[lit-ideas] Re: How Civilization accelerated Human Evolution
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 11 May 2014 19:56:50 +0200
In fact, Darwin, on his own admission, took the principle of 'natural
selection' (which was the real novelty, evolution was talked about before
that) from Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population, which as we know
is a work of social philosophy or political economy, not of natural
science. The 'survival of the fittest' is a phrase borrowed from Spencer.
Thus, Darwinism has been connected from very early on with socio-political
thinking.
O.K.
On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 9:31 AM, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> Consider this use of the term "intelligence":
> >An increase in intelligence was required in order for homo sapiens to
> learn how to farm. And then further increases as well as other
> evolutionary changes were required in order to learn how to reduce disease,
> adapt to eating foods that were not significant when they wandered as
> hunter-gatherers or herders.
>
> Cochran and Harpending end with a discussion of the Ashkenazi Jew.
> Evidence exists, they argue, that their intelligence (and peculiar
> diseases) were not created by “bottlenecks” but by natural selection.
> These Jews (as opposed to Jews living in Muslim countries for example)
> worked in “white collar” activities as money lenders and in more modern
> times especially starting in the 19th century in science and mathematics,
> excelled. They began doing this about 800 years ago; then in the early
> 1800s when many of them opened up to enlightenment ways of thinking, their
> money-lending intelligence enabled them to excel in mathematics and
> science.>
>
> What is lacking above is any analysis that separates out "intelligence" in
> terms of 'nature' and 'nuture': "intelligence" based on "cultural
> evolution" and "intelligence" based on "genetic evolution". In the absence
> of any adequate separating out, it may be a category mistake of sorts,
> where this "intelligence" is a facet of "cultural evolution", to posit "that
> their intelligence (and peculiar diseases) were not created by
> “bottlenecks” but by natural selection" (where "natural selection" is a
> purely W1 affair but "intelligence" is not).
>
> That there may be a fundamental category mistake of sorts being made is
> indicated by the way
> "intelligence (and peculiar diseases)" are referred to as if they are both
> on the same level: whereas "peculiar diseases" are something to be
> understood purely in W1 terms, while "intelligence" involves understanding
> in terms of the W1 brain, the W2 of 'mind' and the W3 of the 'contents' on
> which the 'mind' operates.
>
> To refer to people of Jewish descent in terms of their "money-lending
> intelligence", and how this "enabled them to excel in mathematics and
> science", is hardly acceptable as a proper explanation: and it may be
> suggested that Jewish people had advantage over, say, Irish and Italian
> when they emigrated to America because culturally they had worked trades in
> cities rather than being agrarian peasants: agrarian peasants need do no
> more than be a human workhorses, without developing the kind of cultural
> "intelligence" needed to run a business. The cultural value put on
> mathematics etc. is likely much less with agrarian peasants of the Irish
> and Italian type than with people in trades: but if one is an agrarian
> peasant of the Chinese type, performing the complex assessments and
> measurements needed to maximise output from paddy-fields, then mathematical
> and science-based thinking will likely be valued in a similar way to where
> someone is in a city trade - because it is so useful.
>
> We should perhaps be much more careful than the authors, and it is a
> useful start to have terminology that separates out the W1, W2 and W3
> aspects of "intelligence" - rather than taking "intelligence" in a lumpen
> way. For example, the phenomenon of greater Asian proficiency in
> mathematics may have little to do with their W1 brain having greater
> facility with mathematics and much more to do with (a) the agricultural
> system of paddy fields that long required a scientific/mathematical
> approach for its success, and the impact of this on the cultural value
> placed on science and mathematics; (b) that their number systems make maths
> easier (adding 'seven tens and five' and 'five tens and six', in words of
> even shorter syllable, is easier 'mentally' than adding 'seventy five' and
> 'fifty six' as in English: in English the words may need to be translated
> into numbers to perform the calculation whereas in other languages the
> mathematical character of the calculation is more transparent in the
> natural language used); (c) that they have a greater culture of
> "persistence", which is very useful in developing maths and science skills.
>
> Donal
> ex-Lion Tamer
> London
>
> On Saturday, 10 May 2014, 14:48, Lawrence Helm <
> lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I read *The 10,000 Year Explosion, How Civilization Accelerated Human
> Evolution *by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, 2009.
>
> If “natural selection” isn’t at work raising intelligence and adapting us
> to new technology then it is something very like it. Cochran and
> Harpending marshal a number of evidences demonstrating key evolutionary
> advances. Our becoming lactose tolerant for example enabled our ancestors
> to raise cows for milk giving them a 5 to 1 advantage over those who raised
> cattle for food.
>
> The “10,000 year explosion” in their title refers to agriculture. When
> our ancestors could stop wandering about with herds of cattle and settle
> down in fixed locations to farm, this necessitated the creation of ‘elites’
> needed to guard their property, govern disputes and assemble them in order
> to fight groups of intruders bent on robbing them of their property and
> women. But towns centered on clusters of farms had advantages over
> wandering tribes of herders – eventually. Attila and his Huns were herders
> rather than farmers, but the potential was there for farmers to produce
> larger armies.
>
> An increase in intelligence was required in order for homo sapiens to
> learn how to farm. And then further increases as well as other
> evolutionary changes were required in order to learn how to reduce disease,
> adapt to eating foods that were not significant when they wandered as
> hunter-gatherers or herders.
>
> Cochran and Harpending end with a discussion of the Ashkenazi Jew.
> Evidence exists, they argue, that their intelligence (and peculiar
> diseases) were not created by “bottlenecks” but by natural selection.
> These Jews (as opposed to Jews living in Muslim countries for example)
> worked in “white collar” activities as money lenders and in more modern
> times especially starting in the 19th century in science and mathematics,
> excelled. They began doing this about 800 years ago; then in the early
> 1800s when many of them opened up to enlightenment ways of thinking, their
> money-lending intelligence enabled them to excel in mathematics and
> science.
>
> Cochran and Harpending allude to the possibility that Israel being a
> cross-road to a number of invasions and a lot of traffic may have
> benefitted from increased genetic variation, but they find no indication
> that Jews 2000 years ago were smarter than the norm for that time. Perhaps
> that is why they didn’t draw a parallel to the modern-day U.S. We have
> had an influx of the brightest people from all over the world especially
> after World War II. Hasn’t the resultant genetic variability enhanced
> intelligence in a significant few? American entrepreneurs do seem to be
> developing new technology at a greater rate than other nations. Could the
> reason for this be to some extent due to so many bright people having moved
> to the U.S. in the 20th century?
>
> And I also wondered about the heritability of things learned. The
> Ashkenazi Jews learned money lending and this enabled them to become
> leading scientists and mathematicians in the 20th century. Cochran and
> Harpending don’t go beyond “natural selection” to account for the reasons
> for this. Somehow in the past 800 years the smarter Ashkenazi Jews had
> more children than the dumber ones and thus were able to produce
> Einstein-level brilliance by the 20th century. And yet Cochran and
> Harpending describe some serious illnesses that are also found in the
> Ashkenazi Jews which would seem to argue against inordinately larger
> families for these Jews than the norm.
>
> Everyone on this forum knows that if we study a subject a lot and then
> keep on studying it; eventually we will know more about it than almost
> anyone we know – assuming we start our study with adequate intelligence.
> This seems to me what the Ashkenazi Jews started doing 800 years ago. But
> is natural selection an adequate explanation for what happened in the
> 20thcentury, for Einstein for example? We know there are genetic “triggers”
> of various sorts; mightn’t the intense study needed for mastering
> money-lending have triggered an intellectual benefit that was to some
> extent heritable? Maybe not, but it doesn’t seem as though there were
> enough generations for natural selection to explain those results.
>
>
> Lawrence
>
>
>
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