Friday, August 30, 2002

Quick recap for new visitors Send this entry to: Del.icio.us Spurl Ma.gnolia Digg Newsvine Reddit

Quick recap for new visitors Ok - I've gotten several emails/comments that suggest I should once again go over the evolutionary case for the possiblity that human genetic differences exist and are important. Let's begin by making clear our points of agreement: 1) We agree that races exist, and that genetic differences between ethnic groups go more than skin deep (as evidenced by organ transplants, medication responses, hormone levels, etc.) 2) We also agree that some racial differences like melanin-rich/poor skin or the epicanthic fold of the Asian eye are responses to selection pressure. The epicanthic fold, or eyelid fold, of Asian people is believed to have evolved on freezing windswept plains of northern Asia, to protect the eye from extreme cold. At the equator, people came to be darkest--because darkness is and adaptation to intense sunlight. It was found years ago that among black sailors in the American navy (sailors were exposed to the sun for long hours), skin cancer was far less than among white sailors. As one travels north though Africa, away from the equator, skin becomes increasingly light. Continuing north, from southern Italy and France to northern Sweden and Finland, skin becomes still lighter, as does hair. The reason is this: is the north, where the sun is weaker and there is cloud, its rays cannot penetrate a darker skin to create vitamin D, without which a person many years ago would get rickets. So a light, transparent skin was an adaptation to weak sunlight. Thus, at least some of the genetic differences between people from different ancestral geographic regions are due to differential selection pressures. Some, of course, are due to genetic drift (which is random-walk evolution in the absence of a directional "wind of selection"). 3) So we have established that there are differences that go more than skin-deep and they are sometimes important. A priori, then, we cannot do as Stephen J. Gould does and assert that "human equality is a contingent fact of history". Some features of all humans are in fact equal - we (mostly) all have two eyes, two ears, etc. But we agree that there are genetic differences in intelligence between individuals, and that there are genetic differences in other properties between groups, so a priori we can't discount the existence of genetic differences in intelligence between groups. We need to use the methods of science to see whether such differences exist.







Principles of Population Genetics
Genetics of Populations
Molecular Evolution
Quantitative Genetics
Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics
Evolutionary Genetics
Evolution
Molecular Markers, Natural History, and Evolution
The Genetics of Human Populations
Genetics and Analysis of Quantitative Traits
Epistasis and Evolutionary Process
Evolutionary Human Genetics
Biometry
Mathematical Models in Biology
Speciation
Evolutionary Genetics: Case Studies and Concepts
Narrow Roads of Gene Land 1
Narrow Roads of Gene Land 2
Narrow Roads of Gene Land 3
Statistical Methods in Molecular Evolution
The History and Geography of Human Genes
Population Genetics and Microevolutionary Theory
Population Genetics, Molecular Evolution, and the Neutral Theory
Genetical Theory of Natural Selection
Evolution and the Genetics of Populations
Genetics and Origins of Species
Tempo and Mode in Evolution
Causes of Evolution
Evolution
The Great Human Diasporas
Bones, Stones and Molecules
Natural Selection and Social Theory
Journey of Man
Mapping Human History
The Seven Daughters of Eve
Evolution for Everyone
Why Sex Matters
Mother Nature
Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language
Genome
R.A. Fisher, the Life of a Scientist
Sewall Wright and Evolutionary Biology
Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics
A Reason for Everything
The Ancestor's Tale
Dragon Bone Hill
Endless Forms Most Beautiful
The Selfish Gene
Adaptation and Natural Selection
Nature via Nurture
The Symbolic Species
The Imitation Factor
The Red Queen
Out of Thin Air
Mutants
Evolutionary Dynamics
The Origin of Species
The Descent of Man
Age of Abundance
The Darwin Wars
The Evolutionists
The Creationists
Of Moths and Men
The Language Instinct
How We Decide
Predictably Irrational
The Black Swan
Fooled By Randomness
Descartes' Baby
Religion Explained
In Gods We Trust
Darwin's Cathedral
A Theory of Religion
The Meme Machine
Synaptic Self
The Mating Mind
A Separate Creation
The Number Sense
The 10,000 Year Explosion
The Math Gene
Explaining Culture
Origin and Evolution of Cultures
Dawn of Human Culture
The Origins of Virtue
Prehistory of the Mind
The Nurture Assumption
The Moral Animal
Born That Way
No Two Alike
Sociobiology
Survival of the Prettiest
The Blank Slate
The g Factor
The Origin Of The Mind
Unto Others
Defenders of the Truth
The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition
Before the Dawn
Behavioral Genetics in the Postgenomic Era
The Essential Difference
Geography of Thought
The Classical World
The Fall of the Roman Empire
The Fall of Rome
History of Rome
How Rome Fell
The Making of a Christian Aristoracy
The Rise of Western Christendom
Keepers of the Keys of Heaven
A History of the Byzantine State and Society
Europe After Rome
The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity
The Barbarian Conversion
A History of Christianity
God's War
Infidels
Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople
The Sacred Chain
Divided by the Faith
Europe
The Reformation
Pursuit of Glory
Albion's Seed
1848
Postwar
From Plato to Nato
China: A New History
China in World History
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
Children of the Revolution
When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World
The Great Arab Conquests
After Tamerlane
A History of Iran
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language
A World History
Guns, Germs, and Steel
The Human Web
Plagues and Peoples
1491
A Concise Economic History of the World
Power and Plenty
A Splendid Exchange
Contours of the World Economy 1-2030 AD
Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations
A Farewell to Alms
The Ascent of Money
The Great Divergence
Clash of Extremes
War and Peace and War
Historical Dynamics
The Age of Lincoln
The Great Upheaval
What Hath God Wrought
Freedom Just Around the Corner
Throes of Democracy
Grand New Party
A Beautiful Math
When Genius Failed
Catholicism and Freedom
American Judaism

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