Kinship and Fertility

Posted by Guest Blogger on Monday, 11 February 2008 20:42.

by JW Holliday

Guessedworker has expressed interest in the paper An association between the kinship and fertility of human couples, Helgason et al., Science 319:813-816, 2008, from the deCODE Genetics research group.  Therefore, a few comments are appropriate.

This paper demonstrates that, in an analysis of Icelandic couples born between 1800 and 1965, there is a “significant positive association” between kinship and fertility; maximal reproductive success was observed for couples with kinship relatedness at the level of third or fourth cousins.

The authors conclude that these differences in reproductive success (i.e. fitness*) have a “biological basis” - that is, a genetic basis.

I’d first like to reproduce several comments from the paper (blockquote) with some of my own (plain text) comments included.  I will then briefly cite some reviews of this paper, and then, finally, will reintroduce the concept of outbreeding depression which was previously discussed at “Majority Rights” with respect to the pro-miscegenation propaganda of Alon Ziv.

First deCODE:

Although Icelanders have experienced a socioeconomic transformation from 1800 to the present (14, 15), accompanied by a reduction in family size and decreasing kinship between couples (Table 1), essentially the same relationship between kinship and fertility was observed at the beginning and end of this 200-year period (fig. S2). By estimating kinship between spouses at a genealogical depth of up to 10 generations, it was possible to examine the association with fertility and reproductive success at a very fine scale. Thus, for example, there is a statistically significant difference in the number of children produced by couples related at the level of sixth versus seventh cousins (P = 1.4 x 10–7). Relationships at this genealogical distance are rarely known to the couples or their families and acquaintances in their social environment and are unlikely to influence factors such as age at the commencement of reproduction or the practice of consanguineous unions to preserve family property (4, 16).

The point made about sixth vs. seventh cousins is very important, and needs to be carefully examined by those commentators who immediately invoke “sociological explanations” in a hysterical attempt to obfuscate the very real possibility of a biological explanation for the kinship-fertility association.  The onus is on the “it’s not genetic” crowd to explain how differences between kinship that are undoubtedly not known to the individuals in question can somehow produce such a highly statistically significant difference in the number of children produced.

Although some interaction of fertility and kinship with socioeconomic factors cannot be ruled out, our results support the hypothesis that the positive association between kinship and fertility has a basis in reproductive biology.

In other words, one cannot be close minded in science, and socioeconomic factors may play a partial role in these phenomena.  However, the weight of the evidence as of today supports a predominantly biological explanation.  Certainly, it is not the case that gross exogamy is required for maximal fitness, whatever the mechanisms involved.

A positive relationship between kinship and reproductive success seems counterintuitive from an evolutionary perspective.

That’s because of the decades of establishment propaganda in favor of hybridization.

We did find some evidence of a reproductive cost borne by offspring of parents related at the degree of second cousins or closer.

Well, yes, as is known –and which favors incest taboos – mating within very, very close kinship relations is counter-productive.  However, when the Zivites of the world jump from that to the idea that “maximal genetic distance may yield maximal fitness gains” - that’s totally uncalled for.  The choice is not between mating with your first cousin or mating with a person of another race.  There are degrees of mating choice in between those extremes, are there not?  Just because one extreme imposes fitness costs does not logically imply that the opposite extreme yields bountiful benefits.

So, thus:

Strikingly, however, our results show that couples related at the degree of third to fourth cousins exhibited the greatest reproductive success.

In order to maximize fitness, therefore, one doesn’t have to move that far from the endogamous extreme.  Just a few rungs upward on the kinship distance ladder produces benefits superior to that of both extremes.  It’s totally irresponsible and mendacious to use the fitness costs of obvious incest to argue for reckless hybridization (**) with the most genetically distant organisms with which individuals are cross-fertile.

Now, it may be useful to cite reviews of this work; for example here:

“It could be argued that in human populations there is a point of balance between the disadvantages associated with inbreeding versus those with outbreeding,” said Alan Bittles, director of the Center for Human Genetics at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia.

Bittles, unlike Ziv and others of his ilk, is willing to balance costs and benefits, and acknowledge that a balance exists; no honest scientist is going to conclude that breeding between maximal genetic distances is going to yield maximum fitness results. Bittles doesn’t factor parental kinship (see below) into the calculation, but, still, Bittles can be praised for his honesty here, as opposed to the outrageous mendacity of others.

And, also here:

In a paper published today deCODE scientists establish a substantial and consistent positive correlation between the kinship of couples and the number of children and grandchildren they have…Because of the strength and consistency of the association, even between couples with very subtle differences in kinship, the authors conclude that the effect very likely has a biological basis, one which has yet to be elucidated…This study provides the most comprehensive answer yet to the longstanding question of how kinship affects fertility in humans….The authors note that the findings are somewhat counterintuitive from an evolutionary perspective because closely-related parents have a higher probability of having offspring homozygous for deleterious recessive mutations, although closer parental kinship can also decrease the likelihood of immunological incompatibility between mother and offspring, for example in rhesus factor blood type…. this could be of relevance to slowing population growth in the many other – and much more populous - societies around the world undergoing transition from closely-knit rural societies to more urbanized ones.

Thus, the researchers seem to suggest that outbreeding depression of populations in larger, more urbanized societies might be at least partially responsible for decreased population growth in those societies.  There are of course many other possible reasons, mostly sociological, for the demographic collapse in Western nations, but deCODES’s provocative hypothesis does need to be more carefully examined and tested.

The following quotes from this article are also of relevance to these issues:

Due to nonadditive gene action, the same genes may have rather different average effects in different genetic backgrounds—hence, the potential evolution of locally coadapted gene complexes.

And, of course, parental kinship ...

image

... needs to be factored into the equation. That is, of course, keeping in mind that the differences in parental kinship based merely on Fst underestimates – likely to a large degree – the changes in parental kinship that take place with alterations in genetic structure that can occur with exogamy, particularly exogamy across wide racial lines.

Therefore, not only is it unlikely – as has been asserted on this blog previously – that any putative “hybrid vigor” can compensate for lost parental kinship, but it’s also highly unlikely that “hybrid vigor” exists to any significant extent for most human populations past the “second cousin” level.  Defining fitness in the proper biological sense, the recent deCODE findings suggest that increased hybridity past an optimal point may in fact reduce reproductive fitness above and beyond the real losses in genetic interests due to foregone parental kinship.

The point of this analysis is not to encourage third cousin marriage.  The point is, however, that crossbreeding, particularly crossbreeding between genetically distant ethnies as Ziv promotes, is not in any way necessary or desirable for enhanced fitness; optimization of fitness may in fact require genetic distance only at the level of third cousins.  All one needs to do for “fitness” is to avoid couplings at degrees of relatedness greater than that of third cousins; in practical terms in modern Western societies, avoiding any putative “inbreeding depression” is simply a matter of avoiding incest and looking for mates amongst (relatively) non-related co-ethnics/co-racials.  The idea that Europeans need to mate with Africans or Asians in order to enhance fitness – never mind the gross damage done to parental kinship interests – is “bad medicine” indeed.

In fact, the evidence clearly demonstrates the opposite of Ziv’s implications and mating recommendations.

From the Udry study discussed by J. Richards in a previous blog post, to the lack of any evidence of enhanced reproductive success of mixed couples and their offspring, to these latest deCODE findings that reproductive success may be maximized by closer kinship, it would seem that when in doubt, one should err on the side of increased endogamy (to the level of “third cousins” only, of course).

When even deCODE – which decided to sift through James Watson’s ancestry and make public their dubious findings because of a politically correct distaste at what they perceived as Watson’s (presumably “racist”) comments on African intelligence levels – publishes findings that show a biologically based enhanced fitness for mating at high levels of kinship relatedness, then one must wonder how any scientifically objective individual could possibly still peddle the idea that cross-racial mating is somehow a biologically preferable choice.

An important point: it’s really not so important that high kinship actually enhances reproductive fitness, or the mechanisms whereby that occurs.  More important is the lack of evidence for the contrary view: that increasing levels of exogamy leads to “hybrid vigor” and enhanced fitness.  The findings from this study constitute yet more evidence that “hybrid vigor” is not an important force - if it is one at all - for humans.

In the absence of such “hybrid vigor,” parental kinship takes “center stage.”  The possibility that endogamy may actually raise fitness per se, as suggested by deCODE, is just “icing on the cake,” hammering home the point that mating “between the lines” of genetically distant groups is not required for enhanced fitness.

*Reproductive success and the maintenance/expansion of distinctive genetic information are the reasonable measures of biological fitness, not whether “Tiger Woods smells better on the golf course,” or any other inane commentaries that spew forth from the addled “minds” of certain hysterical proponents of objectively maladaptive inter-racial couplings. 
An example of maladaptive inter-racial hybridization is found here.  Again, that’s not even considering reproductive fitness or parental kinship, but merely negative health consequences of introducing one race’s genes into another race’s genome.

**Responsible researchers and conservationists are beginning to understand the consequences of reckless hybridization and outbreeding depression.  Some quotes, and my comments:

the available data suggest that risks of outbreeding, particularly in the second generation, are on par with the risks of inbreeding.

If there’s no advantage for hybridization in the long run, then what’s the point?  Note that this paper is talking about decisions to “intentionally hybridize” animals – we are not concerned with parental kinship when considering animals, only the relative “quality” of the resultant phenotypes.  Even with that, hybridization is questionable.  However, we are humans, and as such, have concerns above and beyond these considerations – such as kinship issues.  So, everything said about hybridization in animals holds true for humans, but, for humans, the underlying cost of hybridization – foregone parental kinship – is something additional that concerns us in dealing with mating choices.

Meanwhile, managers can minimize the risks of both inbreeding and outbreeding by using intentional hybridization only for populations clearly suffering from inbreeding depression…

Yes.  This is the conservative approach.  While Ashkenazi Jews can be said to “clearly suffer” from “inbreeding depression” the same cannot be said of European ethnic groups, or Europeans as a whole (or, for that matter, Africans, Asians, etc.).  Again – and this cannot be stressed enough – that’s not even considering parental kinship (or genetic interests in general).  The Ashkenazim may have preservationist considerations that may lead them to reject hybridization independent of whatever “benefits” genetic mixing may bring, and the cost/benefit ratio may very well favor that rejection.  However, given that Europeans are not “clearly suffering” from “inbreeding depression” there is no reason to follow Ziv’s advice and destroy our genetic interests for non-existent “benefits” to “solve” a non-existent “problem.”

….maximizing the genetic and adaptive similarity between populations…

In other words, if, for some reason, hybridization is decided upon, one should pick for the hybridization a population as genetically similar to the original population as possible.  One does not pick the most genetically distant populations possible!

…and testing the effects of hybridization for at least two generations whenever possible.

Yes - instead of promoting widespread human panmixia based upon how Tiger Woods might smell on the golf course.  Of course, one may look at highly admixed populations throughout the world and use those for “testing the effects.”  Even leaving kinship concerns out of the picture, the results with respect to positive traits have not been encouraging.

While the data on outbreeding depression are dwarfed by those on inbreeding depression, the few studies that exist suggest that concerns over outbreeding should be taken seriously, as the effects can in some cases be as damaging as severe inbreeding.

Yes, taken seriously, instead of making juvenile comments about which male celebrity may be better able to “induce orgasm” in which female celebrity.  Again, given the costs for humans of foregone kinship, where are the “benefits?”

As a start, managers should strive to do no harm.

What should we think of those who, seemingly, wish to maximize harm?

That is, we should intentionally hybridize populations only when there is hard evidence that a population is suffering from inbreeding depression.

Speculation about how Tiger Woods might smell after a round of golf does not constitute said “hard evidence.”  There is no “hard evidence” that European populations (or Africans, Asians, etc.) are “suffering” from inbreeding depression.  Other small populations may be “suffering;” in that case, let those groups decide to balance the costs and benefits of hybridization – and a “pro” choice hardly means choosing the most distant groups possible as mates.

…low levels of gene flow are predicted to have disastrous effects on populations vulnerable to outbreeding (Edmands & Timmerman 2003).

Yes.

As a final postscript, readers may be interested in an alternative viewpoint with respect to the function of sexual reproduction – which stresses species and chromosomal stability over “increased genetic diversity.”



Comments:


1

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:21 | #

A few questions that occurred to me:-

Is the genetic distance for maximum fertility stable across all peoples?  Might it be that peoples evolved in small groups, such as those evolved in food-scarce cold climate regions, demonstrate peak fertility at closer proximity than warm-climate peoples evolved in larger groups?  In that case, what accounts for the high phenotypic variation among the former?  What, if any, is the impact of close-proximity fertility on Salterism?


2

Posted by cobalt blue on Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:45 | #

Is the genetic distance for maximum fertility stable across all peoples?

Good question; the deCODE study should in theory be done on other populations.  One problem is that the detailed kinship records of Iceland are not the norm for other groups.  I’m not sure if the study can be duplicated in many other groups.

Might it be that peoples evolved in small groups, such as those evolved in food-scarce cold climate regions, demonstrate peak fertility at closer proximity than warm-climate peoples evolved in larger groups?

That’s possible.  One could argue that kinship preservation is more important in ecologically marginal niches where reproduction is constrained by environmental limitations.

In that case, what accounts for the high phenotypic variation among the former?

Not sure what you mean by that.

What, if any, is the impact of close-proximity fertility on Salterism?

Preservation of parental kinship is wholly compatible with enhanced reproductive fitness.  What boosts one boosts the other.  There isn’t any need for conflicts between genetic interests and “hybrid vigor” - the latter apparently is of little or no importance.


3

Posted by Guessedworker on Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:02 | #

“Not sure what you mean by that.”

I’m sure J Richards will confirm that Europeans (north and south) exhibit a high degree of facial variation.  Yet in marginal niches such as the extreme north or the Alps this variation is not noticeably less than on the warm, rich plains which can support much larger populations.  In the former case, one would anticipate many more “close-proximity” pairings than on the more crowded plains.  Yet the narrower gene pool does not result in less facial variation.

What am I missing here?


4

Posted by silver on Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:51 | #

what accounts for the high phenotypic variation among the former?

Has this actually been objectively measured?


5

Posted by name on Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:52 | #

GW,

I’m reminded of this quote:

  . . . the values [of variance of cranial dimensions] for the Danish sample are particularly significant for those who would privilege the use of anthropological types as a means to diagnose the diverse ethnogenetic origins of a skeletal sample. The Danish sample is consistently and without exception the most variable in all comparisons. Yet chronological, archaeological and other data . . . suggest that this sample also approximates more closely than do any of the others a single, closed and panmictic breeding group. Thus there is the least probability of mixing of biologically different ‘types’ in instance of the sample which shows the greatest osteometric variability. (pp. 291-292)

Jacobs et al. Pitfalls in the Search for Ethnic Origins: a Cautionary Tale regarding the Construction of “Anthropological Types” in Pre-Indo-European Northeast Europe. In Jones-Bley and Huld (eds.), The Indo-Europeanization of Northern Europe. Washington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man, 1996.

I don’t necessarily understand your puzzlement though. Chimpanzees reportedly harbor much more genetic variation than humans while showing relatively little interpopulation variation in phenotype.


6

Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:11 | #

GW asks: In that case, what accounts for the high phenotypic variation among the former?

In my working hypothesis it is homozygous recessives being allowed expression:

The center of the ecological range will also tend to have more genetic diversity per capita (with consequent heterozygosity) but express it less due to dominance whereas the periphery of the ecological range will have less genetic diversity percapita (with consequent homozygosity) but will tend to express that diversity despite recessiveness.

silver asks: Has this actually been objectively measured?

I don’t know.  It’s just an hypothesis at this stage.


7

Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:15 | #

It is probably worth mentioning that the “news” reported by Helgason et al. was folk wisdom in the upper midwest areas of the US.  Of course, a bunch of inbreds like that have all manner of superstitions which lead them to do things like produce more food per capita than anyone else in the world, invent the first computer, etc.  So we must not place any weight on this, yet another example of how a stopped clock is right twice a day.  Another example among multitudes that continually reinforce in our minds the profound desperation with which we must cling to that all important exception to the rule.


8

Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:22 | #

name writes: Chimpanzees reportedly harbor much more genetic variation than humans while showing relatively little interpopulation variation in phenotype.

I’d be interested in knowing how much of that variation ends up in heterozygous rather than homozygous expression and how much mendelian dominance/epistasis/extended phenotypic dominance vs codominance is in play.


9

Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:29 | #

Although there may have been little impact on the optimum genetic distance throughout the time span studied in Iceland, I hypothesize that as a result of extended genetic dominance that parasitic castration comes into effect when there is enough novel local diversity due to immigration, and the curve’s optimum will shift profoundly toward favoring greater outbreeding:

“We are the disease, we are the cure.  Let us in you xenophobes.”


10

Posted by Hibernia Girl on Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:49 | #

Is the genetic distance for maximum fertility stable across all peoples?

I think the answer must be no.

Take, for example, the differences between the Icelandic and Saudi Arabian populations.

Iceland was settled starting in the ninth century by Norse and Irish peoples—a population starting, then, with a base of two (somewhat) genetically unrelated groups and being in existence for—what?—ca. 1200 years?  Throughout this time they’ve obviously been inbreeding.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia has been criss-crossed by many different groups throughout it’s long history; however, they’ve been practicing extensively first-cousin marriage (specifically father’s brother’s daughter or FBD marriage) since, most likely, well before the arrival of Islam.

I would think the Saudis must be much more inbred than the Icelanders—and, therefore, third cousins in that society must share more genes than third cousins in Iceland.


11

Posted by Bret Ludwig on Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:22 | #

I agree with Sailer’s definition of race, i.e. a partially inbred extended family.

At least within a given “major race”, all populations have some level of inbreeding. This can be established by figuring out the number of ancestors at each binary place in one’s lineage and coming up with a number higher than the total human world population on earth at that time in a relatively short distance.  In a population such as Iceland or Finland, predicting with a very high level of probability that one of your mother’s ancestors would also be one of your father’s would not take very many generations back.

The experience of dog and horse breeders shows that to bring out any particular quality strongly some level of close inbreeding is actually a necessity. In this context, controlled inbreeding is not evil, not something to be absolutely avoided, but rather a beneficial practice. And I think in times past that was well accepted.

The key to success in breeding is twofold, of course: making the right pairings, and eliminating the undesireable products and keeping the desireable. Nature took care of the former pretty well in the old days. Today neither she nor anyone else is and the consequences are apparent.

For what it’s worth, I’ve known people who had points of close inbreeding in their families and the offspring were enormously successful people. Those were people of course that previously had no close inbreeding in either line in recent times. I know of a young man in one of our military academies whose biological father was his mother’s nephew, who was perhaps 13 or 14 when he impregnated his aunt.  (I don’t endorse such things, only report them, I must add.)

  The flipside is the fact that I’ve met a number of Saudis, and in my experience, they are unintelligent, ugly, and totally lacking in manliness or innate dignity. Physically they are soft and from what I am told inclined to behave disgustingly with females when outside the sphere of family influence. Probably this is because the desert environment does not eliminate them in the context of their civilization. It may have to do also with the ones coming here being of the favored family and therefore spoiled rotten. Certainly, no Arab population impresses me very much, but these seem the lowest of the low. (Some of the Iranians I’ve met-who are not Arabs but Persians, as they will notify you-are fairly on the ball).


12

Posted by cobalt blue on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:11 | #

http://www.cababstractsplus.org/google/abstract.asp?AcNo=20053062610

The mechanisms by which outbreeding depression leads to reduced fitness are poorly understood. We considered the hypothesis that outbreeding can depress fitness by increasing the susceptibility of hybrid individuals and populations to infectious disease. Competitive breeding trials in experimental ponds indicated that outbred largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) crossed from two geographically and genetically distinct populations suffered a reduction in fitness of approximately 14% relative to parental stocks. We measured the comparative susceptibility of these same outbred stocks to a novel viral pathogen, largemouth bass virus. Following experimental inoculation, F2 generation hybrids suffered mortality at a rate 3.6 times higher than either F1 generation hybrids or wild-type parental fish. Analysis of viral loads indicated that viral replication was more rapid in F2 fish than in F1 hybrids or wild-type parental fish. We attribute these results to the disruption of coadapted gene complexes in the immune systems of outbred fish in the F2 generation. Increased susceptibility to infectious disease may be an important but underappreciated mechanism by which outbreeding reduces the fitness of individuals and populations and by which novel infectious diseases emerge in populations of hybrid organisms.

Note that the effects occur in the F2 generation (and may, likely get worse in subsequent generations) – demonstrating once again the ignorance and/or mendacity of those who invoke (usually mythical) “hybrid vigor” without ever looking past generation F1.

And, in contrast to some commentators on other blogs who insist that outbreeding depression only occurs in cases like “horses and donkeys.” It has been shown in a variety of cases within the same species, as here.


13

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:22 | #

“And, in contrast to some commentators on other blogs who insist that outbreeding depression only occurs in cases like ‘horses and donkeys.’  It has been shown in a variety of cases within the same species, as here.”  (—Cobalt Blue)

Not for Cobalt Blue (who has already vigorously disagreed with this on numerous occasions) but because it bears repeating:  Negroes and Euros are not the same species.  They are distinct species.  (Just so I’m not misunderstood here:  I’m not saying one is human, the other isn’t.  I’m saying just as in the days of the Neanderthals, there are today two distinct species of human alive at the same time.)  Scientists were afraid to look at this taxonomic issue honestly during the XXth Century.  A number of them had it exactly right previously, until immediately prior to the rise of Franz Boaz after the turn of the XXth Century when outright race-denial and, eventually, genetics-denial held sway.  That seismic shift in the direction of a Jewish-marxoid fantasy-world of wishful thinking made it impossible for science to take an honest stand on this issue for a hundred years.  I predict it will start to now.


14

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:26 | #

Of course the Jewish marxoids will resort to species-denial the same way they’ve resorted to race-denial to try to wiggle out of this, if at any point they perceive that’s their only alternative.


15

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:36 | #

Mulattoes of Euro/West-African-Negro mixture are properly viewed as interspecies hybrids.


16

Posted by Guessedworker on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:39 | #

Fred,

Have a read of this post at Peter Frost’s evopsyche blog.  Let me know if or how the very recent arrival of modern Africans impacts upon your bi-species view.

JW sent me the link to Frost’s article this morning, with special reference to the final paragraph:-

Thus, black Africans were still absent from most of sub-Saharan Africa even within historic times. When the Egyptians began to build their pyramids, the peoples living to the south were scarcely darker in color. They were simply seen as uncivilized Egyptians. To the inhabitants of the ancient Middle East, the range of observable phenotypic differences was much narrower than it would later become, and it was this context that shaped their worldview in its early stages, including theorizing on universalism and human brotherhood. To a degree not easy to assess, we are heirs to notions of human sameness that were initially conceived ‘before Africa became black’.

I’ve been thinking about that.  Does it undermine the universalism of the Judeo-liberal-Christian worldview?  Well, here’s is perhaps a vision of how Egyptians saw their Nubian neighbours, at least as military men:-

And here is a passage from an account by an intrepid English traveller in 1817:-

There is great difference in the features and make of the several Nubian tribes: the natives of Elpha are tall and good-looking; the people of Derry ugly and deformed; the tribe at Armada are small, but handsome, and well made; all of them are considerably darker than the Arabs.


17

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:53 | #

“Fred, Have a read of this post at Peter Frost’s evopsyche blog.  Let me know if or how the very recent arrival of modern Africans impacts upon your bi-species view.”  (—GW)

Thanks, GW.  Iin that log entry Frost is saying 1) before 12,000 years ago there were no Negroes, 2) the indigenous people of the Sub-Sahara prior to 12K y/a consisted of pygmies and Bushmen (who were hunter-gatherers), then 3) 12K y/a the pygmies living around the headwaters of the Niger River started to get changed into Negroes by selection pressures generated by the advent of tropical agriculture, 4) the transformation from pygmies to Negroes took several thousand years, following which 5) the Negroes that resulted spread over wide areas of the Sub-Sahara, displacing the pygmy and Bushmen hunter-gatherers, and 6) spread also into East Africa and the Nile valley areas, first coming into contact with ancient Egyptians around 2,000 BC. 

I don’t see how any of that weakens my view that (West-Central-African) Negroes and Europeans are distinct species.


18

Posted by Guessedworker on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:37 | #

But the common parent remains.


19

Posted by Guessedworker on Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:03 | #

Here you go, Fred:-

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2008/02/maternal-common-ancestry-between.html


20

Posted by Desmond Jones on Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:19 | #

How much of Frost’s position is influenced by Goldenberg.

About 15 years ago, I received an e-mail from a specialist in Jewish studies, Dr. David Goldenberg, who had read an article of mine and wanted to know more about the subject. The article described how early Christians perceived Black Africans, or Ethiopians as they were then called, especially those who lived as a small visible minority in the Mediterranean world. [...]

David Goldenberg came to this subject from a very different angle. A number of African American authors were arguing that the Jews had invented anti-black racism, the “proof” being early rabbinical writings that had reinterpreted the Curse of Ham (originally pronounced on the Canaanites) as applying to the dark-skinned peoples of Africa. These writings certainly did exist. My article, however, showed that they were part of a larger Mediterranean tradition of attitudes to skin color that had originated as much with early Christians as with Jews.

For David, the situation was all the more worrisome because many Black Muslims were taking up the argument that “the Jews did it.” Ironically, this early Christian/Jewish ‘colorism’ had not disappeared from the Middle East with the rise of Islam; the Muslim world preserved it virtually intact, including the notion that God had condemned Black Africans to slavery and had blackened their skin as a mark of shame.

And Dr. Goldenberg’s conclusion…

Today, people routinely interpret antipathy to dark skin as being racially based. Dr. Goldenberg rises above this simplism, arguing that attitudes to skin color were much more fluid and less ethnically constructed in the ancient world. At that time, they were still largely aesthetic in nature and centered on the individual. It was only later, with the expansion of European societies into the non-European world, that these attitudes became almost wholly racialized and, as such, assumed a preponderant role in the modern worldview.

it’s all whitey’s fault.


21

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:22 | #

“But the common parent remains.”  (—GW)

GW forgive me, I’m lost.  Here are the points made in the Dienekes abstract you link:

i) At most 70,000 years ago in Central Africa the ancestors of today’s pygmies branched off and started differentiating.

ii) From 40,000 years ago to a few thousand years ago the ancestors of today’s Negroes were liable to take pygmy wives.

iii) Negroes also have L0a, L2, and L3 carriers among their maternal ancestors.

Is the abstract saying something else?  What am I missing?


22

Posted by Lurker on Sat, 16 Feb 2008 04:26 | #

The double standard indeed!

“For David, the situation was all the more worrisome because many Black Muslims were taking up the argument that “the Jews did it.””

But David, what if that were true?

But never mind because…

“only later, with the expansion of European societies into the non-European world, that these attitudes became almost wholly racialized”


23

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:04 | #

“JW sent me the link to Frost’s article this morning, with special reference to the final paragraph[. ...]  Does it undermine the universalism of the Judeo-liberal-Christian worldview?”  (—GW, Feb. 15, 1:39 PM)

 

Absolutely it does, yes.  No question.  It undermines it.  And good riddance to bad rubbish

Christianity can’t continue to have it both ways.  It must choose — white people must go or universalism must.  To date it has in effect chosen universalism and said to white people:  Drop dead and go straight to hell

It keeps that up, taking not only white people for granted but its place in the First World, and Christianity is going to find itself reduced to a Third-World cult of the stature and significance of something like Jamaican Santería presided over by a sad clique of agèd wistful white homos in mahogany-paneled offices in Vatican City and Canterbury, the exact ones who’ll have brought Christianity to ruin, resembling disoriented, perfectly clueless 80-year-old Sir John Gielguds, Sir Michael Redgraves, and Cole Porters, having high tea and gazing vacantly out the window wondering where all the Euro faithful went, as their teeming flocks of non-whites await the next round of tawdry hand-outs and phony magic spells.

Ever see a dead religion walking?  You’re looking at one:  Christianity, if it keeps up its present anti-white shenannigans.


24

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sat, 16 Feb 2008 08:53 | #

I don’t know who this ( * ) actress is or what she’s striving to depict in this ( * ) video which I just stumbled across, but what she succeeds in depicting with absolutely astonishing, almost supernatural accuracy — succeeds in depicting literally to perfection! — is today’s typical white Christian, and that’s why Christianity is in such great shape, yes, and is going to last so much longer!  So if anyone’s not sure what today’s typical white Christian is like or why Christianity is going to last so much longer, watch this video:  you’ll come away knowing, I guarantee.
______

( *  I was going to insert a particular adjective, preceded by a particular adverb, in this spot but I didn’t want to be that unkind the day after St. Valentine’s Day)


25

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:04 | #

Here‘s what the Pope, the Vatican, the Catholic Church, and the Archbishop of Canterbury want every country of the Eurosphere to be like:  whites living like cornered rats behind high-voltage electrified fences with razor-wire, patrolled by attack dogs and armed guards, driving private cars equipped with side-blasting flame-throwers, and still suffering “crime everywhere,” as the woman in the video describes.  Yes, the Pope wants this for white people.  He feels strongly that’s best for us.  (Rumor has it the Pope’s got an application in with the ADL to take over Abe Foxman’s job when the latter retires, and the Arch Bishop of Canterbury is interested in taking over Morris Disease’s gig.  Second choices for both men are, respectively, the head of the Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations and head of The American Jewish Congress .... )


26

Posted by Rena on Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:47 | #

kinship prevention is more important in this ecology.
http://www.TheClickDepot.com


27

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:05 | #

“The point made about sixth vs. seventh cousins is very important, and needs to be carefully examined by those commentators who immediately invoke ‘sociological explanations’ in a hysterical attempt to obfuscate the very real possibility of a biological explanation for the kinship-fertility association.  The onus is on the ‘it’s not genetic’ crowd to explain how differences between kinship that are undoubtedly not known to the individuals in question can somehow produce such a highly statistically significant difference in the number of children produced.”  (—from the log entry)

A way for these Icelandic researchers to seek further experimental corroboration of this might be to test young Icelandic women’s degree of attraction to pheromones — an underarm swab for example — of male participants who, unbeknownst to the female participants, are actually their sixth versus seventh cousins.  Choose young fertile females whose participation in the experiment is timed to coincide with the most fertile time of the monthly cycle:  see which pheromones “float their boat” best right at that time of the month, sixth or seventh cousins.  It could also be done with cousins of other degrees of distance, as well as with unrelated men.  Finally, it could be done so as to compare cousins of third to sixth degree with men of other races outright — all in blinded fashion, so the females would know strictly naught about the male participants’ identities.


28

Posted by aaaaaaaa on Sat, 22 Jan 2011 03:02 | #

I like how you rail about “Zivites” when this paper also argues that even white icelandic europeans separated at the 6-7th cousin level are less fertile than 3rd-4th cousins, and that this could be a reason for lowered birthrates in modern european cities.

Why don’t you jump on that cousin-screwing bandwagon, Holliday?

Also:

“The onus is on the “it’s not genetic” crowd to explain how differences between kinship that are undoubtedly not known to the individuals in question can somehow produce such a highly statistically significant difference in the number of children produced.”

Well, here’s one- wouldn’t the ones related at the 3rd-4th level know of that degree of relationship? Since they’d be much more likely to have closer family ties?

Isn’t there something peculiar about such close cousin marriage in a modern european country among whites?

They say this relationship held even in earlier times, but it begs to ask, just what social currents could contribute to an average difference of…

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ReproductiveHealth/story?id=4258128&page=1

“Researchers were shocked to find that for women born between 1800 and 1824, marriages between third cousins produced an average of 4.04 children and 9.17 grandchildren, while marriages between eighth cousins or more distantly related couples had averages of only 3.34 children and 7.31 grandchildren. “

0.74 children and 1.83 grandchildren. Truly staggering!

Or:

““Maybe what we’re seeing here is biologic attraction,” Buehler said. “If you really look alike, feel alike and think alike, then maybe you have sex more often and have more babies.”

Maybe there could also just be some recessive trait that predominates moreso among inbred Icelandic populations too- I’ve heard of certain inbred communities that have disproportionately high numbers of twins, like that german one in Brazil that was thought by some to have been tampered with by nazis.

But that’s not applicable to all cousin marriages, you know?

Maybe they should have looked at more than SES?


29

Posted by iPhone 5 release date on Mon, 05 Sep 2011 08:53 | #

There are several useful pre-installed apps on the phone, including a document viewer and editor, voice recognition, a file manager and task manager. Being an Android phone, you have access to over 150,000 apps from the Android market and you can also access a small number of apps from Samsung Apps.
iPhone 5 release date



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