Voles, Man and heritable differences in behavior

Different vole species vary considerably in their social behavior, and this has been linked to the action of the neuropeptide vasopressin. Important for vasopressin function is its V1a receptor subtype (V1aR), which differs between the vole species in its expression patterns and distribution in the brain; these differences in V1aR expression are linked to the alternative types of vole behavior. The differences in V1aR expression patterns have been found to be caused by variation in microsatellite sequences in noncoding regions adjacent to the V1aR gene.

Microsatellites are repetitive DNA sequences usually associated with so-called “non-functional, junk DNA.” Of particular interest is that these sequences can vary between population groups; for example, 326 microsatellite markers can “bin” people into major racial groupings with 99.86% accuracy.

Such repetitive sequences have been found in the noncoding regions of the genes for serotonin receptor, dopamine transporter, and tyrosine hydroxylase – the products of which have been associated with a variety of human behavioral traits. Some research is underway attempting to link microsatellite sequence differences with autism, as well.

Now, back to the voles. If one compares two vole species- the prairie and montane voles- that differ in both their V1aR expression patterns as well as in the behavior influenced by V1aR, we find something very interesting. Looking at the coding sequences, and most of the nearby noncoding sequences, of the V1aR genes of these species, it is observed that the genetic information is ~99% the same (analogous to the “we are 99% the same” mantra). However, the prairie vole gene contains approximately 400 base-pairs of repetitive sequences that are not found in the montane vole. Hence, the source of the difference.

More recently, it has been shown that the length of this microsatellite region can differ in an intra-species fashion; when two groups of prairie voles are bred with long or short versions of this microsatellite region, the two types (“races”?) of prairie vole differ significantly in their (male) behavior patterns.

“The researchers bred two groups of prairie voles with short and long versions of the junk DNA. By comparing the behavior of male offspring after they matured, they discovered microsatellite length affects gene expression patterns in the brain. In the prairie voles, males with long microsatellites had higher levels of vasopressin receptors in brain areas involved in social behavior and parental care, particularly the olfactory bulb and lateral septum. These males spent more time investigating social odours and approached strangers more quickly. They also were more likely to form bonds with mates, and they spent more time nurturing their offspring …The variability in the microsatellite could account for some of the diversity in human social personality traits,” explains Hammock.“

Also see here and, for older here, here and here.

Of interest is that the researchers claim that the relative instability of microsatellite sequences means that changes in such sequences can be particularly sensitive to selective pressure, and cause evolutionarily rapid changes in gene expression and resultant phenotypes. From the Hammock and Young Science paper (vol. 308, 1630-1634, 2005), we read:-

“Microsatellites in the cis-regulatory regions of genes may significantly enhance the rate of
evolution of gene expression patterns and selectable phenotypic traits.”

With respect to this, remember that microsatellites can differ between population groups and that differences of microsatellite length and consequent genetic and phenotypic differences can be observed not only between genetically similar species but between genetically very similar groups within a species as well (eg, the different prairie vole types bred). Thus, for someone to say that “there hasn’t been enough time for group differences to evolve”, or for someone to say that behavioral differences between genetically similar groups is highly “implausible”, is completely unjustified. Science is just beginning to unravel genetic mechanisms by which relatively rapid changes can occur in response to selective pressure.

There are certainly other potential mechanisms whereby genetically similar organisms can exhibit physiologically significant differences in gene expression. The work of Dr J. Mattick is also instructive. Dr Mattick speculates that many “non-functional” gene sequences are indeed functional in that they are transcribed into noncoding RNAs that have important regulatory functions:-

“The extent of transcription of non-coding sequences and the abundance of small RNAs suggests the existence of an extensive regulatory network on the basis of RNA signalling which may underpin the development and much of the phenotypic variation in mammals and other complex organisms and which may have different genetic signatures from sequences encoding proteins.”

Indeed. And there have been findings regarding epigenetic effects on gene expression as well; heritable modifications to DNA that have significant phenotypic effects. All of these phenomenon greatly expand the concept of genetic interests and underscore the importance of “small” genetic differences between population groups.

Are there potential consequences of these observations that may interest us and shed some light on the obfuscatory verbiage of others?

For a moment, I’ll turn my face away from the sun of Western empiricism and take a look at the darkness of Eastern obfuscation, before heading back “to the light.” A certain South Asian blogger, who has claimed to be a scientist, has made the following remarkable quote on a certain blog noted for being on the frontline in the conflict of interests between European Caucasians (ECs) and non-European Caucasians (NECs):-

“In other words, people who look like Europeans and have high IQs, but somehow lack the “European temperament” might stick out and cause societal dissolution ... But even accepting that this temperament exists, and that it would be more important than IQ/Euro-appearance in selecting a WN polity, the notion seems fairly strange, no? It’s basically the idea that there is a genetically influenced European behavioral type that somehow encounters a dramatic discontinuity at (say) Turkey or Syria or eastern Russia, which IMO is implausible in the extreme, especially given the results of Cavalli-Sforza et al on the genetic continuity between Italians and Greeks, Greeks and Turks, Turks and other Arabs, etc.”

What can we say to this? First, let me stress: my purpose here is NOT to “prove” that heritable differences in behavior (“temperament”) exist between ECs and NECs. The data for such a “proof” does not yet exist. My purpose is to show that the existence of such heritable differences is not only possible, but also certainly plausible, and that a comment such as “implausible in the extreme” is only wishful thinking.

Note that this blogger dwells on phenotypic traits rather than on genetic interests, despite the fact that the former are proximate interests and the latter, ultimate. Never mind that the argument fails even at the level which it is made – that these phenotypic traits cannot differ between groups because of an alleged “genetic continuity” between them (*). Putting aside for a moment this person’s particular interpretation of the Cavalli-Sforza data - as well as the fact that newer genetic assays can better distinguish biogeographical ancestries - this person seems to miss the fact that population genetics studies are based on the examination of neutral markers, while “genetically influenced” traits (ie, functional genes) for behavior, etc. would have been selected for by the effects of the environment, both natural and man-made (culture).

Given significant differences, for example, of culture between the Christian West and the Islamic East (never mind the even more profound differences between the West and South Asia), European-specific selective pressure for mental traits is quite possible. And, then there are the marked historical/cultural differences in Ancient Times and before …

Noted scientist E.O. Wilson has suggested that microevolution in human populations can occur in only 1000 years, and major human adaptations within 2000 years (E.O. Wilson. Competitive and aggressive behavior. In Man and beast: Comparative social behavior, e. J.F. Eisenberg and W.S. Dillon. Pp.183-217. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC, 1971; E.O. Wilson. Sociobiology: The new synthesis. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1975). Therefore, there may well have been sufficient time for the evolution of traits distinguishing behavioral differences between European vs. non-European Caucasian populations. Strong selective pressure concerned with such phenotypic characteristics could alter the frequencies of the relevant genes to a far greater extent than the differences observed with neutral markers. A November 2003 paper in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (Tsai and Chentsova-Dutton, Vol. 34, pp. 650-657) shows that European-Americans of Scandinavian vs. Irish ancestry differed in “emotional facial expression.” The authors favor a “cultural” explanation; but cannot this have a genetic basis as well? There may well have been selection for different behavioral and other mental traits within Europe – so much more likely then are differences between European and Afro-Asiatic Caucasians.

Also of interest is this and this.

Now … apparently, some scientific bloggers have not yet heard of the concept of selective pressure on specific functional genetic sequences.

Thus, it seems that it is indeed plausible that heritable differences in behavior can exist between relative closely related human population groups that have been genetically separated for thousands of years and subjected to different environmental stresses, including culture (eg, ECs vs NECs). Furthermore, some of the genetic mechanisms discussed earlier – microsatellites, non-coding RNAs, epigenetics – may hold at least part of the answer as to how, mechanistically speaking, these differences can come into being and be maintained in the time intervals discussed, and how such can occur even given relative “genetic continuity” between groups. In particular, microsatellites, with their relative instability, provide a reasonably fast (in evolutionary timescales) way of altering the expression of genes whose phenotypes are under significant selective pressure. Even without the latest findings about microsatellites and vole behavior, all of this should have been fairly straightforward, as Dr Wilson realized. Selective pressure on function can cause human “microevolution” in a relative short timeframe, and can do so between groups that are “genetically continuous” as assayed by neutral gene markers.

Of course, the science of behavioral genetics is in its infancy, so it is not “proven” that heritable differences in behavior/temperament exist between ECs and NECs. However, as stated, my purpose here is not to “prove” something for which the data does not yet exist, but simply to demonstrate that the “implausible in the extreme” comment made by the South Asian is completely unjustified. Regardless of what is or is not discovered, and regardless of whether the aforementioned genetic mechanisms do or do not play any role in the phenomenon of ethnic behavioural differences, it is quite clear that it is certainly plausible that heritable differences in behavior exist between ECs and NECs.

Finally, the entire premise of the quote is wrong. The blogger sets up a strawman of a “WN polity” that is based upon some sort of vague “European appearance and/or IQ and/or temperament/behavior.” Now, these phenotypic traits are certainly important. However, more important is actual ancestry. Just as a family is based upon kinship, and not upon people coming together based upon phenotype, any race-based nation will (or should) be based on kinship/ancestry of the people involved. A European-based state is not predominantly based on people with “a European appearance” (**) or a particular IQ score or “temperament”, but based on European ancestry. And in an era of individualized bio-geographical ancestry (BGA) testing, in which the range of genetic structures of any group (eg, “Europeans”) can be empirically determined, such data can be combined with known ethnic derivation to make these distinctions reasonably clear. And, as I’ve posted previously, even when phenotype must be considered as adaptive genetic interests above and beyond kinship genetic interests, scientists are in the process of developing technologies to not only objectively quantify phenotypic traits, but to determine those genes and gene frequencies associated with the traits in question.

From vole behavior to “WN polities” is quite a jump. But genetic science moves inexorably forward, and does not respect the boundaries imposed by those who insist that certain possibilities must be “implausible in the extreme”.

Notes

*Doesn’t “genetic continuity” in theory exist between all groups? If so, given the logic of a certain blogger, then what basis exists in making any relevant distinctions between heritable proximate (phenotypic) traits? However, this same blogger, in other contexts, certainly does support the idea of important heritable differences between population groups.

** Some NECs may think they “look European”; others may strongly disagree. This subjectivity is not found with actual descriptions of ethnic ancestry or empirically determined BGA estimates of ethnies. Furthermore, newer technologies to objectively determine phenotype and phenotypically-relevant genes will enable us to determine with greater clarity group-specific phenotypes and the genes that underlie them.

Posted by JW Holliday on Friday, June 17, 2005 at 04:05 PM in Genetics & Human Bio-Diversity
Comments (6) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by Fred Scrooby on June 18, 2005, 02:29 PM | #

“There may well have been selection for different behavioral and other mental traits within Europe – so much more likely, then, are differences between European and Afro-Asiatic Caucasians. [...I]t seems that it is indeed plausible that heritable differences in behavior can exist between relative closely related human population groups that have been genetically separated for thousands of years and subjected to different environmental stresses, including culture [...] Of course, the science of behavioral genetics is in its infancy, so it is not ‘proven’ that heritable differences in behavior/temperament exist between ECs and NECs. [...] Regardless of what is or is not discovered, and regardless of whether the aforementioned genetic mechanisms do or do not play any role in the phenomenon of ethnic behavioural differences, it is quite clear that it is certainly plausible that heritable differences in behavior exist between [races].” (—from the log entry)

And clearly, until this stuff is settled scientifically, all race-replacement of white-Euro populations should be halted lest mistakes be made of epoch-making proportions that can’t be undone. Any pro-race-replacement individual or group still supporting race-replacement after a statement such as this log entry is guilty of deliberately favoring genocide. (That will be seen to include, ironically, many Jews and Jewish groups—“ironically,” because what was done to them they now want to inflict on others.)

Posted by Fred Scrooby on June 18, 2005, 02:47 PM | #

Incidentally, in regard to the claim by the Subcontinental blogger referred to in the log entry, to the effect that an abrupt “discontinuity” between European Caucasians and Subcontinental Caucasians was highly unlikely,

here

‘s a log entry posted today by Dienekes citing a new finding of “strong [genetic] differentiation between Germans and Poles.” So, replacing the German population with Poles from right next-door, or vice-versa, would result in significant genetic changes—would amount to committing genocide against the replaced race, in other words. Race-replacement advocates are genocide advocates, no matter whether the victim race—the one targeted by the usual suspects for replacement—be closely related or only remotely related to the race brought in to replace it. In discussing race-replacement immigration we’re talking about genocide, folks.

Put that in your “no upper limit to brown/yellow immigration” pipe and smoke it, John Ray.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on June 18, 2005, 09:21 PM | #

“ ‘In other words, people who look like Europeans and have high IQs, but somehow lack the “European temperament” might stick out and cause societal dissolution ... [etc.]’ ” (—quoted in the log entry)

There’s something wrong with the above: I don’t know to whom the Subcon blogger was replying but I for one don’t see the immigration problem as arising from the presence of reasonable volumes of incompatibles, but from attempts by the usual suspects( *** ) to bring them into a country in wildly inappropriate numbers with the aim of eliminating the traditional racial majority. There are other ideas on this, including the view that welcoming any number of incompatibles, however small, into one’s country is unwise (for all I know this is the right view—I’m not dogmatic on this). My own view is that preservation of a country’s traditional racial majority is legitimate, desirable( * ), and not undone or threatened by reasonably small amounts of incompatibles welcomed as immigrants( ** ), and forced race-replacement such as what we’re being subjected to by this alliance we’re currently up against( *** ), is entirely unacceptable, as unacceptable as any genocide. If incompatibles come into my country in reasonably small numbers I’ll welcome them whole-heartedly—I’ll have no problem whatsoever with it.
______

( * Desirable to say the very least: it’s one of the most legitimate, important, and desirable things in life.)

( ** But obviously the incompatible community in your country has to be strictly kept very small or your country and/or nation-state will be undone—it will only be a matter of time.)

( *** Consisting of Wall Streeters and Big Business who are after low-wage non-white workers; white billionaires who personally want the social classes underneath them to be non-white so that: 1) they’ll feel less potentially threatened in their social/financial positions by future competition from aggressive individuals rising out of the lower classes (non-whites look less threatening to them in that regard than whites), 2) so their snobbish wives will be more easily able to look down on the (newly-non-white) “lower classes” (it’s easier to look down on non-whites as inferiors than on whites), and 3) so they can more easily please their superficial white-Euro blonde trophy-mistress bimbo girlfriends who get sooooooo bored, don’t ya know!, when everyone around looks white (“it doesn’t feel like we’re on vacation!”) and there are fewer exotic restaurants around, etc. (these honchos get much more and better sex when “bedtime” is preceded by a restaurant and a walk downtown that looked to the blonde white bimbo as if she’d just gone for a jaunt in Cairo, Bangkok, or Rio); the Democratic Party which is after non-whites to vote them into office, since whites tend less and less to vote for them nowadays; the Country-Club Republicans, who are naught but the toadies of Wall Street and Big Business; George Bush personally, who wants to Hispanify the United States for reasons he obviously won’t divulge and no one has yet really figured out though there are theories (such as that the prospects for a continuation of the Bush family dynasty are improved the more the U.S. gets Mexicanized); government bureaucrats in general who want to increase their power, which is accomplished in myriad obvious ways by race-replacement; the Jews such as the Jewish neo-Trotskyites, Abe Foxman and the ADL, and so many others who appear to want the weakening and if possible the eradication of their ancient white-Christian rival and if genocide-through-race-replacement is the only way to achieve that, then so be it!; the self-righteous holier-than-thou self-abnegating Christians, like this moron of a Catholic priest—a certain Father Greely, I think? or was it Mahoney the clueless leftist? I forget—who said, right before the new pope was chosen, “If they select a white pope, that will be a racist act on its face!”; women in power in the bureaucracy or anywhere else in government or society, who don’t know what a race, country, or nation-state is because women are born without the necessary brain circuits to know that kind of thing; male homosexuals who both think white men are gay-bashers and so want them replaced, and want more opportunities to get their rocks off with men of color, so want more imported here; the big foundations, like the Ford Foundation, whose reasons for wanting race-replacement are somewhat mysterious but when you glance at the overwhelming number of Jewish names among their top management you begin to understand it may just be more of the Jewish thing (see above); the Marxists in general—but it’s becoming more and more apparent that Marxism is overwhelmingly one of these Jewish things, so that too may go back to Jewish motivations of anti-white-Christianity; and so on, and so forth.)

Posted by Fred Scrooby on June 18, 2005, 09:50 PM | #

Here

, incidentally, are some of the big funders of the left, and, since I mentioned the (thoroughly Marxist) Ford Foundation,

here

and

here

is documentation of how the Ford Foundation in particular very aggressively pushes race-replacement on an unconsulted and unwilling U.S. population, through open borders and other means.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on June 18, 2005, 10:34 PM | #

This long log entry

over at Steve’s, up tonight, is a must-read.

I can remember when the forces of PC were such that you couldn’t say violent street crime in U.S. cities was primarily committed by Negroes. Everyone knew it but you could not say it. For sure, the white liberal PC enforcers knew it perfectly well, as did everyone (even the Negroes themselves knew it)—but they made a show of pretending not to know it. It hasn’t been that long that you’ve been able to say this simple fact of life pertaining to life in U.S. cities—maybe ten years? Less, even—seven or eight years? Something like that. In fact, unbelievably brazen white liberals actually pretended to believe the opposite: I remember being solemnly told by white liberals that statistics showed whites committed most of the violent street crime in U.S. cities. Whites did! Can anyone believe the liberals actually spouted this? You can believe it—they did. This was not more than ten or twelve years ago that this sort of PC enforcement could be gotten away with. Whites, no less! It was said to be because of the legacy of “the American cowboy culture,” or something, that whites committed so much violent street crime in U.S. cities!

Pure Marxism!

I remember when you could not say Jews were smarter. You’d be branded immediately as a racist sexist anti-Semite Nazi homophobe anti-transgender. Literally. That’s exactly what would happen. Things were like that not more than, what—five years ago? Maybe less. Three? Three years ago you could not say Jews were smarter.

Of course in some circles things are still like that—the kind of circles where it’s de rigueur to always say “partner” instead of “husband” or “wife” so the homos won’t be offended.

We’ve come a long way. It’s been tough slogging, but we’ve advanced. And we’ll advance the rest of the way. White race-replacement is going to be brought to a halt. No one should lose heart in regard to this. If we all keep at it, keep getting the truth out there, and stick together, we’re going to win this thing. But read Steve’s entry, above—it’s ... well, it’s must reading, that’s all. And it shows how far we’ve come—in some cases in only a few short years.

We’re going to win this. Simple truth, decency, and right are going to win over the most brazen lies, degenerateness, and wrong.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on June 19, 2005, 01:41 AM | #

” ‘It’s basically the idea that there is a genetically influenced European behavioral type that somehow encounters a dramatic discontinuity at (say) Turkey or Syria or eastern Russia, which IMO is implausible in the extreme, [...]’ “ (—quoted in the log entry)

Dienekes posts

this

tonight:

“A reader alerts me to an M.Sc. thesis about the human mtDNA haplogroup R in India. This haplogroup branched from haplogroup N very early after the dispersion of humans out of East Africa. The study concludes that haplogroup R lineages in India are easily distinguishable from those of Western Eurasia.”

From the paper’s conclusion:

“When the data from Indian genomes belonging to haplogroup R2 were compiled with fully-sequenced mtDNA from Near-Eastern and Caucasus-region genomes a profound difference appeared—individuals from India fell into a distinct cluster on the phylogenetic tree. There were two coding-region mutations separating the Indian and non-Indian clusters.”

Who says “genes” says (potentially, at least) “genetically-influenced behavior” (not so likely on the basis of mitochondrial genes, perhaps, but almost certainly on the basis of nuclear genes). As with the German-Polish abrupt discontinuity, we see in this paper an abrupt (mitochondrial haplogroup) discontinuity from the Near East and the Caucasus on the one hand to India on the other. It certainly suggests the potential for genetically-based behavioral differences having an abrupt discontinuity between the Near East and Russia (the “Caucasus region”) on the one hand and India on the other.

Next entry: Closing in on the intelligence genes—at least some Jewish ones.

Previous entry: The Head Fake

Existential Issues

White Genocide Project

Of note

General News

Science News

Science Categories

All Categories

The Writers

Each author's name links to a list of all articles posted by the writer; the hashes link to authors' homepages.

Links

Endorsement not implied.

Controlled Opposition

Crime

General

Immigration

Islam

Jews

Nationalist Political Parties

Science

Whites in Africa

Voles, Man and heritable differences in behavior

Comments:

Post a Comment:

Existential Issues

White Genocide Project

Of note

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

General News

Science News

Science Categories

All Categories

The Writers

Links