Majorityrights Central > Category: Genetics & Human Bio-Diversity

I’ve previously warned of the threat presented by the racist LBK (proto-KKK?) culture to Civilization As We Know It.  If only unbiased scientists like Stephen Jay Gould were alive today to broadcast to the 125 IQ coeds with big bazooms the true interpretation of these new “data”:

The widespread distribution of the N1a lineage in Early and Middle Neolithic northwestern Europe may indicate genetic continuity from Mesolithic populations.  This scenario would support a Mesolithic contribution to the earliest Neolithic of Atlantic Europe. This would imply that the N1a lineage was already common in indigenous north European populations and that the spread of the Neolithic was principally the result of cultural diffusion. Although so far the N1a lineage has not been encountered among late European hunter-gatherers in central and north Europe (Bramanti et al., 2009; Malmstro¨m et al., 2009), it is worth noting that less than half of the hunter-gatherers’ paleogenetic data come indeed from the pre-Neolithic period (predating LBK expansion). Finally, no paleogenetic data currently exist for the Mesolithic period in Western Europe. This prevents any conclusion being drawn about N1a occurrence during the Mesolithic period in those regions.

It would be interesting to build up as detailed a picture as possible of selected behavioural traits by race, and even within-race.  We have, I think, a pretty good idea of the sociobiology of Europeans.  We talk a lot about issues of individualism and altruism, intelligence, civilisational capacity, faith, sexual mores, and so on.  The tendency is, though, to see other racial and ethnic groups through the prism of their competition with us - some more than others, of course.  When we contemplate their evolutionarily-selected behavioural traits, which would likely not be adaptive for us, we may be tempted to express the strong emotional signals that necessarily accompany maladaptiveness.

I would like to avoid that kind of “noise” and, if possible, collate through the comments thread as many ideas as we can muster about the traits of Ashkenazics and other Jews, Eurasians, East Asians, South Asians, Mexicans, Arabs, North Africans, Sub-Saharans, and so on.

For example, one can see that Han Chinese place a very high value on conformism which appears to include a strong desire for approval from authority, and on honour which in the negative form of face-saving may be linked to the same desire.  Japanese, which might in large measure mean Yamato, are perhaps weaker than Han on conformism but stronger still on honour.  Even so, Japanese parents will allow school teachers to beat any sign of rebellious individualism out of children who are scarcely more than infants (damn, you see what I mean about moral interpolation).

These are both populations which exhibit the adaptiveness in a northern hemisphere, cold-climate environment of high-K strategies for intelligence.  But how different the outcome is from the European experience, and how fascinating that difference.

How fully can we explicate that difference on its own terms?  And what of other group differences?

Right here.

From Nature:-

Genes mirror geography within Europe

Understanding the genetic structure of human populations is of fundamental interest to medical, forensic and anthropological sciences. Advances in high-throughput genotyping technology have markedly improved our understanding of global patterns of human genetic variation and suggest the potential to use large samples to uncover variation among closely spaced populations1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Here we characterize genetic variation in a sample of 3,000 European individuals genotyped at over half a million variable DNA sites in the human genome. Despite low average levels of genetic differentiation among Europeans, we find a close correspondence between genetic and geographic distances; indeed, a geographical map of Europe arises naturally as an efficient two-dimensional summary of genetic variation in Europeans. The results emphasize that when mapping the genetic basis of a disease phenotype, spurious associations can arise if genetic structure is not properly accounted for. In addition, the results are relevant to the prospects of genetic ancestry testing6; an individual’s DNA can be used to infer their geographic origin with surprising accuracy—often to within a few hundred kilometres.

From Dienekes’ post:-

The realization that not only major continental races, but also ethnic groups are biological entitites goes against the prevailing politically correct orthodoxy. According to this orthodoxy, European nations are artificial cultural constructions whose members share a “myth” of common origins; they are “constructed” products of the last few centuries; ethnic identification is a subjective notion of self-identity, rather than an objective notion of ancestry and homeland.

It now appears that while European nations are not races, they are, nonetheless, biological populations, occupying specific positions along the Caucasoid genetic continuum, and distinguishable from most other European nations, if not always their immediate neighbors.

And, below the fold, the bulk of JWH’s post, with substantial quotes from the original paper:-

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The following is an essay that was originally submitted to the journal American Renaissance for publication. They declined to run it; the reason given that it was too similar to other race-genetic essays published there in the past. Nevertheless, I believe the findings discussed here to be of extreme importance. Thus, I am reproducing the proposed essay here, with minor revisions to remove it from its previous “Amren” context.

JWH

Racial Genetic Similarity and Difference: A New Study

One scientific topic that I have previously discussed is the biological validity of the race concept. This, unfortunately, has become necessary, because some people, perhaps with political motivations, assert, contrary to the evidence, that “race does not exist” and that race is a “social construct” with “no biological foundation.” These views have been effectively refuted in various forums, and more objective researchers support the race concept as well, if for no other reason the important medical implications of racial differences.

One popular and misinterpreted finding that has been eagerly grasped at by those who preach that “race is not real” is derived from the work of Richard Lewontin, which demonstrated that more genetic variation exits within rather than between groups. I have previously explained how Lewontin’s finding in no way discredits the race concept. However, there are “anti-racist” activists who still claim, based on their misinterpretations of population genetics, that individual Europeans (“whites”) can be more genetically similar to sub-Saharan Africans (“blacks”) than to other Europeans. Until now, there has been no formal proof that this assertion is incorrect. I am now pleased to say that a recent scientific paper has delved into this very topic and that the findings of this paper clearly demonstrate that the race deniers are wrong. First, let me give a brief introduction for the sake of clarity.

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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).

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Back in February this article by journalist Edmund Burke appeared in the Brisbane tabloid, Courier-Mail.  It was not very subtle in the way it set about its business:-

FORMER One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, the proudly outspoken proponent of polarising immigration policies, has discovered she is of Middle Eastern heritage.

When told of the results, the former fish and chip shop owner appeared flustered, making references to “rape and pillage” in ancient times, adding:
“All I can think of is that probably down the track it eventuated from some war.

“But I’m not going to knock it. It has made me who I am.”

Ms Hanson is not the only prominent Queenslander with a mixed racial background, with the same international testing process revealing that Premier Peter Beattie has even greater links to the Middle East.

Middle Eastern is defined for the test as modern-day Saudi Arabia, Iraq, parts of Iran, Syria and Jordan and the Arab countries of North Africa.

Greece and Turkey are defined as southeastern European while northern European is defined by countries such as England, Ireland and Scotland.

The tests use 176 genetic markers to trace racial ancestry back thousands of years and were carried out by Florida-based company DNAPrint Genomics.

When taking the test at her rural property outside Ipswich before Christmas, Ms Hanson, who recently attacked Muslims for “eradicating Australian traditions”, said she was confident her ancestry came from England and Ireland.

In December the right-wing firebrand, who once warned that Australia was in danger of being swamped by Asians, launched a fresh attack on black South Africans and Muslims.

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The following is a brief but interesting commentary from JW on a David Sloan Wilson paper (pdf) that, not surprisingly, was criticized by Razib on Gene Expression.

A few excerpts from the paper:-

Group selection provides the fitness differences that were lacking within groups. In the case of a no-cost public good, any variation among groups is sufficient for the A-type to evolve to fixation in the total population, because positive among-group selection is unopposed by within-group selection.  If providing a public good requires a private cost, then positive selection at the group level is opposed by negative selection at the individual level and the outcome depends upon the relative strength of the two processes.  More generally, groups can evolve into adaptive units that are designed to maximize their contribution to the total gene pool to the extent that selection among groups prevails against selection within groups.  This is also part of the consensus that emerged in the middle of the 20th century; it remains theoretically valid today …

That sound thinking can be compared to Richard Dawkins’ absurd strawman argument against group selection, as quoted in OGI by Salter, in which he asks why lions don’t refrain from eating antelope, “for the good of the mammals” (or something to that idiotic effect).  I mean, hello, where is the selective pressure to result in such behavior?  Is “the good of the mammals” a selective pressure to out-compete the strong selective pressure on lions to be efficient predators on antelope (never mind that lions, as a group, can cooperate in hunting, but that’s another story)?

Robert Boyd, who has championed cultural group selection for as long as I have championed group selection in general, has stated that the received wisdom about genetic group selection is correct and that culture is required to make group selection a significant evolutionary force…

Here is where the biopolitical Salterians can find some common ground with the culturalist Yockeyians because Western High Culture may assist in forming the cultural input needed for making white group selection a “significant evolutionary force”.

Human cognition is usually assumed to be an individual-level process, even if the outcome of the cognition is adaptive at the group level (eg, an individual deciding to provide a public good at private expense).  Another possibility is that the group becomes the cognitive unit, with social interactions comparable to neuronal interactions.  The concept of a group-mind might sound like science fiction but its likelihood follows directly from multilevel selection theory, has been well documented in social insects, and is fully plausible for human groups…

Does MacDonald’s work describe such a human group-mind?

In closing, let’s note that there is some irony in Razib’s complaint that Wilson uses an unrealistic “pipe-dream” model to explain group selection (actually, on a small part of the overall paper).  Tame white GNXP blogger David B based his “Salter Intermarriage Fallacy” upon the wildly unrealistic scenario of exactly equal migration and intermarriage between all peoples and all nations – something that has never happened and will never happen.  Not that that bothered Razib.  Then again, David B’s “work” supports South Asian Diaspora interests.  Wilson’s work, if it catches the attention of the “wrong” people, may be understood to oppose those interests.  By the way, group selection is not necessary for the pursuit of EGI, it is a “why”, not a “what”.  But nevertheless, a study of group selection can inform as to methods to be used to rationally pursue genetic interest objectives.

Actually, the reverse may be true; incorporating concepts of EGI may bolster the significance of Wilson’s ideas, and may better explain the actions of those who provide public goods for their group even at some degree of private cost.

The current Nature is carrying the following article about some very positive research at University of Pennsylvania into gene expression.  Where is denial now?  Mr Diamond?  Mr Lewontin?  To be brutally honest, we’ve just been told all this on another thread.  But anyhow ...

Some ethnic differences could be down to the same genes behaving differently.

From dark skin to fiery red hair, the world’s ethnic groups all have characteristic physical features. But how does our genome code for these differences? New research shows that it isn’t just because different groups carry different genes — some of the variation is down to the same genes being expressed differently.

The study is the latest contribution to the popular new field that uses modern genomic tools to unravel the genetic basis of variation between ethnic groups. Such analyses have only become possible recently, thanks to tools such as the International HapMap Project, published last year1, which charts the prevalence of single DNA-letter differences (called single-nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs) between different ethnic groups.

Such work has spotted many genetic differences between groups — some of the genes that determine skin or eye colour, for example, have been unpicked. But scientists usually study one trait at a time, and only find a genetic explanation after years of painstaking work.

Richard Spielman, Vivian Cheung and their team at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, took a much faster approach, screening thousands of traits at once and working back to their genetic roots in mere months.

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