[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!

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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]

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.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Wade is critical of leading biologists, economists and psychologists who have simply dismissed possible non-cultural explanations as racist, or who pin their hopes in geographic determinism, or shy away from recent evolution because of the political implications.

Since cultural factors and ideas are not genetic, they can't be explained (not even in principle) by natural selection and hence evolution. I wonder why scientists pretend not to see this obvious fact.

[Bravada]

Always wishing there would be some discussion on the full title of Darwin’s book, “The Origin of Species and The Preservation of Favoured Races.” If that were an open topic, liberal evolutionists would be forced to deal with their hypocrisy and the textbooks re-written. Unfortunately it’s not going to happen.

[ifinnegan]

The topic of this article, and the article itself for that matter, amounts to pseudo-scientific claptrap.

The author can’t even get the MAO polymorphism data correct, does not understand it or he would not make such an error in describing it.

But this is the world we live in. Idiots think they are geniuses, and no one knows better or cares.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

The same is true of the Chinese, who across Asia and now the rest of the world have formed highly successful business communities

They do so, not through natural selection or any other evolutionist fantasy, but through countless complicated scams that only they fully understand. For instance the chinese business immigration scams in Canada. Chinese education is based on plagiarism, cheating, bribery and fake degrees and everyone knows and accepts this. Everyone but dumb north americans that is.

[Reeses]

Ashkenazi intelligence

AshkeNAZI roughly means "German", which implies a German / Jewish hybrid. Jews are taking the credit for this brand of brain architecture however the German "rocket scientists" of yore had something to do with it.

Germany has been a hotspot of envy and tribal warfare for a long time, the product being higher IQ. The German language has several words to describe subtle variations of envy. The Germans mounted "envy heads", monster faces over their doors, to scare away the envious with evil intent. The Jews are also a product of tribal warfare envy for thousands of years.

About half the Jews in Europe were killed during WWII. In general, with many exceptions, the ghetto dwellers died disproportionally while the Einsteins tended to get away. That's why Jews in America today have the reputation of being pretty smart and not welfare takers. Possibly WWII resulted in the largest amount of human evolution to occur the last 100 years, yet that evolutionary jump and its mechanism cannot be investigated by any academic that wishes to remain employed.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Right wing Darwinism. How charming . . . not!

[ek_hornbeck]

A lot of Leftists claim to admire Darwin, and yet adhere to very anti-Darwinian notions of human equality (both among individuals and among groups of people) and blank slate models for the human mind. I guess they believe that human beings evolved, but then evolution just stopped and we all became equal.

[ek_hornbeck]

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.’

You can make a case for the origin of institutions and ideas (i.e. the start of agriculture, the Industrial Revolution) being matters of luck and circumstance. When Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans had high civilization, northern Europeans were savages, but eventually they caught up when exposed to Roman institutions. Similarly, northeast Asians managed to adopt Western science and technology in no time once they were exposed to it through colonization and traade.

In contrast, Sub-Saharan Africa has had more than adequate exposure to modern technology, science, and institutions (as did the Asians), and they have yet to make any significant contribution to technology, science, or business. That suggests that there's more going on than luck and culture.

[oldbrowser]

Before that, anthropologist Franz Boas had popularised the idea that we are entirely products of culture.

It is also notable that most cultures that evolved independent of each other are still remarkably similar.