Posted on 05/03/2014 1:51:51 PM PDT by globelamp
".. The orthodoxy's equivalent of the Nicene Creed has two scientific tenets. The first, promulgated by geneticist Richard Lewontin in "The Apportionment of Human Diversity" (1972), is that the races are so close to genetically identical that "racial classification is now seen to be of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance."
The second, popularized by the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, is that human evolution in everything but cosmetic differences stopped before humans left Africa, meaning that "human equality is a contingent fact of history," as he put it in an essay of that title in 1984."
"Since the sequencing of the human genome in 2003, what is known by geneticists has increasingly diverged from this orthodoxy, even as social scientists and the mainstream press have steadfastly ignored the new research. Nicholas Wade, for more than 20 years a highly regarded science writer at the New York Times, has written a book that pulls back the curtain."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
But the longer the penny stays screwed in behind the fuse, the bigger is the resulting fire.
You are quite right. The Jews are the obvious exception. But I know of no other ethnic group, at least not one that is widely distributed, that is identifiable from 3000 years ago.
There is obviously more than one possible evolutionary strategy. The Jews have for the last 2000 years followed a different one.
It should be noted that if a certain war 70 years ago had gone the other way, the Jews’ evolutionary strategy would have probably utterly failed by now.
The higher IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is widely attributed to evolutionary pressure selecting for intelligence of the bookish type, which didn’t operate very strongly in other societies.
It might be noted that in modern western societies, evolutionary pressures are apparently operating to select for lower IQ, lesser socio-economic success, etc. For the very first time in history, there is an inverse relationship between reproductive success and general success in life.
If these Third World immigrants coming to America have a gene for despotism, good night Irene.
My wife is Chinese. She has told me that she can read and understand written words found in ancient Chinese records 5000 years old.
I'm afraid that idea makes no sense at all to me. Aren't we all equally descended from the first humans? Who else could we be descended from?
I suspect they were probably trying to come up with the genotype closest to that of the first humans. If so, it seems highly likely to me he would be found somewhere in East Africa, where evolutionary pressures have probably been less diverse than elsewhere.
Very good piece - thanks for sharing it.
Murry lays out well how, again and again, the Left is anti-science, a role they like to ascribe to our side.
But I was struck by this “[the book discusses} circumstantial evidence that the genetic characteristics of the English lower class evolved between the 13th century and the 19th.”
That is interesting, but what is meant by “lower class”, esp.in that time frame? I mean, wouldn’t that be almost everybody?
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I agree that China has a very ancient culture. But it had many, many incursions from the steppe bringing in new blood, with the Mongols and Manchus only the most recent.
Chinese ideograms are astonishingly conservative, because they don’t have to change with the pronunciation of the language.
But I suspect Chinese of today would have a lot less in common with those of the early Chou dynasty than today’s Jews with King David.
HA! When I take over the world I will a. get the Jews on my side and b. not invade Russia. I have learned the lessons of history.
And as soon as my laundry is done....and my nail polish is dry....World - LOOK OUT!
I would guess that passage refers to Gregory Clark´s “A farewell to alms”:
http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Economic-History-Princeton/dp/0691141282
And yes, the lower class would indeed be the bulk of the population - hence the relevance. ;)
“Read some of the comments at the review.
Most common reaction seemed to be fear that real differences would be found, so let’s not do the research in the first place.”
This is the supreme irony: Liberalism was born as a rebellion against scripture and dogma, in favor of the Fearless Pursuit of Truth for the Betterment of Mankind (TM).
Now it is increasingly appearent that Liberalism has put that ambition aside, and is just sliding into becoming dogma without the benefit of metaphysical justification (indeed, without any philosophical justification whatsoever once the whole “truth” thing has been pulled out from under it...).
I think I know what this involves.
Extensive analysis of birth rates over 1000 years of English history have shown that the nobility, gentry and merchants had a significantly higher surviving number of children than the serfs/peasants/artisans.
In the economy of the times, not all could maintain their parent's status. So the younger sons all took a step down.
Noble younger sons became gentry. Gentry younger sons became farmers. Merchant younger sons became artisans, etc.
Over many generations this resulted in the lower classes gradually being changed genetically to be closer to the upper classes, and this is sometimes used to explain the gradual emergence of England as a world power.
Sorry I don't have more detail on the thesis, but I think that's the gist of it.
Apparently this didn't apply to the same extent on the Continent, I'm unsure why.
Widely distributed ethnic groups are rather rare - people have a tendency to stay put (with some spectacular exceptions during some periods, obviously)...
True. Which is of course another way the Jews are unique.
The Japanese are probably almost identical genetically to the Japanese of 2000 years ago, since nobody invaded Japan. (Except the Mongols, and it didn’t work out well for them.)
The Chinese probably much less so.
But the Jews were one of many small peoples around the eastern end of the Med. Where are the Edomites, Moabites and Ammonites? Where are the Arameans and Chaldeans?
They’re gone, but the Jews are still here. To my mind, anyway, this is pretty much proof of something unique about them.
There are still Egyptians in Egypt and Greeks in Greece, but they don’t have much of anything in common with those who lived in those lands 3000 or 5000 years ago. So are they still “the same people” in the way the Jews and (possibly) the Chinese are?
That struck me too. What is he talking about?
For example, there's a movement now to reconstruct how English was actually pronounced in Shakespeare's time, and they're actually putting on plays in what they call "original pronunciation."
It sounds like the way movie pirates talk -- "war" for example is "waaahr", like the pirates' "aaarrrr!" One of the ways to try to reconstruct the pronunciation is to take old poems, like Shakespeare's sonnets, and assume that the words really do rhyme, where they don't rhyme in today's language. (I noticed the lack of rhymes when I was a kid, and wondered why. Apparently it's due to pronunciation changes.)
Anyway, the original pronunciation experts say the modern upper class British pronunciation only dates from the last 200 or 250 years. In Shakespeare's time there was no "upper class" pronunciation.
But if that's true, it would seem that "lower-class" eveolutionary genetic distinctions, if any, could hardly go back much more than say 250 years.
It was when the English language moved its vowels.
(ducking)
A couple of thoughts on this - I have heard that the English spoke in Appalachia (among the most heavily accented and that may all be being lost due to TV, etc.) is close to the English spoken in Shakespeare’s time. I have no idea if this is true, but I’ve heard it many times.
It does make sense to think the words in a poem would rhyme, I will say that!
Another thing, I watched that movie “gangs of new york” which takes place in the mid-1800s. I complained to my friend about the characters “noo yawk” accents, but she told me that it was actually historically accurate that the new york accent we know and love was actually that old.
How anyone knows this in the era before recording I have no clue!
Anyway, I figured it was impossible to ever know.
But then I heard about this idea of assuming that the old poems really did rhyme. Brilliant insight!
There are archaic words still spoken in Appalachia that go back that far but the structure and dialect are more Scottish. You have to go to the other end of Virginia and North Carolina to encounter spoken English with a structure and dialect that are very close to Elizabethan English, on isolated barrier islands and remote mainland communities on the bays and sounds. In NC, Hyde County is most associated with this. There’s an island in the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia that’s well known for it as well, but the name of that island escapes me at the moment. Famous for shellfish I think, residents put out crab pots and such for a livelihood.
That makes sense, thanks for explaining it. Although you are right why would it not have occurred on the continent. But is that really “evolution”?
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