Those damn ignorant racists at the New York Times!

[Heraclitus]

I dedicate this post to DaShi with his adorable HBD=racialist=racist meme.

Nicholas Wade has been fighting the good fight against disinformation regarding human biological diversity for some time now. I feel sympathy for him, no matter how much he tries to educate people the readers of the NYT have ideological blinding glasses that will prevent them from connecting the dots.

Adventures in Very Recent Evolution

From this drunken riot of claims, however, Dr. Akey believes that it is reasonable to assume that any region identified in two or more scans is probably under natural selection. By this criterion, 2,465 genes, or 13 percent, have been actively shaped by recent evolution. The genes are involved in many different biological processes, like diet, skin color and the sense of smell.

But the new evidence that humans have adapted rapidly and extensively suggests that natural selection must have other options for changing a trait besides waiting for the right mutation to show up. In an article in Current Biology in February, Dr. Pritchard suggested that a lot of natural selection may take place through what he called soft sweeps.

Most variation in the human genome is neutral, meaning that it arose not by natural selection but by processes like harmless mutations and the random shuffling of the genome between generations. The amount of this genetic diversity is highest in African populations. Diversity decreases steadily the further a population has migrated from the African homeland, since each group that moved onward carried away only some of the diversity of its parent population. This steady decline in diversity shows no discontinuity between one population and the next, and has offered no clear explanation as to why one population should differ much from another. But selected genes show a different pattern: Evidence from the new genome-wide tests for selection show that most selective pressures are focused on specific populations.

One aspect of this pattern is that there seem to be more genes under recent selection in East Asians and Europeans than in Africans, possibly because the people who left Africa were then forced to adapt to different environments. “It’s a reasonable inference that non-Africans were becoming exposed to a wide variety of novel climates,” says Dr. Stoneking of the Max Planck Institute.

Soft sweeps work on traits affected by many genes, like height. Suppose there are a hundred genes that affect height (about 50 are known already, and many more remain to be found). Each gene exists in a version that enhances height and a version that does not. The average person might inherit the height-enhancing version of 50 of these genes, say, and be of average height as a result.

Suppose this population migrates to a region, like the Upper Nile, where it is an advantage to be very tall. Natural selection need only make the height-enhancing versions of these 100 genes just a little more common in the population, and now the average person will be likely to inherit 55 of them, say, instead of 50, and be taller as a result. Since the height-enhancing versions of the genes already exist, natural selection can go to work right away and the population can adapt quickly to its new home.

I've skipped the other parts he mentiones like Tibetan adaptations, spread of genes that help counteract alcoholism, the different genetic mechanism for light colored skin in Europeans vs. Asians,... since I've already talked about them extensively in the past few months here.

For the past few years the trend in science is very much pro HBD. Its turning into a veritable tsunami. I can't help but feel that by 2020 we'll have gone a quiet revolution in thinking with current and past Blank Slatists by then claiming they said this all along.

Some of you are thinking or planning to say "so what? I don't see anything about intelligence that you seem obsessed with." I say wait a little longer for the Chinese study.

And even if they don't exist. LOL. Do you really fail to see how for example something like variation among populations in their susceptibility to alcoholism could affect outcomes and crime rates? Intelligence may well [unlikely in my opinion] prove to be perfectly distributed equally but there are already dozens of proven trait variations among ethnicites/populations/races that affect economic success and behavior. Perfect egalitarianism is dead, long live diversity!


BTW The NYT has come a long way since publishing people like Gould

[MikeH]

So you admit there's no current study that supports your intelligence racism and are waiting for a new one to hopefully vindicate you? Good do know.

[DaShi]

Heraclitus supports a racist nut! Now that's a headline!

[DaShi]

So you admit there's no current study that supports your intelligence racism and are waiting for a new one to hopefully vindicate you? Good do know.

Given how absolutely crappy too much Chinese research is and that these kinds of studies always have political influence involved (the Chinese have created research to prove that they are a separately evolved species). It's pretty sad that he's that desperate for vindication.

[Heraclitus]

So you admit there's no current study that supports your intelligence racism and are waiting for a new one to hopefully vindicate you? Good do know.

There are plenty of such studies. I just find it funny people only get upset if one points out IQ variations and not any other traits that also affect life outcomes.

[Imran Siddiqui]

So you admit there's no current study that supports your intelligence racism and are waiting for a new one to hopefully vindicate you? Good do know.

+1

[Imran Siddiqui]

Furthermore the article discusses how environments have led to genetic changes to deal with those pressures. Unless the argument is that some environments require more general intelligence or rational ability (which is a bit ludicrous), I fail to see how it supports such a viewpoint.

[DaShi]

There are plenty of such studies. I just find it funny people only get upset if one points out IQ variations and not any other traits that also affect life outcomes.

You find empirical reasoning funny? Oh yes, of course you do.

[Heraclitus]

+1

-1

WTF? I point out article in the fraking NY Times about how rapid recent evolution has been and how most selective pressures are focused on specific populations? The article even flat out says Africans have experienced the least recent change!

And you celebrate because I tell you that different people's wont perform the same even under ideal conditions even if I am incorrect on differing intelligence since other very significant differences are already proven?

*****.


Seriusly ****ig *****.

People with torison dystonia (a hereditary disease):

Interestingly, patients with torsion dystonia are reported to have an average IQ of about 122, which is more than a standard deviation above average (average IQ = 100, standard deviation = 15).[1]

The disease gets them a good 10 points above average IQ (Jewish average). The disease is much much rarer in nonAskenaiz's. Here is basically a intelligence gene with bad side effects that also radically differs by how common it is in various populations!

I can cite dozens of others. The Chinese study may find many others, but its hardly the only one of its kind! Yet you guys will claim victory until every single intelligence gene is found- and I'm even ok with that! Since the evidence on racial differences in intelligence is overwhelming, I am very confident we will bury you Blak Slatist on the ash heap of history since by any reasonable standard you are already history.

And even if no further variation is found, the science is already clear. Genetically different peoples won't perform the same even with perfectly equal opportunities.

[Heraclitus]

You find empirical reasoning funny? Oh yes, of course you do.

****. IQ heritablity has been confined by scientist as between 0.5 and 0. ****ing 9. All test that correlated with g (general inteligence) show the exact same one stdv variation between Blacks and Whites, and the well know difference between Whites and Asians and Askenazi Jews. People have controled for paternal wealth, IQ, coutnry of origin, ect. And yet a Oriental in China, a Oriental in Brazil and a Oriental in the US will all on average score 105 if you don't hit them on the head with a hammer!

Does your PC cool aid infected brain compute this?

[MikeH]

"perfectly equal opportunities"



Love to see the experimental protocol for that one.

[loinburger]

What were the vast majority of white people doing two or three hundred years ago? I was under the impression that they were farmers/ranchers. Maybe they were farmers/ranchers with ridiculously high mathematical aptitudes or something.

[Heraclitus]

Furthermore the article discusses how environments have led to genetic changes to deal with those pressures. Unless the argument is that some environments require more general intelligence or rational ability (which is a bit ludicrous), I fail to see how it supports such a viewpoint.

Dude. You do not understand evolution.

What about the 4% Neanderthall admixture in nonAfricans? They where separate from us for more than 700 000 years. Are you saying they didn't stumble upon any intelligence enhancing traits that weren't found in archaic Homo Sapiens Sapiens?

Also even if the selective advantage for intelligence was exactly the same world wide. The fracking trade offs would be different! For example near the equator people regardless of genetic heritage or other environmental variables have lower IQ's do to parasites. A few points, not a huge difference but measurable and consistent world wide. Think about what the effect of this are on selection for inteligence for a second.


And even if we ignore this. Even if the trade offs are magically identical and the above is wrong. What about differing population sizes and interconectednes during the last 200 000 thousand years?!

Or do you think that claiming population sizes and varying degrees of gene flow effects the rate of adaptation to a environment is also ludicrous?

I finally get how people feel who need to explain evolution to creationists.

[Heraclitus]

"perfectly equal opportunities"



Love to see the experimental protocol for that one.

You will always pin your hopes on a tiny tiny uncertainty to use as an excuse to believe in egalitarianism won't you? Humanity is ****ed.

[Elok]

I imagine IQs in Angola are quite high, as they are pretty much all descended from the people who managed to avoid getting caught and sold to crackers.