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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

""Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution""

8 Comments -

1 – 8 of 8
Anonymous Dis said...

Very fascinating... This is extremely relevant in terms of diet, with the strong tolerance of alcohol demonstrated among Mediterraneans compared to the milder tolerances of Northern Europeans and East Asians stands as a strong example.

I'm less sold on the notion of behavioral differences emerging in such a short time-span, however. I'm not discounting it offhand, but unless there is a lot of evidence brought to bear on how the vicious Vikings became the placid Scandinavians in terms of genes, a cultural explanation is more plausible.

After all, compare the crime-free status of modern Japan compared with the bushido ethic that reigned there from Tokugawa to Tojo.

12/10/07, 4:48 PM

Anonymous Sleep said...

The tall muscular body type of Polynesians has evolved from the typically small and slim southeast Asian body type in just 7000 years, and possibly less, unless some aboriginal population that has left no modern descendants existed and bred with the early Polynesians.

12/11/07, 2:03 AM

Anonymous dougjnn said...

I'm very sympathetic to the general argument of the paper, mostly because so much recent work points broadly in the same direction.

However, p-ter at GNXP has what strikes me as a pretty devastating technical critique - though as I say there, I'd like to see the issues he raises fully thrashed out (and expect we will). He's not challenging its broadest claims, that human genetic evolution hardly stopped or even slowed down 40k years ago or so, as is popularly supposed (and still taught or implied in many high school and college courses). There is a whole body of work over the last ten years that shows that to be clearly false (which p-ter doesn't touch upon, no doubt because any regular reader of GNXP will certainly know that).

However he does pointedly critique the methods used to support the claim of vastly accelerated evolution over the last 5 or 10K years (since the agricultural revolution, with it's consequent ENORMOUS increase in human population size). He does so from a technical point of view, since he states up front that he finds the studies basic hypothesis of accelerated fairly recent evolution to be likely true as well.

12/11/07, 7:46 AM

Anonymous David said...

Look at this dubious comment from the story:

This could have led to speciation if it had continued, but in practice, it has got to be the case that that cannot happen now. The reason is that this study has looked at largely separated populations in the past, but everything about human history since the industrial revolution weighs overwhelmingly against separation and thus against speciation too. Huge increases in gene flow are going to wipe this trend out.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, you see, humans did not trade with each other. There was no Silk Road. There were no invasions. The Visigoths did not exist; Attila stayed home; Rome was all-White; there was no land bridge from Asia to Alaska; Vikings and Polynesians did not know how to construct boats; the Greeks had no dealings with North Africans; etc. It's on the basis of this ignorant dribble that we can dismiss empirical science. After all, "it has got to be the case that that cannot happen now." GOT TO! (i.e., a priori).

12/11/07, 9:38 AM

Anonymous Scotch-Irish said...

Armand Leroi, the UK guy who says the mixing now is to huge to allow increases in genetic separation is correct. How could it be otherwise?

12/11/07, 11:06 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

My observation is that the level of and propensity for race-mixing globally is no more or less than it ever was in human history. Sure, we have airplanes and rather more efficient international trade (much of it done electronically). This is not leading to the birthing of One New Race; if anything, the fact is merely that the proportions of the various historical races are changing (with Whites decreasing and others increasing). Not identical to breeding an Ubermensch. Besides, what does it mean to say speciation is impossible? All this seems to be PC speculation and suspiciously pat. You can almost hear "Kumbaya" in the background.

12/11/07, 5:46 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

[C]ompare the crime-free status of modern Japan [to] the bushido ethic that reigned there from Tokugawa to Tojo.

This is a typical "nurture" argument. The writer assumes that bushido leads to a high domestic crime rate. Evidence? Well, Shinto was involved in those wily Japs' determination to hit Pearl Harbor and fight to the last bushido...they went on suicide missions...it's all some kinda crazy religion that's against ethics, right?...therefore, violent crime must have been widespread in Japan in 1944 but non-existent ("crime-free") after MacArthur. (The Japs never heard of law, until old Doug got hold of 'em.) This has GOT TO be the truth, because it sounds good. QED.

12/11/07, 6:12 PM

Blogger Russell said...

In other words, this is a measure of environmental stress.

Necessity, and catastrophe, are the mother of invention.

To the degree we are ill-adapted to our present environment, and altered photoperiod, evolution must desperately try to compensate.

See photoperiodeffect.com

12/20/07, 12:35 PM

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