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(quoted wrong part, starting over)
Tuck & John,
This is what has been called since Steven J. Gould an evolutionary ‘just so’ story. Dr. Berlinski, Claire’s father, is most expert at revealing the absurdities of too easily assuming shallow evolutionary analysis to be scientifically binding.
Now let me add to this the possibility of a Marxist racial social construct ‘just so’ story. The standard treatment, recently increased in sophistication by Edward Said, is that slavery is the result of the inherent racism in White Capitalist European Colonialist Society. What this fails to notice is the fact that slavery had been practiced as far back as recorded History can document. In Said’s case he failed to notice that in the 9th century Islam sailed down the east coast of Africa (Kenya included) conquering the ports and setting up the most sophisticated slave trade in human history. Islam has always practiced slavery and still does to this day. Said fails to notice that England voted an end to slavery and America fought a civil war at the expense of many citizens to end slavery, all long before the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
The facts don’t fit the Marxist meta-narrative. We could call the Marxist meta-narrative an historical ‘just so’ story.
Regards,
Jim
That thought had occurred to me. All of the information I’ve heard on this has indicated the bottleneck was around 10,000 people. I don’t know enough about genetics to know if it could have been a lot less. I do think it is extremely difficult to accept the story of Noah’s Ark literally without resorting to supernatural explanations (which science can’t disprove). Stories of an ancient flood are very common in different cultures, so I imagine that they refer to something real, although I doubt it was a literal worldwide flood. A flood that was so large that for the people experiencing it thought the whole world was flooding seems completely plausible.
Which populations consume dairy but are lactose intolerant? Do they drink the milk fresh and full of lactose, or do they ferment the milk into yogurt etc. to digest the lactose?
The Maasai, for starters. They drink it both raw and fermented.
“Our findings, however, are quite different. The Masai, also a traditional pastoral cattle raising nomadic people, are now classed as Nilotic (formerly Nilo-Hamitic). They have a prevalence of lactose malabsorption of 62% in our sample. Despite this, the Masai drink large quantities of milk each day without symptoms.”
“Lactose malabsorption among Masai children of East Africa.”
That’s all based on the idea that social forms are based on genetics. They’re far more easily explained by history.
No, it’s a question, based on the understanding that humans are mammals and that animal social behavior is influenced by genetics. Your rejection of the line of questioning — insisting that history is simply “history” — is the more dogmatic approach.
For example: Many colonial regimes had similar histories, yet different post-colonial outcomes. Conversely, many colonial regimes had different histories but similar post-colonial outcomes. Could something more fundamental than history explain this?
Far more easily explained, no. Genetics of course doesn’t “easily” explain much either.
What genetics might explain is the development of “primitive” baseline institutions in ancient history, these being explained “more easily” by the natural endowments of the environment these people lived in. This acted as a form of natural selection of particular desirable traits.
More complex social organizations that evolved in antiquity, probably not so much to do with genetics, because now we get human-induced natural selection, that is, the natural environment and endowment wasn’t as strong in selecting behavior as were the complex inter-society relationships: trade, exchange of ideas, invasions etc.
But “history” is not an easy tool to be used to explain. There are so many possible historical variables, which are additive, that eventually you can’t simply come up with “easy” and “simple” explanations like…Karl Marx tried to do.
But the real question here is what happens when relatively insulated populations where the natural environmental endowment continued to play a defining role in shaping behavior, such as in Africa or in Australia or Native Americans…meet the modern world.
Adaptation does seem to be more problematic there, although some have obviously done it better than others.
http://economics.mit.edu/files/4123
;)
Sorry to always be pestering you in these science threads, but I’m afraid I must again disagree quite strongly.
There is an incredibly good correlation between societies which have domesticated cattle, lactose tolerance, and the genetic changes which allow for lifetime expression of the lactase enzyme. And contrary to your other comment, the Massai tribe does indeed appear to possess “the gene” (which is something of a misnomer) for lactose tolerance:
Genetic Origins of Lactase Persistence and the Spread of Pastoralism in Africa
(My guess is that the original paper you cited from 1979 misjudged the genetic basis of lactose (in)tolerance in Massai due to the somewhat crude test they used and the small sample size (21 people).)
No problem. You ask good question and make good points.
From your study: “We measured levels of lactose tolerance in 322 individuals… A 50 g lactose powder solution…”
The study I quoted observed: “Leichter (12) has concluded that on the average, the intensity of symptoms in lactose intolerant individuals was highest with an aqueous lactose solution, lower with skim milk, and lowest with whole milk.”
“…Garza and Scrimshaw (4) studied the relationship of milk intolerance to lactose intolerance in 99 children (69 black and 30 white) using graded quantities of milk. “Of the black children studied, 11% of those 4 to 5 years old, 50% of those 6 to 7 years old, and 72% of those 8 to 9 years old were found to be lactose-intolerant, yet no child was intolerant to 240 ml (8 oz) of milk.” Stephenson and Latham (6) also reported that lactose intolerant adults in their study could drink normal quantities of milk with no, or very mild symptoms ensuing.”
So simply using a lactose tolerance test does not appear to be a good guide for the ability to digest milk. Which is the whole point of that paper: can milk be provided as a relief food to purportedly lactose-intolerant people? Answer: Yes.
Part of the reason, of course, is that raw milk, of the sort the Maasai drink, comes with a load of lactobacilli which take up residence and aid in digestion of lactose, as would the lactobacilli consumed via fermented milk, which they also consume.
“Probiotics—compensation for lactase insufficiency“
So the lactase-persistence/dairy consumption nexis appears to proceed from a bunch of reasonable assumptions which do not survive verification.
I’ll observe that there are several studies that found the same thing as with the Maasai in other milk-consuming populations.
“The results of the LTT showed that 13 (62%) of the Masai are lactose malabsorbers, while 8 (38%) are lactose absorbers (Table 1).”
“…somewhat crude test they used…”
They fed them lactose and checked their blood glucose. How else would you measure lactase action in vivo? I’ll note this is the same test that is used everyday to measure glucose intolerance in diabetics… It’s also the same test that was used in the study you provided.
Unlike the study you provided, however, they also looked for symptoms of lactose malabsorbtion, which is the important element in the ability to digest milk on a regular basis.
An alternate view with which Nicholas Wade would probably be more likely to agree:
http://www2.ku.edu/~kuwpaper/2010Papers/201206.pdf
BTW, Wade’s earlier book on human pre-history is also excellent. It and A Troubled Inheritance seem to cover some of the same ground, but have a lot of difference as well.
Before the Dawn was the topic of Saturday Night Science on 2014-01-11. (The date in the post was mangled when it was imported into Ricochet 2.0.) It’s a great book: highly recommended.
Ehh…it’s ok. It’s an interesting study but a few things stand out:
1) It’s not really showing “causation”…i.e they frame their arguments that IQ effects institutions. But their data can’t really show that, since its for 1 year and it’s just shows association.
2) The “effect” of IQ is tiny, compared to all the other variables. So does it matter? Yes. Does it matter a lot…no.
PS: What is more likely happening is the reverse of what they claim: i.e. institutional quality affects economic output, which affects IQ
I think one thing to keep in mind when looking at the possible effects of genetics on social development is to keep in mind that the traits described, ie. intelligence, aggression, cooperativity are all very broad descriptions. Their actual detailed expression can vary drastically based on circumstance even while underlying genetics remains the same.
For example a propensity for aggression driven by alterations in the genes regulating testosterone could be equally responsible for being expressed in committing a double homicide, being a great linebacker, or a very successful day trader. Traits are the confluence of our genes and the environment. As environment changes so do our prototypes even while our genes can remain intact.
Considering that humans actively work to reshape our environment we must wonder what is really driving us. Frankly I lean more towards nurture when looking at the disparate state of world populations today. Our rate of cultural change and technological change has far out stripped our reproductive rate. Thus the environment in which humans live has been changing much faster than we have. In fact in many ways I might argue we are ill adapted to our modern world genetically, as some doctors/scientists have pointed out.
Me too. We see this in IQ, for example. IQ can increase dramatically in a population, even if the genetic makeup doesn’t. I.e., it can increase much faster than genetic effects would imply.
It’s also very sensitive to level of education, economic conditions etc. Does it have a genetic component? Of course it does. But that effect seems to be swamped by environmental conditions which are within our ability to change.
I am baffled by the Flynn Effect regardless, but there is a lot of doubt as to whether the Flynn Effect is a true increase in g.
Gene pools change too, in the long run. To the degree that intelligence differs in a racial, heritible way, it merely means that there is a higher concentration of “smart genes” in one population as opposed to another. The gene pool gets reshuffled each generation. I expect that in a culture where the same rules are applied to all races, genetic racial differences in intelligence would tend to diminish over generations.
Each generation? I doubt it. These things take a long time.