolute value of the plant's height as 200 and 300 respectively. 

 

Both plants are subject to bad enviromental conditions (enviromental value: 0,1). The output is 10 and 15.

 

Now for the interesting part. The enviromental factors differ for the plants. Plant 1 has good conditions (enviromental value 2) = 200 while plant 2 has poor conditions (enviromental value 0,1) = 15. 

 

Another scenario might be that plant 1 is subject to bad conditions (enviromental value 0,1) = 10 while plant 2 enjoys good conditions (enviromental value 2) = 300. 

 

While we can (so far) only determine absolute values (IQ eg), we have to do some research when finding out about the genes that determine the relative value. While this is simple for monogenetic traits in a controlled enviroment (think of the height of plants), it is pretty hard when it comes to a polygenetic trait in a complex enviroment (IQ in society). 

 

To make it worse, monogenetic traits are inherited seperately. Though this is common knowledge since Mendel, few realize that. Polygenetic traits are also inherited seperately, but since this relies on the single genes that make up the trait, the result is hard to calculate.

 

You should read the books that I cited, and let me know what you think. -- Same goes for everyone else.

[Pepin]

Difficult to say.

 

One complex factor to consider is that since travel will be not be restricted, populations will become less genetically diverse with time due to interbreeding. It doesn't really matter if the rate is low, all that matters is that genes exclusive to a particular race become distributed with time.

 

For instance, if you look at the genes of blacks in the US, you find that they share a large percentage of their genes which are exclusive to Africans, but they also share a lot of genes that are exclusive to whites. This only after a few hundred years with pretty low inbreeding rates, yet white genes are already present in the vast majority of black Americans. The reverse is also true.

 

Of course slave rape was probably a big contributor to this, but that would just mean that the rate would be slower.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/25/science/23andme-genetic-ethnicity-study.html

[labmath2]

i think the point OP was trying to make is about generalizations. Like how employers assume college graduates are better employees that non college graduate because on average that is true. This could have a negative effect on people that did not go to college even if they are excellent employees because employers may be hesitant to even consider them (especially since resumes are run through algorithms). Imagine something like that is true for race (more likely ethnicity). Consider today the amount of men who are elementary school teachers or women who are sport enthusiasts. This can make it harder for those who wish to enter a field where their group is not well represented.

[antonina2]

I can't say I am not a fan of purely epidemiological studies claiming genetic correlations.  Examples of genetic diversity: your DNA is 50% similar to that of  banana, 82% to  dog, 90% to  cat and 99.5% (excluding SNPs) to that of any other human.  That said, humans of African origin have genomes with the greatest genetic diversity, essentially making them more robust than us inbred whites (and the whites thought it was the other way around).  The human genome (genes of/in all humans) contains approx 20K coding genes, these account for almost 2% of your genetic code, the rest is referred to as junk DNA. Junk DNA is not junk at all, much of it acts to control when genes are turned on or off, which is largely controlled by environmental factors or epigenetics. This suggests that up to more than 98% of our differences are due to environmental factors and how we respond to them. The rest of it has unknown function, but since nature tends to be conservative I imagine additional functions will be found.  While there are mutations in genetic coding sequences between races, there are many genes that influence intelligence a little each.  Last year a group looked at 69 gene variants in 24K people and found three variants that accounted for 0.3 IQ points each (http://www.nature.com/news/smart-genes-prove-elusive-1.15858) and said they would need to do studies >40x larger to get better results.  The fact that so much genetic code is dedicated to cognitive ability shows that it is a complex and conserved function (important to survival since it would take an apocalyptic event or intense inbreeding to pass idiocy down the blood line, ergo, the inbred, sociopaths called the aristocracy). It takes mice seven generations to attain full inbred status, so genetic variance is not considered a factor in experimentation. So, genetically speaking, if we weren't under the control of the genetically inferior and strove for general love and balance our bodies would work much more efficiently and significantly raise the IQ of everyone.  In this utopia all people regardless of race would fall under a bell curve upon measuring IQ.  It truly is appalling that we have let things globally deteriorate this far.

[AynRand]

"Luminous Beings are we, not this crude matter."

 

http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2015/04/cern-researchers-confirm-existence-force

Thank you so much for that. I have long felt FDR does not make enough Star Wars references. 

[ragdoll]

You should read the books that I cited, and let me know what you think. -- Same goes for everyone else.

The books you cited were wrote 20 years ago.  In the past 5 years it has been very well established that DNA is only a raw baseline for the environment to mold.  SAL9000 described how it works accurately as far as I understand it but he left out the fact that the environment turns on and off genes as well.  So theoretically high IQ genes could potentially be turned on or off by the environment.  Dr. Flynn also explained this fairly well in Stefan's interview of him here: 

[Leevan]

The books you cited were wrote 20 years ago.  In the past 5 years it has been very well established that DNA is only a raw baseline for the environment to mold.  SAL9000 described how it works accurately as far as I understand it but he left out the fact that the environment turns on and off genes as well.  So theoretically high IQ genes could potentially be turned on or off by the environment.  Dr. Flynn also explained this fairly well in Stefan's interview of him here: 

 

The theory is that genetics make certain tasks easier for some and more difficult for others. People aren't playdoe at birth.

[MMX2010]

The theory is that genetics make certain tasks easier for some and more difficult for others.

 

 

 

So what?  What does this truth mean to you? 

[ragdoll]

The theory is that genetics make certain tasks easier for some and more difficult for others. People aren't playdoe at birth.

 

I'm not sure what theory you're talking about but I would like you to address what SAL9000 and I wrote in response to this topic.

 

 

It seems to be the result of physical differences. Literally, brain sizes differ. East Asians tend to have larger, heavier brains; even their hips tend to be wider to accomodate larger baby heads. If evolution is the cause, adaptation won't be as quick as a few generations.

There have been a few studies published that suggest that you can change your brain's mass depending on your habits.  Again, leaning towards what SAL and I have said already.  And like I said on your last topic about evolution, you should look at how rapidly we can change a dog's entire physical makeup in a few generations if you think that evolution has to be this weird slow change that takes place over millions of years.

[Leevan]

I'm not sure what theory you're talking about but I would like you to address what SAL9000 and I wrote in response to this topic.

 

 

There have been a few studies published that suggest that you can change your brain's mass depending on your habits.  Again, leaning towards what SAL and I have said already.  And like I said on your last topic about evolution, you should look at how rapidly we can change a dog's entire physical makeup in a few generations if you think that evolution has to be this weird slow change that takes place over millions of years.

 

I don't know to what I'm supposed to respond. My point was and is that people begin their lives physically different, and the differences appear to trend along racial lines. These differences enable or hinder individuals to succeed or fail in a myriad of avenues, which would likely result in intellectual and physical tiers within society if allowed. (Sort of like how professional sports are dominated by Africans whhile there is a significant number of East Asians in hard science professions--only much more pronounced.) And given that traits aren't specifically allocated to each individual of each race, I'd imagine that, absent a state, there would be a significant amount of racial profiling job applicants, renters, credit/loan seekers.

[WasatchMan]

I don't know to what I'm supposed to respond. My point was and is that people begin their lives physically different, and the differences appear to trend along racial lines. These differences enable or hinder individuals to succeed or fail in a myriad of avenues, which would likely result in intellectual and physical tiers within society if allowed. (Sort of like how professional sports are dominated by Africans whhile there is a significant number of East Asians in hard science professions--only much more pronounced.) And given that traits aren't specifically allocated to each individual of each race, I'd imagine that, absent a state, there would be a significant amount of racial profiling job applicants, renters, credit/loan seekers.

 

...and a girl with physical features that signify fertility is going to have more suitors to choose from.  So what?  As long as physical force isn't involved, this is just a fact of reality.  There is nothing in philosophy that says equality of outcome is an ideal to aim for.

[Sal9000]

There is a major flaw in the r / K thesis. In short it says that species who follow the K-strategy have fewer offsprings and that they care for them, while r species pump out babies like there is no tomorrow. First of all, there is no species that uses both at the same time. More importantly, the r / K theory can't be applied to humans for a simple reason. Most of our ancestors followed the r strategy out of sheer necessity. There were no contraceptives available for at least 98000 years. This oc means that there could have been no fundamental difference between the 'races' when it comes to the number of children they had, since breastfeeding for two years was the norm. When there is no difference to the numbers of children, the whole r / K distinction becomes void.

[shirgall]

There is a major flaw in the r / K thesis. In short it says that species who follow the K-strategy have fewer offsprings and that they care for them, while r species pump out babies like there is no tomorrow. First of all, there is no species that uses both at the same time. More importantly, the r / K theory can't be applied to humans for a simple reason. Most of our ancestors followed the r strategy out of sheer necessity. There were no contraceptives available for at least 98000 years. This oc means that there could have been no fundamental difference between the 'races' when it comes to the number of children they had, since breastfeeding for two years was the norm. When there is no difference to the numbers of children, the whole r / K distinction becomes void.

 

I'm no expert in this area, but is there not an orthogonal distinction between r/K and the other division of nomad/farmer? The upper bounds of children are different in each scenario. Isn't K better for nomads and r better for farmers?

 

Still, having a mix of strategies in a group makes it better for that group to deal with large external pressures.

[Sal9000]

The upper bounds of children are different in each scenario.

 

My argument is that there is no or little difference. The total numbers of humans has not changed much for most of our history. Only since the industrial revolution has there been a massive rise. The reason for that, and the indifference between r and K strategies for both groups (nomads and farmers) is pretty simple. It was the norm to breastfeed for a long time, during which most of the women could not have children. Add to that the high child mortality and you get populations that are barely above the reproductive minimum (2 children per family unit). Lets assume a woman gets married with 16 and goes into menopause at 36. She has roughly 20 years of fertility. Pregnancy and breastfeeding take up 3 years typically. This means she can have about 7 children. Those 7 children are subject to all sorts of diseases, so that only 2, 3, or 4 make it to adulthood. For most of human history, women were either pregnant or breastfeeding. So I can't see how r or K strategies could have selected for or against,  when the basic conditions were the same essentially.

[MMX2010]

There is a major flaw in the r / K thesis. In short it says that species who follow the K-strategy have fewer offsprings and that they care for them, while r species pump out babies like there is no tomorrow. First of all, there is no species that uses both at the same time. More importantly, the r / K theory can't be applied to humans for a simple reason. Most of our ancestors followed the r strategy out of sheer necessity. There were no contraceptives available for at least 98000 years. This oc means that there could have been no fundamental difference between the 'races' when it comes to the number of children they had, since breastfeeding for two years was the norm. When there is no difference to the numbers of children, the whole r / K distinction becomes void.

 

 

No way.  Most of our ancestors followed the K strategy out of sheer necessity. 

 

The fundamental marker that determines whether r or K is followed is resource availability, and resources have always been extremely limited in (practically) every culture from the B.C. time periods until now.  America and Western Europe are r-selected because of government subsidies, and thus everyone's sexual and relationship behaviors are "strange". 

[Leevan]

My argument is that there is no or little difference. The total numbers of humans has not changed much for most of our history. Only since the industrial revolution has there been a massive rise. The reason for that, and the indifference between r and K strategies for both groups (nomads and farmers) is pretty simple. It was the norm to breastfeed for a long time, during which most of the women could not have children. Add to that the high child mortality and you get populations that are barely above the reproductive minimum (2 children per family unit). Lets assume a woman gets married with 16 and goes into menopause at 36. She has roughly 20 years of fertility. Pregnancy and breastfeeding take up 3 years typically. This means she can have about 7 children. Those 7 children are subject to all sorts of diseases, so that only 2, 3, or 4 make it to adulthood. For most of human history, women were either pregnant or breastfeeding. So I can't see how r or K strategies could have selected for or against,  when the basic conditions were the same essentially.

There are a vast variety of physical differences among the races. Skin color, bone density, height, body/bone structure, fertility, muscle makeup, etc. are all determined at birth by the genes. (Obviously, one's development will affect his state of being at any given time; but, if you're arguing that children are infinitly malleable, I just don't see how that is supportable.) If IQ/intellectual adaptability is 40-80% based on genetics, as my sources noted, it stands to reason that absent a state humanity might utilize race/appearance as a qualifier/disqualifier to expedite decision making.

 

*And I just want to clarify that it is potential that I'm discussing. One race might have more potential achieving X. That doesn't mean another race can't achieve X. It just means that the potential is varied, and the lines can be roughly identified by race.*

[ragdoll]

Your sources are 20 years old.  Dr. Flynn says in the video I posted that after taking culture into account we may very well all have the same potential.  Which is what we and current science are suggesting.

 

I think that the real issue here is that you don't believe in evolution and thus think that said differences in races are unchangeable.  Please let me know if you have changed your stance on evolution but until you have done so I don't believe a rational discussion on this issue can amount to anything productive.

[Leevan]

Your sources are 20 years old.  Dr. Flynn says in the video I posted that after taking culture into account we may very well all have the same potential.  Which is what we and current science are suggesting.

 

I think that the real issue here is that you don't believe in evolution and thus think that said differences in races are unchangeable.  Please let me know if you have changed your stance on evolution but until you have done so I don't believe a rational discussion on this issue can amount to anything productive.

 

I don't question evolution, I question its (possible) orchestration. Anyway, it seems that those who question the differences among the races are questioning evolution. People, races evolved differently, and we are now different. Like the birds Darwin noted. Some of them had longer beaks, and thus were more capable in X. Some were a certain color pattern for the purposes of Y.

[Sal9000]

No way.  Most of our ancestors followed the K strategy out of sheer necessity.

 

You can see it from a different perspective too. In theory, humans reproduced as if they used an r strategy. But the enviroment and high mortality makes this look as if humans were a K species. One indication that this is correct is the low life expectancy rate during most of our history. Most died at a young age, only few made it to adulthood. Also I think that the difference between r and K strategies is subtle when it comes to humans. In total numbers it may be 2,1 children (K-ish strategy) compared to 4,2 children used by a r-ish mode or reproduction.