Studium generale

Division of Labour as a Driving Force in Cultural Evolution

2011-10-09T03:46:00.000-07:00

Research in Sweden in Evolutionary Anthropology

With a big surprise I find, that researchers in Sweden - a research group around Professor Magnus Enquist - is working about the same theme that is important for me since 15 years (1). Mostly the mathematician Micael Ehn (a, b) is working about "Division of labour and specialization as a driving force in cultural evolution".

I am working about this theme since 1996, when I was as a doctoral student with Professor Eckart Voland in Giessen.

My focus is to combine cultural and genetic evolution (to combine "Adam Smith and W. D. Hamilton") in saying that specialization enables societies to dimish the mean kinship coefficient r between the specialist and the reciever of his "altruistic" acts in Hamilton's famous unequation c/b < r. By specialization it is easier for me to help more people with less of effort. So growing societies can have the same "strong altruism" even if the mean kinship coefficient r inside of them is becoming lower.

Micael Ehn

My expectation is, that this thought will have hugh effects on the future study of complex societies and economies and for a discipline like Evolutionary Economics. (For a long time theory in Evolutionary Economics and in Historical Demography was not as developed as it could have been by taking William D. Hamilton and Evolutionary Psychology as a whole into account.)

I have begun to work about this theory by looking for data in pre-industrial, agrarian societies worldwide, for example in Early Modern Age Europe where we have good data of all sorts about the development of societies. (Data for the diversity of agrarian regions and their different degrees of division of labour for example in Southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland - so that a comparative view and research is possible.)

Now I have to read the paper "On the causes and effects of specialization - A mathematical approach" (2). But the paper "Modeling Specialization and Division of Labor in Cultural Evolution" (3) seems not to be available at the moment. It has five chapters:

1: Theoretic and Empirical studies of Division of Labor and Specialization: An interdisciplinary survey
2: Specialization leads to feedback cycles in cultural evolution
3: Under what circumstances can copying lead to increased cultural diversity?
4: Adaptive Strategies for Cumulative Cultural Learning
5: Temporal Discounting Leads to Social Stratification

- I have not published very much of my thoughts yet. Here you can find a short outline of them. But I am reading these papers with a lot of mixed emotions! Because they are the papers that I SHOULD (!!!!) have published 15 years ago! :-) Never mind! It is very welcome for me, not to be so alone any more with this themes, than I have been and I have felt with in the last two decades.

The economy of a village in pre-industrial times as a "modell organism"

For people, who are able to read german, maybe it is interesting, to read this review I have written in 2008 in which a lot of thoughts of my dissertation are outlined also: the economy of a village in pre-industrial times as a "modell organism". And there is given some german scientific literature of agrarian history, that is very useful for this work (e.g. Bernd Herrmann, Ernst Pitz, Michael Mitterauer, Eckart Schremmer and so on). Bernd Herrman for example has published - together with other researchers - a lot of good thoughts about a theory of the "flow of energy" in the village economy (that is always in one way or the other structured by division of labour). And demography is - according to Herrmann and coauthors - much more often in dependence of social factors but natural factors. Even in strange natural surroundings like Greenland, the Andes or the Oasis of Fachi.

So a good theory of division of labour has a lot to say for historical demography. Here there are to be explored the so called "demographic regimes", the "Bevölkerungsweise" according to famous historical demographer Gerhard Mackenroth, the good friend of the famous Swedish social scientist Gunnar Myrdal. So we have reasons to look forward to a great contribution of Swedish science to the exploration of the function of complex human societies in evolutionary terms.

(It was some years ago, when the innovative research group of Magnus Enquist has already had come into my attention. Then I have made a research blogging post [in german] [4] about a paper concerning the human ability to differentiate between adaptive and maladaptive traits, which seemed to me also a very exciting and important point.)

_____________

1. Micael Ehn, Anna-Carin Stymne and Magnus Enquist: Specialization: A Driving Force in Cultural Evolution – Theory and Data. EHBEA’11. 6th International Conference, March 24 - 26, 2011, Gießen, Germany, PROGRAMME & ABSTRACTS

2. Micael Ehn: On the causes and effects of specialization - A mathematical approach. University dissertation from Västerås. Mälardalens högskola, 2009

3. Micael Ehn: Modeling Specialization and Division of Labor in Cultural Evolution. University dissertation from Västerås. Mälardalen University, 2011

4. Bading, Ingo: Die menschliche Fähigkeit zum Unterscheiden von günstigen und ungünstigen kulturellen Merkmalen, Studium generale, Research Blogging, 31.8.2008

Hamilton's Unequation and the Principle of Division of Labour in Complex Societies

2011-09-13T01:27:00.000-07:00

A naturalistic theory for Adam Smith's principle of division of labour

The evolution of "strong" altruism is possible according to Hamilton's unequation c/b < r.

Yet, in research seldom it has been asked for the consequences of the division of labour (according to Adam Smith) for the evolution of altruism in complex systems and societies. Division of labour diminishes the costs of an altruistic act (c) and enhances the benefit (b) of it by professional specialization. So the mean kinship coefficient r between the altruistic specialist and the receiver of his altruistic acts should be able to be lower than without division of labour for evolutionary stability of this form of altruism.

The "jack of all trades" is not able to act for so many people so easily in altruistic acts than the professional specialist in a well-organized complex society. A pediatrician needs to save the life of 20 children with a mean r of 0,05 to him to do the same - in evolutionary terms - as to rear one own child.

In the theoretical thinking about the evolution of altruism in complex societies at the moment group selection is favored by a lot of scientists (the theory of "superorganism") (W.O.H. Hughes, Samuel Bowles in "Science", E.O. Wilson, D.S. Wilson and B. Hölldobler in "PNAS" and elsewhere). We have hints, that this form of cooperation has to be maintained by "increased rates of dominance, policing, or punishment" (1). But is it possible, that the effects of division of labour are playing a decisive role in the evolution of altruism, cooperation and commitment mainly in complex societies and complex systems (multicellular life) by avoiding such mechanisms of dominance, policing or punishment?

Most societies in human history are confronted with social, not with physical constraints for the growth of their population. If this constraints were diminished by division of labour, by acts of altruism done by professional specialists, than these societies and their inner cooperation could be stabilized by the motivation of kinship altruism even in the greater societies that show diminished mean kinship coefficient between its members.

Hamilton's famous unequation and Adam Smith's principle of division of labour

Hamilton's unequation in words: The (fitness-)costs of an altruistic act divided by the (fitness-)benefit of an altruistic act have to be smaller than the degree of relationship between the altruist and the receiver of the altruist's act. This is the condition of the evolutionary stability of altruistic behaviour. The certain values of costs and benefits are modulated by a lot of circumstances, which have to been taken into account. Since Adam Smith for example it is common sense, that division of labour and specialisation can increase the benefits and diminsh the costs of an altruistic act. By that the degree of relationship between actor and recipient can be reduced, to be evolutionary stable. This way of thinking hasn't been very much explored yet. But this formular can be applied not only to complex human societies, but even to complex, mulitcellular organisms up to organisms, which live in groups and states of every kind.

At first instance this way of thinking could be applied to the first, simple, sedentary tribes, farming communities which have more than 500 members or so. In societies with less than 500 members one has to suppose that simple kinship altruism dominates (for more details, see: 2). But if societies grow, the importance of division of labour for the structuring of societies and social exchange inside of them grow, while the degree of relationship between the members of a given society declines. No one knows at the moment which of both grows or declines faster in relationship to the other. So, could it be, that the principle of inclusive fitness comes into play through specialisation and division of labour even in industrialised, complex societies?

Correlated and uncorrelated growth of population and economic complexity

Someone has to pay attention to a lot of laws, if he explores the connection between kinship altruism and divsion of labour. At first instance there is the law of growing complex societies: At the one end there exists for example modern India for a lot of decades in the last hundred years: Population growth without very much growth of economic and social complexity. The consequence is diminished well-being and diminished whealth of the whole society (see for example slums and so on). At the other end there are for example the western industrialized societies (Western Europe, North America, Australia): Population growth parallel to the growth of economic and social complexity (at least before the invention of the "pill" and the demographic change during the 20th century).

A naturalistic theory of division of labour has to be developed by acknowledging this two possibilities of population growth. The (fitness-)“value” of one specialist for his group, his society depends on the conditions and laws of the former growing of his group or society up to this situation, up to this state of affairs. In Western Europe there existed - for example - the “european marriage pattern”: Someone was able to have children, to marry and to build a family, if he had a secure position, profession in the complex society of his group. By this rule or pattern population growth was connected to the growth of social and economic complexity. On the whole, growth of the population wasn't possible by diminishing the well-being of this society.

Someone has to explore, for example, how population growth in societies in pre-industrialized times was regulated. Every region, every society, every ethnie followed different laws and different time scales of its growth (or even decrease) of population due to its special historical, economic, geographic, social and cultural circumstances. In european history mostly enhanced population growth in a country correlated with the political, cultural and economic predominance, leadership of that country in that special phase of history. Often this countries and phases are regions and phases of a lot of cultural, scientific, technical, social inventions and innovations. Examples are North Italy, Southern Germany and the Netherlands in the times of the Renaissance, France in the times of Louis XIV’s, England in the times of queen Elizabeth I., Germany in the times of Bismarck. At the end of the 19th century France had a very slow population growth, while Germany had a very strong one.

Bavaria, Austria and Switzerland

On a smaler scale: Population in Bavaria and Austria was mostly stable after the re-invention of the catholic faith and the expatriation of the protestant middle class specialists in the 17th century. At the same time the protestant regions – the Netherlands, England –, which had been able to maintain their religious freedom and protestant faith, flourished (in well-being, population and economic complexity).

On even smaler scale: Switzerland, Austria and Bavaria can be divided into different ecological zones which correlate with different economical zones. The inner alps followed different laws of population stability and growth than the pasture regions. And the pasture regions followed different laws than regions, where cultivation of whine, vegetable and corn dominated. In the detailed circumstances of the given regional society and the given circumstances of every day life and economic conditions we have to find the hidden laws, which have to be explored to reach a formular, by which someone is able to estimate the importance and role of kinship altruism for the evolution of complex societies. In the detailed circumstances of the division of labour in the primary, the secondary and the tertiary economic sector of a given society.

I began a dissertation about this theme in 1996 at the University of Gießen, Germany. Because of a lot of circumstances the work hasn't brought to an satisfying end yet. But even 15 years later, I think that this work about the relationship between kinship altruism and division of labour in the development of complex societies in human history worldwide is still worth to be done.

_____________

1. Kellner, Katrin; Heinze, Jürgen: Absence of Nepotism in Genetically Heterogeneous Colonies of a Clonal Ant. Ethology, 117/2011

2. Samuel Bowles; Herbert Gintis: A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution. Princeton University Press 2011

Consumer Genetics

2010-08-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

There is a good letter in "Nature", 26.8.2010 by Christopher Kanan, discussing consumer genetics:

Consumers have a right to affordable genetic testing

There is no good reason for people to have access to their personal genetic information only through medical experts, as Arthur Beaudet suggests (Nature 466, 816–817; 2010). Such tests provide an incentive for consumers to learn about genetics and to support genetics research, while encouraging them to make reasonably informed decisions about their health.

Consumers have a right to acquire affordable information about their genetic profile. Independent studies could verify the quality of the data gathered, and this could easily be done by product-review organizations such as the US-based Consumers Union.

Regulating the quality of data interpretation would be harder, especially because data-inference models improve over time. Companies should explain that their models for interpreting genetic material are probabilistic and imperfect. They should also reference the studies used to generate these models and allow users to download the uninterpreted data.

Some companies warn consumers that they should not change their lifestyle if they learn they have a higher risk of a disease. But if a test indicates that a person's risk of developing heart disease is above average, they may exercise more and eat better. Is this any worse than changing your behaviour because your father died of heart disease?

Beaudet suggests that ancestry tests may be acceptable with limited regulation, but that using the same genetic material to infer health-related information should have medical approval. Why should one type of genetic test be acceptable and the other not? Consumers may make life-altering decisions based on that information in both cases, but the fear that this information will harm them is speculative.

Because some genetic tests may have to compete with less expensive, direct-to-consumer products, people calling for a ban on such tests should declare any competing financial interests.

Caution is recommended - but basically the information about his own genetic heritage should be free for everyone and should be given without much paternalism.

About "Studium generale"

2009-10-16T13:31:00.000-07:00

In the "profile" there is not enough space to give an acount of my interests in science and research. So I like to give this here.

I have studied history, biology and philosophy.

At the moment I'm interested in ...

... the evolution of (professional) commitment in complex societies: Especially in the relationship between kinship-altruism and the divsion of labour in complex societies. (The evolution of the "Prinzip Verantwortung".) Theory (W.D. Hamilton's r>C/B) proposes, that a) commitment (= altruism), b) the grade of economic complexity of a society and c) its demography are interwoven and connected with each other - not exclusively but also - via kinship-altruism. And that means: kin-recognition and the finetuning of the grade of genetic relatedness between people in historical and current societies via endogamy/exogamy could be pivotal in the long run. And because of that there is also an interest in a lot of empirical questions like

- the demography of complex societies, their "Bevölkerungsweise" (in the word of Gerhard Mackenroth), their "demographic regimes".

- the archaeological research about the first complex societies of humankind: the pre-pottery and pottery neolithic cultures in the Near East and Europe, their demography and their division of labour.

- the research about the economic and social history of pre-industrial European farming societies, their demography and their division of labour.

- the reproductive benefits of religiosity ("Evolutionary Religious Studies").

- Lewontin's Fallacy (= ideology instead of science).

But I'm interested also in general questions

... about biological evolution (e.g. Joachim Bauer, Simon Conway Morris) and in all new trends in human genetics and sociobiology, in "group selection theory" and "social brain theory" (Robin Dunbar),

... about the evolution of altruism and spite, deception and self-deception, cheating and cheater detection, especially ...

... about the history and current political influence of Intelligence Services, Lobby groups, freemasonry, political murder, corruption, disinformation and manipulated democracy (e.g. Regina Igel's "Terrorjahre"; Wolfram Baentsch's "Doppelmord an Uwe Barschel", Kevin MacDonald's "A Culture of Critique"),

... about the philosophy of a naturalistic worldview and

... about new forms of non-monotheistic religiosity and philosophy in the 20th and 21st century in Germany, Europe and worldwide.

The reproductive benefits of an anthroposophic lifestyle

2008-02-18T02:45:00.000-08:00

Abstract

Scientific data about people following an "anthroposophic lifestyle" show that new forms of religiosity and spirituality developed mainly in the 20th century are able to enhance birth rates of people, also of those who have left the traditional Christian churches.

The german version of this article can be found ---> here.

Introduction

The young discipline of "Evolutionary Religious Studies" (ERS) has made a lot of progress in the last few years. (1 - 3) At the moment, this discipline is concerned in the first place with modern world religions or with tribal predecessors - like Judaism – which have survived in modern times. But what about their modern "successors"? Sometimes it is assumed that forms of atheism or "political ideologies" can be viewed as evolutionary and historical "successors" of the former, demographically successful world religions. But no one has ever been able to show, that atheism has a positive influence on birth rate, and on the stability of human groups over a longer time-span, which are some of the most important indicators of the evolutionary adaptability of elements in human culture.

So, we have to be aware that modern world religions and their most important tribal predecessor today - Judaism - are only a few thousand years old. This is a very short time measured in evolutionary periods. It is very plausible to assume, that they have been established in world history mostly by a process of cultural and genetic individual and group selection. Christianity for example has begun as a small religious sect and minority among other cultural, ethnic and religious groups which were formed by the majority of people in those days and which all had their own reproductive success and "group evolutionary stability" in their time. This means that they were able to maintain their own "evolutionary stable strategy" or "group evolutionary strategy", i.e., they were able to maintain their "reproductive regime". The last term is the English word for the German term "Bevölkerungsweise" introduced by the well known German demographer Gerhard Mackenroth (1903 - 1955).

But a lot of those cultural, religious and ethnic groups that have existed parallel to early Christianity have lost their former ability for reproductive success and group coherence in the centuries that followed, while Christianity successfully maintained its ability in world history for the next two thousand years. The roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, for example, was not able to maintain and reerect the former successful "group evolutionary strategies" of paganism of the ancient world in the face of upcoming Christianity in his times. There are a lot of other adherents of ancient religions and ethnicities worldwide who experienced failure in the face of the triumph of the world religions around the world.

There are a lot of good hypotheses why Christianity was so successful in evolution and history and why the old pagan religions were not able to maintain their "reproductive regimes". The most convincing is that it was the new scientific thinking of the Greeks which destroyed the former "reproductive regime" of the ancient world that was stabilized by tribal religiosity. And Christianity "imitated" the rationality in scientific thinking of the Greeks in the area of religion to an extreme that has never been seen in the world before. (25) But the rise of a naturalistic worldview and philosophy in the face of Christianity in the last thousand years has convinced a majority of people in the northern hemisphere that the old forms of world religions can not be any more the moral and religious stabilisators of a successful "reproductive regime" of progressive, enlighted, modern societies.

One may presume that from a historical point we are now at the beginning of another "phase transition" in world history (that is in the history of the northern hemisphere) which creates a new "reproductive regime", stabilized by a new, modern form of religiosity. *)

Today, more and more people are wondering about what kind of religiosity could stop the demographic decline of the western world and will thereby maintain the former reproductive success of the people in the northern hemisphere. It is obvious that atheism in the course of history has never had this quality. On the contrary, it has caused the described demographic decline. It does not even seem very plausible that atheism will achieve the quality to stop demographic decline in the future. (- Or will possibly such a fictitious world as the one shown in the famous novel "Brave new world" by Aldous Huxley come true by establishing such inhumane and apparently psychologically nearly impossible "reproductive regimes"?)

As far as I know at the moment, there is no scientific evidence in literature that shows a possibility by principle to enhance fertility rate of people in modern western societies by a modern religiosity of the 20th century and not only by the ancient forms of religiosity of traditional world religions. These ancient forms have an above-average reproductive success today; because their successful "group evolutionary strategies" have been selected many centuries ago. And maybe the inborn psychology of the ethnicities in the western world have also been adapted to these ancient forms of religiosity in some way or other by living thousand years under their "reproductive regime". This is also assumed for the "Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence". (5) We can hypothesize about the decline of the frequence of "warrior genes" (MAOA-genes) or ADHS-genes in ethnicities of the northern hemisphere because of the more peaceful "reproductive regime" of Christianity, for example.

But most people in science at least do not assume, think, know or hope (6), that these old "reproductive regimes", these old "group evolutionary strategies" of the traditional world religions or of Judaism are of that kind of religiosity that will be of reproductive success for modern secular societies in the western world in the future. Atheism does also not seem to be a reproductive advantage to its adherents. There fore, could it be possible to establish a new religious "group evolutionary strategy" in modern societies, that is more successful in reproduction than atheism?

Methods

Is there any group that could be an example for this? A glimpse into literature about people following an "anthroposophic lifestyle" could be a hint. Anthroposophy was founded by Rudolf Steiner (1861 - 1925). He was an admirer of Friedrich Nietzsche and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (7) but also in a way of Jesus and Buddha. Today, people following an "anthroposophic lifestyle" can be found in Western Europe (Western Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Great Britain) as well as in the United States and Australia. In Germany they run the most private schools in which they practise the so called "Waldorf-education". In Western Germany there are about 200 schools with 80.000 children.

They have their own Kindergarten, too, as well as their own "anthroposophic medicine", physicians, hospitals and old people’s homes. These are all indicators for a high social engagement and shows social responsibility. These are also indicators for areas of prevailing female activity. Example: More females than males are among the patients of anthroposophic physicians. And it is a fact that only very few women are members of atheistic organisations - for example of the german "Giordano Bruno-Stiftung". (22, 23) (The same is true for the "Brights movement").

A lot of people following the "anthroposophic lifestyle" work at universities and in medical research, they have their own established research programmes and scientific journals. People who are living a so called "anthroposophic lifestyle" have been object of various studies and meta-studies in medicine (8 - 13). They have also been focused on in education research (14, 15) and religious studies (7, 16 - 20).

Results

Thousands of people with an "anthroposophic lifestyle" have been subject of scientific research in various areas. (8 - 20)

In general: The underlying trend and some of the more important results are: There are a lot more people among them with academic education than in control groups, and less people living alone compared to control groups. Children who experience Waldorf-education have more brothers and sisters than control groups. Family size or the "number of people per household" are slightly above the average. There are much less smokers and people being overweight among them.

Attitude towards the Steiner philosophy and Waldorf-education: What about religion? Regarding this group this is a very complex question, because the majority of people following the anthroposophic lifestyle seem not to identify themselves with the anthroposophic philosophy of Rudolf Steiner. The majority of them have a sceptical attitude towards the Steiner philosophy. But in what do they believe instead? 1.124 of persons who experienced Waldorf-education were asked in the winter of 2004/05 in questionnaires about their life, their religion and religious attitudes. This study group was born between the 1930s and 1970s. (14 - 16) The results: 60 % are sceptical towards the Steiner philosophy or reject it. But 80 % of them would repeat their Waldorf-education.

This means that there is obviously a high identification with the practical consequences of this philosophy but not with the philosophy itself. And this may be typical for people with an anthroposophic lifestyle. But we have to be aware of the fact that there might be a minority - an "inner core" of adherents of the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner - who seem to be essential for the coherence, the survival and the growth of the group and its social activities for over eighty years now.

Political orientation: Half of the mentioned 1.124 people sympathize with political parties. And half of those sympathizing with political parties are sympathizing with the German party "Bündnis 90/Die Grünen" (the green party). And half of the other halve of people sympathizing with political parties are sympathizing with social democracy.

Birth rate:

692 of the 1.124 had children (61 %) and 352 (30 %) did not have children. 50 % of them were between 30 and 37 years old. 253 were between 64 and 68 years old and had an average of 2,2 children per person. 236 were between 50 and 60 years old and had 2,0 children per person. 542 were between 30 and 37 years old and had 0,9 children per person till now. (15, p. 6) If these 542 with some plausibility will have at the end of their lives twice as many children as now, they will have 1,8 children per person. And this would mean a birth rate of the whole study group of 1,9 children per person. (24)

Membership in churches:

In Western Germany in the year 2004

19 % of the people were no members of a church and 74 % were members of a Christian church.

(In Germany as a whole in the year 2005 there were

32 % with no membership of a church and 65 % members of a church,

that is because in the former [predominantly atheistic] Eastern Germany in the year 2005 there were

70 % with no membership in a church and 27 % members of a church.)

In the whole study group of 1.124 people who experienced Waldorf-education (all from Western Germany) there were

43 % with no membership of a church and 57 % members of a church.

Briefly, among people following an anthroposophic lifestyle there are more than twice as many people who have left the traditional Christian churches than in the control group. This is also true for the older people, born in the 1930s, but there is an upward tendency among the younger persons.

This is a case that seems not to have been studied very often in "Evolutionary Religious Studies" yet: Non-membership in Christian churches twice as much than the average and birth rate above the average. And at the same time a group with members with academic education above the average too.

Here are some more details: Among the members of a church of the 1.124 (this means among the 57 % of the whole of the study group):

55 % are members of a protestant church,

17 % are members of the Catholic Church,

17 % are members of the anthroposophic "Christengemeinschaft" (founded in 1922 in cooperation with Rudolf Steiner but without him being a member and still without acknowledgement of the official and established protestant church in Germany)

10 % are members of Judaism, Buddhism or other religious communities.

We can recognize a development towards more Catholics (27 %) and less members of the "Christengemeinschaft" (12 %) among the younger persons of the study group.

Church-membership and attitude towards Steiner philosophy as demographic factors:

There is not so much difference in the identification with anthroposopical philosophy of Rudolf Steiner among members of a church and non-members of a traditional church. Only the members of the "Christengemeinschaft" identify significantly more with the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner. Maybe they belong to the ideological “inner core” of the Steiner movement.

Among the 692 with children, 60 % are members of a church and 40 % are non-members. Among the 352 without children, 50 % are members of a church and 50 % are non-members. (15, p. 193) Among the 692 with children, 43 % have a positive attitude towards the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner and 56 % do not. Among the 352 without children, only 34 % have a positive attitude towards the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner and 65 % do not.

Thus, we can conclude that church-membership as well as a positive attitude towards the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner have positive effects on the birth rate. But church-membership has even stronger positive effects.

Religious orientation in a broader sense: The 1.124 were also asked to answer "Yes" or "No" to the sentence: "The thought about a higher cosmic order gives meaning and orientation to my life." ("Der Gedanke an eine höhere kosmische Ordnung gibt mir Sinn und Orientierung in meinem Leben.") 58 % answered "Yes."

Discussion

What can be said about the results all in all? Birth rates of church-members with Waldorf-education seem to mirror the birth rates of church-members of Germany as a whole. They are also slightly above the average.

But the most remarkable result is: Non-church-members with Waldorf-education seem to have birth rates not very much below birth rates of church-members. And because non-membership of churches in this group is above the average compared to the whole of Germany, the birth rate of people following an anthroposophic lifestyle which is slightly above the average cannot only be caused by the church-members in their rows. The non-members among them also have birth rates slightly above the average compared to Germany as a whole - and at least compared to non-members of churches of the whole of Germany.

This is simply what can be said at the moment about the published data. For a deeper understanding of the religious demography of people following an anthroposophic lifestyle we have to await more precise data than those published until now. E. g., there is still no answer to the question, if church-members have bigger families (i.e. more than two children) than non-church-members.

Michael Ebertz interpreted the results saying (16) that there are two kinds of religiosity in modern people (21). On the one hand there is the institutionalized one: people are members of churches. But on the other hand there is another one which he calls the "universal religion" that means the belief "in a higher cosmic order of the world". He also calls it "vitalistic" worldview – let me call it “monism” in the sense of Ernst Haeckel. Ebertz also assumes that the former kind of religion is often overlapped by the second kind of religiosity that differs in many ways from the former. And the data show that this second kind of religiosity seems to be able to influence the birth rates as well. - At least when it is framed by a social setting like the one of an "anthroposophic lifestyle".

And, to my mind, it is of the utmost importance to underline again that this modern belief and religion Albert Einstein and many other people and scientists have adhered to – or that is not refused by people like Richard Dawkins has also the quality - by principle - to establish a "reproductive regime" that seems to be necessary for the demographic survival of the western world.

Ingo Bading, M.A., Berlin, Germany

_____________________

*) One may presume even more within a pure naturalistic worldview - and together with philosopher John Leslie or palaeontologist Simon Conway Morris (4): That religiosity itself is hidden in the inner heart of all natural existence, in the heart of the big bang ("anthropic principle"), in the heart of evolution and human evolution - in the past as well as in the present and future. And this may be the reason, why human religiosity in itself has often such a high level of evolutionary adaptability. Even if these thoughts are only hypotheses, not proved facts, they can give motivation to formulate hypotheses that more easily can be proved than the philosophical hypotheses as such.

_________________

1. Wilson, David Sloan: Darwin's Cathedral. Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society. University of Chicago Press 2002

2. Sosis, Richard (2000 - 2008)

3. Blume, Michael (2006 - 2007)

4. Conway Morris, Simon: Life's Solution. Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe. Cambridge University Press 2003
5. Cochran, Gregory; Hardy, Jason; Harpending, Henry: Natural history of Ashkenazi Intelligence. Journal of Biosocial Science, 2006

6. Dawkins, Richard: The God Delusion. 2006

7. Blume, Michael: Anthroposophie - Religionsdemographische Betrachtungen von Ingo Bading. At: "Religionswissenschaft aus Freude", Scienceblog of Michael Blume, 20.02.2008, see here.

8. Roland Unkelbach u.a.: Unterschiede zwischen Patienten schulmedizinischer und anthroposophischer Hausärzte. In: Forsch Komplementärmed 2006; 13:349–355, Published online: November 3, 2006

9. Gunver S. Kienlea u.a.: Anthroposophische Medizin: Health Technology Assessment Bericht – Kurzfassung. In: Forsch Komplementärmed 2006; 13 (suppl 2):7–18

10. Helen Flöistrup u.a.: Allergic disease and sensitization in Steiner school children. In: J Allergy Clin Immunol, January 2006, Available online November 29, 2005

11. Harald J. Hamre u.a.: Anthroposophic vs. conventional therapy of acute respiratory and ear infections: a prospective outcomes study. In: Wien Klin Wochenschr (2005) 117/7–8: 256–268

12. H. J. Hamre u.a: Anthroposophic therapies in chronic disease: the anthroposophic medicine outcomes study (AMOS). In: Eur J Med Res (2004) 9: 351-360

13. Johan S Alm u.a.: Atopy in children of families with an anthroposophic lifestyle. In: Lancet 1999; 353: 1485 – 88

14. Barz, Heiner; Randoll, Dirk (Hg.): Absolventen von Waldorfschulen. Eine empirische Studie zu Bildung und Lebensgestaltung. 2. Aufl. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2007 (St. gen.-Bookshop) [important parts of the text, introduction and formulars - all in german - can bee found at: www.waldorf-absolventen.de]

15. Randoll, Dirk; Barz, Heiner: Absolventenstudie zur Waldorf-Pädagogik (Deutschland). Tabellenband 1. (free download - pdf. ---> here.)

16. Ebertz, Michael N.: Was glauben die Ehemaligen? (= What do believe people that have experienced Waldorf-education?) In: see 14., p. 133 – 160

17. Hörtreiter, F.: Anthroposophie und christlicher Glaube. Eine Erwiderung auf Bernhard Grom SJ. In: Materialdienst der EZW 68/2005, S. 251 - 255 (---> here)

18. Bading, Ingo: Anthroposophen: Akademiker-lastige Gruppierung mit leicht überdurchschnittlicher Geburtenrate. At: Scienceblog "Studium generale", 22.01.2008 (---> here)

19. Bading, Ingo: Anthroposophen: Auch Neue (nicht-monotheistische) Religiosität in westlichen Gesellschaften erhöht Geburtenrate. At: Scienceblog "Studium generale", 15.2.2008 (---> here)

20. Bading, Ingo: Auch die konfessionslosen anthroposophisch Orientierten haben eine überdurchschnittliche Geburtenrate. At: Scienceblog "Studium generale", 17.2.2008 (---> here)

21. Campiche, Roland J.: Die zwei Gesichter der Religion. Faszination und Entzauberung. Zürich 2004
22. Bading, Ingo: Die Atheisten in Deutschland sind stark "Männer-lastig". At: Scienceblog "Studium generale", 20.11.2007 (---> here)

23. Salcher, Ernst: Ergebnisse der Befragung der Förderkreismitglieder der Giordano Bruno-Stiftung (Juli-September 2007) (pdf.) (free download: ---> here)

24. Bading, Ingo: Die positiven demographischen Auswirkungen eines anthroposophischen Lebensstils - Diskussion weiterer Details. At: Scienceblog "Studium generale", 26.2.2008 (---> here)

25. Assmann, Jan: Die Mosaische Unterscheidung oder der Preis des Monotheismus. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 2003 (The Mosaic distinction)

Simon Conway Morris, Stephen Jay Gould and Daniel Dennett

2008-01-14T04:01:00.000-08:00

In an Interview (of "Monsters and Critiques") with Daniel Dennett (July 2007) there is a mention of Simon Conway Morris, which I appreciate:

M & C: (...) Before I move on to Consciousness Explained, let me sidestep a moment to your views on the late Stephen Jay Gould? You spent a good portion of 'Darwins Dangerous Idea' (= DDI) 'tattooing his intellectual ass.' What did you think of him as a thinker, scientist, and man? I ask because there was a famed brouhaha between the two of you. My opinion of Gould is generally favorable. In an essay and review of his final book I wrote:
(...) Yes, he had faults. His almost comical misinterpretation of the fossils found in the Burgess Shale, in his 1989 book Wonderful Life (one of his few published books that was not a collection of previously published essays), was totally devastated by Simon Conway Morris's 1998 book The Crucible Of Creation. He also denied that there were any trends in evolution when arguing against linearity or determinism, an addendum which kyboshed an otherwise valid point. (...) To his credit, in this book's preface, Gould admits his occasional faux pas: 'Although I have frequently advanced wrong, or even stupid, arguments, at least I have never been lazy.'
Would you generally agree with that assessment? You too seem to feel Gould totally flubbed the Burgess Shale fossils. In effect, he claimed that the Cambrian Explosion could have led to wholly different bodily forms than the symmetrical sort we see now. He mistook body parts for whole bodies, looked at front ends of bodies as rears, ups as downs, etc., and generally tried to impose his presuppositions for reality. Yet, despite that, he was a tireless defender of rationalism, even if his conclusions differed from others. If you agree with that view of Gould, why the hell are not real debates and disagreements in science, such as you vs. Gould, put out for debate amongst the masses? (...)
Daniel Dennett: I see Gould quite differently. He was an academic bully, who exploited his scientific credentials to push his political views—or maybe they were closer to religious views. (Remember: I started out as a friend of his; I often attended his seminars at Harvard but eventually I got so annoyed with the way he would misrepresent his critics and bully the students that I had to leave.) When I wrote DDI, I knew I was going to have to expose Gould's history of misrepresentation—since he was going to hate my book, and would pillory it with his usual tricks if I didn't attempt to preempt that vilification effort with an analysis of his own work. Gould had been selling America a watered-down and distorted version of basic evolutionary theory for decades, and when I pointed this out, he reacted--not unreasonably!-- with a venomous attack on what he called my "Darwinian fundamentalism," but, you know, the evolutionary biology community knew I was right, and said so. (I am not alone in incurring Gould's wrath: I'm proud to stand with Richard Dawkins, the late, great John Maynard Smith and Steve Pinker, as sane and forthright a team of "fundamentalists" as one could ask for.) (...).

Evolution of Religion - according to D. S. Wilson

2007-08-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

David Sloan Wilson has a very important piece of critique of "The God Delusion" of Richard Dawkins. (Skeptic) "I recently attended a conference on evolution and religion in Hawaii that provided an opportunity to assess the state of the field." He gives a good overview of new research in the field. And he gives some very interesting informations about the ascetic ideals of the indian Janism (deutsch: Jainismus):

...
Jainism is one of the oldest and most ascetic of all the eastern religions and is practiced by approximately three percent of the Indian population. Jain ascetics filter the air they breathe, the water they drink, and sweep the path in front of them to avoid killing any creature no matter how small. They are homeless, without possessions, and sometimes even fast themselves to death by taking a vow of “santhara” that is celebrated by the entire community. How could such a religion benefit either individuals or groups in a practical sense? It is easy to conclude from the sight of an emaciated Jain ascetic that the religion is indeed a cultural disease — until one reads the scholarly literature.

It turns out that Jain ascetics comprise a tiny fraction of the religion, whose lay members are among the wealthiest merchants in India. Throughout their long history, Jains have filled an economic niche similar to the Jews in Western Europe, Chinese in Southeast Asia, and other merchant societies. In all cases, trading over long distances and plying volatile markets such as the gem trade requires a high degree of trust among trading partners, which is provided by the religion. Even the most esoteric (to outsiders) elements of the religion are not superfluous byproducts but perform important practical work.

For example, the ascetics must obtain their food by begging but their religion includes so many food restrictions that they can only accept food from the most pious lay Jain households. Moreover, the principle of non-action dictates that they can only accept small amounts of food from each household that was not prepared with the ascetics in mind. When they enter a house, they inspect the premises and subject the occupants to sharp questions about their moral purity before accepting their food. It is a mark of great honor to be visited but of great shame if the ascetics leave without food. In effect, the food begging system of the ascetics functions as an important policing mechanism for the community. This is only one of many examples, as summarized by Jainism scholar James Laidlaw in a 1995 book whose title says it all: Riches and Renunciation: Religion, Economy, and Society Among the Jains.

How then, is it possible to live by impossible ideals? The advantage for addressing this question to Jainism is that the problem is so very graphic there. The demands of Jain asceticism have a pretty good claim to be the most uncompromising of any enduring historical tradition: the most aggressively impractical set of injunctions which any large number of diverse families and communities has ever tried to live by. They have done so, albeit in a turbulent history of change, schism, and occasionally recriminatory “reform,” for well over two millennia. This directs our attention to the fact that yawning gaps between hope and reality are not necessarily dysfunctions of social organization, or deviations from religious systems. The fact that lay Jains make up what is — in thoroughly worldly material terms — one of the most conspicuously successful communities in India, only makes more striking and visible a question which must also arise in the case of the renouncers themselves.

Charles Lindbergh - a philosopher in life and death

2007-07-31T12:17:00.000-07:00

Charles Lindbergh

An american reader of my german blog has asked me about the content of my german posts about Charles Lindbergh. Here I give some parts of my answer to him. My English is very bad. Sorry for this. If there is anyone out there, who would like to go through it and make it better, I would appreciate it very much. Mostly I'm interested to communicate content - and not to look for the best style. But I'm aware that this is not very polite.

It would take some time to translate into english everything I have written about Lindbergh on my blog. But if I learn about more interest into it, in the future I can try to write more about Lindbergh in english - if there is an opportunitiy for me. - As you can see: Mostly my thoughts about Lindbergh are based on the english literature.

But I can try to give you here a short account of my thoughts about Lindbergh.

1. Lindbergh died a very “philosophical” death

The first step for me was, that I was very impressed to learn in A. Scott Berg's biography about all what was going on in the days before the death of Charles Lindbergh. In my eyes he died like a "king". With a lot of philosophical souvereignty. And about this I was deeply impressed. And all my other questions stem from there: What sort of man was Lindbergh, that he was able to die with such an attitude? (With such earnestness and at the same time with such "coolness".)

So, first, I thought, it is important to understand, what it had meant in those days to be a pioneer with planes: always risk of death. In this posting I refer mostly to a letter and other thoughts, that his wife Anne has written, when one of his best friends, Phil Love came to death by an accident on 4th June 1943. I think this is the most important part of the diaries of Anne between 1939 to 44, because here she speaks about things, Charles Lindbergh for himself seldom is speaking about: "Death is always side by side with you." - And she speaks about the meaning of friendship for Lindbergh that is formed in days when they lived with every-day possibility of death by accident.

2. His interest in science

And as a pioneer you know more about this than everyone else. But there is more. There is his interest into the science of Alexis Carrel. Here I hope to learn a lot new things from the forthcoming book "The Immortalists". (Amazon) They had a lot of philosophical discussions of which not very much is known to us yet (as it seems to me - I do not know the literature very well). But may be this new book has more about all that. It is at the one side his pragmatic attitude in thinking about life and death - like a pure materialist - and on the other side ... difficult! It has something to do with courageness, with the will to live, with his idealism. In simple words: To be aware of death gives you more conscienceness for life.

This easily sounds like a triviality. But I think, this is all, what Charles Lindbergh's life has to say to us. And if you see, that someone shows in his own life, what this insight means for him, everything has another looking. And all this we can find in another aspect of his life mostly: his three german wifes and his seven german children. This story is very new and full of surprisings. The new german book of Rudolf Schröck (2005) (Amazon) has a lot of content, non-german-speaking readers cannot be aware of. I have tried to give an overview about the most important content of this book in my german posting. But I have not the opportunity now, to repeat all that here. "Life will work it out" was one of Lindbergh's words and his german children are happy to have had such a father. They learned and know more about their father than his american children - this is often the impression you get, if you read this new book. And all this has shown (to me): Philosophy and life were one thing for Lindbergh.

For example it is very surprising to learn, that Lindbergh - according to the diaries of his wife - in 1941 (or so) said to her, that it is most impressiv, that a women who is handicapped (not inherited) can have children, that are not at all handicapped. And 20 years later he came together with two sisters in Munich and had children with them, who were handicapped (not inherited). His german children had often discussions with their mother about death. And his first german wife had the same attitude to death and her own death as Charles Lindbergh had. She died 2001 with very like the same souvereignty.

3. His three german families

And she had the same "will for life" and the same will to give birth to children - even in a world, that can give you only pessimistic outlooks. Lindbergh was disappointed about his wife Anne, when she said in 1946 or so, that she had enough children now. He always wished to have as many children as the Kennedy family had - or more. He spoke about 12 or so. This was his will for life and his longing for "immortality", I think. - But may be with the new book we will learn more about that.

I was disappointed about the autobiography of Lindbergh himself. I were not able to find there very much of what I had hoped for: A better understanding of his deeper personality. He makes a lot of very nice words. But I have learned more about his attitude towards life and death from his german children in the mentioned book of Rudolf Schröck.

So, this is only a "shorter version", of what I had to say yet about Lindbergh on my german blog. May be I will write more, if I have read the new book "The Immortalists".

Spencer Wells in Rio de Janeiro (13 of 13)

2007-07-17T15:30:00.001-07:00

Here Spencer Wells says: "We are all African under the skin."

This is wrong and Spencer Wells knows that. Because: he is a geneticist. He says:

"Old fashioned concepts of race are not only socially divesive but scientifically wrong."

We know it a little bit better now. But Spencer Wells wants to have money for his research and he wants to avoid problems.

It is not easy to say, that you should "understand" that.

Spencer Wells with the Navajo (12 of 13)

2007-07-17T15:18:00.001-07:00

There is some exchange of trivialities - but, ok.

Spencer Wells crosses the Bering Street (11 of 13)

2007-07-17T15:10:00.001-07:00

... and tries to meet the Navajo.

Spencer Wells in Northern Siberia (10 of 13)

2007-07-17T14:56:00.001-07:00

This is an absolutly amazing video.

Arriving - after a long journey from Moscow - in the Ice Age at the Chuchens, the forebearers of the indigenious Americans.

Spencer Wells in Kasachstan and in Northern Siberia (9 of 13)

2007-07-17T14:47:00.001-07:00

These video's are made very, very amazingly. It is realy exciting.

Spencer Wells in Europe and Central Asia (8 of 13)

2007-07-17T14:36:00.001-07:00

The inborn traits of Europeans changed very much by going to the cold Europe, where they needed very much clothes and so they get pale skin.

But where did they came from exactly. Wells thinks, they didn't came from the Middle East but from Central Asia. In Kyrgisistan and Kasachstan he found in people living remote genetic markers that give hints to the ancestors of the Europeans.

Also the people from Asia and America had their ancestors in Kasachstan. So the result of Spencer Wells is:

"When Africa was the craddle of mankind, than Central Asia was its nursury."

Spencer Wells in China and Europe (7 of 13)

2007-07-17T14:22:00.001-07:00

Wells is visting the early human wall paintings in Southern France of the Cro magnon.

Spencer Wells in India (6 of 13)

2007-07-17T14:19:00.001-07:00

"Here he is": the "missing link" in the Middle East between Africa and Australia.

Spencer Wells here says that there is no archaelogical evidence of human existence in India 60.000 years ago.

But some days ago we heard in the news, that that evidence exist under the ashes of volcano Toba.

And they are - - - 70.000 years old!

Spencer Wells in Australia and India (5 of 13)

2007-07-17T14:15:00.001-07:00

This is one of the most interesting parts of this video-sequence. Wells shows his research in India and he shows also the technique of DNA-extraction and the machines for that.

And he shows some of the very intersting results: indigenious Indians as the genetic "missing link" in the Middle East between the Africans and the Aborigines in Australia.

But the Aborigines do not believe, that their ancestor's came from Africa, as they say to Spencer Wells at the beginning. He tries to explain them the evidence.

Spencer Wells - from Africa to Australia (4 of 13)

2007-07-17T14:09:00.001-07:00

Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (Part 4 of 13)

Spencer Wells with the Bushmen (3 of 13)

2007-07-17T14:03:00.001-07:00

Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (Part 3 of 13)

Spencer Wells with the Bushmen in Africa (2 of 13)

2007-07-17T14:02:00.001-07:00

He shows them his daughter on the photo to find their confidence for his questions and to enhance their cooperation.

Geneticst Spencer Wells explains his work - Video (1 of 13)

2007-07-17T13:57:00.001-07:00

"Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey" (Part 1 of 13)

Spencer Wells is working for the "Genographic Project" and explains his work to explore the history of mankind very good in this Video's made by the "National Geographic".

He tells a very "personal" story. But it is also the story of whole mankind as well and of a lot of people living in very remote aerea's.

In this part he meets his famous teacher L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza in Venice and he is leaving his young family for a journey to meet his bigger "family": mankind.

"On the Biological Sucess of Faith"

2007-07-04T13:07:00.000-07:00

Michael Blume is engaged in the scientific study of religion. (Blume ) Now he has a new article about his thoughts and research: "Religion and Demography - On the Biological Sucess of Faith". (Blume)

I think, his work is a good beginning with this very important theme. But if you think some time about all this, you can recognize the reason, why traditional monotheistic religion is good for the reproductive sucess of the believers. Atheism as a broader movement in society is only 100 years old at the moment. What was the situation of Christianity 100 years after its beginnings? A roman historian like Tacitus, who lived in the 2nd century didn't know very much about this "jewish sect", the "Christians". At that time no one could forsee, that it would be exactly this and only this religious group between the broad religious pluralism of the Roman Empire, that would have the best reproductive sucess of the next 2000 years. This was the result of selection, of cultural and genetic individual and group selection processes of the next 500 years.

So, if there is no group between the very pluralistic "group" of modern atheists that has more children than the believers of monotheistic faith at the moment, than this could mean, that we are now in this selection process (cultural and genetic individual and group selection), that will establish in the next decades and centuries a new strategy of social life, in which non-monotheistic people will have enough children as well.

At least this is the goal a lot of people who are working in family politics and beyond in our days.

"Race" - A good overview of the debate

2007-06-16T03:27:00.000-07:00

Razib Khan has once more a very good post about "race" (Gene Expression) concerning a discussion at the middle-left journal "The New Republic". A commenter, P.G. Hiqman, at "Gene Expression" has made this posting there, that I think is worth reading, because it gives a good overview of the debate:

I am not currently a subscriber to TNR, nevertheless this the message that I would post there if I were a subscriber.---

In his primary article Mr. Chowkwanyun made a couple of fleeting references to Francis Galton and Franz Boas, this is appropriate since they are the most influential developers of the opposing Galtonian (Hereditarian/Essentialist) and Boasian (Environmentalist/Cultural-causation) theories pertaining to inter-ethnoracial group differences in mental ability.

The Galtonian theory was promulgated first at the University of London (sometimes it is referred to as the “London school of differential psychology” to contrast it with the Environmentalist American behaviorist school founded by John Watson and B.F. Skinner ). The Galtonian movement included figures such as Karl Pearson, Charles Spearman, Cyril Burt (yes I am aware that years after his death he was accused of faking some of his research--but more recent research has possibly absolved him of this charge and in fact numerous more recent twin studies have shown that the heritability of intelligence as measured in adults is about 70 to 80 % due to genes--which is what Burt originally claimed--thus even if some of Burt’s data were faked subsequent research has now validated his major claim), Philip Vernon, Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck. More recent champions of the Galtonian view have included Arthur Jensen, Thomas Bouchard, J.P. Rushton, Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray, Richard Lynn, and Linda Gottfredson. Many pro-Galtonian articles including a recent 2005 review article “THIRTY YEARS OF RESEARCH ON RACE DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE ABILITY” by Jensen and Rushton can be found at Gottfredson’s (http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/ index.html
) and Rushton’s (http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/ rushton_pubs.htm
) websites. In the field of anthropology, prominent Galtonians have included Carleton Coon, Vincent Sarich, and Henry Harpending. Also many people associated with sociobiology such as William Hamilton, Edward O. Wilson, and Steven Pinker been rather receptive toward the considering the Galtonian viewpoint and this perhaps explains why Boasians such as Lewontin and Gould were so critical of Sociobiology.

Anti-Galtonian Environmentalist views had been espoused by earlier figures such as Léonce Pierre Manouvrier in France and Rudolf Virchow and Adolf Bastian in Germany (actually they were both mentors of Boas), but the man who really turned the world’s intellectual tide against the Galtonian view was the German Jew Franz Boaz. After earning a PhD in Physics at Kiel, Boas soon became interested in primitive peoples (he studied the Eskimos on Baffin Island). Influenced by Virchow and Bastian, Boas convinced himself that cultural differences--but not innate essential differences--were the cause for the vast differences observed between primitive savage peoples and advanced civilized peoples. Boas eventually moved to America and became the most influential anthropologist of the 20th Century. In the post war era, Boasians rapidly came to dominate anthropology and all of the other social sciences. Prominent Boasians include figures such as Melville Herskovits, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Otto Klineberg, Horace Mann Bond, Ashley Montagu, Sherwood Washburn, Gunnar Myrdal, Gordon Allport, Ned Block, Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, Leon Kamin, Claude Steele, Jonathan Marks, Jared Diamond, Richard Nisbett, James Flynn, Abigail Thernstrom, Howard Gardner, and Robert Sternberg.

Mr. Chowkwanyun implied that The Bell Curve was universally denounced by the academic establishment, but actually this is not true. Herrnstein’s and Murray’s views were roundly denounced by the Boasian academic establishment but about fifty of the most prominent professors in the academic disciplines that are actually most closely concerned with the subject (i.e. differential psychology/psychometrics) actually published a statement largely agreeing with the viewpoints of The Bell Curve (a letter published in 1994 Wall Street Journal now available at Gottfredson’s website). Thus it appears that many of the academics who truly are experts on the topic of IQ actually find the Galtonian perspective to be more plausible than the Boasian view.

Ethnic and racial group differences in IQ and socioeconomic status are not limited just to the American white/black issue. Some groups such as East Asians (Han Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese) and Jews when compared to Gentile whites have significantly higher average IQs and SES. Conversely some groups such as Native Americans, Hispanics, and African Americans have significantly lower average IQs and SES compared to Gentile whites. These empirical facts greatly distress the Boasians who fervently hope for a fantasy utopian world in which all ethnic and racial groups will manage to exhibit the same average IQs and SES. Boasians often extol the virtue of appreciating ethnic diversity but they are inconsistent in that they require people to steadfastly ignore the immense ethnic diversity that exists with regard to IQ. All true Boasians long for the day when all ethnic groups will be represented equally in prestigious positions of business ownership and at elite universities. They of course gloss over the inconvenient fact that this would greatly impinge on the interests of members of high-IQ minority groups (e.g. Jews and East Asians) who often are represented at elite universities and in elite professions at levels 5 to 10 fold higher than their demographic proportion would justify under a true Boasian model of fair equity. Are these Boasian proponents of affirmative action really ready to inform more than 80% of Jews and East Asians that they should curtail their career goals in order to avoid garnering an “unfairly” large proportion of elite job positions? Because in order to be consistent, strict Boasians such as Mr. Chowkwanyun must insist that these elite jobs be evenly distributed amongst all ethnic/racial groups! Is Mr. Chowkwanyun satisfied with the ethnic/racial make-up of his own history department at Penn? Or does his department resemble most departments at elite universities wherein certain high IQ-ethnoracial groups such as Jews and Asians occupy about 30 to 60% of the positions even though their “fair” demographic proportion (according to a truly Boasian sense of fairness) is a fraction about 5 to 10 fold lower. In contrast modern Galtonians do not believe in unfairly discriminating against individuals, instead Galtonians have the attitude that if some ethnic groups are more talented or more intelligent and thus are better suited for certain jobs then it is no problem if they gain a huge proportion of the jobs for which they are well suited.

Several prominent experts on IQ and genetics (John Defries, Robert Plomin, Ian Deary and others) have shown that the same genes that influence variation in IQ also influence variation in academic achievement--particularly on mathematics tests Plomin calls these genes that influence both intelligence and academic prowess the “generalist genes for g” (the scientific notation for the general intelligence factor is “g”). Thus to Galtonians it is no surprise that black American students invariably perform about one standard deviation lower than whites on math exams because of course all social scientists realize that black Americans have IQs that are about one standard deviation lower than white Americans. This of course engenders immense consternation in the Boasian-dominated education and social science establishments which continually demand that the black/white academic achievement gap be closed because according to the Boasian establishment everyone knows the academic achievement gap is entirely due to racism and certainly not due to ethnic genetic diversity.

Thomas Sowell of Stanford’s Hoover Institute and Amy Chua of Yale Law (she is one of Justin Shubow’s professors?) found that conflict and resentment associated with inter-ethnic disparities in wealth and academic achievement are not just limited to the USA but instead are found world wide where ever talented minority groups dominate the elite positions in business and academia (e.g. high castes in India, Jews in Russia, Caucasians in Latin America, Arabs and Indians in Africa, and Indians and in particular ethnic-Han Chinese in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Southeast Asia). As Gottfredson pointed out in her 2005 paper “What if the Hereditarian hypothesis is true”, many victims of genocide and mob violence are actually members of the higher achieving minority group. These higher achieving minority groups probably possess higher innate IQs and are often victimized by the lower IQ majority indigenous group members who resent them because in accordance with popular modern Boasian principles they can not let themselves believe that the higher achieving minority group members (due to their higher innate intelligence) are deserving of their higher proportion of elite positions in business, academia and government; thus the lower-IQ majority group lashes out at the higher achieving group. The higher achieving minority groups then become victims of violence (e.g. white Zimbabwean farmers and Han Chinese business owners in Malaysia and Indonesia) and sometimes even genocide (e.g. Armenians in Turkey, Jews in Axis Europe, Ibo in Nigeria, educated Cambodians during Pol Pot, and recently Tutsis in Rwanda).

(...) Given that Caltech Southern California is one of the most elite Math/Tech schools in the world, I would thus estimate that Caltech math majors have IQs in the range of 145 and above (i.e. over three standard deviations higher than the white mean of IQ 100). (...) 31 Californians who earned perfect scores on the 1999 statewide Mathematics competition (http://www.mathleague.com/reports/1999_00/ CA5.HTM). Examination of the California state academic achievement math test scores shows that every year ethnically-Chinese students on average perform at a level about 0.8 standard deviation higher than white students (http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2006/index.asp
); thus indicating an average IQ of 112 for the Californian Chinese population (15 points on the IQ scale correspond to a one standard deviation difference on cognitive test results). Of note, regarding the math test (...), one can conclude from examining the names of those thirty other ultra-high IQ youths with perfect test scores that about 75% appear to be of Asian or Jewish ethnicity. Of course this is exactly as would be predicted by Galtonian theory. In contrast, Boasian theory ludicrously predicts that if gentile white, black or Hispanic children were raised in Jewish or Asian home environments then they would be just as intelligent as the Jewish and Asian youth because Boasians believe that ethnic and racial differences in IQ are transmitted via cultural differences and not via genetic differences. How many of you people really believe that? In fact during the past couple of decades numerous studies from around the world in the fields of social psychology and psychometrics have found that the home environment (called the shared environment by psychologists) actually has no influence whatsoever on variation in adult IQ when the family genetic transmission effects are accounted for. In addition, and highly damning to the Boasian theory, Weinberg and Scarr actually performed a study in Minnesota in which white, black and half black-half white infants were adopted into upper middle class white homes. When the adoptees were young children there was some evidence that the higher IQ white home environment was possibly raising their IQs; however as the adopted children grew into adulthood the black adoptees’ IQs decreased down to the same low levels as the IQs of other Minnesotan blacks and the black/white mixed race children showed IQs intermediate between the black and white norms; again exactly as would be predicted by Galtonian theory and exactly the opposite of what Boasian theory would predict.

Mr. Chowkwanyun should probably continue to remain ignorant of ethnoracial genetic science and psychometrics because if he ever became at all knowledgeable about human genomics, cognitive neuroscience, and psychometric research then doubtless someone with his high intelligence would very quickly grasp the fact that Jensen and the other modern Galtonians are really on the correct scientific course in their brave efforts to gain a true understanding of our world’s ethnoracial diversity as pertains to differences in mental ability and in socioeconomic status. So please Mr. Chowkwanyun, for your sake, so that you do not have to execute an embarrassing turnaround in your view point, please continue to prevent yourself from ever studying the books and articles of Galtonians such as Arthur Jensen, Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray, Robert Plomin, Ian Deary, and Linda Gottfredson. Far safer and more comforting for you to remain a puerile ignoramus and continue to mindlessly spout tired old Boasian cliches that are politically correct but scientifically nonsensical.

"Race, Religion and Inheritance" - A discussion at Durham University

2007-06-12T06:33:00.000-07:00

In the last post, we had an article about The Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University discussing "Race, Religion and Inheritance". Here is now the official report on their website:

On 26th April 2007 Durham University publically launched its Institute of Advanced Study by hosting a debate on Race, Religion and Inheritance at Durham Castle.
One topic that has emerged from the Institute's inaugural theme, 'The Legacy of Charles Darwin' concerns the relationship between classification and responsible knowing. Is it possible to develop means of classifying that are not divisive, harmful, or exclusionary, and especially among the human races and faith systems?
In the April 26 round-table debate, the Institute's interest in classification turned to the question of whether classes are pre-given, whether human taxonomy is hard-wired. This was a question of fundamental public interest, in the context of current controversies relating to the origins of racial and religious beliefs. We are seeing the resurgence of biological readings of race and racial difference, the rise and rise of religious fundamentalism, and growing bi-centennial public interest in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. These controversies – and possible solutions relating to religious and racial tolerance and understanding – hinge around the unresolved problem of whether differences of behaviour, disposition, and affect are inherited, and if they are, through what kind of evolutionary mechanism.
The panel of distinguished speakers included:

John Hedley Brooke (IAS Fellow, Professor of History of Science at the Ian Ramsey Centre, Oxford University, and author of the prize-winning book Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives); Madeleine Bunting (Author, Guardian columnist, and recipient of the Race in Media award by the Commission for Racial Equality in 2005); Robin Dunbar (Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Liverpool, Fellow of the British Academy and author of The Human Story);John Dupré (IAS Fellow, Philosopher of Science at Exeter University, Director of the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society, and author of the celebrated book The Disorder of Things); Anthony P Monaco (Professor of Human Genetics and Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Oxford University)

The debate was chaired by Durham University's new Vice-Chancellor, Professor Christopher Higgins.A full transcript and video recording of this event will be available in due course.Last modified: 17th May 2007

It would be of special interest to have more information about this discussion.

The population genetics of inborn religious traits

2007-06-12T03:50:00.000-07:00

At Gene Expression I cannot find anything about this (Medicalnewstoday). Are they sleeping?

What Makes A Racist? And Other Provocative Questions
At The Institute Of Advanced Study Debate, Durham University, April 26, 2007

Some of the world's finest scientists, writers and evolutionary thinkers are converging on Durham for a major event which will examine provocative questions relating to fundamental human beliefs and spirituality.

The debate, to be hosted by the University's pioneering think tank, the Institute of Advanced Study, will debate two key issues: 'Are we born racist or do we become racist?', and 'Is religion inherited or acquired?'.

The event will be chaired by Durham University's new Vice Chancellor, world-renowned scientist and evolutionary geneticist, Professor Chris Higgins, and discussions will be stimulated by a round table of leading experts in their field.

Professor Ash Amin, Director of the Institute of Advanced Study, outlined the inspiration for the event:

"9/11, the wider war on terror, and the intensifying clash of world civilizations are reinforcing essentialist understandings of human difference and recognition. We are seeing the resurgence of biological readings of race and racial difference, the rise and rise of religious fundamentalism, and growing skepticism towards secularist and socially negotiated principles of living with difference.

"These shifts, as well as possible solutions relating to religious and racial tolerance and understanding, hinge around the unresolved problem of whether differences of behaviour, disposition, and affect are inherited, and, if they are, through what evolutionary mechanism?"

Prof Amin added: "The panel aims to confront thinking in genetics and evolutionary psychology on the carriers and nature of inherited traits and on the speed with which beliefs become part of the inherited human hardwiring."

The April 26 event is part of a programme organised by the Institute of Advanced Study, whose theme for 2007 is the Legacy of Charles Darwin. On the same day, the eminent Darwin scholar Professor Michael Ruse from Florida State University will give a public lecture that will take on the various critics of evolutionary theory and will argue that 'Darwinism' remains the jewel in the crown of science.

The IAS, which opened last October, is becoming one of the major global centres of interdisciplinary study. It gathers together world-class scholars, intellectuals and public figures from around the globe and across all disciplines, to address topics of major intellectual, scientific or public and policy interest. Future annual topics will include Modelling, and Being Human.

One of the panel members at the April 26 event, Professor John Brooke, a science historian at Oxford University and an IAS fellow, will be contending the notion that our religious beliefs are 'hard-wired'. He said: "We should not seek to isolate some peculiar religious susceptibility and try to account for it in terms of the latest voguish science.

"Rather I would see the capacity for a religious response to the world as simply an extension of the perfectly normal capacities that make us human. I am thinking of our capacity for fellowship with others, of our ability to express a sense of gratitude for the fact that we exist at all, and a capacity to empathise with those who suffer."

Other panellists are the Guardian columnist, Madeline Bunting; Professor Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist at Liverpool University; John Dupre, Professor of the Philosophy of Science at Exeter University; Professor Anthony Monaco, Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford University.

The Sogdians in China II

2007-05-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

The comments on "Gene Expression" give some more information. My own:

The Sogdians were part of the Persian Empire. We know Persian art and from that we know, what sort of people the elite of the Persian Empire was. We know Scythian art and from that we know, what sort of people the Scythians were. The Sogdians were a part of this "spectrum" between these peoples.

In this book

Haussig, Hans Wilhelm: Archäologie und Kunst der Seidenstraße. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1992

you can find at least 12 pieces of old chinese (or japanese) art of the Tang area showing "Westerners". Mostly No. 438 (p. 255) is very convincingly for me ("five musicians on a camel"). But several others too.

In this book

Etienne de La Vaissiere: Sogdian Traders. A history. Leiden 2005

you can find also some pieces of art. Plate IV: "Chinese statuettes representing Sogdians: 1 Caravaneer, 2 Merchant on foot, 3 Groom."

(It is very interesting also, that the Huns, who made history in Europe after 375, had made a lot of "experiences" before and after that with the Sogdians in Central Asia. Mostly the Sogdians were allies of the Huns like like the Goths and other germanic tribes in the West.) (Yu Hong was an ambessedor between China and the Huns.)

The Sogdians had long traditions of political experiences with several great cultures (Chinese, India, Persia, Byzanz, the Huns, the Tocharian kingdoms in the Tarim ...) and they were proud of that. They were embassadors between the huns and Byzanz also (in favor of "free market and trade"). On their wall pictures of Old-Samarkand and Pentshikent they had historical scences of several empires, their regents and their religions.

I'm not fully clear yet about the relationships between Tocharians and Sogdians. It seems that Tocharians flet from the invasion of the Huns to the Sogdians (and to Ferghana?) and founded new kingdoms there. Another part of the Tocharians stayed in the Tarim and in Kansu. But the Sogdians clearly were different from them, probably were more "specialists" in far distance trade.

And the very informed comment by John J. Emerson, a specialist in Chinese history:

The Sogdians were sometimes part of the Persian Emperor and sometimes not. They spoke what might be called a dialect of Persian, though it could also be called a related language. As time went on they became increasingly Turkified, with long periods of bilingualism and intermarriage. There remain Tajiks speaking Turkish in that area today, though I don't believe that they're specifically descendants of Sogdians; Sogdian specifically is probably extinct, or perhaps linguistically represented by a small mountain people long separated from the Sogdian past. As far as I know they were Middle Eastern in type.

The geographical perspective on these peoples is the most interesting. Central Asia East of Persia, north of India, south and east of the steppe, and west of China (i.e. Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, and neighboring areas) was a mix of deserts, mountains and oases. This area has been the farthest reach of China, Persia, Russia, Alexander the Great, and the Arab Muslims, but the area was often independent and was the home base of Tamerlane, Genghis Khan (in a sense), and the Mughals. It also served as a refuge for survivor peoples such as the Manichaeans, the Tokharians, and the Nestorians.

The small but very productive oases were urbanized very early, and their main world significance was as a trade link between China, the Persian Middle East, and India.

Anyway, the Sogdians ere dominant here from 300 BC or earlier but gradually became Persianized and/or Turkified. (However, Sogdians were a force in China as late as 900 AD). The process seems to have been mostly peaceful rather than by conquest or extermination -- the Sogdians were middlemen who had to be multilingual, and they were always cutting deals with the more powerful peoples of Persia, Mongolia, and China.

The Tokharians were a whole different story, and seem to have come from the NW. Their dialect and race are thought to have been W. European rather than Middle Eastern. They survived (as Buddhists) in Xinjiang up until 1000 AD or later, and around the period 100 BC -- 200 AD they may have been (it's not certain) the rulers of the Kushan kingdom in approximately Afghanistan. The Kushans are very poorly known. One interesting thing about them is that they were in some ways heirs of the Bactrian Greeks (using Greek script on some coins), and the Kushans played a major role in the development of Mahayana Buddhism and its transmission to China.

Most empires privilege specialized minority peoples or sects, either as middlemen to the outside world, as mercenaries, or as agents dependent on and loyal to the ruler. This is much different than multiculturalism and multinationalism; it's more a divide and conquer strategy. Historically favored minorities (and trading minorities) I can think of immediately include Jews, Armenians, Albanians, Sogdians, Uighurs, Baha'is, Lombards, Norse (in Constantinople), Lebanese, Greeks, Italians, Gurkhas, Irish, Quakers, Chinese (in SE Asia), and some of the peoples of India. (I've mixed up mercenaries, technical experts, and trading peoples, but the dynamic is about the same).

My point, anyway, is that cultural uniformity is really not often found, and that a degree of cultural pluralism is characteristic of empires and large trading networks.

I have problems with his assumption, that the Sogdians were "Middle Eastern in Type". The Persians and the Scythians weren't Middle Eastern in type in their art and the Chinese art shows no Middle Eastern type for Sogdians also. And Chinese art was very aware of all the slightly physical differences of all the diverse ethnies in the West (Tibetians, Huns, Sogdians, Indians ...) But John Emerson is right, that the Sogdians "became Persianized and/or Turkified". - May be partly "Tocharianized" too?

The point of all this for me is: Afghanistan, Tadjikistan, Usbekistan and Xiangjang are very poor countries today, but this wasn't always so. Highly urbanized cultures sunken in the sands comparable to Egypt, Meso-America, Irak, Greece ... New examples of the collapse of complex societies.

Another new comment from me over there:

Here is some usefull information about Sogdians and their graves in China today.

And this is interesting too:

"According to Chinese monk-pilgrim of the 7th century Xuan Zang, half of Sogdian population was engaged in farming, whereas the other half carried on trade. (...) At the age of five, the boys studied books, and after getting their teens they were sent to learn trading. Having reached their 20th year, young men went to neighboring lands to engage in profitable trade."

And La Vaissier ("Sogdian Traders", 2005) says about the Sogdian communities in every larger Chinese city and their leaders, the "Sabaos" (p. 152): "But it is quite exceptional that every hu" (that means Sogdian) "community of at least 200 households - the equivalent of a large village - should have been provided with a representive of mandarin rank. The smallest Chinese area having at its head a representative of the central power was normally the district (xian). The leaders of the township, and a fortiori those of the village and quarter, were chosen among the local notables and did not have mandarin rank. The sabao, therefore, should not have had such a position. Only the fact, that they were in charge of foreign communities explains this special treatment, which attests to the economic importance of the communities, incommensurable with the number of their members."

The Sogdians in China

2007-05-26T06:16:00.000-07:00

National Geographic has a new article about the genetical studies concerning the Sogdian leader Yu Hong in a Tang-chinese grave. (Studium generale)

Yu Hong was a "Sogdian". Dienekes had some links to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, which had more information about this people and about this grave.

I have made some studies about the Sogdians in the last weeks. (Studium generale) The Sogdians came mostly from Samarkand and the rich and economically whealthy "Sogdiana". Roxana, the first wife of Alexander the Great was a sogdian princess. The Sogdians were mostly rich traders (caravaniers) between Korea and Byzanz. And they made a lot of politics in this area. They had communities in the Tarim-area and far beyond.

In the chinese art of the Tang area often you can find pieces that shows "Foreigners", "Westerners". Mostly they were Sogdians. Often they are shown as comedians, dancers, musicians. They made several religions spread in East Asia (Buddhism, Manichaeism and others).

In China they have now found several graves of Sogdian leaders. Often they were mandarin's and had high positions in the chinese administration.

Over on my german blog I have more information (and some pictures and english links) about them. (Studium generale) And "Gene Expression" has something.

"Evolutionary biology's version of e = mc2"

2007-05-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

Here is a little piece of Lee Alan Dugatkin about his newest book concerning the evolution of altruism. (Huffingtonpost)

As long as there have been scientists, they have been interested in goodness. Why are some people good, and others not? In fact, we can cast the net more generally, and ask about goodness in nonhumans, as well as humans, and examine whether the process of evolution by natural selection can explain such actions.

I talk about this at length in my new book, The Altruism Equation: Seven Scientists Search for the Origins of Goodness (Princeton University Press, 2006), but here is a condensed version of the story. Evolutionary biology's interest in goodness can be traced back at least as far as Charles Darwin. (...)

It would take almost a hundred years before a shy, reserved, and brilliant British biologist named William D. Hamilton would settle all the arguments about blood kinship and altruism with a nifty little mathematical equation.

Hamilton, an evolutionary biologist by training, came at the question of altruism and blood kinship the way that an economist would; indeed his Ph.D. in biology was done in part at The London School of Economics. He began by defining three terms─the genetic relatedness between individuals (labeled r), the cost of an act of goodness (c), and the benefit that a recipient obtained when someone was nice to him or her. Then, using some eloquent--in fact, beautiful-- mathematics, in 1963, Hamilton found that altruism and blood kinship are not linked by an all-or-nothing relationship. Instead, what is now known as "Hamilton's Rule" states that altruism evolves whenever r times b is greater than c. In other words, if the cost of altruism is made up by enough genetic relatives receiving benefits, then altruism spreads; otherwise it does not. Phrased in the cold language of natural selection, relatives are worth helping in direct proportion to their genetic relatedness.

Literally thousands of experiments in both nonhumans and humans show the power of Hamilton's Rule. This little equation is evolutionary biology's version of e = mc2. Over and over, we see that an analysis of the costs and benefits of altruism, along with genetic relatedness, allows us to predict the presence or absence of altruism. This is a truly remarkable finding.

Hamilton's Rule, of course, does not explain all altruism, nor did Bill Hamilton think it did. Another large chunk of goodness falls under the category of reciprocity--you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours. Individuals are sometimes willing to be altruistic to someone now in the expectation that they will, in turn, be helped when they need it. Evolutionary biologists have been almost as interested in this type of altruism as in kinship-based altruism. And, amazingly enough, it was Bill Hamilton, along with political scientist Robert Axelrod, who formalized the models behind the evolution of reciprocity. Following up on some work done by Robert Trivers in the early 1970s, in 1981 Axelrod and Hamilton used a mathematical technique called game theory to predict when "reciprocal altruism" should evolve. Again, scores of empirical studies followed up the model. Reciprocity can be complex, but an evolutionary perspective has cleared the haze here the same way it did when it came to blood kinship and altruism.

If goodness is a problem, then the answer─or at the very least, part of the answer─can be found in evolutionary biology.

Darwinian conservatism - bad and good

2007-05-12T23:07:00.000-07:00

Larry Arnhart has some very important things to say about Harvey Mansfield, his book "Manliness" and his nihilistic interpretation of the philosophical thinking of F. Nietzsche. (Arnhart Blog) I read about some thoughts of this book of Mansfield with a lot of sympathy, but it is only now that I recognize, that Mansfield uses his thoughts to make support of the policy of G.W. Bush. This is nearly too silly to belief it. From Nietzsche to Leo Strauss to G.W. Bush! Awfull. I'm very happy, that Arnhart is most critically about this. What sort of a bad philosophy and of a bad political doctrine.

Arnhart says: "Darwinian science affirms thumos as expressing the natural desires for status and political rule, desires that belong to our evolved human nature. But Darwinian science would also affirm the natural desire to be free from the exploitative dominance of thumotic men, which supports the need for limited government under the rule of law." - In Germany we have Peter Sloterdijk who has good thoughts about "thumotic emotions" and the need of a psychological theory about them. He says, people like Sigmund Freud had missed to think about them enough. (In his book "Zorn und Zeit", 2006) I hope, he will not also go in the steps of Mansfield.

"PZ Myers doesn't know anything ..."

2007-05-10T00:04:00.000-07:00

Gene expression has a very good article about eugenics and IQ-(population-)genetics - a theme treated by "famous" PZ Myers.

Some things become trivial scientifically if you repeat them too often. And so Utah's geneticist Gregory Cochran is right in his short commentary: "Probably PZ Myers doesn't know anything about quantitative or population genetics. I hear they're old hat."

- But these are themes that not only have to be discussed by scientists, they have to be discussed by the whole society. And this in no way trivial any longer.

Ravens and Intelligence

2007-05-07T11:08:00.000-07:00

This is a very, very nice article about ravens. It has a lot of new implications. Konrad Lorenz would be very, very happy to learn about his successors in science. It was a very great surprise for me to learn so much new things about this birds and - for expample - about their ability for deception. It is good, that "Spiegel" has translated it into English.

American Conservatism and - - - Evolution

2007-05-07T01:32:00.000-07:00

The conservatives in the US begin to think more seriously about evolutionary theory and evolutionary psychology. (New York Times, [whole page]), one of the proponents is Larry Arnhart (photo on the left). The titel of his book is "Darwinian Conservatism". (Amazon)

... Some of these thinkers have gone one step further, arguing that Darwin’s scientific theories about the evolution of species can be applied to today’s patterns of human behavior, and that natural selection can provide support for many bedrock conservative ideas, like traditional social roles for men and women, free-market capitalism and governmental checks and balances.

“I do indeed believe conservatives need Charles Darwin,” said Larry Arnhart, a professor of political science at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, who has spearheaded the cause. “The intellectual vitality of conservatism in the 21st century will depend on the success of conservatives in appealing to advances in the biology of human nature as confirming conservative thought.”

(...)

The fledgling field of evolutionary psychology also spurred some conservatives to invoke Darwinism in the 1990s. In “The Moral Sense” (1993), followed by “The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families” (2002), James Q. Wilson used evolution to explain the genesis of morality and to support traditional family and sex roles. Conservative thinkers from Francis Fukuyama to Richard Pipes have drawn on evolutionary psychology to support ideas like a natural human desire for private property and a biological basis for morality.

(...)

Mr. Arnhart, in his 2005 book, “Darwinian Conservatism,” tackled the issue of conservatism’s compatibility with evolutionary theory head on, saying Darwinists and conservatives share a similar view of human beings: they are imperfect; they have organized in male-dominated hierarchies; they have a natural instinct for accumulation and power; and their moral thought has evolved over time.

The institutions that successfully evolved to deal with this natural order were conservative ones, founded in sentiment, tradition and judgment, like limited government and a system of balances to curb unchecked power, he explains. Unlike leftists, who assume “a utopian vision of human nature” liberated from the constraints of biology, Mr. Arnhart says, conservatives assume that evolved social traditions have more wisdom than rationally planned reforms.

While Darwinism does not resolve specific policy debates, Mr. Arnhart said in an interview on Thursday, it can provide overarching guidelines. Policies that are in tune with human nature, for example, like a male military or traditional social and sex roles, he said, are more likely to succeed. He added that “moral sympathy for the suffering of fellow human beings” allows for aid to the poor, weak and ill.

(...)

As for Mr. Derbyshire, he would not say whether he thought evolutionary theory was good or bad for conservatism; the only thing that mattered was whether it was true. And, he said, if that turns out to be “bad for conservatives, then so much the worse for conservatism.”

"Dembski left before the Q&A session was over ..."

2007-05-01T02:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a nice, a very nice account about a speak, Conway Morris has given - and about the reaction of William Dembski: "I was hoping for more fun from Dembski, but he left before the Q&A session was over."

Here are two other articles (Baylor University, The Gospel Herald).

The first woman about evolution of religiousness

2007-04-21T13:04:00.000-07:00

I have not yet read the new book of primatologist Barbara J. King "Evolving god" (Amazon) - but it seems, that this is the first book about the evolution of religiousness written by a women. And it seems to me, that she has a very fresh and "female" look into religion. Isn't it a surprise to recognize that all other books about religion and evolution at the moment are written by men? (Look for example this list: Chronicle) It is very surprising, because we know from scientific insight, that woman have more interest than men in religion and religious activity. And even if Barbara J. King gives not a whole lot of more new good arguments and facts about the evolution of religiousness - most importantly is, it seems to me, that she gives a new "feeling" while reasoning about religion. Her main point is "belongingness". Have you ever heart about such a thing from another author writing about religion? And why not? - They are men!

"Biological anthropologist King contends that religion, conceived as a system not of beliefs but of actions, not as theology but as worship, is a consequence of primate evolution. It proceeds, she posits, from the sense of group membership that highly developed mammals, especially the great apes, demonstrate in many ways but most saliently for religion when they show concern for a group member that has died." (Amazon)

"King draws upon cutting-edge research in primatology to demonstrate that once animals are capable of emotional attachments and cognitive empathy, they are ready for—and even appear to require—certain intangibles like a belief in something greater than themselves." "It's true that the book requires some enormous argumentative leaps; it's a long stretch from demonstrating that contemporary primates have emotional attachments to claiming that they are then capable of creating religions, as King maintains human beings once did. But even readers who close the book unconvinced will be impressed by King's fresh insights and her lucid writing, which is a jargon-free, story-filled model." (Amazon)

... The origins of the religious impulse. King finds this in what she calls belongingness, "mattering to someone who matters to you," a trait found in contemporary humans but also in our human and non-human primate ancestors. (Amazon, Customer Reviews)

'Evolving God' has the added merit of pushing beyond the Abrahamic "big three," including a handy account of religious archaeology. King's touchstone is "belongingness," the idea that "hominids turned to the sacred realm because they evolved to relate in deeply emotional ways with their social partners, ... and because the human brain evolved to allow an extension of this belongingness beyond the here and now." David Barash (The Chronicle of Higher Education ) Barbara King says (according to Barash): "At bedrock is the belief that one may be seen, heard, protected, harmed, loved, frightened, or soothed by interaction with God, gods, or spirits."

School shooter II - Was there a chance for him?

2007-04-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

A lot of new information about Cho Seung-Hui.

1. About his grandfather and the sister of his grandfather, his great-aunt Yang-Sun, in South Korea: "Yang-Sun revealed the eight-year-old was diagnosed as autistic soon after his family emigrated to the US." She said: "Both his parents knew he had mental problems but they were poor and they couldn't send him to a special hospital in the United States. His mother and sister were asking his friends to help instead. His parents worked and did not have time to look after his condition and didn't give him special treatment. They had no time or money to look after his special problem even though they knew he was autistic." (Mirror.co.uk) So, if you take this seriously, than Cho Seung-Hui was right to be full of hate against the rich people. They should listen more seriously to his words.

2. That he imitated several movie thrillers, mostly a famous South Korean movie called "Oldboy": " ... It tells the story of a man's struggle to understand why he is being tormented. In the final scenes Dae-Su furiously confronts his enemies with guns, hammers and knives. The result is a bloodbath." (Mirror.co.uk) - Do we really need such movies?

3. One girl he had stalked two years ago said: "Once, he claimed he had been rejected by a girl and talked about wanting to beat her up." (= überfallen, verprügeln) (Mirror.co.uk)

And - may be - most interesting:

4. "Ross Alameddine sat near Cho for months in a class on horror films and literature. Both students were required to keep what were known as 'fear journals', in which they chronicled their reactions to the material covered in class and their own fears. (...) On Monday, Cho killed him." (But obviously not with the intention to kill exactly him.) " 'We had a whole discussion on serial killers,' one student said, who asked that she not be named because she wanted to avoid a crush of attention from the news media. Cho never spoke during the discussion, she said, but he took notes. The student was in another class with Cho: a 10-person workshop on playwriting, during which she grew fascinated by him. 'In all honesty, I took a huge interest in him last semester,' she said. 'I actually tried to follow him after class one day, but he got on a bike and I couldn't keep up. He had a red bicycle.' " (smh.com) (NYT)

It was a women he had looked for help - as the stalking shows. And there has been one, who took interest in him. And he didn't know that - as it seems.

Forced by public opinion ...

2007-04-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

(Tagesspiegel, Wikipedia)

"A typical school shooter"

2007-04-18T00:46:00.000-07:00

CNN gives information to understand the situation, that teachers and students were in with this (new) school shooter from Blacksburg (US) for at least two years. Mostly this words of a student. (After the class-reading of one of his plays: "Before Cho got to class that day" [last fall], "we students were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter.") - And this video, in which the professor explains that she knew seriously, that he was a serious danger for the life of herself and her students: CNN.

Positive selection in chimps and humans

2007-04-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

I have made a longer post on my german blog. (Studium generale) For more information look here. (Gene Expression) Nature, Science, New Scientists have articles now. But the best commentary, I have read until now comes from an australian physics departement exploring complex and nonlinear systems (!) (Nature, Comments):

It's a big jump from observing the number of genes which have a high proportion of non-synonymous mutations, to taking this to be a measure of how much the species has changed, how 'highly evolved' they are, or who is winning the evolutionary race - to use three phrases from the article in question. As many writers have beautifully and eloquently described (eg Gary Marcus' wonderful book The Birth of the Mind - How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates the Complexities of Human Thought) there are generally no simple correspondences between genes and phenotype properties. The genotype-phenotype map is complex, highly-structured and poorly understood. A more perceptive and thoughtful discussion of the possible interpretations of the reported data would be more welcome than the cheap pseudo-controversial headlines.
Also interesting: what is the possible impact of cultural evolution as a selective force?

Anne-Marie Grisogono

A good book recommendation for young readers by Desmond Morris

2007-04-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

Desmond Morris (The Naked Ape, 1967) was asked (American Scientist):

What book recommendations do you have for young readers?

For any young zoologist I would recommend Konrad Lorenz, King Solomon's Ring (1952). This will reveal just how much one can learn simply by sitting and watching animal behavior.

Dangerous ideas

2007-04-05T23:34:00.000-07:00

The american-jewish Online-Magazine "Jewcy" is going further to "improve" our thinking. (Jewcy) Most important is, I think, what it is reporting about social scientist Richard Herrnstein (author of "The Bell Curve" [1994]). I don't buy the rest of the argument of the article, that the IQ of children is formed at a larger extent by "good mothers" and good "kindergartens". Not IQ - but a lot of other traits are formed by mothers (and kindergarten's) - for example social traits. I only want to give the text here to show, of what sort of dangerous ideas Steven Pinker spoke of several months ago. (Edge) The article does not mention the fact, he is speaking about the whole time, that there is not only a black-white-IQ-gap of 15 points, but also a black-ashkenazi Jews-IQ-gap of 30 points (!) (and a white-ashkenazi Jews-IQ-gap of 15 points).

"... The social scientist Richard Herrnstein disagreed. (...) A perfect meritocracy, he proposed in a seminal 1971 Atlantic article, would allow the naturally brightest to end up on top. Those bright people would pair up and produce bright children and the American meritocracy would wind up looking less democratic than aristocratic. But unlike aristocratic Europe, where inbred imbeciles like George III ended up ruling empires,modern aristocracies would be fair . Even more alarming, this new, fair aristocracy would look like a racial caste system, Herrnstein theorized, citing a study showing a 15-point gap in the average IQs of whites and blacks.

In his important 1992 book, The End of Equality, Jewish pundit Mickey Kaus cautiously came to Herrnstein’s defense. Social mobility was beginning to decline, he theorized, because a perfect meritocracy had been nearly achieved. Those groups that had what it took to move up had already moved up. Meritocracy was like a centrifuge that spun the best to the top and left the dregs on the bottom. “At some point,” Kaus wrote, “we may run out of new groups to run through the centrifuge.”

Just as Herrnstein predicted, American society has become more aristocratic. (We even have George II, a dim-witted heir, running our country.) It is tempting, then, for Jews to take up the position Herrnstein outlined in 1971, essentially defending and legitimating hierarchy. After all, anti-meritocratic policies like legacy preferences at Ivy League colleges that used to hurt Jews now help them. (...)

Though Herrnstein was Jewish, many Jews were wary of embracing a view that sounded so much like eugenics, the pseudo-science that worked to legitimate the social order back when Jews were towards the bottom. Explaining away inequality as the result of black/white IQ differences sounded like something out of 1930s Germany—not the kind of argument most Jews want to defend. But once the racial element was removed, the argument became more appealing, even flattering. Perhaps there really was something superior about us. (...) claiming to be some kind of black-haired, brown-eyed master race (...)."

The article is speaking about really, really dangerous things. But I think it is doing it not in the right way. Not with enough responsibility. For example: It does not differentiate enough between facts and "wishes". - But because there is so much speaking now about Richard Herrnstein, I have looked for photos of him. There are not so many available in the internet, I have found only two:

Right: Genetics and IQ Conference, New York, 1990 (Herrnstein in the middle)
Bottom row, L to R: Mrs. H.J. Eysenck, Hans J. Eysenck, Arthur R. Jensen, Richard Herrnstein, Richard Lynn, Marian Van Court. Top row: Helmuth Nyborg, Linda Gottfredson, Ernst van den Haag, Robert Nichols, Michael Levin, J. Philippe Rushton, Chris Brand.

Diversification of positions concerning critique of religions

2007-04-03T01:23:00.000-07:00

There is an article with a good overview about new trends in discussions between monotheistic religions and atheism. Pantheistic positions are not mentioned - as it is mostly. (E. O. Wilson is seen by some people as an pantheist, but sees himself as a deist.) I think, humanism in the sense of this article is also quite right, as is Wilson, as is Dawkins, as is Sam Harris. Everyone has his own important and necessary truth. So I think Harris is right: "Harris said he thinks there is room for multiple arguments in the debate between scientific rationalism and religious dogmatism."
____________________________________________________________________

Posted on Sun, Apr. 01, 2007

Atheists divided in their disbeliefs

Some humanists worry that “fundamentalists” will hurt the movement with their belligerence.

By JAY LINDSAY

The Associated Press

BOSTON | Atheists are under attack these days for being too militant — for not just disbelieving in religious faith but for trying to eradicate it.

Who is leveling these accusations? Other atheists.

Among the millions of Americans who don’t believe that God exists, there is a split between people such as Greg Epstein, who holds the partly endowed post of humanist chaplain at Harvard University, and “New Atheists.”

Epstein and other humanists think that their movement is on the verge of explosive growth, but they are concerned that it will be dragged down by what they see as the militancy of New Atheism.

The most pre-eminent New Atheists include best-selling authors Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.

Dawkins has called the God of the Old Testament “a psychotic delinquent.” Harris foresees global catastrophe unless faith is renounced. Religious belief is so harmful that it must be defeated and replaced by science and reason, they say.

Epstein calls them “atheist fundamentalists.” He sees them as rigid in their dogma, and as intolerant as some of the faith leaders with whom atheists have the most obvious differences.

Next month, as Harvard celebrates the 30th anniversary of its humanist chaplaincy — part of the school’s chaplaincy corps — Epstein will use the occasion to provide a counterpoint to the New Atheists.

“Humanism is not about erasing religion,” he said. “It’s an embracing philosophy.”

In general, humanism rejects supernaturalism, while stressing such principles as dignity of the individual, equality and social justice. Humanists believe that if there is no God to help humanity, people better do the work.

The celebration of a “New Humanism” will emphasize diversity within the movement. It will include E.O. Wilson, a humanist who has sought to team with evangelical Christians to fight global warming.

Part of the New Humanism, Wilson said, is “an invitation to a common search for morally based action in areas agreement can be reached in.”

Wilson said the tone of the New Atheists will only alienate important faith groups whose help is needed to solve the world’s problems.

“I would suggest possibly that while there is use in the critiques by Dawkins and Harris, that they’ve overdone it,” Wilson said.

Harris, the author of Letter to a Christian Nation, sees the disagreement as overblown. Harris said he thinks there is room for multiple arguments in the debate between scientific rationalism and religious dogmatism.

“I don’t think everyone needs to take as uncompromising a stance as I have against faith,” he said.

But, he added, an intellectual intolerance of people who strongly believe things on bad evidence is just “basic human sanity.”

“We do not jail people for being stupid, but we do stop listening to them after a while,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Harris also rejected the term “atheist fundamentalist.” He noted that, when it comes to the ancient Greek gods, everyone is an atheist and no one is asked to justify that to pagans who want to believe in Zeus.

“Likewise with the God of Abraham,” he said. “There is nothing ‘fundamentalist’ about finding the claims of religious demagogues implausible.”

Dawkins did not respond to requests for comment. He has questioned whether teaching children that they could go to hell is worse in the long term than sexually abusing them, and he compares the evidence of God with evidence for unicorns, fairies and a “flying spaghetti monster.”

Dawkins’ attempt to win converts is clear in The God Delusion, in which he writes of his hope that “religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.”

A 2006 Baylor University survey estimates about 15 million atheists in the United States.

Adventurer and geneticist: Spencer Wells

2007-04-01T12:10:00.000-07:00

A very good interview with geneticist Spencer Wells about his Genographic Project at PlosGenetics. He says about Hungary:

We've gotten some fascinating results and a lot of e-mails. For example, a Hungarian woman wrote in and said, “You've got to redo my test. You told me I'm native American or Siberian, and I know my ancestors came from Hungary—I can tell you the village they were living in in the sixteenth century.” The Hungarian language, Magyar, is actually related to languages spoken in Siberia, and this is one of the first cases where we've actually seen Siberian lineages showing up in the Hungarian population. They are there at very low frequency. We now through this project have over 350 people who are of Hungarian descent and we see these [Siberian] lineages at four to five percent on both male and female sides.

And he says about the traditional tribal genealogical thinking (here in southern Tajikistan):

... Most people are interested in their history, and indigenous people, who are the ones who give us the clearest glimpse of their genetic history, are particularly interested, because in many cases it is all they have—what they cling on to—their sense of identity.

I was just in Tajikistan a week and a half ago, and we were sampling all over the southern part of the country and asking people to name their grandparents and great-grandparents and so on. I could do that back to maybe to my great-grandparents. These people can do it back six, seven, eight generations. They've always lived in the same place and beyond that they know even more about their history, but not necessarily their names.

So they have a sense, a clear idea of where they came from, that something is passed from generation that ties them to their ancestors. You explain to them that that thing is DNA and that it will tell us not only about the people they can name but also people beyond that that they can't name ...

Some personal things about this blonde Spencer Wells:

My father (...) he comes from a military family. His father, whom he never knew because he died in World War II, graduated top of his class from West Point and was apparently a wild man out in the field. I think maybe I got some of my love of danger and going to strange places from him. ...

"Our spiritual need to be connected with nature ..."

2007-04-01T05:01:00.000-07:00

Jane Goodall - a fascinating new interview. Here some snips:

...

If chimps are so much like us, why are they endangered while humans dominate the globe?
Well, in some ways we’re not successful at all. We’re destroying our home. That’s not a bit successful. Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans have been living for hundreds of thousands of years in their forest, living fantastic lives, never overpopulating, never destroying the forest. I would say that they have been in a way more successful than us as far as being in harmony with the environment.

...

Large humanitarian initiatives in Africa, like those spearheaded by Bill Gates and Bill Clinton, understandably focus on the needs of people. Does that human focus conflict with the needs of the animals?
Sometimes. But even if you forget the animals, what these people sometimes totally ignore is the environment. If you cut down all the trees at Gombe, yes, the chimps will go. But you’ll also get terrible soil erosion, desertification, and flooding. People will suffer terribly. So in addition to addressing the physical needs of people—like water, sanitation, education—you also must address their impact on the environment and our spiritual need to be connected with nature. That’s really a psychological need that we have. I also have problems with the way a lot of aid is delivered.

...

What is it like to be such a public scientist? When you attend primatology meetings these days, how are you treated?
I’m the elder female. I’m mobbed, really. My role now is to talk about conservation and to try to inspire some of the young field biologists who are desperate because their study animals are disappearing. So I try to encourage them with stories like those about TACARE and how to involve local people so their study animals survive and they can continue their research. We each have to do our bit and realize that when you add up those bits, you have massive change.

Oseberg woman stems from the Middle East

2007-03-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

The grandmother of Harald Fairhair, first king of Norway, had a servant, whose ancestors were coming from an area in the Middle East. This is supposed by a new ancient DNA research of one of her tooth (see here and here). It is supposed, that the two women, that were found in the famous Viking Oseberg ship, which was excavated 1904, and which is dated to 834 AD, were this grandmother (at death around 80 years old) and her servant (at death around 50 years old). More in the text:

... "Our results so far have been very interesting. Further analysis of the remains of both women would hopefully allow us to establish whether the two were related. What we already know is that the ancestor to the younger woman came from the the area around modern day Turkey and Iran," said Professor Per Holck. He has also found that their diet was heavy on meat, but that they ate comparatively little seafood. The full findings will be presented in an article in the British magazine "European Archaeology" later this year. (...)

"This is the first DNA profile we have from a Viking skeleton," says Lena Fahre, archaeologist and spokeswoman at Midgard Historical Centre. (...)

Until now, the common assumption for many years, though less and less in vogue among historians and archaeologists, has been that the older woman in the grave was Queen Åsa, mother of Halvdan the Black, and grandmother of Harald Fairhair, the first king of the united Norway, and that the younger woman was her servant, who went to her death with her mistress. Dendrochronological analysis, or tree-ring dating, of the timbers used to build the burial chamber, shows that they were felled in the autumn of the year 834 AD. ...

The impossibility to understand quantum physics deterministically

2007-03-26T01:43:00.000-07:00

A very nice review has appeared in "Nature" about a very nice book (Uncertainty - Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science - by D. Lindley) concerning the first discussions of quantum mechanics. An excerpt:

In Uncertainty, David Lindley tells the intriguing tale of how Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr (among others) struggled to create and understand the new quantum physics. Lindley organizes his tale around the issue of indeterminism, which Max Born raised in 1926 in the paper that introduced probability as fundamental to interpreting the quantum world. Within a year, at the end of his paper on the uncertainty principle, Heisenberg declared determinism (or causality) dead, a pronouncement that brought probability, chance and uncertainty into the quantum domain in a fundamental way.

Lindley tracks the rise of chance from its roots in statistical reasoning (brownian motion and entropy) through to Bohr's 'jumping planetary model' of the atom and beyond. He selects important episodes from this 'old' quantum theory and then retells them in a lively and insightful manner. This provides the background for Heisenberg's theory of matrix mechanics and Erwin Schrödinger's wave mechanics. The author tells how Bohr encouraged, derided, cajoled, inspired and browbeat all sides to orchestrate the Copenhagen synthesis to meet his own physical intuitions and philosophical likings. Lindley captures the passion of the struggle, showing both the public controversies and the sometimes harsh private judgements (for example, writing to third parties, Heisenberg and Schrödinger each described the other's work as repulsive, and worse). ...

Ashkenazi Jewish subgroups and founder events

2007-03-26T01:14:00.000-07:00

Ashkenazi Jews "constitute a model population for the search of disease-causing mutations and disease-susceptibility genes".

A new genetic study about Ashkenazi Jews now confirms "the interpretation of little or no gene flow of the local non-Jewish communities in Poland and Russia to the Jewish communities in these countries" over the last 1000 years. "The differences between Jews and non-Jews are far larger than those observed among the Jewish communities." So, the study says, Ashkenazi Jews are "an isolated population that has undergone a recent bottleneck".

But its main result is, that researchers claim to have found a difference in haplogroup frequencies (mostly of mitochondrial haplogroups K and H) between Ashkenazi Jews from Russia and Ashkenazi Jews from Poland and Romania.

And because the differences are not caused by non-jewish genetical influence it is most likely that they reflect founder events, researchers say. So they claim the results are "consistent with the view that the ancestry of the Ashkenazi Jewish population is a result of at least four different founder events."

"Post-metaphysical" thinking is not so post-metaphysical anymore ...

2007-03-25T23:14:00.000-07:00

At first I have choosen another headline for this post: "Post-metaphysical thinking becomes metaphysical again". - But no, everything is a whole lot more subtile, as I saw later: "Post-metaphysical" thinking is "religiously informed but nevertheless not 'metaphysical' "!!! Ok - whatever that might mean and whatever the difference might be. You can find a reasoning about all this in the "Journal of Social Theory" in an article called "Habermas' Theological Turn".

Ah, no, here we have a better phrase: "... post-metaphysical and post-Christian (thinking) which does not mean un-Christian (thinking)"! - Ah!? - Yes?! - I did'nt know that before. It is always time to see things anew ...

In the abstract we can find, that the article is basically positive towards this new "theological turn" in the "post-metaphysical thinking" of our famous Jürgen Habermas: "... These difficulties and inconsistencies in Habermas's recent thinking remain instructive and ought to continue to engage the interest of scholars concerned today with the question of how far the philosophy of the social sciences can and cannot accommodate commitments to theism in the practice of research."

Some more sentences from the article itself (bolded phrases not in the original text):

... Habermas writes that religion provides "orienting pictures of unspoilt forms of life" that offer "an at once limiting and disclosing horizon", images that "inspire and encourage us" in our repeated efforts at cooperatively bringing about the good, and thus offer "regenerative power" for a "dwindling normative consciousness" (5: 218, 235). Bound up with this seems to be Habermas's sense that the critical social theory needs something more than itself, some minimal postulate of teleological finality, something stronger and ethically even thicker than the statement in The Theory of Communicative Action that processes of "reaching an understanding" (Verständigung) are the "inherent telos of all speech" (1981, vol. 1: 387). It now seems that Habermas recognizes something like a theological lacuna, a lack or blind spot in his own work. He appears to hold that an orientation to the true, the right and the good as the outcome of the conversation of humanity, in the spirit of the philosophy of C.S. Peirce, requires a more emphatic sense of its debts to metaphysics, even as it seeks to "transcend" metaphysics.

However, what exactly is this theological lacuna, and what kind of filling does it need? In his work from the 1980s Habermas tended to align the term "post-metaphysical thinking" with the term "post-traditional" and generally with a "post-religious" outlook (Habermas 1988). In his current work he no longer aligns these terms completely but instead allows for the possibility of a post-metaphysical thinking that is still religiously inflected in some sense. In the following I first want to consider some problems in his aligning of these terms. ...

So, we may ask: Do we really need theism "to inspire and encourage us", to give us "regenerative power", "teleological finality"? We have other possibilities also. Why is Habermas only thinking about theism, when he is thinking about "debts to metaphysics"? I think, Kevin Mac Donald gives some hints in his "A Culture of Critique" about the theistic connections, roots, background of the famous atheists of the "Frankfurter Schule"-teachers of Jürgen Habermas. He may be influenced by this very deeply also.

"Only in the contemplation of beauty is human life worth living."

2007-03-24T05:32:00.000-07:00

A good article in "European Journal of Philosophy" about Plato's "Symposion" with the same title as this posting. Here is the abstract:

"Socrates' speech in praise of erōs in the Symposium (201d–212c) is perhaps one of the most influential passages Plato ever composed. It is also one of the most discussed, and any attempt to add to the huge literature that surrounds it needs some justification. My reason for returning to it is not so much a desire to offer yet another interpretation of what Plato really meant to say about the relationship between erōs and its inherent attraction to to kalon, which I will translate as ‘beauty’. What I would like to try to do is to see how much of what Plato says here can be read not just as an inspired (and inspiring) flight of the imagination but also as something we can actually believe—a solid, knowing and accurate description of the phenomenology of love and beauty."

Group selection - a very simple thing ...?

2007-03-21T02:31:00.000-07:00

Does one crucial heritable trait like intelligence can change inborn altruism inside of a society?

I think: Yes. If you are more intelligent than another person, you can be more efficient with your altruistic deeds. And if a whole group is more intelligent than another group this gives this group an advantage.

But we know: Nowadays inborn intelligence of human groups does not "per se" correlate with fitness. Sometimes yes - for example in modern Israel, for example (broadly spoken) in the Western Hemisphere between 1500 and 1900. But often (today in the Western Hemisphere): No. So let us say: There is a difficult connection between intelligence and fertility in humans.

But IF human groups act mostly like the Western Hemisphere between 1500 and 1900 and like modern Israel today it is clear, that we would say, that more efficient altruism would evolve by group selection, because it is different fertility of genetically different groups that shapes human variability of traits at any given period.

And I think this is what happened in human history and evolution mostly. Aszkenazi Jews where seperated enough from other groups for thousand years and were able to evolve (by this) a "more efficient altruism" than all the other human groups have today AND they had another fertility rate than Sephardic Jews. This has not happened by extinction of (other) groups - only by separation.

I think there are a lot of other heritable traits that influence altruism in this way or another. We do not have "one" gene for altruism ...

(Razib Khan had some thoughts about group selection and motivated me for this post.)

"Are Christians More Tolerant than Jews?"

2007-03-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

As it seems a provocative article in the new american-jewish online-magazine "Jewcy": How modern american Jews think about their own and about "Goyish" people.

I think, one of many attemps now and in the future to explain ashkenazi-jewish IQ-evolution and ashkenazi-jewish cultural and political influence in 20th century. Before that "Jewcy" spoke of Kevin MacDonald as "worth a read" concerning those themes.

Jane Goodall

2007-03-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

A review of a new biography about her in "Science". - Nothing new, but it is always good to be remembered of this very great woman, who combines science with strong responsibility and strong and honest "religious" feelings concerning nature and environment. We need many more of those scientists.

(I'm a member of "Roots & Shoots" and like to recommend that.)

Economies develop different - in Europe and Asia between 1500 and 1850

2007-03-13T03:17:00.000-07:00

The wealth of a society and the state of its economic development at a given time can be measured by some data like the wages and prices of that time or urban shares of the population. In an article of "The Economic History Review" (Feb. 2006) there were given some data concerning wealth of societies in Europe and Asia between 1500 and 1850. Result is, that the divergence in economic development between Europe and Asia began 1500 and not 1800 as was proposed previously in the book of K. Pomeranz "The Great Divergence" (2000).

But you can see also in this data, that there were a lot of deep divergences inside of Europe as well. London and South England are ranking before the Netherlands and they are ranking before Paris, France, North Italy ... Krakow, Gdansk ... And there is a lot of deep local change and/or stagnation also.

Here is the abstract:

Contrary to the claims of Pomeranz, Parthasarathi, and other 'world historians', the prosperous parts of Asia between 1500 and 1800 look similar to the stagnating southern, central, and eastern parts of Europe rather than the developing north-western parts. In the advanced parts of India and China, grain wages were comparable to those in north-western Europe, but silver wages, which conferred purchasing power over tradable goods and services, were substantially lower. The high silver wages of north-western Europe were not simply a monetary phenomenon, but reflected high productivity in the tradable sector. The 'great divergence' between Europe and Asia was already well underway before 1800.

What is religiousness?

2007-03-13T02:02:00.000-07:00

Razib Khan has given me motivation to try to translate my current thoughts about religousness into English:

May be in general religiousness is the experience of those aspects of our reality, that are per definitionem not precisely to be defined by human reasoning alone - for example: what is beauty? what is goodness? ... - or that are not precisely to be defined by our pure three-dimensional thinking in terms of time and strict relationships of cause and effect - for example: what is matter, what is an electron, what is light, ...

If we see a sunset at the seaside, by physical and neuroscientific thinking we can EXPLAIN the causes of this experience. But at the same time we know, that those aspects, that make this experience a very, very special experience for us, are not "explained" at all by all this scientific explanations alone. There are more aspects of reality beyond the "pure reason" of which the boundaries have been shown by Immanuel Kant.

And for those experiences beyond "pure reason" humanity and our cultures have artists, poets, musicians, dancers, architects and so on, who try to give valid testimonies of this area of experiences of humans. But often they are not proud because of that. Beethoven for example says:

"The true artist has no pride; unhappily he sees that Art has no bounds. Obscurely he feels how far away he is from his aim, and even while others may be admiring him, he mourns his failure to attain that end which his better genius illumines like a distant sun."

Other human beings, fascinated by the great things, that human artists can produce, like to imitate them WITHOUT having talent for that or without having discipline for that or humility or whatever is necessary to produce great and valid art. They use the wrong tools to give valid expressions of these experiences, they have unpure motivations for speaking about these areas beyond pure reason. And most badly: They use their strict three-dimensional, time- and causality-thinking to give testimonies about areas of human experiences, about that no valid testimonies can be given by this tools and methods (as we know since Kant).

Often their motivations are very "unpure". They see, that they can gain power, influence and prestige by speaking about that areas. - And this was the time, when tribal religions and world-religions came into being.

My impression is: Those "religions", that have the most resemblance to the area of arts, that have a lot of beauty in their (often childlike) phantasies and mythologies, that have a lot of humanitarianism, kindness in their thinking, give a better and more valid expression about the area beyond "pure reason" than those religions, that are predominant today.

The more humankind has gained true scientific insights, the more religion has tried to give testimonies LIKE science and its three-dimensional thinking and the more it lost its ability to give true and valid testimonies of the area, human religiousness comes from.

Modern world religions are only a very last (and bad) phase of all those human religiousness, that is possible. And in general the arts have better tools to give expression of modern "religiousness" than monotheistic religious communities of today.

And if we ask: What makes human experiences (beyond pure reason) "special", I think one often forgotten answer is: "personality". It is the fact, that each human being is unique. If your life comes to an end, one unique possibility of human experience comes to an end.

Posted by: Ingo | March 13, 2007 04:57 AM

The evolution of senescence - in 271 species of birds

2007-03-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

At the moment we have no good and validated (generally accepted) theories of the evolution of senescence. A study in "Journal of Evolutionary Biology" (May 2006) discuss several of these theories and has found amoung 271 bird species no correlations between longevity and degree of breeding sociality (!) - but between longevity and age of first reproduction.

Relative longevity (...) increased with age at first reproduction, but not with degree of breeding sociality.

The results were partly contrary to the expected theory:

The objective of the present study was to test the prediction arising from evolutionary theories of senescence that the rate of ageing and hence the maximum record of longevity should increase in species with delayed onset of reproduction. (...) Hence, we should expect the rate of senescence to be slower in colonially than in solitarily breeding species of birds. In addition, colonially breeding species of birds should start to reproduce at an older age than solitary species.

(...) The main findings of this study were (...) (2) Colonially breeding species did not senesce at a slower rate than solitarily breeding species. (3) Species that started to reproduce relative late in their life senesced at a slower rate than species that started to reproduce early.

(...) I found no general relationship between evolution of senescence and evolution of coloniality in birds.

The Neolithic of the Southern Levant

2007-03-09T11:47:00.000-08:00

A new overview is given about the Neolithic of the Southern Levant in "Evolutionary Anthropology". Mostly not new data - but people outside the area of specialists often do not know very much about this crucial phase of human history. So it should be useful. - See also this.

Clovis-Culture lasts only for 200 years?

2007-03-07T11:16:00.000-08:00

Before reading "Science" I was very sceptical concerning this news. But the data seem to be very uniformly:

... Of the remaining 11 sites, Waters and Stafford found that five had been recently dated by higher-precision techniques. The pair decided to redate the others, succeeding in all but one case. The results, Waters says, "were a real surprise." All of the new dates--as well as all of the previous acceptable dates--occurred within, at most, a 450-year band. Indeed, they say, Clovis probably existed for as little as 200 years, between 11,050 and 10,800 radiocarbon years B.P.--a cultural flowering both somewhat later and considerably shorter than thought.

... other cultures, including one in Monte Verde, Chile, dated to 1000 years before Clovis.

... Meltzer stresses that the dates used are from a minority of North American sites, most in the west, whereas most Clovis points have been found in the east. Until more data are compiled, he says, researchers "can't know whether this is a real effect or simply a consequence of sampling."

How does evolution "work"?

2007-03-06T03:14:00.000-08:00

A new book about the ways of evolution ("The Plausibility of Life") has some thoughts worth to think through (Natalie Angier in NYT):

... I am, nevertheless, a multicellular organism of reasonably complex structure, and we complex bioforms can’t help but appreciate novelty. We are the fruits of it. If not for evolutionary novelty — that is, the periodic and often radical overhauling of an existing cell type, body plan, limb shape or brain design into something new and useful, or at least entertaining — we might still be so many daubs of blue-green algae decorating an Australian rock. ...

... biological novelty. Under its tutelage, early groups of cells made the leap from the sleepy expulsion of oxygen as waste to the aerobic consumption of oxygen to grow at a hastier pace; and groups of single cells learned to pool their talents into multicellular collectives of specialized body compartments that could then go out and hunt other multicellular collectives; and fishy fins became amphibious feet and crept onto the beach, and some land-weary feet changed their mind and flippered back to the sea, while still other limb bones lengthened and found skin flaps for flying, and, hey, this airborne business is pretty handy, let’s rearticulate the forelimbs of three separate lineages and take wing as a pterodactyl, a bird, a bat.

As scientists see it, these and others of nature’s fancy feats forward are clearly the result of large-scale evolutionary forces, but the precise mechanisms behind any given innovation remain piquantly opaque. For some researchers, the conventional gradualist narrative, in which organisms evolve over time through the steady accretion of many mincing genetic mutations, feels unsatisfying when it comes to understanding true biological novelty.

“The standard Darwinian view always sounds like a better theory for making improvements than for making inventions,” said Dr. Marc W. Kirschner, a professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School. If incremental, additive genetic changes were responsible for all the boggling biodiversity we see around us, he said, how can it be that humans have hardly more genes than a microscopic nematode, and that many of those genes are nearly identical in roundworms and humans besides?

In their recently published book, “The Plausibility of Life,” Dr. Kirschner and Dr. John C. Gerhart of the University of California,Berkeley, offer a fresh look at the origins of novelty. They argue that many of the basic components and systems of the body possess the quality of what they call “evolvability” — that is, the components can be altered without wreaking havoc on the parts and systems that connect to them, and can even produce a reasonably functional organ or body part in their modified configuration. For example, if a genetic mutation ends up lengthening a limb bone, said Dr. Kirschner, the other parts that attach to and interact with that bone needn’t also be genetically altered in order to yield a perfectly serviceable limb. The nerves, muscles, blood vessels, ligaments and skin are all inherently plastic and adaptable enough to stretch and accommodate the longer bone during embryogenesis and thus, as a team, develop into a notably, even globally, transformed limb with just a single mutation at its base. And if, with that lengthened leg, the lucky recipient gets a jump on its competitors, well, g’day to you, baby kangaroo.

Dr. Kirschner also observes that cells and bodies are extremely modular, and parts can be moved around with ease. A relatively simple molecular switch that in one setting allows a cell to respond to sugar can, in a different context, help guide the maturation of a nerve cell. In each case, the activation of the switch initiates a tumbling cascade of complex events with a very distinctive outcome, yet the switch itself is just your basic on-off protein device. By all appearances, evolution has flipped and shuffled and retrofitted and duct-taped together a comparatively small set of starter parts to build a dazzling variety of botanic and bestial bodies.

The combined modularity and bounciness of body parts suggest that life is spring-loaded for change, for outrageous commixtures, the wildest fusion cuisine. And who knows whether our organismic suppleness, our deep evolvability, isn’t related to our mental thirst for the new, and our hope that behind the door lies the best surprise yet?

The Anglo-Saxons ... Genes, Mind and Culture ....

2007-03-06T02:39:00.000-08:00

Nicholas Wade gives a good survey in the NYT about current thinking of geneticists about the population history of the British Isles since their recolonization after the Ice-Age. Geneticists seem to agree, that most of current people in the British Isle are stemming from this recolonization after the Ice-Age and not from later migrations bringing agriculture (4000 BC) or by the Celts, the Anglo-Saxons or the Vikings. (But Bryan Sykes seems to make greater differences between small neolithic and big celtic genetic influence on current populations.)

The geneticists Stephen Oppenheimer, Bryan Sykes, Christopher Tyler-Smith, Mark Thomas, Peter Forster and others mostly disagree at the moment about the Anglo-Saxonian genetical influence. And there is another - may be - new insight:

English is usually assumed to have developed in England, from the language of the Angles and Saxons, about 1,500 years ago. But Forster argues that the Angles and the Saxons were both really Viking peoples who began raiding Britain ahead of the accepted historical schedule. They did not bring their language to England because English, in his view, was already spoken there, probably introduced before the arrival of the Romans by tribes such as the Belgae, whom Caesar describes as being present on both sides of the Channel. (...)

Germanic is usually assumed to have split into three branches: West Germanic, which includes German and Dutch; East Germanic, the language of the Goths and Vandals; and North Germanic, consisting of the Scandinavian languages. Forster's analysis shows English is not an offshoot of West Germanic, as usually assumed, but is a branch independent of the other three, which also implies a greater antiquity. Germanic split into its four branches some 2,000 to 6,000 years ago, Forster estimates.

Addendum: Razib Khan and others are sceptical concerning the last thoughts. Me too. But you should never say never.

Beginning of agriculture in China by migrations from Europe?

2007-03-05T23:43:00.000-08:00

Last year in the journal "Archäologie in Deutschland" there were given hints by Detlef Gronenborn (pdf., german language), that archaeological connections exist between the first european farmers (the Linearbandkeramiker) and new detected archaeological cultures in Russia (Elshan-Culture) and Northern China. (More from Detlef Gronenborn here - also in English.)

Now it seems that we have ancient genetic data for this connections as well. And that would mean, that these connections were'nt only cultural but also genetic. This would be a very great surprise.

The Phylogeography of Haplogroup N1a

Gokcumen O et al.

Recent studies have revealed a complex geographic distribution of haplogroup N1a. This rare and distinctive lineage is widely distributed across Eurasia and Africa, but always found at very low frequencies. However, despite its rarity, the genetic diversity within N1a has remained relatively high (h=0.9605). The reduced median network of N1a haplotypes not only reflects this level of diversity, but also exhibits several relatively well-defined branches. The distribution of N1a is intriguing because of revealing previously unrecognized connections between populations. What makes N1a even more interesting is the prevalence of this lineage in ancient European populations. Haak et al. (2005) found that 25% of their European Neolithic samples belonged to N1a and dated to ~5000 BCE, whereas the frequency of this lineage in contemporary Europeans is only ~0.2%. In addition, an Iron Age skeleton from Kazakhstan had an N1a haplotype, suggesting the existence of this lineage in the Altai Republic in ~500BCE (Ricaut et al. 2004). Indeed, we found several haplogroup N1a mtDNAs in indigenous Altaians and Altaian Kazakhs. To further elucidate the phylogeography of this lineage in Central Asia, we sequenced the whole mtDNA genomes of our N1a haplotypes, and analyzed the resulting data with several quantitative methods and simulation programs to estimate their expansion times and spatial distribution in Eurasia. Our findings suggest that there are two well-defined sublineages within N1a, and that the dispersal of this haplogroup could be associated with the Neolithic expansion and with prehistoric interactions between Central Asian and European populations.

What sort of people will have babies in the future?

2007-03-05T23:10:00.000-08:00

In a new article people like Bruce Lahn, Steven Pinker, Jared Diamond, Peter Richerson and Daniel Dennett are asked, what they think at the moment about the (past and) the future of human evolution. Daniel Dennett has a good point:

... "The question to ask is this," said Dennett at Tufts. "What features are shared by most of the people having babies that survive to have babies of their own?"

And I think, the answer is very simple. As far as we know the best and most robust factor, that correlates with fertility in humans nowadays is religion, Mr. Dennett! - You aren't surprised?

But Daniel Dennett has more interesting things to say:

... "In different environments, different pressures may well dominate. If pandemics or huge shifts in the environment occur, this may create bottlenecks, through which only a lucky few can pass their genes.

"Perhaps tolerance for mercury in the diet, or an ability to digest kudzu, or a pronounced fondness for living underground in the dark will be strongly favored after some catastrophe."

However, Dennett added, "Since evolution is an amplifier of noise - unpredictable insertions into the prevailing patterns - it is a mistake to extrapolate current trends with much confidence."

Religion - the most important theme

2007-02-28T03:48:00.000-08:00

At the moment I'm reading very much about the evolution of religion. For example, I have recognized, that "The Birth of the Gods" (1964) from Guy E. Swanson (1922 - 1995), sociologist of religion, is a very good beginning for a modern theory of the evolution of religion in human societies. It is only a beginning - but I think a good one. (I have found it mentioned in this very good overview of Richard Sosis [2003].)

Question is: Why people believe in gods and why they believe in different gods and religions? I have recognized, that this is a very important theme. Societies cannot survive without religion, without religiousness. Everything is going wrong, when religiousness is missing. No understanding any more for children, for family life, for THOSE things, that are important. People without religion - atheistic people - think (often, mostly), making money is the most important thing in life. They think to have a fullfilled life within a job is the most important thing in life. So in Germany now, politicians (Ursula von der Leyen) are discussing very much about how the Germans could have MORE children. This is the key question for the survival of our society.

But as long as they think, that making money and to have a job is as important as family life, they will make EVERYTHING wrong. And this is, what politicians and people think everywhere. They do not see alternatives. So we have very terrible politics concerning theses themes at the moment in Germany (and I think in the whole western world). For example, people begin to think, that nothing could be better, than to put young children away from mothers, parents, family. It is difficult for me to understand, how so MANY and important people can think such really, really nonsense. But the reason for this is: They do not have the slightest understanding of what childhood is. Childhood is not to become as fast as possible an adult. To have an extended childhood is, what us makes different from chimpanzees! We are "Nesthocker", not "Nestflüchter". But politicians nowadays - conservative, "christian" politicians - want to reduce that differences between humans and chimpanzees concerning all this as it seems. They want to make us a different species, they want to makes us to "Nestflüchtern" once more. And that is a very different stage of brain-evolution.

Nothing will become better as long as people and politicians don't recognize, that it is religion and religious feelings that make societies survivable. Religious feelings - that is love, that is understanding of the soul of children (that is very, very different of the soul of adults). Religiousness is all that, what is missed in modern societies. It is respect for other people. It is awe for life. If you believe in gods - like so many tribes in humanity (as Swanson makes clear) you have a completly different world view than people who think making money and economic (and philosophical) materialism is the only true goal and meaning of human life.

Community genetics

2007-02-20T11:44:00.000-08:00

A very interesting article is publicized in the new "Nature Reviews Genetics": "The co-evolutionary genetics of ecological communities". It seems, that there are some parallels to human communities and how they influence each other in history and evolutionary times. - Only as one example we can suppose a sort of "co-evolution" between the Germans and the Ashkenazi Jews in the last 1000 years (parallels in genetics and mother-tongue). Another example for "co-evolution" could be the influence between Europeans and East Asians at the long chinese border during ancient times (the beginning of chinese bronze age and other events).

Here are some sentences concerning plants and animals:

Advances in the emerging field of community genetics, which integrates genetics and community ecology, could revolutionize how co-evolution is studied, how genes are functionally annotated and how conservation geneticists implement preservation strategies.

Patterns of co-adaptation result from the process of co-evolution, which occurs whenever two ecologically interacting species exert reciprocal selection pressures on one another and the response is inherited. Although most interactions between species, including those between competitors, predator and prey, host and parasite, or host and symbiont, generate reciprocal selection pressures, the specific pattern that emerges over time varies with the nature of the ecological interaction, the genetic architecture of the co-evolving traits and the degree of co-transmission across generations.

Barley domesticated in China 7000 BC

2007-02-20T11:35:00.000-08:00

Barley seems to be domesticated in Northern China also. And that's different to wheat, that is domesticated only in the Fertile Crescent:

Over the past decades, archaeologists have unearthed the earliest remains of domesticated barley at sites in the Fertile Crescent that date back 10,500 years. But there is also evidence for barley cultivation about 9000 years ago at sites further east in Central Asia. (...)
Evolutionary biologists Peter Morrell and Michael Clegg (...) sequenced genes of wild and domesticated barley from the two regions. (..) Morrell and Clegg conclude that barley was domesticated at least twice, first in the Fertile Crescent and then between 1500 to 3000 kilometers further east in Central Asia. (...)

Incest: Good for the Jews

2007-02-20T10:16:00.000-08:00

In an Online Journal called "Jewcy" you can find an interesting article: "Incest: Good for the Jews - The benefits of a small tribal gene pool". An overview about current thinking concerning jewish population genetics. - But first - what does this online journal is telling "About Us"?:

"Jewcy has become a cultural icon at the forefront of a new wave of Jewish culture and pride.” - Guardian “[Jewcy] is the accoutrement of choice for a new breed of Jewish hipsters...”- Washington Post

Jewcy Media Group is an entertainment and media company devoted to helping Jews (and anyone else) find, use, share, and expand meaning and community.

With its online site, theatrical productions, and steady diet of exciting events, Jewcy is the premier Jewish media and entertainment outlet for progressive free-thinkers.

WHY NOW?

In the thick, messy context of contemporary American life, it’s a remarkable moment to be a Jew. There is unparalleled opportunity for people hell-bent on making a meaningful difference with their lives, but also an unprecedented uncertainty about the relevance of old traditions and institutions.

This much we know: we’re hungry. Hungry for meaning. For community. For continuity and clarity and inspiration. For intelligent, thoughtful analysis of consequential ideas and issues. Our affluence, our boundless access to information, our education and unprecedented acceptance into the cultural mainstream carry with them unlimited possibilities – and unlimited possibilities carry equal measures of hope and fear.

So, what does matter now? ...

In this online journal you can find the following overview concerning jewish population genetics:

Incest: Good for the Jews
The benefits of a small tribal gene pool

by Joey Kurtzman, January 1, 2007

Genetically, Ashkenazi Jews are freaks. For most of Jewish history in Europe, cherem-wielding rabbis and an unwelcoming Gentile world made inbreeding a far more appealing option than intermarriage. As a result, Ashkenazim became what scientists call an “endogamous group,” which is another way of saying that they have been sleeping with their cousins for a thousand years. And because endogamous groups often develop distinctive genetic profiles, nothing gets a population geneticist hotter than incest.

Ashkenazim aren’t the only group that has kept outsiders out of the gene pool. Most other such groups, however, are isolated, rural populations, like the Amish or the inhabitants of Australia’s Norfolk Island. Ashkenazim are the best-studied group of cousin-kissers on the planet because they’re convenient. A scientist doesn’t need to trek out to the boonies to do her research when she’s got a million Ashkenazi Jews outside her door in the same city where she lives and works.

So endogamy and cosmopolitanism go a long way towards explaining why Jewish DNA has been the source of a gobsmacking number of important genetic findings. Unfortunately, the news coverage of those findings has focused primarily on the negative: genes that predispose us to Tay-Sachs disease, breast cancer, intestinal disease…and the list goes on.

But not all the startling stories hiding in Ashkenazi DNA are bad. Freakishness has its benefits. Some of our genetic eccentricities are more Übermensch than sissy-pants, more Schwarzenegger than DeVito.

Here’s a brief tour through four of the happier genetic quirks discovered about the Ashkenazi wing of our tribe in recent years.

RESISTANCE TO HIV

Yes, you still need to use condoms. But a significant proportion of Ashkenazi Jews have a mutation in a gene called CCR5, and the most common strain of HIV uses the protein produced by CCR5 to climb inside people’s cells. The mutation prevents HIV from exploiting that protein to gain access. If you get two copies of the mutant gene, then most strains of HIV will have little to no chance of getting into your cells. If you get one copy, you’re still less likely to contract HIV, and, if you do, your prognosis is better.

The number of Ashkenazi Jews who have the mutation varies among different Jewish subgroups. According to a study conducted at the Center of Neurogenetics in Paris, a whopping 45 percent of Litvaks (Jews from Lithuania) have at least one copy of the mutation. Ethiopian Jews, on the other hand, don’t have it at all.

Population geneticists aren’t sure why Jews have the mutation in such high numbers. Some of the microbes responsible for Europe’s plagues may have used the same protein, and, as one theory goes, the plagues hit Jews harder than most other European populations, leaving us with a genetic advantage today. Wearing the same heavy clothes every day and never bathing may have had its benefits.

LOW RATES OF ALCOHOLISM

“Shicker iz a goy, shicker iz a goy, shicker iz er, trinken muz er, vahl er iz a goy!” That racist old Yiddish ditty translates: “The goy is a drunk! The goy is a drunk! He has to drink, because he’s a goy!” Classy stuff.

Jews made a mint in Europe by distilling alcohol and selling it to Gentiles, and then we sang songs about what drunks they were. But it turns out Gentiles really are more likely than Jews to become drunks, and it’s not because young Jews learn how to drink responsibly by quaffing Manischewitz at the Seder table, or any of the other old, folk explanations.

Twenty percent of Ashkenazi Jews have a genetic mutation on chromosome nine that causes an unpleasant reaction to alcohol—headaches, nausea, flushing—which in turn makes heavy drinking and alcoholism less likely. This mutation is almost nonexistent among non-Jewish Europeans, but common among Asians.

It’s a model minority thing, apparently.

LOW RATES OF CERVICAL CANCER

It’s not cause you’re not a slut, that’s for sure. The low incidence of cervical cancer among Jewish women has been a longstanding mystery to scientists. People used to think that a circumcised penis was like a magic wand, protecting Jewish women from a nasty cancer that was far more common among non-Jews. That partly explains why American Gentiles started doing like the poor biblical boys of Shekhem and slicing off their foreskins. Once all these Gentiles started circumcising their kids, the bad news came in: Low rates of cervical cancer have nothing to do with circumcision.

The low incidence of human papilloma virus (HPV) among Jewish women may partly explain their low rates of cervical cancer. And scientists have recently discovered that a genetic mutation called p53-D12 predisposes some women to cervical cancer; that mutation is rare among Jewish women.

HIGH RATES OF INTELLIGENCE

“The world is riddled—riddled!—with dumb Ashkenazi Jews,” as Leon Wieseltier reminds us. Too true, Leon. But with the tribe’s lineup including Freud, Einstein, and Speed Levitch, and Ashkenazim possessing an exceedingly high mean IQ, Jews have more than their share of smarties. They’ve also got more than their share of neurological disorders such as Tay-Sachs and Gaucher’s disease. According to a recent study at the University of Utah, there’s a connection: The same genes that cause diseases such as Tay-Sachs and Gaucher’s can also help make you a little Einstein.

The genes in question promote the growth of brain cells. Basically, if you get two of those genes, your brain cells will be afflicted by the kind of extreme and disordered cell growth associated with Tay-Sachs. Get only one of those genes and the cell growth within your brain is enhanced, meaning your grandma will never shut up about you at the mah-jongg table. Or so the Utah researchers argue.

The theory attempts to answer the question of what causes higher rates of intelligence among Jews. And as the theory’s premise is clear and testable, we’ll know for certain in a few years whether it’s the right answer. As to the question of why the gene is there in the first place, it’s all conjecture from here on in.

Some think it’s because our smartest guys became big Talmud chachams and got the girls, while the smartest non-Jewish Europeans became priests and spilled their seed into bed sheets. Or, others postulate, maybe it’s because Jews had to pursue talky, cognitively taxing professions because they weren’t allowed to own land or join guilds. Whatever the explanation may be, Jews got the smahts, baby.

N E X T

Do: What do DNA and endogamy mean for Jewish chauvinism – and antisemitism? Leave your comments below.
Go: Feel certain that your family tree takes you directly back to King David himself? Then meet thousands of other crazies like yourself at the Eternal House of David Reunion in Jerusalem on May 28-30, 2007.
Read: Evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker wrote [subscription necessary] on Jewish IQ in The New Republic in June 2006. A more controversial evolutionary psychologist Kevin MacDonald has spent a career addressing Jewish group characteristics, which he terms an “evolutionary strategy” to keep tribal chromosomes exclusive. Judith Shulevitz called MacDonald “Evolutionary Psychology’s Anti-Semite” six years ago in Slate.

The cave bear and humans in Europe

2007-02-20T04:12:00.000-08:00

The cave bear populations of Europe changed, when anatomical modern humans came to Europe and replaced the Neanderthals around 28.000 years ago. This is the result of a new study by Svaante Pääbo and others in "Current Biology".

Immortality in biology and humans

2007-02-20T04:00:00.000-08:00

Religions often speak about immortality. But seldom they recognize, that immortality exist! It was famous german biologist August Weismann, who made that clear. In a newspaper of Illinois /US a biologist makes some remarks about it:

... A bit later in the latter half of the 19th century, the German medical pathologist Rudolph Virchow stated positively that all cells, both animal and plant, came only from pre-existing cells though he was not sure how this came about. Then, about 1880, the process of mitosis was discovered, and the secret of how both plant and animal cells make exact duplicates of themselves was revealed.

Another very important scientist during the late 1880s and early 20th century was August Weismann, who died in 1914. Weismann was an avid supporter of Darwin’s theory of the evolution of species by means of natural selection. Prior to Darwin, the most widely-accepted theory of evolution was the one embracing the inheritance of acquired characters that was proposed by Jean Baptiste Lamarck in 1810.

Weismann set out to prove Lamarck’s theory was nonsense. For 14 generations, he cut the tails off mice and bred them. All of the offspring generated during the 14 generation period were born with tails, while their parents had been tailless.

Weismann said the body of an animal is made of two parts, the body cells or somatoplasm and the reproductive cells or the germplasm. He stressed that hereditary characters were passed on only through the germplasm. He pointed out that the somatoplasm died with each generation, but the germplasm was immortal, it went on forever. This is true.

Did you ever wonder where you came from? (...)

Though our body cells may die, our germplasm does not but lives forever if we do our biological duty and reproduce. In this simplistic sense, the physical side of man is truly immortal.

Germany needs a cultural shift to philosophical roots

2007-02-19T01:38:00.000-08:00

In "The Wall Street Journal" Nobel Laureat Edmund S. Phelps asks, why Europe's economic development is not as good as the economic development of the United States:

The nations of Continental Western Europe, in the reforms they make to try to raise their economic performance, may prove to be a testing ground for the view that culture matters for a society's economic results.

As is increasingly admitted, the economic performance in nearly every Continental country is generally poor compared to the U.S. and a few other countries that share the U.S.'s characteristics. Productivity in the Continental Big Three -- Germany, France and Italy --stopped gaining ground on the U.S. in the early 1990s, then lost ground as a result of recent slowdowns and the U.S. speed-up. Unemployment rates are generally far higher than those in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Ireland. And labor force participation rates have been lower for decades. Relatedly, the employee engagement and job satisfaction reported in surveys are mostly lower, too.

I think, this is mostly a thing of mentality. Europeans today do not work so exhaustingly as do people in the United States. Europeans often are not so enthusiastic about their work. They're not so enthusiastic by "making things running". But may be, there is more in it. May be the german mentality cannot be motivated so easily only by the goal of "making money" or by the goal of "making things running". May be, german mentality needs more to be really as motivated as people in english-speaking countries are today. They need "ideas" or better: "ideals".

But the article has more precise information about the "Big Three" (Germany, Italy, France):

The values that might impact dynamism are of special interest here. Relatively few in the Big Three report that they want jobs offering opportunities for achievement (42% in France and 54% in Italy, versus an average of 73% in Canada and the U.S.); chances for initiative in the job (38% in France and 47% in Italy, as against an average of 53% in Canada and the U.S.), and even interesting work (59% in France and Italy, versus an average of 71.5% in Canada and the U.K). Relatively few are keen on taking responsibility, or freedom (57% in Germany and 58% in France as against 61% in the U.S. and 65% in Canada), and relatively few are happy about taking orders (Italy 1.03, of a possible 3.0, and Germany 1.13, as against 1.34 in Canada and 1.47 in the U.S.).

The article ends with a thought, that resembles my own:

Perhaps the way out -- to go from unsatisfactory performance to high performance -- will require not only reform of institutions but also a cultural shift that returns Europe to the philosophical roots that put it on the map to begin with.

Michael Frayn - a neo-Hegelian?

2007-02-19T00:17:00.000-08:00

I like Michael Frayn because of his "Copenhagen". He had done a good scientific work also by writing it. Now he has written a philosophical book (500 pages!). Title: "The Human Touch - Our Part in the Creation of the Universe". I have read until now only a review in the "New York Times". Frayn tries to renew a somewhat form of philosophical idealism in the footsteps of Hegel. I don't think, that he will convince me, but his book seems to be an interesting one:

... Frayn, though, is no neo-Hegelian lotus-eater. He has a healthy respect for the power of external reality to constrain our world-making. Indeed, what makes “The Human Touch” so rewarding is the subtlety and humor with which he examines “the great mutual balancing act.” There may be something godlike in the way we “bring into their various forms of existence all the receding ontological planes of the world we inhabit,” but we are also at the mercy of that world’s whims. A brick to the head and the whole show comes to an end.
As to whether Frayn will push philosophy in an idealizing direction, I’m not so sure. The last time I asked a couple of philosophers what they had against idealism, they chucklingly replied that if it were true, they’d have made a world in which they were twice as rich.

About brains, hearts and gonads

2007-02-17T01:40:00.000-08:00

Reading Gene expression of Razib Khan often gives opportunity to think things anew. Here are some new thoughts of mine about religion:

Humans have a brain, humans have a heart and humans have gonads. Scientists often forget that "thing between" - because THIS is a really complicated thing.

I think, it is too often overlooked today, that religion (and philosophical metaphysics of any sort) in former days had mostly to do with that "thing between". Both of the two other organs, people thought in former times, should be ruled by the heart. So - for example - in former days it was not so important for people to believe in a PERSONAL god (because this is mostly a theme of the brain), but it was important for them to have a good heart and to be a good person in everyday life and family life. And they were aware, that being a good person with a good heart HAS (often) very much to do with certain metaphysics. Because metaphysics can give you motivations to behave (very) altruistically.

Today we too often only take our brain, when we try to understand religion and metaphysics. And we forget the function of religions and metaphysics concerning hearts, and that means mostly: concerning feelings of love and hate. I think, this is a main function of deception and self-deception also. And deception and self-deception is not only a thing of individuals but also of communities, societies, even epochs.

If humans have too much (one-sided) gonads-activity, the "things between" will mostly be forgotten. And if humans have too much (one-sided) brain-activity the "things between" also will be forgotten.

Vikings - Destroyers of forests?

2007-02-16T03:37:00.000-08:00

Vikings on Iceland: Destroyers of forests?

Birch and willow forests like this one at Lake Mývatn used to cover much of Iceland's interior. Viking settlers cleared the forest for their pastures and burned the trees to make charcoal. The forests have never recovered. It is estimated that 90 percent of Iceland's pre-settlement forest is gone. (Sigurgeir Sigurjónsson)

Polygyny and Patriarchy good for women?

2007-02-14T05:09:00.000-08:00

In Germany we have famous Rainer Langhans, former boy-friend of Uschi Obermaier of the times of 1968 "and all that", who has his "harem" in Munich even now. One man with three or four women. But everyone has his own houshold and his own freedom to come and to go with whom he or she wants. They're discussing a whole lot about all that between each other - and sometimes in talk-shows - and (I think) they will discuss till life ends. Rainer Langhans has no children. So one more dead end of evolution, that the cultural revolution of 1968 has produced.

But we can observe other social experiments on that line. The current "Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute" has a review of a book called "Desert Patriarchy" (author of the book: Janet Bennion) about polygyny within the Mormons. And it is said:

... Mainstream Mormons are proud of their polygamous ancestors, but often find the concept repugnant in the present day. Wider secular society tends to associate polygamy only with poverty, ignorance, and child abuse. It is therefore particularly interesting that Bennion has demonstrated the success of such communities in recruiting women from the wider world (Mormon and non-Mormon) to live as plural wives. Such women, she argues, are seeking an escape from the contradictory demands of paid work versus motherhood, from high divorce rates and the associated poverty and isolation of unpartnered women in secular society. They are also seeking a life of spiritual and practical challenge, which offers its own satisfactions. The heavily patriarchal structure of Mormon fundamentalism actually produces communities in which women have an unexpected if ambiguous degree of automony. Since men are outnumbered and often absent, women constitute powerfully cohesive female networks.

And the last sentences:

'Desert patriarchy' closes with Bennion's call, as she contemplates the gains as well as the losses of the patriarchal lifestyle for the women who live it, for social science to acknowledge the complexity in such situations of apparent female subordination. In providing three important case studies in this enterprise, this is a thought-provoking book which will be widely read.

So, nothing is said here about birth-rates.

My question for Richard Dawkins

2007-02-13T01:01:00.000-08:00

At the moment I'm reading Richard Dawkins' "God Delusion". And there is a lot of stuff in it, that needs to be thought through. I have read also a lot of interviews with Richard Dawkins concerning the themes of his book. But one questions seems never to be asked yet and I would be very interested, what Dawkwins would have to say about it:

Is atheism an evolutionarily stable strategy?

(For the term evolutionarily stable strategy [= ESS] look here.) And this is one of the core questions of this blog also. For example on pages 263, 264 Dawkins gives good examples for "New Ten Commandments". And one of his own would be - he says: "Value the future on a timescale longer than your own." So this is, I think, thinking in evolutionarily stable strategies, if it comes to humans and their societies. So, to what sort of result he might come, if he would do that by looking at birth rates of atheists world wide and in his own country and at birth rates of monotheist's world wide and in his own country? I think, no one can say today, that atheism is an evolutionarily stable strategy.

So one of the big questions could be for the future: What sort of world view (for societies, for human groups) will be an evolutionarily stable strategy from a modern atheistic point of view, that has completely abandoned all that confused and confusing monotheism of the last two millennias? This is one of the main (or core) questions of this blog.

I want here try to formulate a very provisional thesis concerning all that: Because the world itself (matter, the universe, laws of evolution) is not "atheistic", "meaningless", without sense, standing still as humans in those pure "atheistic" attitudes and world views is not in accordance with the laws of nature, not in accordance with the laws of the human psyche. Deep in nature's laws and structures we can find sense, we can find beauty, we can find religiousness - if we LIKE to do that - and even (or mostly) from a pure scientific standpoint of view. A lot of scientits do that at the moment. And this Richard Dawkins says for himself very often in one way or another. He cites for example Albert Einstein for that very experience and a lot of others on several occassions. But only stating that and standing still in a pure "atheistic" world view might not be enough, because - to say it simply: it does not seem to change birth rates.

I think, the problem is, that every day life and culture of human societies TODAY do not mirror the emotions and experiences of scientists in THEIR every day life. Every day life and culture - and mostly mass media - are trying to ignore the very fact, that life and the universe for itself is MORE than boring "sex sells (- with or without cultural values)". (This only as one example of predominate cultural values of today.) And by that this societies lose simply their connections to the basic laws of nature and survival. Because for true human values sexuality is MORE than pure "sex" (- for example). This universe is NOT made "to make money", but may be, it is more "made for" questioning, what it is made for.

And if humans and societies give the answer: "There doesn't exist any answer to this very question, it is silly to ask this question, the deepest sense of nature and the universe is mere and meaningless chance" - then nature's and the universe's laws seems to "tell" humans: You are meaningless for us, we do not need you any longer. If YOU do not ask for the deeper natural laws of survival of human societies, nature has not any longer any "interest" for YOU. I do not speak here in terms of a "deity" or something like that, I simply think in terms of materialistic natural laws. They can "tell" you something also. And if you do NOT listen to what they say, may be, you're making a very deep fallacy. Does there exist a term for the very opposite of the famous "naturalistic fallacy"? I think, that should be termed and defined also as a fallacy. May be: the atheistic fallacy? Google gives no answer at the moment to that term.

Possibly, the natural laws are telling us: We, the natural laws, are "made", that someone like you exist to give answers to those questions and not only in the scientific communitiy (ivory tower), but also in everyday life of societies. Human societies have gone too far away from meaning, from beauty and awe, that are compatible with the universe and that are NOT compatible with values like "sex sells". The last mentioned value destroys our sense for beauty and awe even concerning our most beloved friends, neighbours, children and spouses (or possible spouses).

Our talk-shows, our apathy concerning the most worsest deeds of human history in the last 100 years, concerning most huge atrocities and genocides and criminality against human societies, against our atmosphere, against animals and plants, against the love of homeland of humans, against the most deepest cultural values and contents of the western world (Abendland) - isn't all that a mirror of something?

Human traits and their evolution - a new book

2007-02-12T12:18:00.000-08:00

The OMIM-databank ("Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man") is full of scientific literature concerning data and theories about the evolutionary causes of the worldwide distribution (frequencies) of inborn human traits - of EVERY inborn human trait, we know about today. Only very few popular science books exist today, that try to give the public an understanding at least of the tip of the iceberg, that is formed by that databank - that is humanity's knowledge about itself. So a lot of reason exist to welcome books, that are publicised in that field. We have to thank "Gene Expression" once more for giving a hint to a new book in this field:

A review of Survival of the Sickest, by Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince

(...)

Most of the chapters are centered around the population genetics of a disease. This is fascinating material, and Moalem (along with his co-author) does a wonderful job presenting it. Each chapter starts with an observation--a high prevalance of Type I diabetes in Europeans, the frequency of a genetic disease called hemochromatosis, or the geographic distribution of favism, for example--which sets the stage for a series of anecdotes that eventually leads the reader to his evolutionary hypothesis (for the examples given, these hypotheses are adaptation to cold and resistance to the plague and malaria, repectively). Some of these anecdotes are worth the price of the book alone (though, it must be noted, I didn't pay for my copy, so I suppose I can't judge)--there's an investigation of the biology of a toad that allows itself to freeze solid each winter that is particularly remarkable, and the section on host manipulation by parasites would make Carl Zimmer proud. A large number of human traits are touched on from this perspective--apart from the ones mentioned above, traits like skin color, alcoholism, taste, and even skull shape get mentions[1].

While these chapters are the highlight of the book, an alert reader may notice a couple hints that perhaps the science isn't definitive on some of these stories: first, the oft-added qualifier that a given theory (for example, that the high rate of hypertension in African-Americans is due to selection for salt retention on slave boats) is "controversial", and second, that there are a number of theories for some of the observations. The prevalence of diabetes, for instance, is attributed to metabolic systems unaccustomed to carbohydrate-rich diets (pg. 26), a selective sweep for better cold response during the Younger Dryas (pg. 46), and transgenerational epigentic effects, the so-called "thrifty phenotype" hypothesis (pg. 166). These possibilities are not mutually exclusive, but a reconciliation of all of them would certainly have been desirable.

(...)

[1] Moalem gives a cursory look at the concept of "race" with regard to these traits, but essentially chooses not to discuss it, preferring to cite a Nature Genetics editorial from 2001 as saying that "population clusters identified by genotype analysis seem to more informative than those identified by skin color or self-declaration of race". Regular readers know that much has changed since 2001; in particular, there doesn't seem to be much of a distinction between genetic clusters and clusters based on self-declaration of race [Tang et al. 2005].

Children have inborn morality - and adults?

2007-02-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

Some scientists claim (here Marc Hauser), that humans have an inborn morality. As far as we talk about children, I'm easily to convince, so the first part of the following story sounds very convincing for me:

Last week, Harvard professor Marc Hauser dropped in to his daughter Sofia's kindergarten class and presented the children with a moral dilemma. You must all keep your eyes closed for 30 seconds, he told them. If none of you raises your hand during that time, you will each get a sheet of stickers when it's over. But if one of you raises your hand, only that child will get all the stickers.

The task brought immediate cries of protest, Hauser recalled. "But that's not fair!" some children exclaimed, shocked at the idea that one child could hog all the stickers.

Some might say that the kindergartners, in their short lives, had already learned much about the nature of justice. But Hauser goes a step further: Morality, he argues, is influenced by cultural teachings but is also so deep and universal an aspect of human existence that it is effectively "hard-wired" into the brain, much like the instinct for language.

The last sentence is:

(...) As for the kindergarten class and the sticker dilemma, not a single child raised a greedy hand -- and they shared the stickers equally.

We know also, that children in the age of three "cannot" lie and they "have to learn" to lie until the age of five or so. The same may be true with their reaction "That's not fair!" here. And the same may be true some years later, when they will smile about such an experiment - as adults do. Adults are another species of humans.

Europeans in China (220 BC)

2007-02-08T04:51:00.000-08:00

From time to time we receive new facts about european genetical influences in China, most probably mediated by the Tocharians living from 2000 BC to 400 AD in the Talimakan desert at the north-western border of China. Evidenced by hundreds of mummies in Urumchi museum. But a lot of other european-derived populations also existed in the eurasian steppe around the boarders of China.

In summer last year "Archaeology" magazine had an interview with Victor Mair, one of the specialists concerning european influences in bronze age China, where new facts were mentioned (not very precise - but you have to take what you can get).

Are new DNA findings a surprise or just one more piece of evidence for China's early connections?

According to a news report from China, DNA analysis indicates that at least one of the workers who constructed the tomb of Qinshihuang, the first emperor of China, was in fact of west Eurasian ancestry. ARCHAEOLOGY talked to the University of Pennsylvania's Victor Mair about this announcement and its implications for understanding ancient connections between China and the West. (...)

DNA analysis from archaeological remains can be very tricky. What can you tell us about the researchers involved with this case?

For the present time, I will say this about the genetics research that forms the basis of the recent announcement. First of all, it was done in the very best population genetics lab in China, that of Prof. Jin Li at Fudan. This is a state of the art facility. I have visited it several times, and I can attest that the equipment and skills of the researchers there are at a world standard. I know Xu Zhi and Tan Jingze, both of whom were quoted in the reports. These are careful, serious scientists. Incidentally, early DNA specialists from Jilin University in northeast China are also working on the Tarim Basin mummies at the moment. I have visited that lab too, and I am certain that it will be the source of equally remarkable news before long.

Was just this one set of remains tested?

Of the 121 shattered skeletons, 15 were tested, but so far only one of them appears to have a west Eurasian genetic profile. It is said that his genetic features mark him as belonging to T-genodeme, which unmistakably belongs to a western haplotype. Specifically, Chinese geneticists say that this links him with people living to the west of the Pamirs: the Parsi (Persians) in India and Pakistan, the Kurds in Turkmenistan, and the Persians in Iran. (...)

Religion, fertility and modern intellectuals

2007-02-08T01:56:00.000-08:00

"Religiousness" may be at a deeper level the "missing link" of current sociobiological theory. Because religiousness shows the best correlations with fertility in all human cultures.

I said this some weeks ago in a comment to Razib Khan's Blog. I think it is too important not to repeat here. Razib asked "Does it?" and I gave this study by Michael Blume (pdf) as an evidence for this thesis.

Even if the Templeton-Foundation and a lot of other organizations are funding very much science concerning scientific approaches to religion, this thesis of Michael Blume has not found so much attention yet in the scientific communitiy (as far as I can see).

Now I had some disagreement with Razib (in the comments: here and here), because I try to apply the mentioned thesis to world history as a whole. I like Razib Khan very much, because he is looking for truth like me in a lot of areas like me and because he knows a lot of things better than me (for example human genetics). We had some disagreements yesterday concerning some interpretations of historical processes. And the deeper reason for this disagreement - I think now - may be found in what famous Jürgen Habermas as a typical atheistic intellectual has said about himself - that he is "religiously unmusical".

Since Habermas has talked together with the former Cardinal Ratzinger (now pope Benedict XVI.) about the necessity of religion for our society (in the year 2004), this "being unmusical concerning religion" may have a new importance for the public discourse. Surley, at the state of science now we cannot "measure" the inborn or learned ability for being "religiously musical" very precise. But to speak about this is becoming important more and more, I think.

Truth may not always be "polite". All the more if it comes to religiousness and morals. So I think we cannot avoid to have sometimes a little bit "impolite" discussions about impolite truths. This has something to do with our own infertility and atheistic attitudes as well, I think. We're reasoning very "politly" about rises and declines of cultures - and in the time we're doing that, the great culture of the western world, in which we live, is declining and declining mostly by birth rates and mostly by low birth rates of the IQ-elites that we think we represent.

So, I think, there are reasons sometimes to become a little bit impatiently - even if you are in pure scientific discussions and even if you have pure scientific attitudes. I think, it IS science, that can make you sometimes impatiently and impolite. So I try to formulate the following thesis: Atheism is a force that can make people "religiously unmusical". And then people do not understand any longer at a deeper level, why people do not have enough children and why cultures rise or decline because of that.

Emotions in history

2007-02-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

Emotions can rise high discussing the greater aspects of world history: Why rise of culture? Why decline of culture? Why first agriculture around 10.000 BC? Why cultural change around 400 AD? A lot of details have to be taken into account, if you want to get the story right.
And because history is made by the emotions of humans, it is possible, that discussion about (such) causes of history can also rise emotions. ;-)
So there were some quite interesting discussions on "Gene Expression" about those questions (here and here), that I do not want to repeat here.
But surely, possibility to continue discussion exists.

Ok, only to put an answer to Razib's last argument. Razib says: "when i say i did 'research' on the peasant's war of 1525, i mean that i took a course where we studied primary sources about that war for the whole term. i tend to, obviously, disagree with the assertion that there would have been 'No peasant's war in that scale without Luther,' but you'll have to take my word for it since i'm not going to dig up the books i have on the topic and go chapter & verse."

It is possible to say to this, that we know about peasant "revolts" all over Europe before and after the peasant's war of 1525, but never again and never before in that scale, ranging from Saxonia to Austria to Alsace, Tyrol ... . For some of the peasant leaders it was meant to be a national (mostly political) revolution. That's right. But all that couldn't have taken place without the massiv attack of Luther against the pope in Rome and his famous "Freedom of a Christian" ("Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen"). This gave the peasants the arguments and the "emotions" for longing for political and local freedoms also against the local authorities, against the nobility, against the bishops. In that scale it was never seen before, never seen again.

Why agriculture?

2007-02-03T00:55:00.000-08:00

Razib Khan is discussing the factors that gave rise to agriculture in humankind. Several years ago I have made very extensive studies about the first agrarian societies in the Levant (12.000 to 8.000 years before present) also, so I have to say something about that:

Tuareg people and other nomads are gathering seeds of (wild) plants only, if they're VERY, VERY hungry. It is a very hard work, much more hard work to live by harvesting and (later) growing corn, than to eat fruits of trees or game without much work. This is, what archaeologists have brought out in the last years.

So agriculture must be the product of something like "Benedictine" or "protestant" work ethic like in industrial revolution in later times. There are some hints, that the first agrarian societies in the Levant ("pre-pottery neolithic" = PPNA and PPNB) have been societies with strong social control (city "despots" and other things).

Also it seems, that there has been a lot of "group selection" between the inhabitants of the first agricultural cities in the Levant. A lot of fluctuations, abandoning of old city places, founding new ones, conquering others and so on. See also the first "fortification" of humankind in PPNA-Jericho. See also the "Helwan point culture"-expansion from north to south at the beginning of PPNB with its rectangle grill-plan-houses.

Human groups with strong religious feelings AND a hard "work ethic" have often a lot of children also. Hard work ethic WITHOUT strong religious feelings often fails to prodcue very much children - as we all know.

Population bottleneck during "out of africa"

2007-01-24T23:46:00.000-08:00

New hints for a population bottleneck concerning (anatomical modern) humans leaving the african continent were presented in "Annals of Human Genetics":

"... At the NF1 gene locus two clearly separated groups of haplotypes, corresponding to the two haplogroups described by us (Schmegner et al. 2005), are present in the European population and both Asian populations, but not in the African population. This argues against a population bottleneck during the immigration of the AMH into Europe, because a reduction to two NF1 gene lineages during this event would not have affected the Asian populations. At the chromosome 22 locus a different picture is obtained for the European and Asian populations, with no split into two clearly separated subgroups of haplotypes. The patterns for the two loci in the African population are quite similar. Therefore, if a population bottleneck is considered to explain the variability patterns, the HapMap data show that this bottleneck most probably occurred throughout the emigration of the AMH out of Africa. Recently signs of a population bottleneck in variability data obtained for a number of genomic loci in European and Asian populations, but not in African populations, were described and also led to the conclusion that this bottleneck occurred after the appearance of the AMH in Africa, and thus presumably during the emigration out of Africa (Harpending & Rogers, 2000; Balciuniene et al. 2001; Alonso & Armour, 2004; Marth et al. 2004; Stajich & Hahn, 2005; Voight et al. 2005)."

And for Europe only:

"Regarding demography, the most plausible explanation is the assumption of a severe bottleneck in the history of the European population: in the case of the chromosome 17 locus two ancient lineages passed this bottleneck; for the chromosome 22 locus it was only one ancient lineage."

Traditional egalitarian societies in transition

2007-01-21T00:43:00.000-08:00

A new study in „Evolution and Human Behavior“ asks for the selection pressures put upon a traditional egalitarian society (in the Amazonian forest), that is in transition to become integrated into modern industrialized (Bolivian) society with its huge division of labour. They ask for the personal characteristics that make persons successful in the new economic environment. Their main concept is “patience” or: “the ability to delay gratification”.

Differences in this area, they write, “allow people to deal with disequilibrium and to use local resources better, thereby enhancing their inclusive fitness”. They have a lot of good thoughts and insights about all that but – it seems to me: the main problem is that their study is not informed by modern IQ-genetics. We know about modern societies that their social inequality and division of labour (between countries worldwide and inside of them) have a lot to do with IQ and that IQ has a lot to do with genetics. So it seems to me, that it could be also the personal IQ of a member of a traditional society that predisposes him or her to participate more or less in the new or in the traditional economic environment. For the old, traditional economic environment you do not need so much IQ as you need for the new economic environment. But alas, they have made good personal tests with their participants but no IQ-tests. They write:

“Once a society opens up to the market economy, one should see patient and impatient people sorting themselves into different groups (...) Patient people will sidle to schools, while the impatient will continue” to perform traditional ways of life, “BECAUSE people have to wait a long time to reap any returns to schooling.”

“Because”? Are young children (grades one to four) patiently in school “because” of rewards and gratifications later in life? I don’t think so at least not before puberty. I think at this point it becomes clear, that the concept of “the ability to delay gratification” cannot be the whole story. Are children successful in schools “because” of their patience or are they patient because they’re successful? I think, the latter is more plausible, but sure, personal characteristics like AHDS will have influences as well. But if you have good teachers – may be – those personal characteristics will not have so much influence - ? It would be interesting to separate IQ from other personal factors more precisely to estimate the factors that influences personal economic success instead of IQ. Surely there are more factors. But do we have about them as good and valid datas as about IQ?

Me

2007-01-18T23:01:00.000-08:00

I'm running a Scienceblog in German butI like to broaden my readership and my partners for discussion. So I try to make this blog.

I have studied history, biology, philosophy and at the moment I'm mostly interested in all new trends in sociobiology and human genetics. Several years ago, I also have begun a dissertation in this area. At the moment I find myself mostly interested in the intellectual area around "Gene Expression" and around the interdisciplinary and comparative study of religion in the sense of Michael Blume.