[lit-ideas] Re: What to do with Nicholas Wade's ideas
- From: John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Lit-Ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 14:41:32 +0900
"Everyone (almost) is looking for the answer nowadays in the homo sapiens
genome -- sort of, that is they expect to find it there one day, but don't
at this point know where to look for it. That natural selection worked in
such a way as to favor leaving off hunting and gathering and taking up
herding and farming seems the most plausible answer to "most."
It appears so only to those with a predisposition to genetic explanations
and a serious lack of knowledge of how contemporary science works. If this
now includes "most" Americans, the most likely explanation is the decline
of public education in the USA.
John
On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 2:11 PM, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
No, the means to find such genetic differences don't exist yet. What does
exist is the anthropological evidence that man was a hunter gatherer for
185,000 years and then all of a sudden (so to speak) he gave that up that
way of life in Europe and Asia and became a farmer and herder. To
hypothesize as most have done prior to the advances in genetic study that
man has remained unchanged for 200,000 years has resulted in theories that
now seem (to most of us in the 21st century) dated. Everyone (almost) is
looking for the answer nowadays in the homo sapiens genome -- sort of, that
is they expect to find it there one day, but don't at this point know where
to look for it. That natural selection worked in such a way as to favor
leaving off hunting and gathering and taking up herding and farming seems
the most plausible answer to "most." I admitted to being on some
scientific news feeds. I can't recall reading a single one that disagrees
with the idea that natural selection was behind major events in
homo-sapiens anthropological history. Discoveries seem to be occurring
almost daily making these exciting times in which to live.
Lawrence
On 7/8/2016 9:20 PM, John McCreery wrote:
That such changes are possible is well-demonstrated. What I am looking for
is evidence that (1) such changes have actually occurred so that
hunters-and-gatherers are, as such, demonstrably genetically different from
agriculturists and (2) that, if such changes exist, what mechanisms explain
their relation to the change in way of life.
I am aware that (1') any attempt to demonstrate the presence of such
changes must exclude the genetic differences between, say, Inuit, Ituri
Pygmies, and Bushmen, all of whom are hunters and gatherers while otherwise
racially different and (2') if such changes can be demonstrated, whether
the association between genes and way of life is a causal relationship,
running from way of life to genes or vice versa, a spurious relationship,
or one that depends on a third factor, remains debatable. These are issues
that won't go away, regardless of how many, maybe, could be, or even other
demonstrable relations are cited.
My tentative, thoroughly biased, conclusion: Wade's argument is nineteenth
century thinking in a twenty-first century world. The same could, of
course, be said of many of those who argue with him on grounds uninformed
by scientific advances.
Cheers,
John
On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 12:17 PM, Lawrence Helm <
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
No, none of that. What we have is evidence of a some recent changes, not
only that but some differences that are associated with geography, genes
enabling people living at high altitudes to process oxygen better. genes
to tolerate lactose so people can drink milk. Genes to change skin color
so people can live at different latitudes come to mind. The fact that
there are recent identified genetic changes causes many, not just Wade to
suspect that there are other changes. If there is a sudden ability to do
something or tolerate something or change into something or get sick in
some new way, there is a suspicion that genetics are involved. And
scientists will be trying to prove or disprove an association.
Unfortunately (fortunately for sick people) scientists are most often
looking for genetic causes of diseases.
Lawrence
On 7/8/2016 7:25 PM, John McCreery wrote:
Lawrence,
As you suggest, let's keep this scientific and avoid the ad hominem
argument that those interested in genetics as a possible explanation of
human behavior are espousing inherently racist views. I haven't followed
the discussion closely enough to be sure that what I write below is
relevant. Please correct me where my third-hand views of second-hand
discussion of primary sources I have never read goes astray.
Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have on the table the
proposition that changes in genes explain the shift from hunting and
gathering to agriculture.
Do we have any evidence of any form that demonstrates the presence of
these genetic changes prior to the appearance of agriculture or coinciding
with it?
If we see morphological evidence of, for example, predictable changes in
the skeletons of those who practice agriculture versus those who practice
hunting and gathering, how do we determine that these are the results of
changes in genotype and not changes due to behavioral changes required by
agriculture, e.g., bending over to hoe and weed?
How do we address the effects of population mobility and the mixing
resulting from what my first Anthropology teacher called the only natural
law that anthropologists have ever discovered: When peoples meet, they mate?
And then, of course, we come to the question of genetic mechanisms. Here
we have to address recent advances in hard core biochemically based
studies of genetic processes that indicate that the same genotypes can have
radically different effects depending on the specific proteins with which
they interact.. . . .Obvious enough when one considers that the same
embryonic stem cells can become specialized bone, heart or liver cells, but
sorting out how that happens turns out to be a wicked problem.
Cheers,
John
On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 11:05 AM, John McCreery <
<john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Larry Kramer. Yes.
John
On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 10:07 AM, Ursula Stange < <ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>
ursula@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Larry Kramer?
On Jul 8, 2016, at 8:50 PM, Mike Geary <
<jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On the old Philosophy and Literature list there were two politically
conservative posters named Lawrence, (1) you - Lawrence Helm and another
Lawrence whose last name escapes me now. I used to refer to the two of you
as "the two Larrys." Does anyone remember the other Larry's name? As I
recall, there were several politically conservative leaning members on that
list. Perhaps there are several here as well but who find this list not the
proper podium to practice their art. This list is certainly a lot less
politically oriented. Liberal-Conservative stances show themselves far
more readily in political conversations and those are few and far between
now. I hail from a very liberal,Irish-Catholic, Southern white,
working-class, maternally-ruled, (my mother could have taught Betty Friedan
some lessons), Civil-Rights-marching family of five boys and one girl. --
and a very hard working, calm and amused father. At dinner Mom would read
a paragraph or two from some liberal political magazine such as Ramparts
and we would all be expected to discuss it. It was argument among the like
minded -- but I would often play the Devil's Advocate just for fun. I miss
growing up.
On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 5:37 PM, Lawrence Helm <
<lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I should have included a disclaimer but I didn't know quite how to
phrase it. I still don't but I'll try anyway. For many years I have read
or acquired to read everything I could find on genetics as it affects
human
and canine evolution. The magnitude of my effort strikes me as very
small,
but I have erred in the past when estimating the worth of various efforts.
OTOH while I have been receiving three news feeds on scientific advances
for quite a long time, I have not been keeping up very well with them.
So,
while I am very aware that the study of genomes, genes, alleles, etc. for
the purpose of determining what everything does is relatively new, the
nature of natural selection and the recent discoveries have triggered
speculations not just with Wade. In fact I had already thought of a
significant percentage of what Wade writes in his book. He is much more
thorough than I could have been and of course he has access to materials I
couldn't have or could have but wasn't aware of. Still, as has been
demonstrated fairly often (without a clear explanation of why it happens,
a
"climate of opinion" sometimes exists. Had Darwin for example not
produced
his theory of evolution Alfred Russell Wallace would have.
I am not claiming anything more than a certain degree of attentiveness
which has caused me to have many of "the thoughts floating around out
there" that anyone (or many ones) interested in these aspects of genetics
will have.
I have no reason not to embrace whatever new discoveries are made in
these fields of genetics. I also confess to not being aware (until
reading
Wade's book) that there was resistance to the possibility of racial
genetic
differences because of 1) they might inspire new bouts of racism, 2) they
run counter to Marxist theory, and 3) they run counter to Leftist ideas.
The other day I ran across an old Lit-Ideas' comment of Geary's in
which he is answering the question of someone who hadn't been on Lit-Ideas
for a long time and was wondering "where everyone was." He identified me
as
the only true "conservative" still on Lit Ideas. I frankly don't think of
myself that way any longer. I have "given up politics" for the duration.
I don't plan on getting into any of the political arguments I did in the
past -- and yet here we are in a new arena. Something that strikes me as
purely scientific, that is, looking at evidence from science, history,
anthropology etc and then speculating or reasoning from it strikes me as
non-political. I'm not saying that this reasoning somehow turns into
evidence or proof. At best it becomes a plausibility to be set alongside
other plausabilities and I don't see any thing in that to be afraid of.
Perhaps other people do however, and I can respect that.
While I had already thought of or encountered elsewhere much of what
Wade wrote I felt a need to post a recognition of and perhaps speculate
about ideas I hadn't already encountered, but I needn't post them on
Lit-Ideas. I can post them on my blog and have that be the end of them.
I
might be able to get back to poetry more quickly if I take that course.
Lawrence
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--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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