Debate re Rushton in Anthro-L

[william smyth]

I mentioned a few days ago that there was an interesting debate
going on in Anthro-L concerning J. Phillipe Rushtons theory
re r-K reproduction strategies. Dr. Rushton posted an article--
although I don't think the article started the thread. Well, I think
what I meant to say was that I thought the debate would be
interesting. But the responses to Rushton were, except for one,
very poor. Although I agree with Rushtons views (but think that
Edward Miller's very similier parental investment theory is better) I
would have liked to see some good counter arguments from the
anthropologists in Anthro-L.
However the counter arguments have been of the variety--"Define your
terms."
"Who is Black", "There are no races." And, "Scientific racism should be
ignored."
These first "arguments" are easily disposed of by pointing out that while
it is
true that racial groups blend at the peripheries of their evolutionary
homelands--
in the center of these areas archetypes exist that are quite distinct. And
scientists
can and do point to differences in frequencies of disease in these
populations.
The argument that Rushton et al should be ignored is terribly weak. You
don't
ignore a nonsensical argument, you shoot it down entirely with facts. You
ignore an
argument you can't refute, just as a defense attorney will often ignore an
irrefutable point from the prosecution.
Although I believe in "race realism", very good arguments can be made
against
it . One such argument was made in the Anthro-L debate. That is that
South
East Asians or "Malays" who separated from the "out of Africa" migrants
before
Caucasions and Mongoloids split, show high IQs in south China (same as the
North Chinese) but IQs of 85 in South East Asia and the Phillipines. This
point
can be countered by pointing out that South East Asians show the same
cold adaptation as Northeast Asians (epicanthic fold, high cheekbones, flat

face) and so may have also adopted the "K" stategy of Rushton, or the
low birthrate, high parental investment of Miller, to deal with wintery
conditions.
The strongest argument against a genetic basis for the Black White IQ gap
has not been mentioned in the Anthro L debate. That is that there is no
correllation between percentage of white ancestry in Blacks and IQ. That
can
be seen by looking at any picture of a Black bar association. These
attorneys
look as Negroid as the general population. They don't look as white as
the
"black" girls who are debutantes in Black high society. Race realists who
try and refute this can only point to whole black populations such as those
in Oakland,
California (more white blood) compared to those in Georgia. (more Negroid).
Studies
with individuals in these populations confirm the no correllation results
repeatedly.
Studies going back 50 years have mentioned the "dilemma" or "paradox"
of the low to non -existent correllation between IQ and Caucasion blood in
Negros. This is very apparent at the far right of the bell curve, 3
standard
deviations out.---where it would be expected that the beneficial effects of

white ancestry would be accentuated. But they are not. Black geniuses
are
as Black as the average Negro.

[Dr. Efram E. Goldstein]

william smyth <westsid...@msn.com> wrote in article
<01bd1476$3d627100$75472299@westside>...

> I mentioned a few days ago that there was an interesting debate
> going on in Anthro-L concerning J. Phillipe Rushtons theory
> re r-K reproduction strategies.

I encourage you to buy his book (the recent
paperback edition has a new chapter).
Race, Evolution, and Behavior (1996).
It is available through Amazon.com.

> The strongest argument against a genetic basis for the Black White IQ gap
> has not been mentioned in the Anthro L debate. That is that there is no
> correllation between percentage of white ancestry in Blacks and IQ.

To the contrary, Rushton cites several good studies
that show IQ increases in mulattos with increasing
white genetic admixture.

[E...@cheerful.com]

On Mon, 29 Dec 1997 18:48:14 -0800, "william smyth" <westsid...@msn.com>
wrote:

I disagree with some of Rushton's methodologies and conclusions but see your
arguments as having problems also.

>One such argument was made in the Anthro-L debate. That is that
>South
>East Asians or "Malays" who separated from the "out of Africa" migrants
>before
>Caucasions and Mongoloids split,

I assume this is according to the genetic tree by Cavalli-Sforza, This split is
shown at
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/4827/GeneticTeeNei.jpg
North-Eurasians and SouthEast Asians are shown to split following the 'out of
Africa'. However he says that a slightly different way of analysis puts the
East Asians with the SouthEast Asians, or something to that effect, I am
looking for his exact quote and will post it when I find it.

> show high IQs in south China (same as the
>North Chinese) but IQs of 85 in South East Asia and the Phillipines.

I think you mentioned that the IQ tests was done in Hong Kong and the result
was over 100 while the ones in Philippines, etc showed around 85. Keep in mind
the 'Flynn Effect' which says that people raised in 'rich' societies(good
nutrition, pre/post natal, intellectual stimulation thru early schooling), ie:
HongKong, do about 15 points over ones raised in poorer societies, ie:
Philippines. Philip Rushton says this about Asian Indians in his book...
' The British results suggest that when Indians are reared in an economically
developed environment their intelligence level is about the same as that of
European Caucasoids.'

>The strongest argument against a genetic basis for the Black White IQ gap
>has not been mentioned in the Anthro L debate. That is that there is no

>correllation between percentage of white ancestry in Blacks and IQ. That
>can
>be seen by looking at any picture of a Black bar association. These
>attorneys
>look as Negroid as the general population. They don't look as white as
>the
>"black" girls who are debutantes in Black high society.

Skin color is a poor indicator of 'negroid' level since only 3 to 4 genes
determine skin color. The caucasoid/negroid difference amounts to about 150
genes so that the dark skinned lawyers could have high caucasoid admixture and
still have average Afro-American skin color. Only a DNA test on the lawyers
would reveal their 'blackness'

>I thought the debate would be
>interesting. But the responses to Rushton were, except for one,
>very poor. Although I agree with Rushtons views (but think that
>Edward Miller's very similier parental investment theory is better) I
>would have liked to see some good counter arguments

I would encourage people to contribute by joinint the listserv, simply send the
following message where fff=your first name lll=last name

SUBSCRIBE ANTHRO-L fff lll

e-mail to
LIST...@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

[C. W. Young]

william smyth wrote:

> would have liked to see some good counter arguments from the
> anthropologists in Anthro-L.

Where does one find Anthro_l?

[Phipps]

william smyth wrote:
>
> can be countered by pointing out that South East Asians show the same
> cold adaptation as Northeast Asians (epicanthic fold, high cheekbones, flat
>
> face) and so may have also adopted the "K" stategy of Rushton, or the
> low birthrate, high parental investment of Miller, to deal with wintery
> conditions.

Sweden had a high birthrate until it became prosperous (ditto Ireland).

Is Sweden not northern?

-Ph

[Phipps]

Dr. Efram E. Goldstein wrote:
>
> william smyth <westsid...@msn.com> wrote in article
> <01bd1476$3d627100$75472299@westside>...
> > I mentioned a few days ago that there was an interesting debate
> > going on in Anthro-L concerning J. Phillipe Rushtons theory
> > re r-K reproduction strategies.
>
> I encourage you to buy his book (the recent
> paperback edition has a new chapter).
> Race, Evolution, and Behavior (1996).
> It is available through Amazon.com.
>

> > The strongest argument against a genetic basis for the Black White IQ gap
> > has not been mentioned in the Anthro L debate. That is that there is no
> > correllation between percentage of white ancestry in Blacks and IQ.
>

> To the contrary, Rushton cites several good studies
> that show IQ increases in mulattos with increasing
> white genetic admixture.

One can easily expect persons of mixed heritage to benefit from
developing under the influence of contrasting cultures, having more
input - so to speak - and having somehow to reconcile the differences
among these cultures. Other things being equal, those individuals might
have an inherent comparative advantage (no pun intended)

-Ph
--
邢 唷��

[William Wallace]

On Tue, 30 Dec 1997 20:17:26 GMT, E...@cheerful.com wrote:

>I think you mentioned that the IQ tests was done in Hong Kong and the result
>was over 100

Over 100 which is over the European norm.

>while the ones in Philippines, etc showed around 85. Keep in mind
>the 'Flynn Effect' which says that people raised in 'rich' societies(good
>nutrition, pre/post natal, intellectual stimulation thru early schooling), ie:
>HongKong, do about 15 points over ones raised in poorer societies, ie:
>Philippines. Philip Rushton says this about Asian Indians in his book...
>' The British results suggest that when Indians are reared in an economically
>developed environment their intelligence level is about the same as that of
>European Caucasoids.'

Therefore people in Hong Kong are raised in a rich society as
compared to "european caucasoids." I was unaware Hong Kong was so
advanced so long ago. Perhaps you would like to digress upon the
higher economic level of Hong Kong vice western Europe at the time?

Please note that if you invoke "rich societies" then it has to
explain all differences. It can not be invoked to explain just the
ones you do not like.

-=-=-
If you can not identify the biases in real IQ tests, then
you are committing an act of faith, not of reason.
Iris response time:IQ score can not be culturally biased.

[Dwight E. Howell]

Phipps wrote:

The term is hybrid vigor.

It's why farmers wanted mules.

[Ton Maas]

In article <34A9CC...@slip.net>,
Phipps <mrph...@slip.net> wrote:

>Sweden had a high birthrate until it became prosperous (ditto Ireland).

When did Ireland become prosperous?

Ton

[E...@cheerful.com]

On Wed, 31 Dec 1997 05:42:17 GMT, William...@freeedom.org (William Wallace)
wrote:

>>while the ones in Philippines, etc showed around 85. Keep in mind
>>the 'Flynn Effect' which says that people raised in 'rich' societies(good
>>nutrition, pre/post natal, intellectual stimulation thru early schooling), ie:
>>HongKong, do about 15 points over ones raised in poorer societies, ie:
>>Philippines. Philip Rushton says this about Asian Indians in his book...
>>' The British results suggest that when Indians are reared in an economically
>>developed environment their intelligence level is about the same as that of
>>European Caucasoids.'
>
> Therefore people in Hong Kong are raised in a rich society as
>compared to "european caucasoids." I was unaware Hong Kong was so
>advanced so long ago. Perhaps you would like to digress upon the
>higher economic level of Hong Kong vice western Europe at the time?

This has nothing to do Europe. I was comparing life in Hong Kong with that in
Philippines, etc. By rich I don't mean excessive materialism as in the west
(or HK today) but only...
proper pre/post natal care
schooling at a young age
some intellectually stimulating tools, like toys, TV

HK had these for decades, the average Philippine woman today has 3.7 kids while
HK had a low fertility rate for decades. A family in former has fewer resources
to give to their kids.

[Phipps]

Depends on your definition of prosperous. Seen from Switzerland, Ireland
is poor; seen from Greece, Ireland is rich.

Ireland's levels of social development increased smartly since joining
the EEC, much as a result of the massive monetary transfers from the
rest of the EEC.

-Ph

--
邢 唷��

[K. C. Putnam]

William Wallace wrote:

> Please note that if you invoke "rich societies" then it has to
> explain all differences. It can not be invoked to explain just the
> ones you do not like.
>
> -=-=-
> If you can not identify the biases in real IQ tests, then
> you are committing an act of faith, not of reason.
> Iris response time:IQ score can not be culturally biased.

I tuned in on some of this "debate". It went like this: Dr.
Rushton made several points, only to be called "evil" by one
respondant, and accused of dispensing "bunk" by another.

This is what I call refined scientific dialog. Of course, they
are less subtle on this newsgroup.

When will people learn to discuss without name-calling? It is
not necessary to agree; just present your points in a civil
manner.

Mr. Wallace, you seem to be the target of most of the abuse on
this group so I am sure that you will know what I mean.

btw I think you should change that signoff. It is ambiguous and
seems to be self-contradictory (just my interpretation).

Anyway, keep on giving them hell.

Casey

[Danny Yee]

Those of you interested in the anthro-l debate on Rushton/IQ/race
are encouraged to actually look at the archive.

http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/archives/anthro-l.html

I have collected some of the posts at
http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/anthropology/anthro-l/debates/race-iq/

You will find that a lot of issues have been raised and questions asked
which Rushton simply refuses to confront or answer at all.

Danny.

[William Wallace]

On Sun, 04 Jan 1998 19:17:27 -0600, "K. C. Putnam" <ca...@logic.net>
wrote:

>William Wallace wrote:

>> Please note that if you invoke "rich societies" then it has to
>> explain all differences. It can not be invoked to explain just the
>> ones you do not like.

>> -=-=-
>> If you can not identify the biases in real IQ tests, then
>> you are committing an act of faith, not of reason.
>> Iris response time:IQ score can not be culturally biased.

>I tuned in on some of this "debate". It went like this: Dr.
>Rushton made several points, only to be called "evil" by one
>respondant, and accused of dispensing "bunk" by another.

>This is what I call refined scientific dialog. Of course, they
>are less subtle on this newsgroup.

It is the best they can do. They name call when they have nothing
else to offer. It is a matter of quasi-religious fervor. Despite
complete ignorance on the subject, they know the truth.

>When will people learn to discuss without name-calling? It is
>not necessary to agree; just present your points in a civil
>manner.

They have no points to make other than to condemn the violation
of something they would like to see as a taboo.

>Mr. Wallace, you seem to be the target of most of the abuse on
>this group so I am sure that you will know what I mean.

>btw I think you should change that signoff. It is ambiguous and
>seems to be self-contradictory (just my interpretation).

But it bothers them so. It continues to point out what they can
not do despite their assertions.

>Anyway, keep on giving them hell.

No less than they have earned.

[William Wallace]

On 5 Jan 1998 13:34:44 +1100, da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au
(Danny Yee) wrote:

>http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/archives/anthro-l.html

What in fact is to be found are the most obscure ramblings,
existentialist even, to try to avoid scientific fact. There is
deliberate obscurantism on fact versus theory. There are in fact all
kinds of gyrations to avoid the facts.

And then there are people like yourself who claim he refuses to
answer when there is no rational reason why anyone should waste their
time answering contrived sophmoric objections from those who obviously
do not comprehend the nature of the objection they are incorrectly
constructing.

[Tom Farrell]

I read Rushton's review of the book. I quote:

"Unacknowledged by Diamond is that the Chinese were often in advance of
Europeans. By 1442, for example, the Chinese had developed a vast ocean
going fleet which arrived off the east coast of Africa with 200 ships
and
20,000 men. (Contrast these logistics with those of Christopher
Columbus
who had only 3 ships and 200 men 50 years later!) The Chinese had
already
invented the magnetic compass and could easily have sailed around the
Cape
of Good Hope and ‘discovered’ Europe. That they did not do so and
instead
skuttled their ships and destroyed the plans for building them remains a
curiosity."

I have read the book - Rushton clearly has not, or at least not in
detail. The final chapter discusses *exactly* why China fell 'behind'
Europe and mentions all these factors (and in fact answers Rushton's
'curiosity')

Does this idiot pass himself off as some kind of authority?

Tom

[E...@cheerful.com]

In article <34B10B...@iona.com>,

Tom Farrell <tfar...@iona.com> wrote:
>
> I read Rushton's review of the book. I quote:
>
> "Unacknowledged by Diamond is that the Chinese were often in advance of
> Europeans. By 1442, for example, the Chinese had developed a vast ocean

> going fleet which arrived off the east coast of Africa with 200 ships...

Do you know what web page has this review, if not can you post it to this
ng?

-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet

[Gerold Firl]

In article <68pgs4$3rm$1...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au>, da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) writes:

|> Those of you interested in the anthro-l debate on Rushton/IQ/race
|> are encouraged to actually look at the archive.
|>
|> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/archives/anthro-l.html
|>
|> I have collected some of the posts at
|> http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/anthropology/anthro-l/debates/race-iq/

Thanks - I scanned some of the posts there, and it was interesting.

|> You will find that a lot of issues have been raised and questions asked
|> which Rushton simply refuses to confront or answer at all.

Well- most of the anti-rushton responses really weren't worth
answering. Some were emotional denunciations, some were nit-picky
diversions, and a few were actually intelligently crafted
disagreements. All shy away from confronting the difficult issues of
racial differences, however.

Lets consider east asian - white differences as mentioned by rushton.
Asian brain size and brain/body ratio are higher than whites. Asian
IQ is higher than whites. To me, that is strong evidence of a genetic
difference between asians and whites, reflecting a different
evolutionary trajectory for these (relatively) isolated populations.
Those divergant evolutionary histories have resulted in a different
cognitive profile for the two groups - if you disagree, please
explain why.

Are you willing to "confront or answer" this question? It does lead
to some uncomfortable conclusions, but facts don't go away because
they're uncomfortable.

--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Disclaimer claims dat de claims claimed in dis are de claims of meself,
me, and me alone, so sue us god. I won't tell Bill & Dave if you won't.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=---- Gerold Firl @ ..hplabs!hp-sdd!geroldf

[Danny Yee]

Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
>Lets consider east asian - white differences as mentioned by rushton.
>Asian brain size and brain/body ratio are higher than whites. Asian
>IQ is higher than whites. To me, that is strong evidence of a genetic
>difference between asians and whites, reflecting a different
>evolutionary trajectory for these (relatively) isolated populations.

Sigh. Do we have to go through this again? Racial labels such as "Asian"
and "White" are not genetic markers but socio-cultural classifications.
And IQ is an educational heuristic, not a biological property.

Looking for genetic causality behind correlations between
genetic/biological populations in genetic/biological characteristics
would be reasonable. (And _possibly_ your suggestion can be rewritten
in such a fashion.) Worded as is, it's just confusing.

But we've gone over these things repeatedly in anthro-l.
Here's the URL for the archive again:

http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/archives/anthro-l.html

The most recent debate is in December/January, though the topic crops
up every few years. Rushton seems to just ignore the criticism levelled
at his arguments (or at least, the criticisms with weight), though Matt
Giwer/Mikhael Frieden is in there spouting his usual guff.

>Those divergant evolutionary histories have resulted in a different
>cognitive profile for the two groups - if you disagree, please
>explain why.

* Very recent divergence.
* Continual gene exchange.
* Lack of any plausible selective forces for the property in question.
* Fairly obvious cultural dependence of the "data" (brain size *is*
heavily dependent on neo-natal nutrition; IQ tests are *not* "culture-free").
* But above all, a bizarre choice of "groups" and "cognitive profiles" for
a thesis about human evolutionary history. (If you want to reconstruct
the history of human genes, the logical thing is to do what Cavalli-Sforza
et al. do and to use genetic markers and biological populations.)

Danny.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <693pdf$4cg$1...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au>, da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) writes:
|> Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
|> >Lets consider east asian - white differences as mentioned by rushton.
|> >Asian brain size and brain/body ratio are higher than whites. Asian
|> >IQ is higher than whites. To me, that is strong evidence of a genetic
|> >difference between asians and whites, reflecting a different
|> >evolutionary trajectory for these (relatively) isolated populations.

|> Sigh. Do we have to go through this again? Racial labels such as "Asian"
|> and "White" are not genetic markers but socio-cultural classifications.
|> And IQ is an educational heuristic, not a biological property.

Asian and european populations have had a different evolutionary
trajectory. They have existed in a different environment, with
different selection pressures, and have had only limited genetic
exchange. The socio-cultural label corresponds to an actual
biological difference based on goegraphical and temporal separation.

And IQ, for all its' faults and limitations, does correlate with
significant aspects of cognition.

|> >Those divergant evolutionary histories have resulted in a different
|> >cognitive profile for the two groups - if you disagree, please
|> >explain why.

|> * Very recent divergence.

That is a non-factor. If selection pressures are sufficient,
divergance doesn't take very long. huge differences can develop in a
few dozen generations, and european and east asian populations have
been isolated a lot longer than that. We don't have good data yet on
how long it has been since the populations split, but the divergance
is obviously there.

|> * Continual gene exchange.

Now this is silly. The magnitude of genetic transfer across the
eurasian continent over the last 10,000 years is minute.

|> * Lack of any plausible selective forces for the property in question.

Increased cranial capacity? Increased intelligence? Don't be silly.
The selection pressure has been constant. more intelligent humans
have an increased chance of survival in all environments, at all
times.

|> * Fairly obvious cultural dependence of the "data" (brain size *is*
|> heavily dependent on neo-natal nutrition; IQ tests are *not* "culture-free").

Nonetheless, the data points to actual differences between
populations. It would be very strange if IQ tests developed in the
west were somehow culturally biased in favor of asians, and the fact
is, east asians have larger brain/body ratios than whites. That's
reality, not a sampling fluke caused by variations in neonatal
nutrition.

|> * But above all, a bizarre choice of "groups" and "cognitive profiles" for
|> a thesis about human evolutionary history.

East asians are a different population than western europeans. what
is so bizarre about that? There is something like 5000 miles between
them. Based on the best tests of cognitive function we have
availible, there are statistically significant differences between
these two populations. You may not like that fact, but fact it
remains.

[Hans-Georg Michna]

da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) wrote:

>Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:

>>Lets consider east asian - white differences as mentioned by rushton.
>>Asian brain size and brain/body ratio are higher than whites. Asian
>>IQ is higher than whites. To me, that is strong evidence of a genetic
>>difference between asians and whites, reflecting a different
>>evolutionary trajectory for these (relatively) isolated populations.

>Sigh. Do we have to go through this again? Racial labels such as "Asian"
>and "White" are not genetic markers but socio-cultural classifications.

Danny,

I know that the Chinese at times bound the feet of girls to keep
them smaller, a cultural influence on the size of a part of the
body. But how they culturally increased their brains is beyond
me.

>And IQ is an educational heuristic, not a biological property.

So you think. But you may be just as wrong on that.

Hans-Georg

[No mail please]

[William Wallace]

On 9 Jan 1998 11:01:51 +1100, da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au
(Danny Yee) wrote:

>The most recent debate is in December/January, though the topic crops
>up every few years. Rushton seems to just ignore the criticism levelled
>at his arguments (or at least, the criticisms with weight), though Matt
>Giwer/Mikhael Frieden is in there spouting his usual guff.

If it is the "usual guff" I find it strange you have not taken
the more rarified academic atmosphere of the mailing list to do better
than the name-calling and such you feel free to do in this newsgroup.
In fact, I look forward to it.

Are you reluctant for some reason?

>>Those divergant evolutionary histories have resulted in a different
>>cognitive profile for the two groups - if you disagree, please
>>explain why.

>* Very recent divergence.

A mere millenia is over fifty human breeding generations. Most
all divergences are prehistoric making them 300 generations.

>* Continual gene exchange.

Continual only at the boundaries of the different groups. The
diffusion rate must be compared to the drift rate. While on can make
the case that in all cases there has been gene exchange throughout all
history between people living on the British Isles and those in
Southeast Asia one can not describe the rate of such gene exchange in
terms that would not make glacial appear speedy prior to modern times.

>* Lack of any plausible selective forces for the property in question.

Allele shift does not require selective forces. However it is
difficult to imagine you believe droolers can beat geniuses any day.

>* Fairly obvious cultural dependence of the "data" (brain size *is*
>heavily dependent on neo-natal nutrition;

Again the ad hoc nonsense that purports to deal only with black
to white differences but can not be applied to all differences such as
white/oriental. If it can not explain all differences it is no more
than an ad hoc excuse for one difference, i.e. handwaving.

>IQ tests are *not* "culture-free").

This is an assertion you folks insist be taken on faith without
physical evidence. If you can find a culture based item in an IQ you
will be thanked by those who create IQ tests and they will remove it
has they have been doing for decades.

>* But above all, a bizarre choice of "groups" and "cognitive profiles" for

>a thesis about human evolutionary history. (If you want to reconstruct
>the history of human genes, the logical thing is to do what Cavalli-Sforza
>et al. do and to use genetic markers and biological populations.)

Data requires theory to change. Theory does not reject data.

The racial differences in IQ averages are reproducable and are
therefore scientific fact. Whether or not this fact can be explained
by current theory does not and can not negate scientific fact. It is
up to the theory to change.

=-=-=
There is no physical evidence of gas chambers.

[William Wallace]

On Fri, 09 Jan 1998 10:15:16 GMT, hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com
(Hans-Georg Michna) wrote:

>da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) wrote:

>>Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:

>>>Lets consider east asian - white differences as mentioned by rushton.
>>>Asian brain size and brain/body ratio are higher than whites. Asian
>>>IQ is higher than whites. To me, that is strong evidence of a genetic
>>>difference between asians and whites, reflecting a different
>>>evolutionary trajectory for these (relatively) isolated populations.

>>Sigh. Do we have to go through this again? Racial labels such as "Asian"
>>and "White" are not genetic markers but socio-cultural classifications.

>I know that the Chinese at times bound the feet of girls to keep

>them smaller, a cultural influence on the size of a part of the
>body. But how they culturally increased their brains is beyond
>me.

If you squeeze them at the bottom the top gets bigger. You know
that.

>>And IQ is an educational heuristic, not a biological property.

>So you think. But you may be just as wrong on that.

If in fact that were true it could be demonstrated.

The US has had a "head start" program for pre-schoolers
specifically aimed at "enriching" the environment, exactly tailored to
correct this IQ difference according to the education lack model. By
every study, there are cognative benefits of it for the young and by
all studies, that benefit vanished by the sixth grade.

In other words, the educational model has been experimentally
tested and it has failed.

[Peter]

Before I, personal, would be happy entering to deeply
into this debate, I would need to see some data on
the actual genetic differences in the genes between
groups of human in different parts of the world.

But even so, evolution act faster on the external
look of a creature than on any internal wiring.
We can look very different even from our
grandparents, yet still have the same intellectual
abilities. And as we only diverged a short time
(evolutionary) ago and had to deal with same the
problems in survival in different parts of the world.
It would not be surprising that we look differently,
yet have comparably spreads of intelligence's
amongst the population.

Another factor in evolution is that populations
under stress are more likely to evolve. Considering
Humankind's ability to problem solve, the environmental
selection has been reduced since the evolution of
a enlarged brain.

Now a point of IQ. Two populations may have
different IQ spreads, this is far more culturally
defined than genetically. For example, a Frenchman
would do worse than a Englishman at a English IQ test.
Any IQ test would need to be language and culturally
independent, but all IQ tests are language and culturally
dependant!

Peter

Gerold Firl wrote in message <88430899...@cs1.sdd.hp.com>...

>In article <693pdf$4cg$1...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au>,
da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) writes:

>|> Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
>|> >Lets consider east asian - white differences as mentioned by rushton.
>|> >Asian brain size and brain/body ratio are higher than whites. Asian
>|> >IQ is higher than whites. To me, that is strong evidence of a genetic
>|> >difference between asians and whites, reflecting a different
>|> >evolutionary trajectory for these (relatively) isolated populations.
>
>|> Sigh. Do we have to go through this again? Racial labels such as
"Asian"
>|> and "White" are not genetic markers but socio-cultural classifications.

>|> And IQ is an educational heuristic, not a biological property.
>

>Asian and european populations have had a different evolutionary
>trajectory. They have existed in a different environment, with
>different selection pressures, and have had only limited genetic
>exchange. The socio-cultural label corresponds to an actual
>biological difference based on goegraphical and temporal separation.
>
>And IQ, for all its' faults and limitations, does correlate with
>significant aspects of cognition.
>

>|> >Those divergant evolutionary histories have resulted in a different
>|> >cognitive profile for the two groups - if you disagree, please
>|> >explain why.
>
>|> * Very recent divergence.
>

>That is a non-factor. If selection pressures are sufficient,
>divergance doesn't take very long. huge differences can develop in a
>few dozen generations, and european and east asian populations have
>been isolated a lot longer than that. We don't have good data yet on
>how long it has been since the populations split, but the divergance
>is obviously there.
>
>|> * Continual gene exchange.
>
>Now this is silly. The magnitude of genetic transfer across the
>eurasian continent over the last 10,000 years is minute.
>

>|> * Lack of any plausible selective forces for the property in question.
>

>Increased cranial capacity? Increased intelligence? Don't be silly.
>The selection pressure has been constant. more intelligent humans
>have an increased chance of survival in all environments, at all
>times.
>

>|> * Fairly obvious cultural dependence of the "data" (brain size *is*

>|> heavily dependent on neo-natal nutrition; IQ tests are *not*
"culture-free").
>

>Nonetheless, the data points to actual differences between
>populations. It would be very strange if IQ tests developed in the
>west were somehow culturally biased in favor of asians, and the fact
>is, east asians have larger brain/body ratios than whites. That's
>reality, not a sampling fluke caused by variations in neonatal
>nutrition.
>

>|> * But above all, a bizarre choice of "groups" and "cognitive profiles"
for
>|> a thesis about human evolutionary history.
>

[Peter]

dependant! What you are measuring is the social and
intellectual IQ of different socities rather than the
intellectual genetic ability of their members.

[William Wallace]

On Sat, 10 Jan 1998 13:54:03 +1100, "Peter" <pe...@ace.net.oh> wrote:

>Before I, personal, would be happy entering to deeply
>into this debate, I would need to see some data on
>the actual genetic differences in the genes between
>groups of human in different parts of the world.

Certainly any reasonably large university library would have such
information. Does that mean you intend to stay out of the discussion
until you have mastered the material? It shouldn't take you more than
three or four years.

>But even so, evolution act faster on the external
>look of a creature than on any internal wiring.

I am certain that information will astound evolutionists around
the world. When are you going to publish?

>We can look very different even from our
>grandparents,

That is due to a lot of things but certain not to what you appear
to be assuming.

You are correct, you need to put in those years of research
before you participate.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <696o39$54s$1...@the-fly.zip.com.au>, "Peter" <pe...@ace.net.oh> writes:
|> Before I, personal, would be happy entering to deeply
|> into this debate, I would need to see some data on
|> the actual genetic differences in the genes between
|> groups of human in different parts of the world.
|>

|> But even so, evolution act faster on the external
|> look of a creature than on any internal wiring.

Why do you say that? There is absolutely no reason to think so,
except in regard to fundamental physiological or metabolic functions
and structures which are either so basic to survival (molecular
structure of ATP, the citric acid cycle of cell metabolism, basic
immunological response etc) or else are selectively neutral (blood
type), and hence not subject to localized adaptation. Many racial
differences are quite invisible. Cold-adapted populations are much
more resistant to frostbite than tropical groups, for instance.
Lactose-tolerance is only found among peoples who have kept dairy
animals in their history. These differences can not be seen from the
outside, but are key environmental adaptations.

|> We can look very different even from our

|> grandparents, yet still have the same intellectual
|> abilities. And as we only diverged a short time
|> (evolutionary) ago and had to deal with same the
|> problems in survival in different parts of the world.
|> It would not be surprising that we look differently,
|> yet have comparably spreads of intelligence's
|> amongst the population.

There certainly is a plausible argument in support of the
intellectual-egalitarian view: intelligence is *always* selected, in
any environment. While lactose-tolerance may have difficulty
diffusing from one population to another (say, russian to japanese)
intelligence be favorably selected in *any* population. That doesn't
mean that all races have exactly equal mental/cognitive profiles, of
course, but it will tend to level whatever gradients do exist.

|> Another factor in evolution is that populations
|> under stress are more likely to evolve. Considering
|> Humankind's ability to problem solve, the environmental
|> selection has been reduced since the evolution of
|> a enlarged brain.

Not true. The evolution of larger brains and greater intelligence has
created a positive feedback situation where smarts have increased
very rapidly. Dumb people are at a severe disadvantage in competition
with smart people. Once we gained mastery over our environment and
the other life forms in that environment (I'm tempted to date that
event alongside the creation of the great cave paintings, maybe
20,000 years ago) our greatest competition became ourselves. That has
been the fiercest competition of all.

|> Now a point of IQ. Two populations may have
|> different IQ spreads, this is far more culturally
|> defined than genetically.

Well, I'm not up on the state of the art regarding IQ testing, but
apparently a lot of cross-cultural comparisons have been done, and
some differences have been found in the cognitive profiles of
different races. Studies comparing koreans adopted by belgian
families, between adopted children and their sibs have shown
statistically significant differences. Same culture, same
socio-economic status, different results. The fact that the asians
scored higher than the europeans in visuo-spatial reasoning is strong
support for innate, genetically-mediated differences in
intelligence.

[Hans-Georg Michna]

ger...@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) wrote:

>There certainly is a plausible argument in support of the
>intellectual-egalitarian view: intelligence is *always* selected, in
>any environment. While lactose-tolerance may have difficulty
>diffusing from one population to another (say, russian to japanese)
>intelligence be favorably selected in *any* population. That doesn't
>mean that all races have exactly equal mental/cognitive profiles, of
>course, but it will tend to level whatever gradients do exist.

>[...]

>Not true. The evolution of larger brains and greater intelligence has
>created a positive feedback situation where smarts have increased
>very rapidly. Dumb people are at a severe disadvantage in competition
>with smart people. Once we gained mastery over our environment and
>the other life forms in that environment (I'm tempted to date that
>event alongside the creation of the great cave paintings, maybe
>20,000 years ago) our greatest competition became ourselves. That has
>been the fiercest competition of all.

Gerold,

one addition. This doesn't seem to be quite true, because of one
fact that I find rather astounding---the incredibly wide IQ
spread within all populations. It seems to me that it may have
been advantageous for populations to have a few geniuses, a
large number of people of much lower intelligence and again a
few people of much, much lower intelligence (cannon fodder
perhaps?).

Do you have any other plausible explanation for the nauseating
width of the IQ bell curve?

We also seem to observe that the economic success of nations
hinges much more on the size of the highly capable minority than
on average IQ.

This is highly speculative, and I haven't found any scientific
work on it, to my utter astonishment.

Hans-Georg

[No mail please]

[Peter]

Please don't waste my time.

Gerold Firl wrote in message <88463773...@cs1.sdd.hp.com>...

>There certainly is a plausible argument in support of the
>intellectual-egalitarian view: intelligence is *always* selected, in
>any environment. While lactose-tolerance may have difficulty
>diffusing from one population to another (say, russian to japanese)
>intelligence be favorably selected in *any* population. That doesn't
>mean that all races have exactly equal mental/cognitive profiles, of
>course, but it will tend to level whatever gradients do exist.
>

>|> Another factor in evolution is that populations
>|> under stress are more likely to evolve. Considering
>|> Humankind's ability to problem solve, the environmental
>|> selection has been reduced since the evolution of
>|> a enlarged brain.
>

>Not true. The evolution of larger brains and greater intelligence has
>created a positive feedback situation where smarts have increased
>very rapidly. Dumb people are at a severe disadvantage in competition
>with smart people. Once we gained mastery over our environment and
>the other life forms in that environment (I'm tempted to date that
>event alongside the creation of the great cave paintings, maybe
>20,000 years ago) our greatest competition became ourselves. That has
>been the fiercest competition of all.
>

[Gerold Firl]

In article <34bf12be...@snews.zippo.com>, hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com (Hans-Georg Michna) writes:

|> ger...@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) wrote:
|>
|> >There certainly is a plausible argument in support of the
|> >intellectual-egalitarian view: intelligence is *always* selected, in
|> >any environment. While lactose-tolerance may have difficulty
|> >diffusing from one population to another (say, russian to japanese)
|> >intelligence be favorably selected in *any* population. That doesn't
|> >mean that all races have exactly equal mental/cognitive profiles, of
|> >course, but it will tend to level whatever gradients do exist.
|>

|> >[...]

|>
|> >Not true. The evolution of larger brains and greater intelligence has
|> >created a positive feedback situation where smarts have increased
|> >very rapidly. Dumb people are at a severe disadvantage in competition
|> >with smart people. Once we gained mastery over our environment and
|> >the other life forms in that environment (I'm tempted to date that
|> >event alongside the creation of the great cave paintings, maybe
|> >20,000 years ago) our greatest competition became ourselves. That has
|> >been the fiercest competition of all.

|> one addition. This doesn't seem to be quite true, because of one
|> fact that I find rather astounding---the incredibly wide IQ
|> spread within all populations. It seems to me that it may have
|> been advantageous for populations to have a few geniuses, a
|> large number of people of much lower intelligence and again a
|> few people of much, much lower intelligence (cannon fodder
|> perhaps?).
|>
|> Do you have any other plausible explanation for the nauseating
|> width of the IQ bell curve?

It doesn't seem like such a wide spread, actually. Considerations of
brain damage and other organic disorders aside, even those at the
dumb end of the intelligence distribution don't seem that dumb. And
those at the high end of the distribution don't seem that smart.
Each are able to contribute in their own way to the benefit of
society as a whole.

One interesting possibility, regarding the effect of civilization on
the human genotype, is the increased fitness of *specialized*
cognitive/behavioral genotypes. Whereas our evolutionary roots in the
hunter-gatherer social structure selected for generalists,
civilization has need of specialists. Humans have always practiced
division-of-labor to some extent (for example, male and female), but
during the long period of prehistory such roles were few. We can
identify possible roles as hunter, politician, toolmaker, shaman,
healer, teacher, mother, cook, and botanist, which may have been
viable social roles during the time when the human genotype evolved,
but in a small, self-sufficient band most of these roles overlapped
in a small number of individuals. Culture had to be portable enough
to be carried in the minds of 25 to a few hundred people, and most
people had to do a little bit of everything.

Once civilization caught on, specialization became a means to
fitness. Intelligence, in particular, could be selected with much
less need to conserve qualities such as physical ability, dexterity,
political skills etc. I'm thinking of unusual cognitive extremes such
as what I call T. E. Lawrence syndrome - Lawrence lacked the normal
facial-recognition circuits of the brain, but was an absolutely
brilliant abstract thinker. In the social anonymity of the polis and
the marketplace, such an impediment is not fatal. In the highly
political heirarchy of a primate band, it's a much more serious
shortcoming. Such deviations may have become more common in the last
10,000 years. Obsessive-compulsive personalities may have become more
fit during the same period, as another example.

|> We also seem to observe that the economic success of nations
|> hinges much more on the size of the highly capable minority than
|> on average IQ.

Perhaps - though one could also argue that an even more important
factor is the presence of a social organization which allows that
creative minority to exercise their talents. Over the last 200 years,
china, the "sick man of asia", has been conspicuously poor despite
individual genius.

[Hans-Georg Michna]

ger...@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) wrote:

>In article <34bf12be...@snews.zippo.com>, hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com (Hans-Georg Michna) writes:

>|> Do you have any other plausible explanation for the nauseating
>|> width of the IQ bell curve?
>
>It doesn't seem like such a wide spread, actually. Considerations of
>brain damage and other organic disorders aside, even those at the
>dumb end of the intelligence distribution don't seem that dumb. And
>those at the high end of the distribution don't seem that smart.
>Each are able to contribute in their own way to the benefit of
>society as a whole.

>[...]

Gerold,

all you wrote makes perfect sense to me.

It's a lot of possibilities though, more or less speculation. If
you happen to come across any relevant pieces of research,
please let me know.

Hans-Georg

[No mail please]

[Gerold Firl]

In article <69l1jq$qrk$1...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au>, da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) writes:

|> Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
|> >Asian and european populations have had a different evolutionary
|> >trajectory. They have existed in a different environment, with
|> >different selection pressures, and have had only limited genetic
|> >exchange. The socio-cultural label corresponds to an actual
|> >biological difference based on goegraphical and temporal separation.

|> Nope. West Asian, North African, and some South Asian populations group
|> with European populations in human genetic history, while "Asian" is
|> a ridiculous label for a genetic grouping which includes the Americas
|> and Australasia.

Sure, european populations "group" with mediteraneans and middle
easterners. Just like northern asian populations group with
amerindians. That means they're more closely related. I'm not saying
that europeans aren't more closely related to east asians than they
are to sub-saharan africans - they are - but that is immaterial. We
were looking at the question of how significant the genetic
differences were between the populations at the opposite ends of the
eurasian continent. They're not as big as the differences between
eurasians and africans, or australians, but they're still significant
from a biological/taxonomic viewpoint.

That is not a racist statement, nor a fascist one, nor any other
perjorative political label you may be tyempted to apply. It's a
simple statement of fact, based on the standards of biological
classification which have been developed over the last few centuries
to analyze the the evolutionary relationships of life on earth.

|> >Now this is silly. The magnitude of genetic transfer across the
|> >eurasian continent over the last 10,000 years is minute.

|> Minute relative to what?

Relative to selection and drift within the populations. you can tell
by simply comparing the appearance of europeans and east asians with
european-asian mixtures. Obviously, genetic transfer across the
intervening 5000 miles of desert/mountain/forest/river/plains has
not kept pace with the divergance of selection and drift.

|> It still happened at a vastly higher rate than
|> any putative mutation producing an allele for "higher intelligence".
|> There hasn't been anything like perfect isolation between the populations,
|> as even cursory examination of history makes obvious.

First of all, no one is suggesting that there is a particular "high
smarts" allele. Intelligence is undoubtedly the product of a large
number of genes working synergistically together. In fact, it seems
that there are (quantifiable) qualitative differences between asian
and european intelligence; small differences, to be sure, but the
differences we are talking about are really quite minor.

Secondly, there is no need for "perfect isolation" between
populations in the evolution of genetic divergance. All that is
required is that the convergance caused by genetic transfer be
outweighed by the divergance caused by selection and drift. In the
case of western europe and east asia, it is quite clear that the
amount of gene flow across the continent was insufficient to
counterbalance divergance.

|> [ selective forces ]

|> >Increased cranial capacity? Increased intelligence? Don't be silly.
|> >The selection pressure has been constant. more intelligent humans
|> >have an increased chance of survival in all environments, at all
|> >times.

|> If these selection pressures are huge enough to drive a mutation to
|> fixation in a population as geographically dispersed as "Asia", how come
|> *repeated* injections of the new allele into the "European" population by
|> migration have failed to drive it to fixation in that population as well?

In a situation where the characteristic in question (you focus on
intelligence) is polygenic (the result of multiple genes) there may
be considerable inertia. Some of the genes may be linked to other
characteristics which are strongly adaptive in that environment, for
example. Our genetic mapping tools are still very primitive, and we
have not yet begun to probe the patterns of higher-level polygenic
associations which produce characteristics as complex as
intelligence.

|> Environmental differences? Just what environmental selection pressure
|> do you suggest that operates over all of Asia (a huge range) but not
|> in Europe?

Actually, I've argued here that the advantages of intelligence
translate very well across environments. Of course, some environments
have higher selection pressures than others. We might look at RMS
demographic fluctuation, normalized by population size, to get an
idea of the magnitude of the selection pressure. In the last 2000
years, china has probably had more drastic population fluctuations
than northern europe; I'm not saying that explains the variation in
cognitive profile, but it gives an example of different selection
processes.

[Karl Kluge]

ger...@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) writes:

>
> In article <34bf12be...@snews.zippo.com>, hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com (Hans-Georg Michna) writes:
>

> |> one addition. This doesn't seem to be quite true, because of one
> |> fact that I find rather astounding---the incredibly wide IQ
> |> spread within all populations. It seems to me that it may have
> |> been advantageous for populations to have a few geniuses, a
> |> large number of people of much lower intelligence and again a
> |> few people of much, much lower intelligence (cannon fodder
> |> perhaps?).
> |>

> |> Do you have any other plausible explanation for the nauseating
> |> width of the IQ bell curve?
>
> It doesn't seem like such a wide spread, actually. Considerations of
> brain damage and other organic disorders aside, even those at the
> dumb end of the intelligence distribution don't seem that dumb. And
> those at the high end of the distribution don't seem that smart.
> Each are able to contribute in their own way to the benefit of
> society as a whole.

More to the point, perhaps, is that the spread in "IQ" (the measure)
is there *BY* *DEFINITION*. 15 points of IQ was *defined* to be equal to
one standard deviation (at least in the initial populations the test was
used on). It could have been defined as 2 points -- would that have been
a less "nauseating" spread?

With respect to whatever underlying cognitive competence it purports to
measure, from a perspective of functionality in the day-to-day environment I
doubt you'd be able to pick out the mu + 2 sigma folks from the mu folks in a
rural pre-industrial crowd.

As for selection pressure, since the benefits of creativity or inventiveness
are not confined to creative individuals and their offspring it's unclear to
me that selection will favor the genes of creative individuals (assuming that
such talents are heritable in the first place).

Karl

[Danny Yee]

Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
>Asian and european populations have had a different evolutionary
>trajectory. They have existed in a different environment, with
>different selection pressures, and have had only limited genetic
>exchange. The socio-cultural label corresponds to an actual
>biological difference based on goegraphical and temporal separation.

Nope. West Asian, North African, and some South Asian populations group
with European populations in human genetic history, while "Asian" is
a ridiculous label for a genetic grouping which includes the Americas
and Australasia.

>huge differences can develop in a
>few dozen generations,

Not they can't -- or only with extreme initial variation and huge
selection pressures. There is no evidence of the drastic reduction in
human genetic variation that would have to accompany a "huge differences
in a few dozen generations" idea -- not in the last 80 000 years, anyway.

>Now this is silly. The magnitude of genetic transfer across the
>eurasian continent over the last 10,000 years is minute.

Minute relative to what? It still happened at a vastly higher rate than

any putative mutation producing an allele for "higher intelligence".
There hasn't been anything like perfect isolation between the populations,
as even cursory examination of history makes obvious.

[ selective forces ]

>Increased cranial capacity? Increased intelligence? Don't be silly.
>The selection pressure has been constant. more intelligent humans
>have an increased chance of survival in all environments, at all
>times.

If these selection pressures are huge enough to drive a mutation to
fixation in a population as geographically dispersed as "Asia", how come
*repeated* injections of the new allele into the "European" population by
migration have failed to drive it to fixation in that population as well?

Environmental differences? Just what environmental selection pressure

do you suggest that operates over all of Asia (a huge range) but not
in Europe?

Danny.

[Kumar Yelubandi]

On 15 Jan 1998, Gerold Firl wrote:
[...]

> Sure, european populations "group" with mediteraneans and middle
> easterners. Just like northern asian populations group with
> amerindians. That means they're more closely related. I'm not saying
> that europeans aren't more closely related to east asians than they
> are to sub-saharan africans - they are - but that is immaterial. We
> were looking at the question of how significant the genetic
> differences were between the populations at the opposite ends of the
> eurasian continent. They're not as big as the differences between
> eurasians and africans, or australians, but they're still significant
> from a biological/taxonomic viewpoint.

Where's the proof, doc? I mean, what genetic markers are you
using...and how many of them...to make your claim that differences
between sub-Saharan Africans and Europeans are much larger than
differences across the Eurasian continent?

> That is not a racist statement, nor a fascist one, nor any other
> perjorative political label you may be tyempted to apply. It's a
> simple statement of fact, based on the standards of biological
> classification which have been developed over the last few centuries
> to analyze the the evolutionary relationships of life on earth.

The standards of biological classification made prior to
15-25 years ago...are highly suspect. Surely, you can't be
asserting those standards for serious scientific discussion,
today.

Cheers.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_ _/_
_/_ zookumar _/_ yelubandi _/_
_/_ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_

[Gerold Firl]

In article <92o3eip...@knine.eecs.umich.edu>, Karl Kluge <kck...@knine.eecs.umich.edu> writes:

|> With respect to whatever underlying cognitive competence it purports to
|> measure, from a perspective of functionality in the day-to-day environment I
|> doubt you'd be able to pick out the mu + 2 sigma folks from the mu folks in a
|> rural pre-industrial crowd.

You can't pick out the iq 130 guy from the iq 70 guy in an urban
post-modern crowd, either. People don't wear their iq on their
sleeve. However, talk to a person for a few minutes, and you can
distinguish between the high side of the curve from the low side very
reliably. Vocabulary is a reliable indicator.

That is neither here nor there, however. The kind of intelligence
measured by iq is relevant to fitness in all human environments, and
may reasonably be expected to show some variation between
populations. The question here was whether sociobiological evolution
might have selected for a wider spread *within* populations, as the
social benefits of a more specialized division of labor favored
specialists over generalists. It's a fair question.

|> As for selection pressure, since the benefits of creativity or inventiveness
|> are not confined to creative individuals and their offspring it's unclear to
|> me that selection will favor the genes of creative individuals (assuming that
|> such talents are heritable in the first place).

In societies which value creativity and inventiveness, or to put it
more generally, in *environments* where such traits increase
individual fitness, individuals and their kin will benefit. What kind
of environments favor invention? Any environment which is unstable or
rapidly evolving. It may be that in very stable environments, where
very little change occurs over many generations, creativity is of no
benefit. One could even imagine how it might actually be a detriment;
but change comes eventually to all, and when it does, the inventive
have a better chance of surviving/prospering.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <Pine.SUN.3.91.98011...@chebucto.ns.ca>, Kumar Yelubandi <zook...@chebucto.ns.ca> writes:

|> On 15 Jan 1998, Gerold Firl wrote:
|> [...]

|> > Sure, european populations "group" with mediteraneans and middle
|> > easterners. Just like northern asian populations group with
|> > amerindians. That means they're more closely related. I'm not saying
|> > that europeans aren't more closely related to east asians than they
|> > are to sub-saharan africans - they are - but that is immaterial. We
|> > were looking at the question of how significant the genetic
|> > differences were between the populations at the opposite ends of the
|> > eurasian continent. They're not as big as the differences between
|> > eurasians and africans, or australians, but they're still significant
|> > from a biological/taxonomic viewpoint.

|> Where's the proof, doc? I mean, what genetic markers are you

|> using...and how many of them...to make your claim that differences
|> between sub-Saharan Africans and Europeans are much larger than
|> differences across the Eurasian continent?

I was using the genetic distance metrics of cavilli-sforza et al as
found in the recent research, such as _history and geography of human
genes_. As I understand it, neutral genes have been favored for such
measurements, avoiding the genes which code for known racial
markers.

|> > That is not a racist statement, nor a fascist one, nor any other
|> > perjorative political label you may be tyempted to apply. It's a
|> > simple statement of fact, based on the standards of biological
|> > classification which have been developed over the last few centuries
|> > to analyze the the evolutionary relationships of life on earth.

|> The standards of biological classification made prior to

|> 15-25 years ago...are highly suspect. Surely, you can't be
|> asserting those standards for serious scientific discussion,
|> today.

Actually, I believe the same taxonomic process which sufficed to
classify the five kingdoms of life on earth apply just as well to
humans. We're just another species; unique, of course, but then all
species are unique. Given the primitive state of genetic typing
technology, and the paucity of availible data, classification based
on anatomy actually has some advantages over those based on genetics.
Genetics will eventually provide us with an objective, quantifiable
cladogram for humans, but we're no where near that now. Having the
genetic data is great, but we still must use our eyes and mind.
Phenotypes are still better understood than genotypes.

[Karl Kluge]

ger...@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) writes:

> In article <92o3eip...@knine.eecs.umich.edu>, Karl Kluge <kck...@knine.eecs.umich.edu> writes:
>
> |> With respect to whatever underlying cognitive competence it purports to
> |> measure, from a perspective of functionality in the day-to-day environment I
> |> doubt you'd be able to pick out the mu + 2 sigma folks from the mu folks in a
> |> rural pre-industrial crowd.
>
> You can't pick out the iq 130 guy from the iq 70 guy in an urban
> post-modern crowd, either. People don't wear their iq on their
> sleeve. However, talk to a person for a few minutes, and you can
> distinguish between the high side of the curve from the low side very
> reliably. Vocabulary is a reliable indicator.

...in a literate culture with a broad variation in educational attainment.
Would the same be true in an agrarian community on the Western frontier 150
years ago? (Not to mention your switching the range in question.)

> That is neither here nor there, however. The kind of intelligence
> measured by iq is relevant to fitness in all human environments, and
> may reasonably be expected to show some variation between
> populations.

Of course, it remains to be demonstrated 1) what feature(s) in the underlying
problem-solving cognitive architecture correspond to "the kind of intelligence
measured by IQ", and 2) that individual variations in the parts of the brain
supporting those features are primarily genetic in origin.

> The question here was whether sociobiological evolution
> might have selected for a wider spread *within* populations, as the
> social benefits of a more specialized division of labor favored
> specialists over generalists. It's a fair question.

Wider spread by what metric? Not by IQ as a metric certainly, as the
spread is fixed for that metric.

> |> As for selection pressure, since the benefits of creativity or inventiveness
> |> are not confined to creative individuals and their offspring it's unclear to
> |> me that selection will favor the genes of creative individuals (assuming that
> |> such talents are heritable in the first place).
>
> In societies which value creativity and inventiveness, or to put it
> more generally, in *environments* where such traits increase
> individual fitness, individuals and their kin will benefit.

Yes, but so will those not their kin, so long as the average folks can
use the inventions made by the above average folks.

> What kind
> of environments favor invention? Any environment which is unstable or
> rapidly evolving. It may be that in very stable environments, where
> very little change occurs over many generations, creativity is of no
> benefit. One could even imagine how it might actually be a detriment;
> but change comes eventually to all, and when it does, the inventive
> have a better chance of surviving/prospering.

Again, the false premise here is that only the inventive benefit from
the fruits of their inventiveness. Without that, there is no selective
pressure in their favor, and this becomes just another selectionist
"just-so" story.

[Danny Yee]

On 15 Jan 1998, Gerold Firl wrote:

> Sure, european populations "group" with mediteraneans and middle
> easterners. Just like northern asian populations group with
> amerindians. That means they're more closely related. I'm not saying
> that europeans aren't more closely related to east asians than they
> are to sub-saharan africans - they are - but that is immaterial. We
> were looking at the question of how significant the genetic
> differences were between the populations at the opposite ends of the
> eurasian continent. They're not as big as the differences between
> eurasians and africans, or australians, but they're still significant
> from a biological/taxonomic viewpoint.

They are significant from a biological viewpoint, but not from a
taxonomic one. Rushton never responded when I asked him to produce the
"most zoologists" he claimed supported subspecies status for separate
human populations. He seems to think quoting two-century old taxonomists
is an argument of some kind!

A case might have been made for assigning subspecies status to Australian
Aboriginals or Native Americans a millenia ago (if one can imagine alien
taxonomists). But in the present, post-1492, it's just a nonsensical
idea. Whatever the extent of historical gene admixture, there is no
doubting the extent of modern migration and gene-mixing.

> That is not a racist statement, nor a fascist one, nor any other
> perjorative political label you may be tyempted to apply. It's a
> simple statement of fact, based on the standards of biological
> classification which have been developed over the last few centuries
> to analyze the the evolutionary relationships of life on earth.

Calling separate human populations different subspecies is just *wrong*.
Certainly not a fact, and at variance with ordinary procedures of
biological classification.

Danny.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <69oprm$9p1$1...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au>, da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) writes:

|> On 15 Jan 1998, Gerold Firl wrote:

|> > Sure, european populations "group" with mediteraneans and middle
|> > easterners. Just like northern asian populations group with
|> > amerindians. That means they're more closely related. I'm not saying
|> > that europeans aren't more closely related to east asians than they
|> > are to sub-saharan africans - they are - but that is immaterial. We
|> > were looking at the question of how significant the genetic
|> > differences were between the populations at the opposite ends of the
|> > eurasian continent. They're not as big as the differences between
|> > eurasians and africans, or australians, but they're still significant
|> > from a biological/taxonomic viewpoint.

|> They are significant from a biological viewpoint, but not from a

|> taxonomic one. Rushton never responded when I asked him to produce the
|> "most zoologists" he claimed supported subspecies status for separate
|> human populations. He seems to think quoting two-century old taxonomists
|> is an argument of some kind!

How can the differences be significant from a biological standpoint,
but not from a taxonomic one? The standard threshold for determining
whether geographical variation within a species deserves description
in terms of subspecies relates to how biologically significant those
differences are. If they represent different adaptations to different
environments, then they are sufficient to deserve subspecies
designation. Even if they come about through genetic drift due to
breeding isolation, they *still* pass the test, as long as the two
populations can be distinguished in some way.

You are saying that human taxonomy should be held to a different
standard. Why?

|> A case might have been made for assigning subspecies status to Australian
|> Aboriginals or Native Americans a millenia ago (if one can imagine alien
|> taxonomists). But in the present, post-1492, it's just a nonsensical
|> idea. Whatever the extent of historical gene admixture, there is no
|> doubting the extent of modern migration and gene-mixing.

Of course. A person who is half australian aborigine, and half
western european, is a hybrid, no matter how black the fella might
be. There are still australians whose ancestry is entirely
aboriginal, however, and planty more who have negligible amounts of
european ancestry. Are you saying their race is extinct?

|> > That is not a racist statement, nor a fascist one, nor any other
|> > perjorative political label you may be tyempted to apply. It's a
|> > simple statement of fact, based on the standards of biological
|> > classification which have been developed over the last few centuries
|> > to analyze the the evolutionary relationships of life on earth.

|> Calling separate human populations different subspecies is just *wrong*.

|> Certainly not a fact, and at variance with ordinary procedures of
|> biological classification.

Why? My textbook for matters of evolutionary biology is _evolutionary
biology_, by eli minkoff, 1983. Here is what minkoff has to say on
the subject:

"In addition to being geographically widespread, _homo sapiens_ is
geographically variable. The major geographic subdivisions of homo
sapiens are called races. A race may be defined as a biologically
distinct subdivision of a species, inhabiting a definable geographic
region and possessing certain characteristic gene frequencies. A race
in this sense is nearly the same as a geographic subspecies."

Do you have any objection to this definition? And can you describe
for me the difference between a race and a subspecies? You say that
identifying different human populations as subspecies is *wrong*;
can you explain what is wrong about it?

[Danny Yee]

Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
>How can the differences be significant from a biological standpoint,
>but not from a taxonomic one?

There are all kinds of biological differences which don't warrant the
creation of new taxonomic classifications! No one has ever proposed a
*taxonomic* subdivision of _H sapiens_ based on blood groups, for example.

>The standard threshold for determining
>whether geographical variation within a species deserves description
>in terms of subspecies relates to how biologically significant those
>differences are. If they represent different adaptations to different
>environments, then they are sufficient to deserve subspecies
>designation.

Simply not true. Not even *possible*, in fact. The allele for
sickle-cell blood cells is definitely an adaptation to an environment
(possession of a single copy increases malaria resistance), but you can't
put all possesors of the allele into a subspecies.

The problem is that biological variation in species doesn't, in
most cases, produce matching distributions for different characters.
Human blood group distributions, for example, don't have clines that
correspond with clines for HLA distributions, and so on. If you split
on every biologically significant feature, you'll end up having to put
all non-clonal individuals into their own taxon!

>Even if they come about through genetic drift due to
>breeding isolation, they *still* pass the test, as long as the two
>populations can be distinguished in some way.

>You are saying that human taxonomy should be held to a different
>standard. Why?

I'm not saying anything of the sort. It is simply _not_ the case,
in any species, that all distinguishable populations are assigned
subspecies status. Can I suggest you actually look at the taxnomy of
some other species before making silly claims that humans are being
treated differently?

I wrote:
>|> A case might have been made for assigning subspecies status to Australian
>|> Aboriginals or Native Americans a millenia ago (if one can imagine alien
>|> taxonomists). But in the present, post-1492, it's just a nonsensical
>|> idea. Whatever the extent of historical gene admixture, there is no
>|> doubting the extent of modern migration and gene-mixing.

>Of course. A person who is half australian aborigine, and half
>western european, is a hybrid, no matter how black the fella might
>be. There are still australians whose ancestry is entirely
>aboriginal, however, and planty more who have negligible amounts of
>european ancestry. Are you saying their race is extinct?

I'm saying that the present existence of massive amounts of mixing
between human populations makes attribution of subspecies status to
any populations wrong-headed.

How you choose subspecies depends on how you choose species, obviously,
and the definitions are related. Subspecies are potential or borderline
species. There is no way that any existing human populations meet this
criteria given the amount of gene exchange happening. (I'm assuming a
biological species definition of species here.)

Danny.

[Hans-Georg Michna]

da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) wrote:

>How you choose subspecies depends on how you choose species, obviously,
>and the definitions are related. Subspecies are potential or borderline
>species. There is no way that any existing human populations meet this
>criteria given the amount of gene exchange happening. (I'm assuming a
>biological species definition of species here.)

Danny,

I would think that if a species of animals were discovered that
came in, say, two groups, one white and one black, then most
taxonomists would call the two groups subspecies without a lot
of thinking. Not so?

Hans-Georg

[No mail please]

[mel turner]

In article <34c6b5fd...@snews.zippo.com>,
hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com wrote..

Not so. A couple of very simple counter-examples: 1] the two groups
might turn out to be the two sexes of a sexually dimorphic species; and
2] the two groups may be a simple polymorphism in which both types will
often be found in the same litter of offpring.

For them to be good candidates for subspecies, the groups should have
clearly separate geographic ranges, as well as be morphologically and
genetically distinct...

cheers

[Dr. Efram E. Goldstein]

mel turner <mtu...@snipthis.acpub.duke.edu> wrote..

> For them to be good candidates for subspecies, the groups should have
> clearly separate geographic ranges, as well as be morphologically and
> genetically distinct...
>

Adequate genetic distinction is all that is
really required for defining subspecies- geographic range and
morphology are quaint leftovers from
a less scientifically sophisticated time.

In regards to man, since 1980 enough
information has become available on the
gene frequencies of enough genes (about
200) in nearly all of the world's
population groups that overall average
genetic distance maps and evolutionary
trees can be constructed. Cavalli-Sforza
et.al.'s History and Geography of Human
Genes (1994) is of course the reference
of choice on the subject.

The genetic classification of the various
races of man has thus been established,
despite protests from those who would prefer
to use another term for such groupings
(including the spin control conscious
Cavalli-Sforza). The homogenization of
the human gene pool is not nearly as
advanced as egalitarian social biologists
have claimed- races are real and quite
easily identified by many modern genetic means.

Dr. Efram E. Goldstein

[Dr. Efram E. Goldstein]

[Brian R. Speer]

mel turner <mtu...@snipthis.acpub.duke.edu> wrote..
> For them to be good candidates for subspecies, the groups should
> have clearly separate geographic ranges, as well as be
> morphologically and genetically distinct...

Dr. Efram E. Goldstein wrote:
> Adequate genetic distinction is all that is
> really required for defining subspecies- geographic range and
> morphology are quaint leftovers from
> a less scientifically sophisticated time.

I can't speak toward animal systematics, but among botanists, this is
simply not true. Quite often, subspecies and varieties of plants are
distinguished primarily on the basis of geographic range or morphology.
With more than a quarter-of-a-million flowering plants, it simply has
not been possible to get any real handle on most of the genetric
variation yet. This will undoubtably change, and we may see such taking
the forefront in botanical taxonomy, but I don't expect this to happen
any time soon.

--Brian R. Speer
UC Museum of Paleontology
vesp...@socrates.berkeley.edu

[Danny Yee]

Dr. Efram E. Goldstein <efr...@worldsciuni.com> wrote:
>The homogenization of
>the human gene pool is not nearly as
>advanced as egalitarian social biologists
>have claimed- races are real and quite
>easily identified by many modern genetic means.

But whatever the *historical* status of human populations, there is *now*
far too much mixing to make subspecies attributions sensible or useful.

Perhaps I'm on the leading edge of the mixing, living in Australia,
but there's no denying it is happening worldwide.

Danny.

[Dr. Efram E. Goldstein]

Danny Yee wrote.................

> But whatever the *historical* status of human populations, there is *now*
> far too much mixing to make subspecies attributions sensible or useful.
>
> Perhaps I'm on the leading edge of the mixing, living in Australia,
> but there's no denying it is happening worldwide.
>
> Danny.
>

Australia is the antithesis of genetic
homogenization, being 95 percent white,
4 percent Asian, and 1 percent Aborigines
and other.

Perhaps this is why your concept of
genetic variation in humans is so
very different than that which is
the experience of many of us who live in
countries with racially mixed populations,
such as the US (75 percent white),
or South Africa (14 percent white).

US blacks are on average
25 percent white from the last 200 years
of race mixing, but still they are
distinctly a race not only in genetics
but in a wide range of behavior, which
significantly differs from that of whites
and Asians not only in IQ tests but in
many other aspects, especially in
athletic ability and in the propensity
to commit violent crimes. The statistical
evidence on these points is overwhelming.
I am no racist, but these unfortunate things are a matter
fact and science- and are the direct experience
of millions of people.

Dr. Efram E. Goldstein

[Danny Yee]

Dr. Efram E. Goldstein <efr...@worldsciuni.com> wrote:

>US blacks are on average
>25 percent white from the last 200 years
>of race mixing, but still they are
>distinctly a race not only in genetics
>but in a wide range of behavior,

You are spouting complete gibberish. I'd suspected so anyway,
but this sort of nonsense makes it very obvious. We started with
intra-populational genetic variation that accounts for maybe 5% of
the species genetic variation in the first place, added 25% mixing,
and you _still_ want to assign the populations to separate subspecies?
Please name another species of mammal where such extensive mixing
between subspecies occurs _and_ hybrids are assigned to only one of
the original subspecies.

Human races are predominantly *cultural* constructs, which is why you
can get marked variations in behaviour without genetic barriers.

Danny.

[NF Stevens]

hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com (Hans-Georg Michna) wrote:

>da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) wrote:
>
>>How you choose subspecies depends on how you choose species, obviously,
>>and the definitions are related. Subspecies are potential or borderline
>>species. There is no way that any existing human populations meet this
>>criteria given the amount of gene exchange happening. (I'm assuming a
>>biological species definition of species here.)
>
>Danny,
>
> I would think that if a species of animals were discovered that
>came in, say, two groups, one white and one black, then most
>taxonomists would call the two groups subspecies without a lot
>of thinking. Not so?

Of course they would. The converse is also true. If there was
no obvious defining characteristic then there would be no
attempt at division into subspecies.

Your implied assumption, that humanity is divided into two
groups (black and white) which can be regarded as subspecies
is entirely bogus.

Norman

[Dr. Efram E. Goldstein]

Danny Yee wrote...
> [...]

> Human races are predominantly *cultural* constructs, which is why you
> can get marked variations in behaviour without genetic barriers.
>
> Danny.
>

African-Americans have an
average genetic admixture of about 25 percent
Caucasian genes (introduced in the past 200
years) yet are still very much a different race
from whites based on what remains of their genetic
commonality, for races among humans
are best defined by overall genetic commonality.

True, there is no sharp line of racial
division and human races may not be quite
like the subspecies of other animal groups-
but actual racial differences are a brutal reality
in the USA and South Africa. To dismiss these
differences as a mere *cultural construct*
is a great misunderstanding on your part,
albeit born of your own innocence and lack
of experience in a world of racially diverse
populations- at least those involving Africans.

It was actually anthropologist Ashley
Montague who first denied the existence of
race more than 50 years ago in his
famous book "Man's Most Dangerous Myth:
The Fallacy of Race" (1942),
and in the subsequent UNESCO statement
on race, which he wrote. He insisted
that all racial differences were only skin
deep, all differences being external
adaptations to different climates.

Ashley Montague's legacy is still with
with us, but now we know that there
are significant genetic differences
among the races, and that they are
much more than skin deep. By the way,
Ashley Montague's real name was Israel
Ehrenberg- he was Jewish like me and clearly had
as his hidden agenda a desire to
protect we Jews from racism. He changed his
name to that of a distinguished British
family as a matter of deliberate deception so
that his views would not
be seen as biased. It is from that
spurious history that you were indoctrinated
with the view on race that you now hold-
you were programmed by a compliant
academic community with a mistaken
social ideal that modern genetic knowledge
has debunked.

I am certainly not a racist, but can
anyone who denies the existence of race
be called a scientist? We are aware
that Cavalli-Sforza and Jared Diamond
prefer other terms to the word race,
but I think they have taken
political correctness much too far.
Race can be defined in many ways, but
the dictionary definition is still
quite adequate and not at all inherently
wrong or evil. Race:
A population of organisms differing
from others of the same species in the
frequency of hereditary traits.
(The American Heritage Dictionary
of the English Language, Third Edition).
Races can be quite easily identified in
humans, although to be sure there has
been much gene mixing and there are
no sharp divisions.

I suggest you read J.P. Rushton's
"Race, Evolution, and Behavior"
(1996) for a realistic, honest,
and scientific account of the evolution
of racial differences. I further
suggest that you visit America, but
I advise you not to test your egalitarian
theories by taking a walk at night in
certain parts of any big city.

Perhaps you should think twice before
you presume to lecture Americans and South Africans
on the subject of race. Until you have experienced
what we have you could not know what we know.

Dr. Efram E. Goldstein

[Danny Yee]

Dr. Efram E. Goldstein <efr...@worldsciuni.com> wrote:

>True, there is no sharp line of racial
>division and human races may not be quite
>like the subspecies of other animal groups-

Hmmm... but wasn't it you taking me to task earlier for applying different
classification schemes to humans than other animals?

>but actual racial differences are a brutal reality
>in the USA and South Africa.

I never denied it!

>To dismiss these
>differences as a mere *cultural construct*

[long spiel about the importance of race deleted]

You're confused about what I said. I never used the word "mere" and
I certainly didn't intend to imply that race (or any other cultural
constructs) weren't important! Nations states, legal systems, clothing,
books, and all kinds of things are clearly part of human culture --
that certainly doesn't mean they aren't important, or aren't real!!

Danny.

[Doug Weller]

On 18 Jan 1998 21:49:07 GMT, in sci.anthropology, Dr. Efram E. Goldstein wrote:

[SNIP]

> To dismiss these
>differences as a mere *cultural construct*

Cultural constructs are not 'mere' anything, and I'm not at all sure Danny Yee
used the word 'mere'. If you think cultural constructs are 'mere', perhaps you
could solve the Northern Ireland problem?

Doug

[Gerold Firl]

In article <92ozpkv...@knine.eecs.umich.edu>, Karl Kluge <kck...@knine.eecs.umich.edu> writes:
|> ger...@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) writes:
|>
|> > In article <92o3eip...@knine.eecs.umich.edu>, Karl Kluge <kck...@knine.eecs.umich.edu> writes:
|> >
|> > |> With respect to whatever underlying cognitive competence it purports to
|> > |> measure, from a perspective of functionality in the day-to-day environment I
|> > |> doubt you'd be able to pick out the mu + 2 sigma folks from the mu folks in a
|> > |> rural pre-industrial crowd.

|> > You can't pick out the iq 130 guy from the iq 70 guy in an urban
|> > post-modern crowd, either. People don't wear their iq on their
|> > sleeve. However, talk to a person for a few minutes, and you can
|> > distinguish between the high side of the curve from the low side very
|> > reliably. Vocabulary is a reliable indicator.

|> ...in a literate culture with a broad variation in educational attainment.
|> Would the same be true in an agrarian community on the Western frontier 150
|> years ago? (Not to mention your switching the range in question.)

This entire discussion is riddled with speculation and hand waving,
but I expect that the differences would be just as apparent. Which
farmers are using mechanized equipment? Which of them are able to
maintain their equipment themselves? Which are actually tinkering
with the equipment, making improvements and modifications, utilizing
it in novel ways?

Who are the farmers organizing their neighbors into co-ops to build
grain silos, and negotiate a price with urban purchasing agents? Who
are teaching sunday school in the church, acting as deacons, leading
prayers, organizing quilting bees, july fourth celebrations, bible
study groups etc?

As for switching the range in question, I think it makes more sense
to compare symmetrical deviations around the mean. Besides, your
point related to the difficulty of picking relatively smarter/dumber
individuals out of a crowd. I was agreeing with you: it is hard to
pick them out of a crowd. In fact, I amplified on your point.
However, picking intelligent people out of a crowd is pretty
meaningless. The correlation to social and economic success is what
is meaningfull.

|> > That is neither here nor there, however. The kind of intelligence
|> > measured by iq is relevant to fitness in all human environments, and
|> > may reasonably be expected to show some variation between
|> > populations.

|> Of course, it remains to be demonstrated 1) what feature(s) in the underlying
|> problem-solving cognitive architecture correspond to "the kind of intelligence
|> measured by IQ", and 2) that individual variations in the parts of the brain
|> supporting those features are primarily genetic in origin.

1) Why does it matter what features of the underlying
"problem-solving cognitive architecture" correspond to iq? We know
that iq correlates to various measures of socio-economic success; it
would be nice to know the precise mechanism of causality, but the
evidence of the correlation is strong enouhg to make it clear that
something significant is being measured.

2) I haven't studied this issue in any detail, but I thought the fact
that genetics provided a large component of iq potential was pretty
well established. If you have contrary data, by all means lets hear
it.

|> > The question here was whether sociobiological evolution
|> > might have selected for a wider spread *within* populations, as the
|> > social benefits of a more specialized division of labor favored
|> > specialists over generalists. It's a fair question.

|> Wider spread by what metric? Not by IQ as a metric certainly, as the
|> spread is fixed for that metric.

Only if the test is re-normed for each population which takes it. In
order to do comparisons across populations, the same normalization
must be used for all of them.

|> > |> As for selection pressure, since the benefits of creativity or inventiveness
|> > |> are not confined to creative individuals and their offspring it's unclear to
|> > |> me that selection will favor the genes of creative individuals (assuming that
|> > |> such talents are heritable in the first place).

|> > In societies which value creativity and inventiveness, or to put it
|> > more generally, in *environments* where such traits increase
|> > individual fitness, individuals and their kin will benefit.

|> Yes, but so will those not their kin, so long as the average folks can
|> use the inventions made by the above average folks.

But the immediate kin benefit more than distant kin, and distant kin
benefit more than complete strangers. When the world beats a path to
your door, baby gets new shoes.

|> > What kind
|> > of environments favor invention? Any environment which is unstable or
|> > rapidly evolving. It may be that in very stable environments, where
|> > very little change occurs over many generations, creativity is of no
|> > benefit. One could even imagine how it might actually be a detriment;
|> > but change comes eventually to all, and when it does, the inventive
|> > have a better chance of surviving/prospering.

|> Again, the false premise here is that only the inventive benefit from
|> the fruits of their inventiveness. Without that, there is no selective
|> pressure in their favor, and this becomes just another selectionist
|> "just-so" story.

What a strange suggestion. higher socio-economic status correlates to
higher probability of survival, particularly during catastrophic
events such as famines and plagues. That is just as true for the
intelligent/inventive in modern urban society as it is for the master
flint knapper during the ice age.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <69pq03$m82$1...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au>, da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) writes:

|> Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
|> >How can the differences be significant from a biological standpoint,
|> >but not from a taxonomic one?

|> There are all kinds of biological differences which don't warrant the
|> creation of new taxonomic classifications! No one has ever proposed a
|> *taxonomic* subdivision of _H sapiens_ based on blood groups, for example.

True.

|> >The standard threshold for determining
|> >whether geographical variation within a species deserves description
|> >in terms of subspecies relates to how biologically significant those
|> >differences are. If they represent different adaptations to different
|> >environments, then they are sufficient to deserve subspecies
|> >designation.

|> Simply not true. Not even *possible*, in fact. The allele for
|> sickle-cell blood cells is definitely an adaptation to an environment
|> (possession of a single copy increases malaria resistance), but you can't
|> put all possesors of the allele into a subspecies.

OK. I'll go along with that.

|> The problem is that biological variation in species doesn't, in
|> most cases, produce matching distributions for different characters.
|> Human blood group distributions, for example, don't have clines that
|> correspond with clines for HLA distributions, and so on. If you split
|> on every biologically significant feature, you'll end up having to put
|> all non-clonal individuals into their own taxon!

Right. But that isn't what anybody is suggesting. We need to consider
a large number of gene sites, suitably weighted for how significantly
each gene reflects evolutionary history and physical/behavioral
significance, to get a meaningful measure of biological divergance.
So far, only very rough measurements have been made, but even those
rough measurements have shown systematic differences between races.

|> >Even if they come about through genetic drift due to
|> >breeding isolation, they *still* pass the test, as long as the two
|> >populations can be distinguished in some way.
|>
|> >You are saying that human taxonomy should be held to a different
|> >standard. Why?

|> I'm not saying anything of the sort. It is simply _not_ the case,
|> in any species, that all distinguishable populations are assigned
|> subspecies status. Can I suggest you actually look at the taxnomy of
|> some other species before making silly claims that humans are being
|> treated differently?

I have done just that. I have posted on the subject, in this
newsgroup, many times over the last several years. Do you want case
histories? There can be no doubt that human taxonomy is treated
differently from other species. It's an emotional subject for people.
There are concerns over ethics and the political uses of biological
classification.

for instance, the fact that australian aborigines have a higher
instance of archaic features than other races could be used to argue
that they are less human than eurasians. I'm sure nazi-types in
australia have already done so. Many well-intentioned people try to
short-circuit such activity by pretending that the racial differences
don't exist. I understand the motivation, and I sympathize with the
intent, but I don't think it's wise to try to cover-up the facts. It
just makes you look bad. Facts are stubborn things. They don't go
away just because you don't like them.

|> I wrote:
|> >|> A case might have been made for assigning subspecies status to Australian
|> >|> Aboriginals or Native Americans a millenia ago (if one can imagine alien
|> >|> taxonomists). But in the present, post-1492, it's just a nonsensical
|> >|> idea. Whatever the extent of historical gene admixture, there is no
|> >|> doubting the extent of modern migration and gene-mixing.

|> >Of course. A person who is half australian aborigine, and half
|> >western european, is a hybrid, no matter how black the fella might
|> >be. There are still australians whose ancestry is entirely
|> >aboriginal, however, and planty more who have negligible amounts of
|> >european ancestry. Are you saying their race is extinct?

|> I'm saying that the present existence of massive amounts of mixing
|> between human populations makes attribution of subspecies status to
|> any populations wrong-headed.

nonsense. The mixing simply isn't massive enough. In a few thousand
years, that may be different, but even then the reality of race will
still be of historical interest. Our biology reflects our history.

|> How you choose subspecies depends on how you choose species, obviously,
|> and the definitions are related. Subspecies are potential or borderline
|> species. There is no way that any existing human populations meet this
|> criteria given the amount of gene exchange happening. (I'm assuming a
|> biological species definition of species here.)

You're wrong about the definition of subspecies. They are *not*
"potential or borderline species". Here is the definition from
minkoff:

"Subspecies: One of several geographic or similar subdivisions of a
species, between which interbreeding takes place at a reduced level
(compared to interbreeding within each). A taxonomically distinct
subdivision of a species."

In order to be considered "taxonomically distinct", there needs to be
some kind of visible physical or behavioral difference. That is
clearly the case for humans. You are applying a different standard
from what is used for other species. I understand why you do so, but
you are trying to use science to rationalize politics.

Not a good mix, in my opinion.

I noticed you snipped my response to your challenge regarding the
current taxonomic status of humans. Minkoff supports the position
that human races reflect differential adaptation to various
environments, as well as breeding isolation due to geographical
dispersion. You claimed that such views were antiquated relics of
bogus typological thinking; they are not. Like I said, facts have a
stubborn habit of sticking around, even when they're not welcome.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <69qkfs$fsd$1...@news.duke.edu>, mtu...@snipthis.acpub.duke.edu (mel turner) writes:

|> In article <34c6b5fd...@snews.zippo.com>,
|> hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com wrote..
|> >

|> > I would think that if a species of animals were discovered that
|> >came in, say, two groups, one white and one black, then most
|> >taxonomists would call the two groups subspecies without a lot
|> >of thinking. Not so?

|> Not so. A couple of very simple counter-examples: 1] the two groups

|> might turn out to be the two sexes of a sexually dimorphic species; and
|> 2] the two groups may be a simple polymorphism in which both types will
|> often be found in the same litter of offpring.
|>

|> For them to be good candidates for subspecies, the groups should have
|> clearly separate geographic ranges, as well as be morphologically and
|> genetically distinct...

I recall the case of a squirrel whose range exists on both sides of
the grand canyon in arizona. The northern and southern populations
are physically distinct; I believe the differences are minor. Aren't
the two populations classified as different subspecies?

You're examples are quite correct, but I can't help feeling you're
being deliberately obtuse. Claims that men and women come from
different planets notwithstanding, we're still the same species.

However, minor differences within species which reflect differential
adaptation or range-based breeding isolation typically result in
classification as different subspecies - except, possibly, for
humans.

But wouldn't you think that was based on the politically sensitive
nature of having different biological classifications for different
populations of people?

[Gerold Firl]

In article <69rpsr$2...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>, "Dr. Efram E. Goldstein" <efr...@worldsciuni.com> writes:

|> US blacks are on average
|> 25 percent white from the last 200 years
|> of race mixing, but still they are
|> distinctly a race not only in genetics

|> but in a wide range of behavior, which
|> significantly differs from that of whites
|> and Asians not only in IQ tests but in
|> many other aspects, especially in
|> athletic ability and in the propensity
|> to commit violent crimes. The statistical
|> evidence on these points is overwhelming.

The idea that US blacks have a *genetically based* predilection for
violent crime seems kind of difficult to believe.

How would such a thesis be proven? Even if you looked at adoption
data, where blacks were raised in white families, there are so many
uncontrolled socialization variables involved that I would be very
skeptical of such a conclusion.

Can you say something about the methodology?

One tangential note: the idea of defining US blacks as a distinct
race (from the ancestral african populations and the US white
component) is pretty eclectic.

[Brian R. Speer]

Gerold Firl wrote:
> The idea that US blacks have a *genetically based* predilection for
> violent crime seems kind of difficult to believe.

I don't know of any scientifically verified claims of this on a
race-by-race basis, but there are known correlations of genetics and
crime -- the one that comes to mind is caused by a malfunction of
chromosome sorting in the gametes, resulting in superfluous sex
chromosomes in certain men. This is not generally inherited however.

[Karl Kluge]

ger...@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) writes:

> In article <92ozpkv...@knine.eecs.umich.edu>, Karl Kluge <kck...@knine.eecs.umich.edu> writes:
> |> ger...@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) writes:
> |>
> |> > In article <92o3eip...@knine.eecs.umich.edu>, Karl Kluge <kck...@knine.eecs.umich.edu> writes:
> |> >
> |> > That is neither here nor there, however. The kind of intelligence
> |> > measured by iq is relevant to fitness in all human environments, and
> |> > may reasonably be expected to show some variation between
> |> > populations.
>
> |> Of course, it remains to be demonstrated 1) what feature(s) in the
> |> underlying problem-solving cognitive architecture correspond to "the
> |> kind of intelligence measured by IQ", and 2) that individual variations
> |> in the parts of the brain supporting those features are primarily
> |> genetic in origin.
>
> 1) Why does it matter what features of the underlying
> "problem-solving cognitive architecture" correspond to iq?

It matters if you're genuinely interested in doing cognitive science
rather than trying to use statistics to promote a political or ideological
agenda of one sort or another.

> We know that iq correlates to various measures of socio-economic success; it
> would be nice to know the precise mechanism of causality, but the
> evidence of the correlation is strong enouhg to make it clear that
> something significant is being measured.

The question is whether that "something" has some cognitive reality rather
than being a circular artifact of socio-economic status in the first place. In
case you haven't caught on yet, that's the whole basis for the many of the
arguments over IQ. That's why understanding the precise causality would be
more than merely "nice."

> 2) I haven't studied this issue in any detail, but I thought the fact
> that genetics provided a large component of iq potential was pretty
> well established.

About 48% according to a recent study by Devlin. This is rather lower
than earlier estimates because Devlin, unlike many prior studies, took
into account that separated twins had still shared the same womb.

> If you have contrary data, by all means lets hear it.

The issue isn't contrary data, the issue is acting as if analysis of
correlations is the be-all and end-all of science. It isn't. Until the
genetic basis of the specific physical variations responsible for
the variations in performance we label "IQ" gets identified there is a
big, gaping hole in the whole concept.

> |> > The question here was whether sociobiological evolution
> |> > might have selected for a wider spread *within* populations, as the
> |> > social benefits of a more specialized division of labor favored
> |> > specialists over generalists. It's a fair question.
>
> |> Wider spread by what metric? Not by IQ as a metric certainly, as the
> |> spread is fixed for that metric.
>
> Only if the test is re-normed for each population which takes it. In
> order to do comparisons across populations, the same normalization
> must be used for all of them.

You're missing the point completely. Unless you can tie it to some
external measure of fitness (preferably one that wouldn't only apply
in an industrial Western society) the only significance of a 15 point
difference in IQ score is that that happens to correspond to one
standard deviation in performance of the population used to norm the
scores. Period. It has no other significance.

And before you point out the correlation between IQ and SE status,
let me pointedly ask how SE status is correlated to number of children
in the US...

> |> > In societies which value creativity and inventiveness, or to put it
> |> > more generally, in *environments* where such traits increase
> |> > individual fitness, individuals and their kin will benefit.
>
> |> Yes, but so will those not their kin, so long as the average folks can
> |> use the inventions made by the above average folks.
>
> But the immediate kin benefit more than distant kin, and distant kin
> benefit more than complete strangers. When the world beats a path to
> your door, baby gets new shoes.

If you wish to contend that the financial benefits of inventing smallpox
vacination, polio vaccine, incandescent lighting, antibiotics, refrigeration,
etc. provide a significantly greater improvement in differential reproductive
fitness for their inventors and their near kin than they did for the vastly
larger populations that benefit from their use, you are welcome to do so. I'd
like to see that backed up with some data, though. I doubt the data is there
to support that claim. Remember, a patent only lasts 17 years. The benefits
that come from applying the technology continue past that.

> |> Again, the false premise here is that only the inventive benefit from
> |> the fruits of their inventiveness. Without that, there is no selective
> |> pressure in their favor, and this becomes just another selectionist
> |> "just-so" story.
>
> What a strange suggestion. higher socio-economic status correlates to
> higher probability of survival, particularly during catastrophic
> events such as famines and plagues.

Oh really? I suppose you can point me to the data supporting the claim
that higher socio-economic status was positively correlated with greater
chance of survival during the Black Death? During the post-WW I flu
pandemic?

[Eric Henry u]

: > You can't pick out the iq 130 guy from the iq 70 guy in an urban

: > post-modern crowd, either. People don't wear their iq on their
: > sleeve. However, talk to a person for a few minutes, and you can
: > distinguish between the high side of the curve from the low side very
: > reliably. Vocabulary is a reliable indicator.

:
Intelligence is related to vocabulary? Obviously cultural relativism is
a dead idea. Who determines what good vocabulary is. Or is it sheer
number of words. But in unwritten languages, does the concept of "word"
even have meaning, such as Inuvut.

The problem is that good vocabulary is determined by the very same people
who create IQ tests and administer them. As relatively affluent,
somewhat educated and most often white academics, we have crowned
ourselves as the pinnacle of humanity. And who should question are taste
in art, music, etiquette and vocabulary is obviously less well evolved.
I do not share this opinion.

To state that a different speech pattern is an indication of intelligence
draws upon logical connections between cause and effect that I can not
possibly fathom. Please enlighten me.

Eric

[Eric Henry u]

No matter what his higher morals or motives, Rushton is a racist because
he believes that humanity can be fundamentally divided into races. This
idea has generally been discredited in both the anthropological and
biological literature (for reference see Marek Kohn's "The Race
Gallery"). Moreover, Rushton believes that the climate where a
particular population evolved has seriously affected their mental
"disposition".

The logical complications of Rushton's work are boundless. Key among
them is the unfounded idea that IQ is any real measure of intelligence.
It is far more likely that IQ is a measure of a person's ability to
respond to questions with what the interviewer wants to hear. Or the
ability to regurgitate ideas endlessly drilled into us by the educational
system.

Rushton's work, while reasonably well-written, is more than a little
looney. I keep him on the shelf next to my copy of Von Danieken's
Chariots of the Gods.

Eric

[Karl Kluge]

Karl Kluge <kck...@knine.eecs.umich.edu> writes:

> ger...@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) writes:
>
> > It doesn't seem like such a wide spread, actually. Considerations of
> > brain damage and other organic disorders aside, even those at the
> > dumb end of the intelligence distribution don't seem that dumb. And
> > those at the high end of the distribution don't seem that smart.
> > Each are able to contribute in their own way to the benefit of
> > society as a whole.
>
> More to the point, perhaps, is that the spread in "IQ" (the measure)
> is there *BY* *DEFINITION*. 15 points of IQ was *defined* to be equal to
> one standard deviation (at least in the initial populations the test was
> used on). It could have been defined as 2 points -- would that have been
> a less "nauseating" spread?

The funny thing, now that I go back and reread this, is that Gerold and I
started by *agreeing*.

[Danny Yee]

Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
>2) I haven't studied this issue in any detail, but I thought the fact
>that genetics provided a large component of iq potential was pretty
>well established. If you have contrary data, by all means lets hear
>it.

I was under the impression that different studies suggest heritabilities
for IQ between 0.2 and 0.8. Given such a range of results, there seem
to be some serious unresolved methodological issues in the whole business.

Danny.

[Danny Yee]

Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
>I recall the case of a squirrel whose range exists on both sides of
>the grand canyon in arizona. The northern and southern populations
>are physically distinct; I believe the differences are minor. Aren't
>the two populations classified as different subspecies?

I would imagine that in this case there is a geographical barrier to
interbreeding between the populations. No such barrier exists for any
present human populations, and in fact there is very solid evidence for
extensive and ongoing genetic admixture.

Hence my comment that subspecies attributions might have been warranted
*a millenium ago* -- for Australian Aborigines and Native Americans.

Danny.

[Danny Yee]

Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
>for instance, the fact that australian aborigines have a higher
>instance of archaic features than other races could be used to argue
>that they are less human than eurasians.

This is just as idiotic an idea as saying that crocodiles are "primitive",
or that coelocanths are "living fossils". What is an "archaic" feature?

>|> How you choose subspecies depends on how you choose species, obviously,
>|> and the definitions are related. Subspecies are potential or borderline
>|> species. There is no way that any existing human populations meet this
>|> criteria given the amount of gene exchange happening. (I'm assuming a
>|> biological species definition of species here.)

>You're wrong about the definition of subspecies. They are *not*
>"potential or borderline species". Here is the definition from
>minkoff:

Who is definitive?

>"Subspecies: One of several geographic or similar subdivisions of a
>species, between which interbreeding takes place at a reduced level
>(compared to interbreeding within each). A taxonomically distinct
>subdivision of a species."

>In order to be considered "taxonomically distinct", there needs to be
>some kind of visible physical or behavioral difference. That is
>clearly the case for humans.

Read the defintion you quoted again. You need a reduced level of
inter-population interbreeding. And, while there clearly has been a
reduced level of interbreeding between populations at a distance, you
have to think of "reduced" in some sense that doesn't put every village
in its own subspecies...

There and have never been, and certainly aren't now, any "boundaries"
between sub-Saharan and North-African populations. All the genetic
evidence shows clinal gradients.

Danny.

[Danny Yee]

Hans-Georg Michna <hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com> wrote:
> I would think that if a species of animals were discovered that
>came in, say, two groups, one white and one black, then most
>taxonomists would call the two groups subspecies without a lot
>of thinking. Not so?

Nope! Take peas and Mendel's original experiments - his peas were
yellow or green, and wrinkled or smooth. But no one would suggest this
is grounds for four different subspecies of the species in question!

Danny.

[wilkins]

In article <6a19tu$k2b$1...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au>,
da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) wrote:

How long have Arnhem Land Aborigines been intermarrying with Timorese
fishermen? ISTR from popular press accounts (when the Indonesian government
permitted family reunions) that it was more than a millenium...

--
John Wilkins
Head, Graphic Production
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
Melbourne, Australia
<mailto:wil...@WEHI.EDU.AU><http://www.wehi.edu.au/~wilkins>

[Danny Yee]

wilkins <wil...@WEHI.EDU.AU> wrote:
>How long have Arnhem Land Aborigines been intermarrying with Timorese
>fishermen? ISTR from popular press accounts (when the Indonesian government
>permitted family reunions) that it was more than a millenium...

My impression was that there was less intermarriage in Arnhem land than
there was across the Torres Strait. But certainly there's no reason to
doubt that both those contacts extend back to the original settlement
of Australia, and yes they certainly do make arguments for the genetic
isolation of the continent a bit dubious.

Danny.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <92ou3az...@swallow.eecs.umich.edu>, Karl Kluge <kck...@swallow.eecs.umich.edu> writes:
|> ger...@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) writes:

|> > 1) Why does it matter what features of the underlying
|> > "problem-solving cognitive architecture" correspond to iq?

|> It matters if you're genuinely interested in doing cognitive science
|> rather than trying to use statistics to promote a political or ideological
|> agenda of one sort or another.

OK - you're coming at this from the perspective of cog.sci, whereas
I'm taking an anthropological viewpoint. And I actually don't have a
particular ideological or political agenda as far as the issue of
race and/or iq are concerned, strange as that may sound.

|> > We know that iq correlates to various measures of socio-economic success; it
|> > would be nice to know the precise mechanism of causality, but the
|> > evidence of the correlation is strong enouhg to make it clear that
|> > something significant is being measured.

|> The question is whether that "something" has some cognitive reality rather
|> than being a circular artifact of socio-economic status in the first place. In
|> case you haven't caught on yet, that's the whole basis for the many of the
|> arguments over IQ. That's why understanding the precise causality would be
|> more than merely "nice."

(.... snip ....)

|> The issue isn't contrary data, the issue is acting as if analysis of
|> correlations is the be-all and end-all of science. It isn't. Until the
|> genetic basis of the specific physical variations responsible for
|> the variations in performance we label "IQ" gets identified there is a
|> big, gaping hole in the whole concept.

That reminds me of the dodge used by the tobacco companies for many
years after the correlation between smoking and lung cancer was
discovered. Tobacco pointed out that the actual mechanism of
causality had not been established, merely a correlation - and
correlation is not causality. We all agree on that. However, there is
a time when there is enough data to establish a link, even when there
are still unknowns in the equation.

Herrnstein and Murray claim that significant iq differences between
races have been identified, after controlling for the obvious factors
such as socio-economic status. I haven't evaluated the claims in
detail, because I'm just not that interested in the issue. Logically,
it's impossible for the different races of man to have preciscely the
same cognitive profile. We differ in every single imaginable physical
characteristic which can be measured, so in as much as mentality is
specified by the genes, we will vary there too. Maybe the variation
is small, and maybe it's smaller than what our crude measurements
(such as iq) can currently detect, but the differences have to exist.
The only way there could be *no* differences would be if god
magically maintains them; nature has no such mechanism.

|> > |> Wider spread by what metric? Not by IQ as a metric certainly, as the
|> > |> spread is fixed for that metric.

|> > Only if the test is re-normed for each population which takes it. In
|> > order to do comparisons across populations, the same normalization
|> > must be used for all of them.

|> You're missing the point completely. Unless you can tie it to some
|> external measure of fitness (preferably one that wouldn't only apply
|> in an industrial Western society) the only significance of a 15 point
|> difference in IQ score is that that happens to correspond to one
|> standard deviation in performance of the population used to norm the
|> scores. Period. It has no other significance.

Sure it does. If one population tests with a standard deviation of
25, and another has sigma=8, using the normalization of some
reference group of 15, then one population scores with a wider
spread, and the other has a lower one. Now, you can still argue that
the test is invalid across cultures, and for some tests you'd be
right. However, people have been working for a long time to try and
create cognitive tests which *are* valid across cultures. Tests of
things like spatial reasoning, for example. Not only are they pretty
culture-neutral in terms of test administration, but they also
reflect aptitudes which have adaptive significance outside modern
industrial culture.

Maybe we don't have good cross-cultural intelligence tests. Like I
said, this is not a field I'm particularly interested in. However, I
don't find it too difficult to believe that such tests are at least
theoretically possible; I find it quite plausible that such tests
already exist. If and when such tests are administered, cognitive
differences will be found between populations, for the reasons
mentioned above.

|> If you wish to contend that the financial benefits of inventing smallpox
|> vacination, polio vaccine, incandescent lighting, antibiotics, refrigeration,
|> etc. provide a significantly greater improvement in differential reproductive
|> fitness for their inventors and their near kin than they did for the vastly
|> larger populations that benefit from their use, you are welcome to do so. I'd
|> like to see that backed up with some data, though. I doubt the data is there
|> to support that claim. Remember, a patent only lasts 17 years. The benefits
|> that come from applying the technology continue past that.

Remember that evolution works on a statistical basis. Certainly there
are cases where inventors and creative geniuses die broke, but on the
average people who are flexible and adaptible are more successful
than those who execute rigidly programmatic behavior, don't you
think? That has been a long-term trend in human evolution over the
past several million years, and the strength of that particular
selection pressure has only increased as the pace of change has
accellerated over the last 40,000 years.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <En1zu...@info.uucp>, henr...@mach1.wlu.ca (Eric Henry u) writes:

(I wrote):

|> : > You can't pick out the iq 130 guy from the iq 70 guy in an urban
|> : > post-modern crowd, either. People don't wear their iq on their
|> : > sleeve. However, talk to a person for a few minutes, and you can
|> : > distinguish between the high side of the curve from the low side very
|> : > reliably. Vocabulary is a reliable indicator.

|> Intelligence is related to vocabulary? Obviously cultural relativism is
|> a dead idea. Who determines what good vocabulary is. Or is it sheer
|> number of words.

It's the size of the vocabulary, along with the appropriate use of
that vocabulary. And when I say "appropriate", I mean the words are
used effectively; does the user have mastery of the language? Viewing
language as a tool, does the individual use it skillfully?

That's only one aspect of intelligence, of course, but it's very easy
to judge, and correlates well with other aspects of intelligence.

|> But in unwritten languages, does the concept of "word"
|> even have meaning, such as Inuvut.

As far as I can tell, the concept of "word" is just as valid in
unwritten languages as in written ones. How could it possibly not?
Can you explain what you have in mind here? Writing a word doesn't
change the word.

|> The problem is that good vocabulary is determined by the very same people
|> who create IQ tests and administer them. As relatively affluent,
|> somewhat educated and most often white academics, we have crowned
|> ourselves as the pinnacle of humanity. And who should question are taste
|> in art, music, etiquette and vocabulary is obviously less well evolved.
|> I do not share this opinion.

And you can register me as being in favor of motherhood and apple
pie, while we're at it.

Don't waste my time with rhetorical flourishes. Why would you assume
that I meant "proper" vocabulary, as in conforming to an upper-class
etiquette, when I said "vocabulary"? Obviously you can't judge a
person intelligence by how well they conform to a particular
vernacular convention, particularly when languages have many
dialects.

There's more than enough going around already, without anybody being
deliberately obtuse.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <6a19tu$k2b$1...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au>, da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) writes:

|> Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
|> >I recall the case of a squirrel whose range exists on both sides of
|> >the grand canyon in arizona. The northern and southern populations
|> >are physically distinct; I believe the differences are minor. Aren't
|> >the two populations classified as different subspecies?

|> I would imagine that in this case there is a geographical barrier to
|> interbreeding between the populations.

Correct. Of course, squirrels can walk down one side of the canyon,
cross the river during droughts, and walk up the other side to inject
a little diversity over the wrong side of the tracks. It doesn't
happen very often, however.

|> No such barrier exists for any
|> present human populations, and in fact there is very solid evidence for
|> extensive and ongoing genetic admixture.

The fallacy here is the difference between the rigid application of a
linguistic concept - "barrier" - and the reality of statistical,
quantitative "barriers". The sahara desert is not a black hole which
swallows everything entering its ravenous maw - it's a big desert,
which people don't cross very often. The torres straits are not
infinite in width - but the amount of gene flow across them is
insignificant compared to the inter-generational selection and drift
on either side.

|> Hence my comment that subspecies attributions might have been warranted
|> *a millenium ago* -- for Australian Aborigines and Native Americans.

It isn't necessary that there be an *absolute* barrier to gene flow to
create or maintain genetic differences between populations. The key
parameter is the ratio of selection and gene flow. *Relative*
barriers, such as the sahara, or torres straits, or the himalayas,
are quite sufficient.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <6a1aae$kaq$1...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au>, da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) writes:

|> Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
|> >for instance, the fact that australian aborigines have a higher
|> >instance of archaic features than other races could be used to argue
|> >that they are less human than eurasians.

|> This is just as idiotic an idea as saying that crocodiles are "primitive",

|> or that coelocanths are "living fossils". What is an "archaic" feature?

Archaic features are anatomical markers which were more common in the
evolutionary past than they are now. The heavy brow ridge is
considered an archaic feature; the typical h. sapiens of a couple
thousand years ago had a heavier brow ridge than the typical modern
h. sap., and australian aborigines have a heavier brow ridge than any
other modern humans I am aware of. That is a clear and obvious
example of an archaic feature.

|> >|> How you choose subspecies depends on how you choose species, obviously,
|> >|> and the definitions are related. Subspecies are potential or borderline
|> >|> species. There is no way that any existing human populations meet this
|> >|> criteria given the amount of gene exchange happening. (I'm assuming a
|> >|> biological species definition of species here.)

|> >You're wrong about the definition of subspecies. They are *not*
|> >"potential or borderline species". Here is the definition from
|> >minkoff:

|> Who is definitive?

Who is definative? In terms of what constitutes a subspecies? If you
have a definition you prefer, lets see it. The definition which
follows is consistant with standard taxonomic practice. The view of
subspecies as "potential" or "borderline" species is not widely
accepted. A subspecies can evolve into a new species, of course, but
it can just as well exist as a transient geographical varient, or
even a steady-state local adaptation. It all depends on the mechanism
of differentiation.

|> >"Subspecies: One of several geographic or similar subdivisions of a
|> >species, between which interbreeding takes place at a reduced level
|> >(compared to interbreeding within each). A taxonomically distinct
|> >subdivision of a species."
|>
|> >In order to be considered "taxonomically distinct", there needs to be
|> >some kind of visible physical or behavioral difference. That is
|> >clearly the case for humans.

|> Read the defintion you quoted again. You need a reduced level of

|> inter-population interbreeding. And, while there clearly has been a
|> reduced level of interbreeding between populations at a distance, you
|> have to think of "reduced" in some sense that doesn't put every village
|> in its own subspecies...

Not a problem. Clinal gradients get very steep across major
geographic barriers, like oceans, mountains, deserts, and straits.
Even cultural boundaries impose a genetic barrier.

|> There and have never been, and certainly aren't now, any "boundaries"
|> between sub-Saharan and North-African populations. All the genetic
|> evidence shows clinal gradients.

Nope. Look at cavilli-sforza again. The gradients across the sahara
are very steep. The nile is the only highway across the sahara.
Egyptians and sudanese are not nearly as genetically distinct as
moroccans and sene-gambians. Gene flow up and down the nile has been
much greater than gene flow across the sahara.

Again, barriers don't have to be absolute. Compare a tibetan with a
ganges-valley indian; they may live only 100 miles apart, but those
3000 meters of elevation change make all the difference.

Compare a bengali with a sichuanese. You can say that only clinal
gradients separate them genetically, but those gradients are very
steep. There simply haven't been many people (or genes) traveling
between these 2 populations, and as a result, there is a significant
genetic distance between them. The spatial distance is considerably
smaller than the genetic distance.

[Bill Perez]

Gerold Firl wrote:
>
> In article <92o3eip...@knine.eecs.umich.edu>, Karl Kluge <kck...@knine.eecs.umich.edu> writes:
>

> |> With respect to whatever underlying cognitive competence it purports to
> |> measure, from a perspective of functionality in the day-to-day environment I
> |> doubt you'd be able to pick out the mu + 2 sigma folks from the mu folks in a
> |> rural pre-industrial crowd.
>

> You can't pick out the iq 130 guy from the iq 70 guy in an urban
> post-modern crowd, either. People don't wear their iq on their
> sleeve. However, talk to a person for a few minutes, and you can
> distinguish between the high side of the curve from the low side very
> reliably. Vocabulary is a reliable indicator.

Vocabulary? Not necessarily so. See Pinker's (in the _Language
Instinct_) description of patients with William's syndrome, or the
recent article on William's syndrome in _Scientific American_. If
language acquisition and use is an "instinct," as Pinker and Chomsky,
etc., believe, with reason, then "intelligence" may have nothing to do
with it.

> That is neither here nor there, however. The kind of intelligence
> measured by iq is relevant to fitness in all human environments, and
> may reasonably be expected to show some variation between
> populations.

And within populations. That intelligence per se is relevant to fitness
(among hominids) is, I think, a different question than whether the
observed differences in intelligence are relevant. How tiny does the
difference have to be before it is no more than noise against a weak
selective pressure? Do a handful of IQ point differences between our
great-great-great-grandparents reliably translate into a significant
difference in the number of our cousins? "Intelligence," or rather,
sufficiently small differences in it, may be neutral, in this context. I
guess the question is, to use Seward's beautiful metaphor, whether the
adaptive fitness landscape regarding intelligence, at the scale of the
differences in question, is irresistably steep, or gentle enough to
allow a more or less random walk, by a cloud of genomic "points," about
its peak.

> The question here was whether sociobiological evolution
> might have selected for a wider spread *within* populations, as the
> social benefits of a more specialized division of labor favored
> specialists over generalists. It's a fair question.

Hmmmm. Group selectionism? From one who has been known to admiringly
quote Dawkins? The only way this would work is if certain individuals
were *rewarded,* selectively speaking, when exhibiting *less
intelligence.* Otherwise, what is their genetic incentive for
sacrificing their fitness for "the good of the population?" They would
have to have a significant genetic stake in the success of more fecund
"castes" (as workers in eusocial insect colonies do with respect to
their queens).

> |> As for selection pressure, since the benefits of creativity or inventiveness
> |> are not confined to creative individuals and their offspring it's unclear to
> |> me that selection will favor the genes of creative individuals (assuming that
> |> such talents are heritable in the first place).
>

> In societies which value creativity and inventiveness, or to put it
> more generally, in *environments* where such traits increase
> individual fitness, individuals and their kin will benefit.

Societies "valuing" certain traits may have nothing to do with Darwinian
fitness. A society which "values" celibacy, or hiri-kiri, or
contraception, or female infanticide, would seem to me to be quite at
odds with an individual human genome's biological fitness. Individuals
which are thus "valued" may not have any kin to benefit from it. If a
society "valued" a certain trait by reliably rewarding its holders, and
no others, with pampered harems, preferably drawn from other such
people, and differences in the trait could not be counterfeited in a
non-hereditable way, you might have a candidate.

> What kind
> of environments favor invention? Any environment which is unstable or
> rapidly evolving.

Such environments can favor traits other than "invention." It is a
mistake to suppose that all the non-human species of the world, because
they lack "inventiveness," face only stable, static, or slowly changing
environments. It seems to me that the most common evolutionary response
to unpredictably fluctuating environments is enhanced fecundity.

> It may be that in very stable environments, where
> very little change occurs over many generations, creativity is of no
> benefit. One could even imagine how it might actually be a detriment;
> but change comes eventually to all, and when it does, the inventive
> have a better chance of surviving/prospering.

Intelligence may be a detriment at an even more fundamental level. To
the extent that we (our conscious, "intelligent" selves) have agendas
and goals that differ from those of our genes, "creativity" may actually
be employed to *blunt* Darwinian fitness. For instance, is the
historical decline of Scandinavian birthrates (to the point where they
have dipped into the negative at times) in this century evidence of a
decline in "intelligence" among Scandinavians? It is definitely a
decline in their "fitness." Would a doubling of their average IQ result
in a dramatic turnaround in their birthrate?

[Danny Yee]

Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
>Logically,
>it's impossible for the different races of man to have preciscely the
>same cognitive profile. We differ in every single imaginable physical
>characteristic which can be measured, so in as much as mentality is
>specified by the genes, we will vary there too.

More than 90% of human genetic variation is intra-communal. Around 5%
is intra-regional. Individuals no doubt vary in cognitive abilities
as a result of genetic variation, but to talk about "different races of
man" in this context is just totally confused. Races are predominantly
social constructs, and if we are interested in the genetics underlying
cognitive traits, using race categories is only going to make our task
more difficult.

It is perfectly possible to study human genetic variation and human
cognitive abilities -- without collapsing the first into racial categories
and the second into IQ. Such an approach might produce results which
are simply invisible to the narrow obsessions of racism.

Danny.

[Danny Yee]

Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
>The fallacy here is the difference between the rigid application of a
>linguistic concept - "barrier" - and the reality of statistical,
>quantitative "barriers". The sahara desert is not a black hole which
>swallows everything entering its ravenous maw - it's a big desert,
>which people don't cross very often. The torres straits are not
>infinite in width - but the amount of gene flow across them is
>insignificant compared to the inter-generational selection and drift
>on either side.

Not true. Gene exchange across the Torres Strait is comparable to
-- probably larger than in some cases -- gene flows between adjacent
valleys *inside* New Guinea. Are you willing to put the populations
of individual valleys in New Guinea into their own subspecies? If not,
why not, given the criteria you are using.

>It isn't necessary that there be an *absolute* barrier to gene flow to
>create or maintain genetic differences between populations. The key
>parameter is the ratio of selection and gene flow. *Relative*
>barriers, such as the sahara, or torres straits, or the himalayas,
>are quite sufficient.

(The Alps are a relative barrier - so is the English Channel.) Such
barriers certainly show up in the clines of human genetic variation
(as steeper regions). But they are just contributors to gradients over
far larger distances.

In any event, given modern communications, all these barriers are of
decreasing importance.

Danny.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <6a393c$cqa$1...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au>, da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) writes:
|> Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:

|> >Logically,
|> >it's impossible for the different races of man to have preciscely the
|> >same cognitive profile. We differ in every single imaginable physical
|> >characteristic which can be measured, so in as much as mentality is
|> >specified by the genes, we will vary there too.

|> More than 90% of human genetic variation is intra-communal. Around 5%

|> is intra-regional. Individuals no doubt vary in cognitive abilities
|> as a result of genetic variation, but to talk about "different races of
|> man" in this context is just totally confused. Races are predominantly
|> social constructs, and if we are interested in the genetics underlying
|> cognitive traits, using race categories is only going to make our task
|> more difficult.

You say that races are "predominantly" a social construct; lets leave
that for now. That "social construct" would not exist were it not for
underlying genetic differences which are significant enough to be
visible to the layman, but lets just leave that.

Lets take one of those social constructs and start making
measurements. Anything you like: height, weight, surface area to
volume ratio, aspect ratio of clavicle, resting metabolism, hormone
levels (controlled for life cycle, of course), length ratio of femur
to humerus, cephalic index - you will find variations between
populations. The variations between closely related populations, like
spanish and portugese, will be small. The variations between more
distantly related populations, like swedes and pygmies, will be
larger.

For some measurements, the inter-group variations will exceed
variations within the group; for others, the reverse will be true.

Measurements of cognitive function will follow the same pattern as
any other physical characteristic. They will be smaller than many
physical traits, however; mean IQ varies between populations by less
than one standard deviation, while something like mean height can
vary by more than 3 sigma. That is significant, by any statistical
measure.

In other words, the differences are real. They are the result of
breeding isolation, local adaptation, and genetic drift; just like
the geographic variation of any other wide-ranging species.
Socio-cultural differentiation has, in many case, exagerated the
magnitude of those differences, but the differences are still there.

|> It is perfectly possible to study human genetic variation and human
|> cognitive abilities -- without collapsing the first into racial categories
|> and the second into IQ. Such an approach might produce results which
|> are simply invisible to the narrow obsessions of racism.

Who is obsessed with racism in this discussion? You want to telescope
any discussion of racial variation into the racism bucket, but there
is more here on earth than is dreamed-of in that philosophy. If we
want to understand the history and evolution of man, then we need to
recognize all the branches of our family tree. That's realism, not
racism.

You seem to feel that discrimination, or even genocide, is the
inevitable result of recognizing human genetic variation. I don't see
it that way.

[Dr. Efram E. Goldstein]

Gerold Firl wrote in article >...

> The idea that US blacks have a *genetically based* predilection for
> violent crime seems kind of difficult to believe.
>

> How would such a thesis be proven? Even if you looked at adoption
> data, where blacks were raised in white families, there are so many
> uncontrolled socialization variables involved that I would be very
> skeptical of such a conclusion.
>
> Can you say something about the methodology?

> Gerold Firl

Let us answer this question with science,
for I am not a racist.

First- can genes influence behavior?
My Labrador retriever dog is good natured
and loves to retrieve thrown objects- both are
characteristic of the breed, due to genetics.
Genetics can influence behavior, at least in dogs,
and there is no controversy about this in the
scientific literature.

But what about human race and crime? Is there
a connection? In every nation on Earth the
crime statistics show Asians to be most law
abiding, followed next by Caucasians, and with
Negroids having much higher levels of crime.

The US Dept. of Justice website has the statistics
that I take the following calculations from. They are buried
deep, but you can find them if you dig.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/

In the US, the chance that a randomly selected black man
will commit a violent crime (rape, murder, assault)
is 6 times greater than that for a randomly selected white man.
Not 10 percent more, not 50 percent more,
not 200 percent more, but six hundred percent (6 fold).
Although only 12 percent of the population is black, blacks
commit more than half of all violent crimes.

If we look at inter-racial crime (i.e. the victim and
perpetrator are of different races) we find that
blacks murder or attack whites at 60 times the rate that
whites murder or attack blacks, and that blacks rape
white women at more than 100 times the rate at which whites
rape black women. US Asians commit almost no such crimes by
comparison. These numbers are complied from the
crime reports of the victims.

Such huge disparities are never reported
by the press. The statistics speak for themselves
are strongly suggestive of a genetic root,
to say the least.

[Danny Yee]

Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
>You say that races are "predominantly" a social construct; lets leave
>that for now. That "social construct" would not exist were it not for
>underlying genetic differences which are significant enough to be
>visible to the layman, but lets just leave that.

Sure, superficial physical features certainly play a role in the
construction of races and ethnic groups.

>Lets take one of those social constructs and start making
>measurements. Anything you like: height, weight, surface area to
>volume ratio, aspect ratio of clavicle, resting metabolism, hormone
>levels (controlled for life cycle, of course), length ratio of femur
>to humerus, cephalic index - you will find variations between
>populations. The variations between closely related populations, like
>spanish and portugese, will be small. The variations between more
>distantly related populations, like swedes and pygmies, will be
>larger.

>For some measurements, the inter-group variations will exceed
>variations within the group; for others, the reverse will be true.

If you look at genetic variation, the inter-group components are much,
much smaller than the intra-group components. Ballpark values would be
around 90% for intra-communal variation, 5% for intra-regional variation,
and 5% for inter-regional variation.

>|> It is perfectly possible to study human genetic variation and human
>|> cognitive abilities -- without collapsing the first into racial categories
>|> and the second into IQ. Such an approach might produce results which
>|> are simply invisible to the narrow obsessions of racism.

>Who is obsessed with racism in this discussion? You want to telescope
>any discussion of racial variation into the racism bucket, but there
>is more here on earth than is dreamed-of in that philosophy. If we
>want to understand the history and evolution of man, then we need to
>recognize all the branches of our family tree. That's realism, not
>racism.

>You seem to feel that discrimination, or even genocide, is the
>inevitable result of recognizing human genetic variation. I don't see
>it that way.

Not true at all. I am perfectly happy to study human genetic and
biological variation, independently of the politics of the issue.
What I'm not happy with is the poor science that starts such study with
a crippling focus on racial classifications.

Danny.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <6a3h8h$9...@bgtnsc01.worldnet.att.net>, "Dr. Efram E. Goldstein" <efr...@worldsciuni.com> writes:

|> Gerold Firl wrote in article >...
|> > The idea that US blacks have a *genetically based* predilection for
|> > violent crime seems kind of difficult to believe.
|> >
|> > How would such a thesis be proven? Even if you looked at adoption
|> > data, where blacks were raised in white families, there are so many
|> > uncontrolled socialization variables involved that I would be very
|> > skeptical of such a conclusion.
|> >
|> > Can you say something about the methodology?

|> a connection? In every nation on Earth the

|> crime statistics show Asians to be most law
|> abiding, followed next by Caucasians, and with
|> Negroids having much higher levels of crime.

In the US, blacks commit crimes at a much higher rate than whites or
asians. That much is clear. Trying to disentangle genetic and
cultural influences on that behavior is much more difficult.

You present statistics from the US. If similar statistics were found
in a wide variety of cultures, with radically different relations
between race, class, and social history, then concluding that a
genetic basis exists would make some sense. I don't think any such
clear-cut situation is availible, however. Other societies with a
sizable african component in a mixed-race population include britain,
france, canada, the caribean, south africa, and zanzibar. None of
them provide an ideal control to compare with US data. I expect that
crime rates for canada and zanzibar will show a less dramatic
black-white difference than seen in the US, while south africa might
actually be a little worse.

Right now, your data looks less than compelling. In fact, I call it
irresponsible to make a claim of genetic causality (scientifically
proven, no less) on the basis of such uncontrolled methodology.

|> Such huge disparities are never reported
|> by the press. The statistics speak for themselves
|> are strongly suggestive of a genetic root,
|> to say the least.

Suggestive - ok. But "suggestive" is not scientific. Anything is
possible, especially when data is lacking. We don't have sufficient
data at this time, and premature claims, for a sensitive issue of
this nature, should not be made irresponsibly.

[Danny Yee]

Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
>Not a problem. Clinal gradients get very steep across major
>geographic barriers, like oceans, mountains, deserts, and straits.
>Even cultural boundaries impose a genetic barrier.

Sure.

>Nope. Look at cavilli-sforza again. The gradients across the sahara
>are very steep. The nile is the only highway across the sahara.

The whole of North-Eastern Africa is a "highway", with quite shallow
gradients.

>Egyptians and sudanese are not nearly as genetically distinct as
>moroccans and sene-gambians. Gene flow up and down the nile has been
>much greater than gene flow across the sahara.

Sure. But there has still been gene flow across the Sahara. It was
quite fertile until maybe 10 000 years ago, and trade across it has
probably been continuous.

>Again, barriers don't have to be absolute. Compare a tibetan with a
>ganges-valley indian; they may live only 100 miles apart, but those
>3000 meters of elevation change make all the difference.

So you want to put the Nepalese into a different subspecies to Ganges
river dwellers? Heck, you could put the left and right bank populations
of the Ganges valley into separate subspecies while you were at it.
And why not one for every island in the Pacific?

>Compare a bengali with a sichuanese. You can say that only clinal
>gradients separate them genetically, but those gradients are very
>steep. There simply haven't been many people (or genes) traveling
>between these 2 populations, and as a result, there is a significant
>genetic distance between them.

Except that "genetic distance" is not a fundamental property. It is
a very simple *summary* of a wide variety of variation. You will find
that using different markers produces completely different "distances",
and that in many cases averaging these is completely artifactual.

>The spatial distance is considerably
>smaller than the genetic distance.

I'm sorry, but this is just gibberish.

Danny.

[Danny Yee]

Dr. Efram E. Goldstein <efr...@worldsciuni.com> wrote:
>In every nation on Earth the
>crime statistics show Asians to be most law
>abiding,

Really? So why were there half a million murders in Indonesia in 1965/66?
Have deaths during the Cultural Revolution been included in Chinese
crime statistics?

Danny.

[Tom Farrell]

William Wallace wrote:

> IQ tests do not deal with vocabulary, they simply correlate with
> vocabulary tests.

So no written language is used whatsoever in an IQ test? Not the ones
I've done...

Tom

[Hans-Georg Michna]

da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) wrote:

>[...] Races are predominantly

>social constructs, and if we are interested in the genetics underlying
>cognitive traits, using race categories is only going to make our task
>more difficult.

Danny,

but every schoolchild can distinguish the main human races at
first sight. I wonder why you deny their existence. Are you
blind?

Hans-Georg

[No mail please]

[Danny Yee]

I wrote:
>>[...] Races are predominantly
>>social constructs, and if we are interested in the genetics underlying
>>cognitive traits, using race categories is only going to make our task
>>more difficult.

Hans-Georg Michna <hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com> wrote:
>but every schoolchild can distinguish the main human races at
>first sight. I wonder why you deny their existence. Are you
>blind?

Schoolchildren can tell business executives from beggars, too, but that
hardly warrants putting them in different subspecies.

The ability of people to distinguish members of ethnic groups is
partly based on physical differences, but it is also based on language,
behaviour, and other cultural differences.

Certainly attributes such as skin colour influence attribution to
ethnic groups - but they don't tell the whole story by a long way.
Membership of ethnic groups and the boundaries between them have been
studied for some time, and there's an extensive literature on them.
Fredrik Barth's _Ethnic Groups and Boundaries_ is an older work, but I
think a good overview of some of the issues.

While I'm not a narrow reductionist (or even a cultural materialist),
I do believe there's something to be said for trying to separate studies
of genetic variation from such social complexities.

Danny.

[Tom Farrell]

Gerold Firl wrote:

> |> Read the defintion you quoted again. You need a reduced level of
> |> inter-population interbreeding. And, while there clearly has been a
> |> reduced level of interbreeding between populations at a distance, you
> |> have to think of "reduced" in some sense that doesn't put every village
> |> in its own subspecies...
>

> Not a problem. Clinal gradients get very steep across major
> geographic barriers, like oceans, mountains, deserts, and straits.
> Even cultural boundaries impose a genetic barrier.

You say "not a problem", but you don't actually address the issue.
Anyone familiar with even recent historical patterns knows that the
village was the limit of travel for most people until surprisingly
recently. So inter-breeding between villages was definitely "reduced".
Tom

[Tom Farrell]

Gerold Firl wrote:

> Lets take one of those social constructs and start making
> measurements. Anything you like: height, weight, surface area to
> volume ratio, aspect ratio of clavicle, resting metabolism, hormone
> levels (controlled for life cycle, of course), length ratio of femur
> to humerus, cephalic index - you will find variations between
> populations. The variations between closely related populations, like
> spanish and portugese, will be small. The variations between more
> distantly related populations, like swedes and pygmies, will be
> larger.

all OK so far...

> For some measurements, the inter-group variations will exceed
> variations within the group; for others, the reverse will be true.

Careful what you say here. Danny is talking about *genetic variation*.
Inter-group variation of something like height (one of the criteria you
suggested) is almost always most affected by diet.

> Measurements of cognitive function will follow the same pattern as
> any other physical characteristic. They will be smaller than many
> physical traits, however; mean IQ varies between populations by less
> than one standard deviation, while something like mean height can
> vary by more than 3 sigma. That is significant, by any statistical
> measure.

Again, you are moving from Danny's FACT concerning genetic variation, to
measurements of physical entities that are only *potential reflections*
of genetic variation, and as I pointed out WRT height, not very good
ones.

> In other words, the differences are real. They are the result of
> breeding isolation, local adaptation, and genetic drift; just like
> the geographic variation of any other wide-ranging species.
> Socio-cultural differentiation has, in many case, exagerated the
> magnitude of those differences, but the differences are still there.

And now we move to this, what a surprise. You posit that the
differences are the result of "breeding isolation, local adaption and
genetic drift". Can I ask you simply - DOES THAT APPLY TO HEIGHT?

i think you will have to agree that it does not. Something much more
basic applies to height - nutrition. Your attempt to extrapolate from
height to IQ is wrong-headed, as the same factors may affect that.

> Who is obsessed with racism in this discussion? You want to telescope
> any discussion of racial variation into the racism bucket, but there
> is more here on earth than is dreamed-of in that philosophy. If we
> want to understand the history and evolution of man, then we need to
> recognize all the branches of our family tree. That's realism, not
> racism.
>
> You seem to feel that discrimination, or even genocide, is the
> inevitable result of recognizing human genetic variation. I don't see
> it that way.

You haven't spoken about genetic variation! If we want to study genetic
variation, we can look at DNA, not attempt to measure this and that on
the human body (and even more vague attempts to measure what is in our
heads).
Danny has made a clear statement about genetic variation, can you not
challenge it directly?

Tom

[verne e woods]

Karl Kludge wrote:
> Oh really? I suppose you can point me to the data supporting the
> claim that higher socio-economic status was positively correlated
> with greater chance of survival during the Black Death? During
> the post-WW I flu pandemic?

You'll find some beautifully presented relevant data in a book
published in the early 1980s entitled DEATH AS A SOCIAL DISEASE.
Sorry, I've forgotten the name(s) of the author. But, as I recall,
the book was reviewed in SCIENCE and the reviewer enticed me into
buying the book. The book tells us that in Paris in the early to
mid-1800s the mortality rate was inversely proportional to resident
wealth, that cholera disproportionately claimed the poor, and that
high infant mortality was the normal lot of the miserable and the

[Dennis A. Schmitz]

Danny Yee wrote:
> Hans-Georg Michna <hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com> wrote:

> >but every schoolchild can distinguish the main human races at
> >first sight. I wonder why you deny their existence. Are you
> >blind?

> Schoolchildren can tell business executives from beggars, too, but that
> hardly warrants putting them in different subspecies.

Are you equating the term 'race' with 'subspecies'? 'Subspecies' is
reserved for gross differences in body type and inhereted behavioral
traits, like the difference between wolf, dog, dingo, and coyote, or so
I thought. Human differences don't extend this far.

In any case, there are still visually recognizable differences between
large geologically isolated human populations. Why? If 90% of the
variation is within a population and 5% is between populations, why are
the differences between populations as represented by the 5% variation
more easily recognized than the 90% variation within a group?

There are of course several explanations, but which one are you
proposing?

> The ability of people to distinguish members of ethnic groups is
> partly based on physical differences, but it is also based on language,
> behaviour, and other cultural differences.

Nobody is disputing the language and behavior stuff. You're throwing it
in as a distraction. Hans-Georg is right, you have an agenda. Is it that
people in genetic research must go to extreme lengths to appear
un-racist for some reason?

--
Later, http://www.ecsd.com/~den
den mailto:den...@ecsd.com

[Gerold Firl]

In article <6a3iqc$gpo$1...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au>, da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) writes:

|> Gerold Firl <ger...@sdd.hp.com> wrote:
|> >You say that races are "predominantly" a social construct; lets leave
|> >that for now. That "social construct" would not exist were it not for
|> >underlying genetic differences which are significant enough to be
|> >visible to the layman, but lets just leave that.

|> Sure, superficial physical features certainly play a role in the
|> construction of races and ethnic groups.

Lets examine this statement a little closer. "Superficial" (meaning
visible to the naked eye) traits certainly do play a major role in
the construction of racial groups, especially at the level of
folk-classification (as opposed to more scientifically based
designations, which would use anatomical/behavioral (phenotypic)
comparisons, or best yet, compare the genotype directly.)

However, the claim is often heard that these "superficial" traits are
essentially meaningless from a biological point of view. Lets
consider this claim in more detail. How could it be possible for
evolution to produce radical changes in the superficial appearance of
widely separated populations, while leaving more fundamental and
significant characteristics unchanged? Particularly when we consider
that natural selection acts primarily on those aspects of the
genotype which bear directly on adaptive fitness to a particular
environment?

There is only one mechanism which can be invoked to support such a
claim: culturally-mediated self-selection, specifically for the
purpose of exacerbating the superficial differences between cultural
groups.

Is such an explanation plausible? Are the differences between eskimos
and sri lankans caused by arbitrary self-selection for the purpose of
cultural identity? A sort of sociobiological, genotypic head-binding?
The answer is no. Culture does impose an artificial barrier to gene
transfer, but it can not account for the type and magnitude of racial
differences seen among humans. That is more parsimoniously explained
as good old fashioned selection and drift, as seen on this planet
with many other species.

|> >Lets take one of those social constructs and start making
|> >measurements. Anything you like: height, weight, surface area to
|> >volume ratio, aspect ratio of clavicle, resting metabolism, hormone
|> >levels (controlled for life cycle, of course), length ratio of femur
|> >to humerus, cephalic index - you will find variations between
|> >populations. The variations between closely related populations, like
|> >spanish and portugese, will be small. The variations between more
|> >distantly related populations, like swedes and pygmies, will be
|> >larger.
|>

|> >For some measurements, the inter-group variations will exceed
|> >variations within the group; for others, the reverse will be true.

|> If you look at genetic variation, the inter-group components are much,

|> much smaller than the intra-group components. Ballpark values would be
|> around 90% for intra-communal variation, 5% for intra-regional variation,
|> and 5% for inter-regional variation.

That depends which genes you are looking at. The (small number of)
genes which have been used so far to characterize genetic distances
between populations are largely *neutral* genes, which are not known
to control obvious genetic markers, and which are not subject to
strong selection for local adaptation.

Blood groups are a good example. They are quite neutral, and for
non-isolated populations, every blood group is represented. Thus
there is wide variation within the population. Isolated groups will
have very different distributions, but by a suitible averaging
technique you can show that most of the variation is within groups,
rather than between them.

The picture looks very different when considering genes which control
habitat-specific adaptations, however. The lighter coloration of
high-latitude populations is just a superficial hint of the hidden,
internal adaptations to low temperature and low UV radiation.

|> >|> It is perfectly possible to study human genetic variation and human
|> >|> cognitive abilities -- without collapsing the first into racial categories
|> >|> and the second into IQ. Such an approach might produce results which
|> >|> are simply invisible to the narrow obsessions of racism.

|> >Who is obsessed with racism in this discussion? You want to telescope

|> >any discussion of racial variation into the racism bucket, but there
|> >is more here on earth than is dreamed-of in that philosophy. If we
|> >want to understand the history and evolution of man, then we need to
|> >recognize all the branches of our family tree. That's realism, not
|> >racism.
|>
|> >You seem to feel that discrimination, or even genocide, is the
|> >inevitable result of recognizing human genetic variation. I don't see
|> >it that way.

|> Not true at all. I am perfectly happy to study human genetic and

|> biological variation, independently of the politics of the issue.
|> What I'm not happy with is the poor science that starts such study with
|> a crippling focus on racial classifications.

Racial classifications are a rough-cut linguistic approximation of
the underlying clinal variations. The reason they have some validity
is because clinal variations tend to cluster around population
centers which have existed in a particular environment for some time,
with some degree of isolation from the rest of the species. Note I
said *some* isolation: not complete isolation, not perfect isolation,
just sufficient isolation to allow the preservation of genetic
differences with neighboring populations.

I can easily imagine how an obsession with race could result in a
"crippling" focus, but that problem is by no means inevitable.

[Gerold Firl]

In article <34C63527...@positron.net>, "Dennis A. Schmitz" <dsch...@positron.net> writes:

|> Danny Yee wrote:

|> > Hans-Georg Michna <hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com> wrote:
|>
|> > >but every schoolchild can distinguish the main human races at
|> > >first sight. I wonder why you deny their existence. Are you
|> > >blind?

|> > Schoolchildren can tell business executives from beggars, too, but that
|> > hardly warrants putting them in different subspecies.

|> Are you equating the term 'race' with 'subspecies'? 'Subspecies' is
|> reserved for gross differences in body type and inhereted behavioral
|> traits, like the difference between wolf, dog, dingo, and coyote, or so
|> I thought. Human differences don't extend this far.

First of all, I'd like to state that my newsreader has lost a number
of articles in this thread which I wanted to respond to. My apologies
for any I miss.

On the subject of the relation of subspecies to race, you are
mistaken. Dog, wolf, and coyote are separate species, as are lion,
tiger, and leopard. Same genus, different species. The bengal,
sumatran, and siberian tigers are different subspecies - or,
equivalently, different races of the same species.

|> Nobody is disputing the language and behavior stuff. You're throwing it
|> in as a distraction. Hans-Georg is right, you have an agenda. Is it that
|> people in genetic research must go to extreme lengths to appear
|> un-racist for some reason?

That does appear to be an occupational hazard in the field.

[Dennis A. Schmitz]

Gerold Firl wrote:

> On the subject of the relation of subspecies to race, you are
> mistaken. Dog, wolf, and coyote are separate species, as are lion,

Dogs, wolves and coyote all interbreed with viable offspring. Perhaps
you're using a different of species than I'm used to. There's as much
genetic variation between different breeds of dogs as between a given
breed and a wolf.

Fox, on the other hand, can't breed with any of them, to my knowledge,
despite physical similarity.

[Dennis A. Schmitz]

Gerold Firl wrote:

> On the subject of the relation of subspecies to race, you are
> mistaken. Dog, wolf, and coyote are separate species, as are lion,

Oops, I said 'viable offspring' when I meant 'fertile offspring'.
There's a whole breeding industry selling wolf/dog hybrids at various
ratios (states regulate the ratio which must be acheived by breeders
before selling to the public). The red wolf, although they generally run
with other red wolves, is a grey wolf/coyote hybrid (there was a big
stink among environmentalists when it was taken off the protected list
because of this) which can exist as a population of red wolves or be
recreated at will by a wolf/coyote pair.

[Dennis A. Schmitz]

Gerold Firl wrote:

> On the subject of the relation of subspecies to race, you are
> mistaken. Dog, wolf, and coyote are separate species, as are lion,

One last thing: I did a quick check:

Wolf: canis lupis x (where x denotes the wolf sub species such as
'arctos')
Dog: canis lupis familiaris

Wolf and Dog have the same relationship as modern humans to neandertals.

[ger...@sdd.hp.com]

In article <34C614...@iona.com>,

That all depends on the specific kinship rules of that particular
culture. If you look at the various rules of exogamy governing marriage,
partners might be found in the village (if it's sufficiently large), or
in neighboring villages, or in a bewildering array of other possible
arrangements.

During the vast stretch of prehistory during which we lived in
hunter-gatherer bands, low population density dictated that marriage
partners be found at some distance from the home range. Now, how much of
the current racial variation evolved prior to agriculture, and how much
has occured more recently? It's an interesting question, but in any case,
the lifetime of any particular village is very short on the evolutionary
scale. You need to consider a bigger time frame to get a feel for the
sweep of evolution.

- gerold

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[ger...@sdd.hp.com]

In article <34C619...@iona.com>,
Tom Farrell <tfar...@iona.com> wrote:

> Gerold Firl wrote:
>
> > Lets take one of those social constructs and start making
> > measurements. Anything you like: height, weight, surface area to
> > volume ratio, aspect ratio of clavicle, resting metabolism, hormone
> > levels (controlled for life cycle, of course), length ratio of femur
> > to humerus, cephalic index - you will find variations between
> > populations. The variations between closely related populations, like
> > spanish and portugese, will be small. The variations between more
> > distantly related populations, like swedes and pygmies, will be
> > larger.

> all OK so far...

> > For some measurements, the inter-group variations will exceed
> > variations within the group; for others, the reverse will be true.

> Careful what you say here. Danny is talking about *genetic variation*.

> Inter-group variation of something like height (one of the criteria you
> suggested) is almost always most affected by diet.

Yes, it is affected by diet. However, it is possible to get an idea of
the genetic component vs. the environmental influence. Pygmies are
shorter than swedes, or tutsi, by more than 3 standard deviations. You
have to control for external, environmental variables to determine how
much of that difference is genetic and how much is environmental, but
there is definately a significant genetic difference there. Pygmies are
adapted to life in the rainforest. *All* the rainforest species (and
subspecies) are smaller than their savanna relatives, and humans are no
exception.

> > Measurements of cognitive function will follow the same pattern as
> > any other physical characteristic. They will be smaller than many
> > physical traits, however; mean IQ varies between populations by less
> > than one standard deviation, while something like mean height can
> > vary by more than 3 sigma. That is significant, by any statistical
> > measure.

> Again, you are moving from Danny's FACT concerning genetic variation, to
> measurements of physical entities that are only *potential reflections*
> of genetic variation, and as I pointed out WRT height, not very good
> ones.

Why aren't they very good ones? We don't know which genes control
functions like resting metabolism, but we know that cold-climate
populations have higher metabolic rates than hot weather populations.
They have other, more subtle adaptations which present them from freezing
as well.

Direct measurements of genotypic variations are preferable to phenotypic
variations. They are more quantitative and objective. However, the state
of the art is still primitive when it comes to gene typing. Genes
actually code for proteins, and it's far from obvious exactly how those
proteins result in complex physiological/behavioral output in the form of
an organism. There is still value in comparitive anatomy.

> > In other words, the differences are real. They are the result of
> > breeding isolation, local adaptation, and genetic drift; just like
> > the geographic variation of any other wide-ranging species.
> > Socio-cultural differentiation has, in many case, exagerated the
> > magnitude of those differences, but the differences are still there.

> And now we move to this, what a surprise. You posit that the
> differences are the result of "breeding isolation, local adaption and
> genetic drift". Can I ask you simply - DOES THAT APPLY TO HEIGHT?
>
> i think you will have to agree that it does not. Something much more
> basic applies to height - nutrition. Your attempt to extrapolate from
> height to IQ is wrong-headed, as the same factors may affect that.

Wrong. Nutrition affects height, but so does genetics. Feed a pygmy an
american diet, and he'll still be short. Your faith in human plasticity
is astonishing. D

> Danny has made a clear statement about genetic variation, can you not
> challenge it directly?

Check _the history and geography of human genes_. The cover shows a
color-coded map of genetic distance between populations. Surprise:
europeans, asians, africans, australians, and amerindians show up as
distinct groups. What do you make of that?

[Hans-Georg Michna]

da...@nonsense.anatomy.usyd.edu.au (Danny Yee) wrote:

>Hans-Georg Michna <hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com> wrote:

>>but every schoolchild can distinguish the main human races at
>>first sight. I wonder why you deny their existence. Are you
>>blind?

>Schoolchildren can tell business executives from beggars, too, but that
>hardly warrants putting them in different subspecies.

Danny,

at this point further discussion is pointless, as you have a
fundamental problem with logic.

You're trying to argue that I implied that any group of humans a
schoolchild can discern must be a subspecies. Instead I implied
that schoolchildren can discern human races (or subspecies, a
word I haven't used in my statement above). I obviously neither
said or implied that a schoolchild cannot discern other groups
as well, nor did I say or imply that there are no other groups
of humans beside races.

Please let me know whether I can help you with some hints at how
to improve your grasp of logic. Are you a member of Mensa?

Hans-Georg

[No mail please]

[ger...@sdd.hp.com]

In article <34C552...@xnet.com>,
covalent...@xnet.com wrote:

> Gerold Firl wrote:

> > In article <92o3eip...@knine.eecs.umich.edu>, Karl Kluge
<kck...@knine.eecs.umich.edu> writes:

> > |> With respect to whatever underlying cognitive competence it purports to
> > |> measure, from a perspective of functionality in the day-to-day
environment I
> > |> doubt you'd be able to pick out the mu + 2 sigma folks from the mu folks
in a
> > |> rural pre-industrial crowd.

> > You can't pick out the iq 130 guy from the iq 70 guy in an urban
> > post-modern crowd, either. People don't wear their iq on their
> > sleeve. However, talk to a person for a few minutes, and you can
> > distinguish between the high side of the curve from the low side very
> > reliably. Vocabulary is a reliable indicator.

> Vocabulary? Not necessarily so. See Pinker's (in the _Language
> Instinct_) description of patients with William's syndrome, or the
> recent article on William's syndrome in _Scientific American_. If
> language acquisition and use is an "instinct," as Pinker and Chomsky,
> etc., believe, with reason, then "intelligence" may have nothing to do
> with it.

Humans have a language instinct. We acquire language unconsciously, both
vocabulary and grammer. However, there is such a thing as verbal
intelligence: the facility and efficacy with which language is used. Of
course, there are individuals who have high verbal intelligence, and yet
are dumb in other areas, and vice versa, but usually there is correlation
between verbal intelligence and general intelligence.

> > That is neither here nor there, however. The kind of intelligence
> > measured by iq is relevant to fitness in all human environments, and
> > may reasonably be expected to show some variation between
> > populations.

> And within populations. That intelligence per se is relevant to fitness
> (among hominids) is, I think, a different question than whether the
> observed differences in intelligence are relevant. How tiny does the
> difference have to be before it is no more than noise against a weak
> selective pressure? Do a handful of IQ point differences between our
> great-great-great-grandparents reliably translate into a significant
> difference in the number of our cousins? "Intelligence," or rather,
> sufficiently small differences in it, may be neutral, in this context. I
> guess the question is, to use Seward's beautiful metaphor, whether the
> adaptive fitness landscape regarding intelligence, at the scale of the
> differences in question, is irresistably steep, or gentle enough to
> allow a more or less random walk, by a cloud of genomic "points," about
> its peak.

Good question. If the test is normed such that 15 points = one standard
deviation, then 1 point is pretty insignificant. 15 points would
definately be significant, and intermediate values would be intermediate.

> > The question here was whether sociobiological evolution
> > might have selected for a wider spread *within* populations, as the
> > social benefits of a more specialized division of labor favored
> > specialists over generalists. It's a fair question.

> Hmmmm. Group selectionism? From one who has been known to admiringly
> quote Dawkins? The only way this would work is if certain individuals
> were *rewarded,* selectively speaking, when exhibiting *less
> intelligence.* Otherwise, what is their genetic incentive for
> sacrificing their fitness for "the good of the population?" They would
> have to have a significant genetic stake in the success of more fecund
> "castes" (as workers in eusocial insect colonies do with respect to
> their queens).

I was thinking in terms of selection in favor of a more specialized type
of intelligence; perhaps something along the lines of a social niche
opened-up by the institution of the shaman in the band, or more recently,
the abstract thinker in the mold of the sumerian priestly role, or the
mandarin functionary, or the semitic rabbi/imam, or an urban craftsman.
Perhaps a larger role for obsessive/compulsive personality types. No
group selection involved; just new ecological niches opened-up by an
increased division-of-labor.

> > In societies which value creativity and inventiveness, or to put it
> > more generally, in *environments* where such traits increase
> > individual fitness, individuals and their kin will benefit.

> Societies "valuing" certain traits may have nothing to do with Darwinian
> fitness. A society which "values" celibacy, or hiri-kiri, or
> contraception, or female infanticide, would seem to me to be quite at
> odds with an individual human genome's biological fitness.

Not quite what I had in mind. A man who builds a better harpoon, and
subsequently catches more fish, will profit thereby. His kin will also
profit. The same is true of metalworkers, farmers, food preparation
specialists, etc., as long as their innovations produce value for that
culture.

[Danny Yee]

A reference that has been mentioned on anthro-l. I plan to look it up
later today, and will provide further comments on it then.

Danny.

Roy D'Andrade and Phillip A. Morin, "Chimpanzee and Human Mitochondrial
DNA," AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST 98(2):352-370(June 1996).

"Examination of the relation between lineages and the physically
distinct geographic groups that are called 'races' -- Asians, Europeans,
Melanesians, and various types of Africans -- reveals an interesting
phenomenon. Racial groups show little or no phylogenetic structure.
There is a complete lack of distinction between Europeans and Asians,
with no markers in this sample of sites that are unique to Europeans or to
Asians or to New Guineans. In sum, there is no evidence for a European
or Asian or a New Guinean phylogeny -- that is, none of these so-called
racial groups show evidence of common descent (see Figure 11)." (p. 367)

"With respect to the various African groups, the phylogenetic
situation is complex. While there are a number of distinct lineages
that contain Pygmies, there is no simple one-to-one mapping between
lineages and Pygmy groupings. The lineage differentiation within the
Pygmy types is very great, indicating a considerable time depth for
these populations. Six of the 11 lineages are primarily Pygmy
lineages. There is greater differention WITHIN the Pygmy group in
mtDNA than there is BETWEEN any of the non-African types. No single
marker distinguishes all Pygmies or distinguishes eastern from western
Pygmies. The Pygmies show no evidence of forming a cladelike descent
group, since a common ancestor of the six Pygmy lineages would
necessarily also include !Kung and Yoruba." (p. 367)

[Danny Yee]

Hans-Georg Michna <hans-...@michnaNoEmailPlease.com> wrote:
>You're trying to argue that I implied that any group of humans a
>schoolchild can discern must be a subspecies. Instead I implied
>that schoolchildren can discern human races (or subspecies, a
>word I haven't used in my statement above). I obviously neither
>said or implied that a schoolchild cannot discern other groups
>as well, nor did I say or imply that there are no other groups
>of humans beside races.

So what exactly _was_ your point, then?

You stuck your comment about schoolchildren (a good piece of rhetoric
that) into a debate about whether there were any human subspecies or not,
so pardon my confusion about what you were trying to say.

>Please let me know whether I can help you with some hints at how
>to improve your grasp of logic. Are you a member of Mensa?

No, but I scored something over 160 in the one IQ test I've sat
(administered at the end of primary school).

Danny.

[G. Mark Stewart]

Dennis A. Schmitz (dsch...@positron.net) wrote:
: Gerold Firl wrote:

: > On the subject of the relation of subspecies to race, you are
: > mistaken. Dog, wolf, and coyote are separate species, as are lion,

: Oops, I said 'viable offspring' when I meant 'fertile offspring'.

Bungler. That's the last time I take one of your goddam posts to
an exam.

GMS
http://www.svs.com/users/gmark