Of course group selection exists. It would seem to be the most important mechanism shaping human evolution. There are hundreds of known examples of one human population replacing another. This is group selection in its purest form. Granted, that the fitness advantage involved was more likely to be cultural than genetic--that doesn't alter the fact that the population replacement happened and had genetic consequences. 
 
In animals without a culture, the results are likely to be less dramatic, but they certainly happen. When one variety of a species begins to expand its range as a result of changing conditions, it will change the gene pool of the whole species of which it is a part. I really don't see any point in denying this. Is it just squeamishness about the social-political implications?

The rise in traffic fatalities in the sixties was probably due to the number of baby boomers turning 16 and getting their first drivers license--putting more inexperienced drivers on the road. Most of the charts show a steeper than trend line drop during the seventies when Jimmy Carter imposed the 55 mph speed limit. One wouldn't expect to see any correlation with road rage stories in the newspapers. Such incidents were always rare--amounting to no more than a few percent of all accidents.

"Am I missing something? Is there some other grand large scale benefit that will arise when society acknowledges this GNXP sanctioned truth?" 
 
The hoped for benefit is that when our ruling elites acknowledge the reality of HBD, they may stop pushing for social policies that are destroying our society and its institutions. 
 
Politically correct thinking has destroyed the public schools in my lifetime. (I speak as one who has had to teach in them.) The only possible way to salvage them is to allow some segregation by ability. If this also results in some segregation by race i.e. the pre-algebra class turns out to be of a different complexion than the pre-calculus class, so be it. I promise never to even mention the fact, if our ruling elites will promise to stop screaming "racism" about it. 
 
Unrestricted third-world immigration is going to destroy our country--socially, politically and economically. If the tipping point when the country becomes majority non-white occurs at the same time that peak oil sends the world economy into a decades-long depression, I hate to even imagine the consequences. 
 
The realities of HBD are unpleasant to contemplate. In the hands of hateful men they could even be dangerous to the stability of the country. But we cannot afford that our ruling elites remain ignorant of them and enact policies based on that ignorance.

Group selection effects are obviously the most important. Asexual reproduction results in a constantly narrowing gene pool as chance effects reduce the variation in the population. Species which reproduce asexually are more vulnerable to extinction events when climate or habitat changes. I don't see how the fact that some plants reproduce both ways invalidates the point. 
 
Another advantage for sexual reproduction in plants is that it gives their offspring some mobility through seed and gamete dispersal. A plant stuck in a poor micro environment is not a reproductive dead end as long as pollen can drift on the wind.

I can't understand why no one is interested in commenting on this. This is the signature for the "major gene" for intelligence that Volkmar Weiss always said must exist. It does, and finding it will change everything.

Jason 
 
The association between anxiety and high intelligence in my family history is very striking, but I suspect that it is being caused by a gene which is at low frequency in the general population. If the gene for Tay-Sachs caused both anxiety and high intelligence in heterozygotes for example, you would still not expect those traits to be highly correlated at the level of the general population. 
 
If one accepts some anecdotal evidence about my earliest acestors, the "family brain chemistry" has been present in my family for eight generations. It seems to be passed along by a single autosomal dominant gene with medium to high penetrance. It is very much more a curse than a blessing. Looking back, I realize that it would have been a good trade if I could have given away 30 points of my IQ in exchange for a happier life.

Interesting that the two diseases mentioned are those that Greg Cochran says are associated with high intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews. I come from a nonjewish family which has a history of both abnormally high intelligence and a tendancy to anxiety disorder and obsessive/compulsive disorder--usually in the same individuals. I have always felt that there must be a connection between the two. Somebody should measure the IQ's of people who possess these variants.

I think that the main reason that crime got out of control during the 70's and 80's was the shitty economy we had during the 70's. Law enforcement was hampered by severe budgetary constrains at the very time when it needed more resources. During the early eighties, the police in Portland, Oregon refused to even take complaints on property crimes much less investigate them. My car was stolen and recovered about this time and the police told me that if I filed a complaint, they would impound my car for a year as evidence; but if I would simply forget about the whole thing I could drive my car home. At the time, people caught driving stolen vehicles were issued the equivalent of a traffic ticket and released on the spot.  
 
The initial causes of the increase in crime were probably increasing levels of drug abuse and the baby boom cohort reaching its peak crime years, but the failure of the criminal justice system to provide any effective deterent was the main culprit in keeping the trend alive. 
 
Because our criminal justice system is burdened with protecting the rights of defendants and affording them due process, it is particularly vulnerable to being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of criminals. The next time our economy goes into a prolonged recession, I hope we will be more intelligent about how we allocate scarce resources. The right to be free of crime and the fear of crime is not a political right, it is the right of any citzen of a civilized country. For over 30 years, our government failed to provide us with this right. It has taken a massive investment in building prisons and beefing up law enforcement to halt and partially reverse the crime wave that began in the 60's. It could all be undone again.

I have corresponded with Steve Sailor a bit about this. In part I said: 
 
The 7R alelle is almost completely missing in the Han Chinese. That it was once present is suggested by the fact that the 5R alelle which almost universal among the Chinese (and found nowhere else) is a simple recombination of the 7R alelle with itself. The disappearance of 7R is probably a recent development in Chinese history. The early emergence of central state authority (which made looting and plundering a poor career choice) and the emergence of a very productive but labor intensive system of agriculture (paddy rice cultivation) caused it to be bred out of existence. 7R types are grasshoppers; the other variants are ants. Once the population of China expanded enough to require incessant toil as the price of survival, the grasshoppers were doomed. 
 
Europeans never went through a Malthusian Trap that was as severe or prolonged as that endured by the Chinese. One could argue that as recently as 500 years ago, many parts of Europe were underpopulated with large tracts of fertile forest land which had not yet been cleared for agriculture. The discovery of the new world and the industrial revolution then further eased population pressures--leaving us with a gene pool more suitable for a pastoral, nomadic people.

Very interesting. I wonder if the 7R allele has also been shown to be over-represented in prison populations.

Okay, I was thinking about the Indo-European expansion into Central and Western Europe. The archealogical evidence shows a slow steady advance of iron-age settlements which because of their age can be assumed to be Indo-European. I think this pattern is a better analogy for the whole Indo-European expansion than the Turkish one. 
 
It is clear from the root words in European languages that the Indo-Europeans were an agricultural people. They had words for pigs, cattle, plows, cereal grains etc. I think that the whole Indo-European expansion can be characterized by as an agricultural people seeking new land to farm rather than as a conquering army imposing a new ruling class on an indigenous people. 
 
I do not know who Colin Renfrew is. I am unable to supply citations because I am not a scholar and I have never studied these things in a systematic way. I express my opinions because that is all I have to offer. If others find that offensive, I will refrain from posting.

I don't know enough about prehistory to comment on most of these posts, but to get back to the main question of the post, "Does the Turkish expansion provide a good analogy for the Indo-European expansion?" I would say that it does not.  
 
As everyone knows, when agriculturists invade territory inhabited by hunter/gatherers the result is population replacement because of the greater population density which agriculture allows. I would argue that this also occurs when the invading people posess a more efficient agricultual technology which will allow greater population density. It seems clear to me that the Indo-European expansion into Europe was of this sort. Indo-Europeans posessed Iron tools which enabled them to clear the heavy oak forests which covered most of Europe at the time. I think there is even some archeological evidence supporting a gradual expansion of iron-age settlements in Europe along the fertile river valleys. (The situation in Northern India, of course, may have been much different.) 
 
Whether population replacement takes place depends on the population density of the conquered people, but also upon the cultural background of the conquering people. Agriculturists tend to appropriate the land and and displace the people; pastoralists tend to regard their new subjects as a kind of cattle to be milked for taxes, slaves and conscripts. It varied from place to place, but I think the Indo-European expansion was marked by population replacement where this was possible, and the Turkish and Arab expansions were marked by the replacement of the ruling class and culture. (I remember reading that during the First Caliphate so many people were converting to Islam to avoid the poll tax levied on Christians that the Arabs forbad any more conversions.)

The polynesians could sail very close to the wind using their version of the lateen sail. They made their voyages of exploration when the winds were against them, knowing that they could always turn around and get home quickly. They were very skilled navigators. They used about thirty stars to determine latitude and sailing directions and had many ways of determining when they were in the vicinity of land. Their explorations were a rational though perilous enterprise.

I think the word "Lydian" is being misused here. Lydian is known to be an Indo-European language of the Anatolian group, while Etruscan--though poorly understood--is clearly not an Indo-Eropean language. 
 
I remember reading a long time ago that Greeks considered the Etruscans and the Phoenicians to be the same people and used the same word to refer to both groups. I don't know how accurate this is. On the face of things, it seems pretty dubious, but it is not impossible. The Phoenician city states give every indication of having been originally trading colonies founded by some maritime culture from outside the region (although heavily Semeticized in both language and culture by the time we encounter them.) 
 
It is, I suppose, pointless to even speculate about such things. The origins of civilization are so far back in time that even genetics will be of no use in deciphering them.

I don't like fooling around with lab equipment, but I have been wondering if the DNA profiles which are commercially available could be used for genetic research by amateurs. For example, do we know enough about the way these genetic markers are inherited to locate a particular gene on particular chromasome by studying the genetic profiles of our extended families?