Majorityrights Central > Category: Ethnicity and Ethnic Genetic Interests

The proportion of human genetic variation due to differences between populations is modest, and individuals from different populations can be genetically more similar than individuals from the same population. Yet sufficient genetic data can permit accurate classification of individuals into populations. To resolve this apparent conflict, we analyzed the question “How often is a pair of random individuals from two different populations genetically more similar than a pair of individuals randomly selected from any single population”; We compared this frequency (w) with error rates for classification methods, using data sets that vary in number of loci, diversity of populations, and polymorphism ascertainment strategies. Classification methods achieve higher discriminatory power than the individual-based measure, w, because of their use of aggregate properties of populations. The number of loci analyzed is the most critical variable: with one hundred polymorphisms, accurate classification is possible, but w remains sizable, even when using populations as distinct as sub-Saharan Africans and Europeans. Phenotypes controlled by a dozen or fewer loci can be expected to show substantial overlap between human populations. This provides empirical justification for caution when using population labels in biomedical settings, with broad implications for personalized medicine, pharmacogenetics, and the meaning of race.

This is the cautiously-worded Abstract to a Universtity of Utah paper downloadable in full here.

And this is what JW takes from it:-

This is crucially important, especially since it validates, essentially, EGI, while it is possible that a cursory examination of the paper by the “usual suspects” would lead them to an opposite, totally erroneous conclusion.

Reading the paper to its conclusion, the major finding is this: the idea that individuals from different (highly) distinct races could be more genetically similar than they would be to members of their own group is an illusion due to insufficient numbers of markers.

When 1000+ markers are used, Europeans, East Asians, and sub-Saharan Africans always are more genetically similar to members of their own group than to those of the other groups; the overlap in genetic similarity between these groups is ~ 0%.

It is true that the authors found, when “admixed” and “intermediate” groups are included, that the overlap does not quite reach zero, even with up to 10,000 markers, although the overlap does become very small.

However, three points (in increasing order of importance):-

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Here is the second of the two essays sent to us by PF: a thought-provoking extrapolation from bacterial population strategy into the modern method of majority population conquest by a minority - GW

Quorum Sensing is a kin-recognition mechanism which bacteria use to implement density-dependent strategies.  Each bacteria that utilizes Quorum Sensing produces a small molecule specific to its species called an Autoinducer.  Each bacteria cell both produces and is sensitive to this chemical.  If many cells of one species are living in a certain area, then there will be a large build-up of autoinducer molecules in that space; if only a few cells are living there, then there will be few autoinducer molecules.  The receptors of each cell are capable of measuring how much autoinducer is present in their environment - and this is how they determine the density of their own species’ cells.  When one bacterial species reaches a certain cell density, and hence its autoinducer reaches a certain concentration, the behavior of the bacterial population changes.

Perhaps the most well-studied examples are in the expression of virulence factors.  These are proteins that help the bacteria to manipulate and evade its host.  Expressing a virulence factor antagonizes the host immune system, and makes it more probable that the bacterial population will come under attack, since host immune systems tend to evolve recognition of virulence factors.  If the bacterial population expresses virulence factors when it is small, it is easily overwhelmed by the immune response.  But if the bacteria population waits until it has sufficient numbers, it can overwhelm the host by switching en masse to the new pathogenic form, with its much greater effect.

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MR commenter VanSpeyk suggested that we might put up a thread on European male/Far Eastern female miscegenation.  So here it is:-

I am not impressed by worries about losing America’s Anglo-European identity. Some of the most American people I know are immigrants from other parts of the world. And I’d a hell of a lot rather live in a Little Vietnam or a Little Guatemala neighborhood, even if I couldn’t read the store signs, than in many white-bread communities I can think of.

Charles Murray

Lawrence Auster takes up the story:-

Derbyshire commented:

Pure Murray—clear, succinct, data-based, no punches pulled. And not a thing I can see to disagree with [emphasis added].

Ok, Murray couldn’t care less if Anglo-European America disappears from the universe. We knew that he’s a libertarian social scientist, and as such is indifferent to cultural and ethnic realities except insofar as they can be reduced to data points. But what about Derbyshire’s agreeing with Murray? Wasn’t Derbyshire a paleoconservative on immigration, meaning someone who is attached to America’s and the West’s historic cultures and peoples? I noted a couple of months ago how he had urged that conservatives refuse to vote for the House Republicans, which, I said, would lead to the passage of Bush’s amnesty and “guest-worker” program. But now Derbyshire has gone much further, explicitly opting for a non-white America. In the past, Derbyshire had said he likes the social company of New York liberals more than that of Red State conservatives. Now he says he prefers a non-white America to white America.

Also note how race-blindness or race-neutrality never remains as such. Among Murray’s earlier points was that “English should be the only language ... in which the public’s business is conducted.” But then Murray turns around and, backed by Derbyshire, says that he prefers the non-Western communities springing up in America, even when their signs are not in English. In other words, Murray’s (and Derbyshire’s) endorsement of an American cultural component that is safely race-neutral, such as the English language, instantly gives way in the face of Murray’s (and Derbyshire’s) active preference for non-whites and active dislike of whites.

By the way, Derbyshire is married to an Asian woman, and Murray’s first wife, with whom he had two daughters, is Asian. Not that marriage to a non-white is a necessary basis of race-treason, since race-treason is the prevalent belief system of the contemporary West. But it is virtually impossible for a white married to a nonwhite to maintain a sense of identity with the white race.

I had a crack a getting at the root of race consciousness<>race blindness here.  But race treason is something else.  It has a finality to it.  Our arguments cannot reach it, and I agree with Lawrence Auster that that is most especially so where mixed-race progeny complicate the situation.  The battle is lost.

Treason through liberalism - real, thorough-going ideological treason - is largely an elites issue.  But anybody can marry an East Asian girl and bring her to the West, and frequently does.  For the loving couple, of course, there are attractions either way that I do not need to describe here.  But the resultant gene flow is for ever.  In the aggregate and old John Maynard’s long run it changes us, and we did not ask for that.  We have the collective right to apply social stigma at an individual level.  Albeit it a blunt object, it is a true one.

Murray and Derbyshire light the way for what will become of our ethnic solidarity if sufficient white men take the Silk Road.  Of all the other troubles we have with securing our racial future the loss of the white male to white womanhood is by no means the least.

Transaction, a social sciences publisher, has republished Frank Salter’s “On Genetic Interests, Family, Ethnicity, and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration”.

The blurb states:-

From an evolutionary perspective, individuals have a vital interest in the reproduction of their genes. Yet this interest is overlooked by social and political theory at a time when we need to steer an adaptive course through the unnatural modern world of uneven population growth and decline, global mobility, and loss of family and communal ties. In modern Darwinian theory, bearing children is only one way to reproduce. Since we share genes with our families, ethnic groups, and the species as a whole, ethnocentrism and humanism can be adaptive. They can also be hazardous when taken to extremes. On Genetic Interests canvasses strategies and ethics for conserving our genetic interests in an environmentally sustainable manner sensitive to the interests of others.

“[This] is a fresh and deep contribution to the sociobiology of humans, combining genetics with social science in original ways.”—Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University

“The book greatly expands Hamiltonian ‘kin selection’ by making ethnies in control of territory the central arena of ‘selfish genery’ in a modern world of mass migration.”—Pierre van den Berghe, University of Washington, Seattle

“Salter argues that all humans have a vital interest in genetic continuity that is threatened by mass migration. Salter advocates non-aggressive ‘universal nationalism’ as part of a balanced ‘fitness portfolio’ that includes investments in three levels of genetic interests—family, ethny, and the species as a whole. The synthesis is persuasive; the policy formulations provocative.”—Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Max Planck Society

“Five stars for Salter—he has provided us with a deep and compelling explanation of what most people know and what guides much of their behavior, but fear to acknowledge publicly.”—Michael T. McGuire, UCLA

“We are indeed all part of each other, as John Donne insisted even before the help of evolutionary genetics. But we are more part of some than others, and the nature of these boundaries of ethnic kinship has been ignored, avoided or denied. After Salter’s virtuoso synthesis we can no longer duck these issues which become more important daily.”—Robin Fox, Rutgers University

Frank Salter is an Australian political scientist who has been a researcher with the Max Planck Society, Andechs, Germany, since 1991.

This edition has a new introduction.  It would be very interesting to know the differences, and how - if they are substantive - Salter arrived at them.

What gives us a sense of wellbeing? The results of some Australian research might surprise you.

A study was released last October which compared the wellbeing of Australians according to the electorate they live in. 23,000 Australians were interviewed for the survey which was a joint project of Deakin University and Australian Unity, a large insurance company.

In which electorates did people report the highest level of wellbeing? The decisive factor was not money. In fact, the electorate with the lowest taxable income, Wide Bay in Queensland, scored the highest level of personal wellbeing.

So what did count? The report highlighted three factors which, according to political orthodoxy, ought not to matter.

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Does ethnicity matter? Is it important?

Right-wing (classical) liberals generally answer with a consistent “no”. Even if they feel some sense of ethnic identity themselves, they believe that a modern, autonomous individual should be shaped by his own reasoned choices. We don’t get to choose our ethnicity, so it is assumed (at best) that ethnicity is something of secondary rank within human nature, something of a sentimental nature, but not relevant to how we choose to organise our lives or our society.

Left-wing liberals are less consistent. Like all liberals, they believe that we are human because of a freedom to exercise our individual will. Therefore, they tend to read issues in terms of power relations: who is dominant in their will over others. Those tagged as dominant tend to lose moral legitimacy, as they are thought to have organised a privilege at the expense of the oppressed “other”.

What this means is that left-wing liberals will generally be harsher on ethnic groups tagged as “dominant” than on those they consider oppressed – especially if the “oppressed” group is thought to be rallying around ethnic discrimination to improve their status.

For a traditionalist conservative like myself, neither of these liberal views is adequate. A traditionalist would argue that ethnicity is important in creating a social context for individual life and in providing a core source of identity for individuals.

This is true whether we belong to a large, successful, “dominant” ethnic group (e.g. the Japanese), or a small, beleaguered one (e.g. an Amazonian rainforest tribe).

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We are lucky to have the great Old English epic poem Beowulf. A copy of it was written down by a scribe about 1000 AD, and this sole existing copy was scorched but not destroyed during a fire in Sir Robert Cotton’s library in 1731. In 1786 an Icelandic scholar, G.J. Thorkelin, organised for transcripts to be made, before parts of the original became illegible.

The poem helps connect us to our distant forebears. For this reason, it is undeniably an important cultural artefact for Anglo-Saxons in particular and Europeans in general. Which is why the following story is disappointing.

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A key distinguishing feature of humanity is its communication ability.  But what exactly is communication as opposed to manipulation?  How does communication arise?  What are the conditions for its continuation?  There have been a number of attempts at simulating the evolution of communication but till the simulation described in this article was run, none of them combined migration, climatic variation and the prisoner’s dilemma.

The simulaton is schematic but suggestive that migration can eliminate the very genetic capacity for communication and replace it with pure manipulation.

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