Race, Intelligence, & Genetics or How James Watson pissed off a lot of people.

[Agathon]

Why don't you prove that races actually exist, rather than being something we made up, Berz?

There is no objective sense in which races exist. A black guy and a white guy have more in common than a tall white guy and a short white guy do.

[Berzerker]

There are populations with genes not found in other peoples. Sickle Cell is just one example of a pattern of genes a select group of people have others dont.

[Berzerker]

Why don't you prove that races actually exist, rather than being something we made up, Berz?

We didn't make up races, we classified peoples based on traits and other considerations. You can dispute that all you want, but the genes of 2 African pygmies from the Congo will have more in common gene wise than you and a pygmy.

There is no objective sense in which races exist. A black guy and a white guy have more in common than a tall white guy and a short white guy do.

Link? There is no way 2 white guys from the same clan or tribe in Scandinavia have less in common than either have with a Pygmy.
African genes are the oldest, everyone else branched off at different times from that ancestral population and evolution took us all on separate paths.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Berzerker
And all these other factors produced equal intelligence among the various races? Being smart enough to avoid an early demise sure is an important factor, migrations add to the danger of survival and weed out the not-so-smart leaving behind those who were smart enough to survive. Ironically the populations with a lower overall intelligence probably had it easier for the longest periods, the less intelligent stand a better chance of survival in familiar surroundings and a more stable society. The fact there are many variables does not mean selection for greater intelligence doesn't exist or is insignificant. Y'all want to argue about how much of a factor, I dont care how much. I'm disputing the silly notion that the races are equally intelligent...

As humans are perhaps the most social asnimals on the planet,
this also could be a factor in a lesser evolutionary pressure on intelligence.

In a group of hunter gatherers for example only one intelligent person miht be needed to spot a danger and keep the whole group (which means, even the less intelligent members) from perhaps certain death.
Also in the whole tribe there is only one person needed to discover certain things (for example to tame fire) and therefore enhance the living conditions of all tribesmen and women, regardless of intelligence.

That said, there might be a greater evolutionary advantage on means of communication than there is on intelligence.

For example a hunting group might have an advantage where you can say "There are 2 Gnus hiding behind the trees, lets encircle them your team to the right, my team to the left"
in contrast to a hunting group where you just have the opinion to say: "Gnus" *pointing in general direction of the gnus* "Attack"

Or a tribe might be of an advantage where you have the means to tell the next generation everything about fire (or hunting) instead of having the technique dying out with the inventor (or shortly afterwards when someone forgets to put wood onto the fire and, in contrast to the dead inventor, no one has learned to reignite a fire).
The greates advantage however would have a group, that can fixate knowledge (hunting techniques and the like) in written words or in paintings, as this would mean that the knowledge can be traded to the next generation without having to have 1-2 bearers of the knowledge (the knowledge to decipher the things written or painted would be enough).

So, summa summarum, I would say, less evolutionary presure on less intelligent people, because often they could be saved by more intelligent tribesmen, but more evolutionary advantage for cultural developments that enhance communication within the group and allow knowledge to be more efficiently traded to other group members (and the next generation/s)

And as the most intelligent members of the group would be unlikely to only breed among themselves (but instead with the mix of more or less intelligent members of the group) there wouldn´t be a genetic enhancement that produces more intelligent tribesmen with every generation.

[VetLegion]

Bolding things doesn't make them right.

So, summa summarum, I would say, less evolutionary presure on less intelligent people, because often they could be saved by more intelligent tribesmen, but more evolutionary advantage for cultural developments that enhance communication within the group and allow knowledge to be more efficiently traded to other group members (and the next generation/s)

And you don't think the ability to communicate efficiently, invent new forms of recording things and conveying (and recieving) information has anything to do with intelligence?

[Kuciwalker]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Agathon
Nope. Sorry dude. Genetic tests do not indicate that separate human subspecies exist.[/q]

The definition of subspecies is entirely subjective. There are distinguishable genetic lineages.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Bolding things doesn't make them right.

So, summa summarum, I would say, less evolutionary presure on less intelligent people, because often they could be saved by more intelligent tribesmen, but more evolutionary advantage for cultural developments that enhance communication within the group and allow knowledge to be more efficiently traded to other group members (and the next generation/s)

And you don't think the ability to communicate efficiently, invent new forms of recording things and conveying (and recieving) information has anything to do with intelligence?

You need more intelligence to invent things than to reproduce them or use them.
For example it takes some very intelligent people to invent the technologies to forge swords from iron. It takes however much less intelligent people to forge swords with the technoligies the inteligent people invented.
And it takes even less intelligent people to wield the swords so that they can protect the tribe (intelligent tribesmen and less intelligent tribesmen alike) from other tribes, animals, ettins or whatever.

There is also the fact that intelligence is nature as well as nurture (some researchers argue 50/50).

While I think that the cultural part (i.e. people getting more knowledge as well as more intelligence by learning things) increased for all tribes, I assume that the nature part (i.e. the genetic foundation for intelligence) stayed the same, as the genetic part of intelligence didn´t give its bearers any intrinsic advantage over the less intelligent tribesmen to produce offspring (and the genes of the intelligent people could get watered down by their bearers getting offspring with less intelligent tribesmen/women).

[VetLegion]

How about the advantage of being able to mate with more women? Or do you think women used to prefer dumb men?

[Agathon]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by Agathon
Nope. Sorry dude. Genetic tests do not indicate that separate human subspecies exist.[/q]

The definition of subspecies is entirely subjective. There are distinguishable genetic lineages.

Now you're just grasping at straws. The general consensus among scientists is that race is not a scientifically respectable concept. Enough of your bollocks.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by VetLegion
How about the advantage of being able to mate with more women? Or do you think women used to prefer dumb men?

I don´t think that women necessarily prefer more intelligent men.
Intelligence IMHO is only one of a large number of factors that determine if an individual is peferred by women.

Other factors might be body strength, hunting skills, social status and the like.

I think that the social status in early human groups was more determined by hunting skills (for which factors like moving silently, good eye sight and hearing and eye hand coordination were more important than intelligence) and that for example chiefs (with the highest satus) where chosen among these hunters, whereas intelligent people were more determined to become medicine men and cave painters.

Something that has survived through the centuries. look for example at the nobles in the european medieval tmes (i.e. the people with the highest status).
I don´t think that most of the times they are really examples of high intelligence. In contrast many of them can be considered to be rather brutes.
Intelligent people were more determined to become priests and scholars, who normally didn´t have more success with women (and sometimes maybe even less, if one thinks of the celibate).

Even nowadays I don´t think that intelligence per se is the determining factor for breeding success. The most important factors are social skills (which however might be influenced by inteligence) and social status (which however is determined more by money, something you might get through use of intelligence but more often just by birth [born into a rich family] by sheer luck or other skills than inteligence [being good in certain sports or being a good musician for example])

[VetLegion]

1. Why do you think good hunters couldn't also be intelligent? If there is some research pointing that good dexterity is incompatible with intelligence, I'd like to see it.

2. Women do, all things equal, prefer more intelligent men.

3. Be careful when comparing across periods. Today just about aynone can reproduce, which was definitely not always the case.

[Jon Miller]

I don't seem to be too successful at reproducing. Nor do a number of my intelligent freinds.

Also, I know women who flat out prefer less intelligent men.

JM

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by VetLegion
1. Why do you think good hunters couldn't also be intelligent? If there is some research pointing that good dexterity is incompatible with intelligence, I'd like to see it.

I don´t think that good hunting skills exclude intelligence. But I think that intelligence contributes less to hunting skills than the other things I mentioned and that the genes for traits that make a good hunter are unconnected to genes that contribute to high intelligence. Therefore I think less intelligent people have as much of a chance to be good hunters (and therefore have good success in attracting females) as more intelligent men (meaning that the distribution of intelligence of successful hunters is probably not different from the distribution of intelligence in other parts of a hunter gatherer soociety)

Originally posted by VetLegion
2. Women do, all things equal, prefer more intelligent men.

There are never situations where everything is equal.
I think in situations where almost everything is equal a woman on average might rather decide for the man that looks better. Only if she get to know the more intelligent man better (and his intelligence is definitely better than that of the better looking man [and his social skills at least equal to him]) she might instead decide for the more intelligent man.

Originally posted by VetLegion
3. Be careful when comparing across periods. Today just about aynone can reproduce, which was definitely not always the case.

I even think todays reproduction favors less intelligent people over intelligent ones. As there are contraceptives in widespread use there is a higher chance for "accidents" happening to couples with lesser intelligence / education than there is for couples with higher intelligence / education.
This would lead most (of course not all) higher intelligent/educated couples to probably get around 0-2 children (because of the trend towards smaller families), whereas lesser intelligent/educated couples would have by average more children (as "accidents" happen more frequently to them, leading to unwanted children).


As for historical periods where parts of society were banned from reproduction:
In don´t know to which periods you refer. AFAIK unlike in other apes, like chimpanzees, where the Alpha male (who hasn´t to be the most intelligent male) gets most of the women AFAIK there never was a period in humans (after they left the simian stage of evolution) where human tribes had similar structures (i.e. only parts of the males were allowed to reproduce whereas other parts weren´t allowed to do so).
I mean, aside from such cases where there weren´t enough males / females for all, the male or female was barren or homosexual, or there were disabilities in an individual that meant that it wasn´t attractive to males/females I don´t see any reasons (aside from celibacy for religious reasons) why parts of the population should´ve been banned from doing so.

(But as said, enlighten me, if you know about historical periods where this was the case [and where because of such forced celibacies the more intelligent people were able to reproduce more])

Edited: just added some missing letters

[Aeson]

The sad thing is, for most of human history women didn't have much input in who their mate(s) were.

[Barnabas]

I remember reading that a very very high number of nobel prize winners die childless, it seems to me extremely high intelligence or genius, is bad to pass your genes

Did Pascal, Newton, Beethoven have kids? I dont think so, and I could think of many others

Also, I dont see why hunters would be less intelligent, farm work is repetitive, always the same. Not complicated.
Meanwhile if you are a hunter, every day it is a new story.