February 10, 2009

Politically Correcticizing Darwin

A featured review, "Charles Darwin, Abolitionist," by Christopher Benfey, a professor of English, in the Feb. 1, 2009 New York Times Sunday Book Review asserts:

Two arresting new books, timed to co­incide with Darwin’s 200th birthday, make the case that his epochal achievement in Victorian England can best be under­stood in relation to events — involving neither tortoises nor finches — on the other side of the Atlantic. Both books confront the touchy subject of Darwin and race head on; both conclude that Darwin, despite the pernicious spread of “social Darwinism” (the notion, popularized by Herbert Spencer, that human society progresses through the “survival of the fittest”), was no racist.

Adrian Desmond and James Moore published a highly regarded biography of Darwin in 1991. The argument of their new book, “Darwin’s Sacred Cause,” is bluntly stated in its subtitle: “How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin’s Views on Human Evolution.” They set out to overturn the widespread view that Darwin was a “tough-minded scientist” who unflinchingly followed the trail of empirical research until it led to the stunning and unavoidable theory of evolution. This narrative, they claim, is precisely backward. “Darwin’s starting point,” they write, “was the abolitionist belief in blood kinship, a ‘common descent’ ” of all human beings. ...

This is getting American intellectual history confused. The polygenetic theory of human origins tended to appeal to Northern intellectuals, while Southerners didn't have much time for it since the Old Testament clearly lays out a monogenetic history of humanity going back to Adam and Eve, with the races being descended from Noah's various sons.

Darwin did spend a number of pages in The Descent of Man considering whether the races were different species before concluding that the different races were, indeed, just different races. If, however, DNA structure co-discoverer James Watson had mentioned in public some of the evidence that Darwin considers on this question, he wouldn't have been fired. He would have been burned at the stake.

(Here's my 1999 article from the National Post of Toronto: "Darwin's Enemies on the Left: Truth v. Equality.")

It's all muddled in Benfey's head because contemporary dogma insists that anyone who believes there are any difference on average between races is in favor of slavery (which then makes stamping out their ideas a moral necessity -- If Charles Murray, say, is not exposed to nonstop hatred and lies, the Slave Trade will automatically be re-initiated.)

Even Darwin’s courtship of Emma, whom he winningly called the “most interesting specimen in the whole series of vertebrate animals,” is cleverly interwoven with his developing thoughts on “sexual selection,” the aesthetic preference for certain traits, like skin color in humans or plumage in peacocks, that over time leads to those super­ficial variations we mistakenly think of as “racial.”

But what if Darwin’s evidence had led to conclusions that did not support his belief in the unitary origins of mankind? Would he have fudged the data? Desmond and Moore don’t really address the question. One is left with the impression that Darwin was amazingly lucky that his benevolent preconceptions turned out to fit the facts.

In his lively and wide-ranging “Angels and Ages,” Adam Gopnik suggests that when facts and values clash we might live in accordance with our beliefs anyway. “It might be true — there is absolutely no such evidence, but it might be true — that different ethnic groups, or sexes, have on average different innate aptitudes for math or science,” he muses. “We might decide to even things out, give some people extra help toward that end, or we might decide just to live with the disparity.” ...

Gopnik is as convinced as Desmond and Moore that Darwin was no kind of racist. “The one thing that you could not read into Darwin’s writings was racism,” he writes.

Have any of these people actually read Darwin's The Descent of Man? If Darwin were alive today, he'd be demonized like James Watson was in 2007. Let's try a few samples:

There is however no doubt that the various races when carefully compared and measured differ much from each other as in the texture of the hair, the relative proportions of all parts of the body, the capacity of the lungs the form, and capacity of the skull, and even in the convolutions of the brain. But it would be an endless task to specify the numerous points of difference The races differ also in constitution in acclimatisation and in liability to certain diseases Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct chiefly as it would appear in their emotional but partly in their intellectual faculties Every one who has had the opportunity of comparison must have been struck with the contrast between the taciturn, even morose, aborigines of S. America and the light-hearted talkative negroes. Link

Darwin was an IQ hawk before the invention of the IQ test:

The variability or diversity of the mental faculties in men of the same race, not to mention the greater differences between the men of distinct races, is so notorious that not a word need here be said. Link

The influence of Darwin's younger half-cousin, the much denounced Sir Francis Galton, coiner of the term "eugenics" and author of the 1869 book Hereditary Genius, on Darwin's 1871 Descent of Man is evident just from the index of Darwin's book:

Galton Mr on hereditary genius 28 gregariousness and independence in animals 104 en the struggle between the social and personal impulses 125 on the effects of natural selection on civilised nations 133 on the sterility of sole daughters 135 on the degree of fertility of people of genius 136 on the early marriages of the poor 138 on the ancient Greeks 140 on the Middle Ages 141 on the progress of the United States 142 on South African notions of beauty 579 Gammarus use of the chelae of 268

Link

For example:

With man, we see similar facts in almost every family, and we now know through the admirable labours of Mr Galton that genius, which implies a wonderfully complex combination of high faculties, tends to be inherited, and on the other hand it is too certain that insanity and deteriorated mental powers likewise run in families... Link

And here's Darwin sounding like a cross between Galton, Malthus, and Gregory Clark of 2007's A Farewell to Alms:

We will now look to the intellectual faculties; if in each grade of society the members were divided into two equal bodies the one including the intellectually superior and the other the inferior there can be little doubt that the former would succeed best in all occupations and rear a greater number of children. Even in the lowest walks of life skill and ability must be of some advantage, though in many occupations owing to the great division of labour, a very small one Hence in civilised nations there will be some tendency to an increase both in the number and in the standard of the intellectually able. But I do not wish to assert that this tendency may not be more than counterbalanced in other ways, as by the multiplication of the reckless and improvident, but even to such as these ability must be some advantage. ... When in any nation the standard of intellect and the number of intellectual men have increased we may expect from the law of the deviation from an average that prodigies of genius will, as shewn by Mr Galton. appear somewhat more frequently than before Link

Darwin advanced a theory of group selection:

A tribe including many members who, from possessing in a high degree the spirit of patriotism, fidelity, obedience, courage, and sympathy, were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection. At all times throughout the world tribes have supplanted other tribes and as morality is one important element in their success the standard of morality and the number of well endowed men will thus everywhere tend to rise and increase.

Or:

Natural Selection as affecting Civilised Nations -- I have hitherto only considered the advancement of man from a semi human condition to that of the modern savage But some remarks on the action of natural selection on civilised nations may be worth adding This subject has been ably discussed by ... W.K. Greg and previously by Mr Wallace and Mr Galton. Most of my remarks are taken from these three authors. With savages the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health We civilised men on the other hand do our utmost to check the process of elimination...

Here's a particularly amusing part of The Descent of Man:

"Or as Mr Greg puts the case: "The careless squalid unaspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits; the frugal foreseeing self respecting ambitious Scot, stern in his morality, spiritual in his faith, sagacious, and disciplined in his intelligence, passes his best years in struggle and in celibacy marries late and leaves few behind him. Given a land originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a thousand Celts, and in a dozen generations five sixths of the population would be Celts but five sixths of the property of the power of the intellect would belong to the one sixth of Saxons that remained. In the eternal struggle for existence, it would be the inferior and less favoured race that had prevailed and prevailed by virtue not of its good qualities but of its faults." There are however some checks to this downward tendency ... Link

And Darwin goes on to lay out some Greg Clark-style caveats, but with no apology to the poor Irish.

And how about this?

"The remarkable success of the English as colonists compared to other European nations has been ascribed to their daring and persistent energy, a result which is well illustrated by comparing the progress of the Canadians of English and French extraction; but who can say how the English gained their energy? There is apparently much truth in the belief that the wonderful progress of the United States as well as the character of the people are the results of natural selection for the more energetic, restless, and courageous men from all parts of Europe have emigrated during the last ten or twelve generations to that great country and have there succeeded best. Looking to the distant future, I do not think that the Rev Mr Zincke takes an exaggerated view when he says: "All other series of events as that which resulted in the culture of mind in Greece and that which resulted in the empire of Rome only appear to have purpose and value when viewed in connection with, or rather as subsidiary to, the great stream of Anglo Saxon emigration to the west." Obscure as is the problem of the advance of civilisation, we can at least see that a nation which produced during a lengthened period the greatest number of highly intellectual, energetic, brave, patriotic, and benevolent men would generally prevail over less favoured nations." Link

USA! USA! USA!

On the other hand:

It even appears from what we see -- for instance in parts of S. America -- that a people which may be called civilised, such as the Spanish settlers, is liable to become indolent and to retrograde when the conditions of life are very easy. Link

Ay carumba ...

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

81 comments:

Dennis Dale said...

Gopnik, in his non-acknowledgement acknowledgement of racial differences (or which there is "absolutely no evidence", yet still looms on the horizon somehow, storm-like, as a soon-to-be-incontrovertible fact):

“We might decide to even things out, give some people extra help toward that end, or we might decide just to live with the disparity.” ...

We've spent a couple of generations attempting to "even things out" while littering the landscape with the corpses of anyone who suggests we just "live with the disparity"--or addresses the disparity as such. Living with disparity, in its various forms, is an unavoidable requirement of both enlightenment and liberty.

These people can't be entirely unaware of this embarrassing and sloppy nature of their contorted analysis; you'd think it would occur to one of these guys that--horror!--there might be a distinction between "racist" and "bigot."

Anonymous said...

A question for those interested in IQ and Global Inequality:

1. What do you make of the data on the southernmost countries of South America?

Uruguay, an almost all European country (including substantial German), has a per capita of $7000. Chile the wealthiest reports $10000. (Chile derives over half its export revenue from copper. It's the biggest exporter in the world) Also Chile is the least corrupt country in Latin America. On the Transparency Index it ranks with some European countries.

SO WHY DO THEY ALL UNDERPERFORM SO MUCH?


2. What do you make of the Med data?

Greece: 92 Turkey: 90 Lebanon: 82 (consider how successful Lebanese Christians have been in America, Australia, Latin America, etc.)

Does it make any sense? Explanations?

Anonymous said...

we can at least see that a nation which produced during a lengthened period the greatest number of highly intellectual, energetic, brave, patriotic, and benevolent men would generally prevail over less favoured nations

Well, sort of. Except that 'patriotism' and 'benevolence' lead to a certain naivety that is easily exploited:

Shyster: The United States is the greatest country ever!

Patriot: Amen, bro!

S: It's a veritable city on a shining hill.

P: Right on!

S: It got to be that way because it's a nation of immigrants! a melting pot! a nation that lovingly accepts the wretched refuse!

P: Sure thing!

S: So let's accept more and more. Because it's good for the country! Because it's why the nation was founded! Because not to do so would be un-American!

P: Absolutely!

Anonymous said...

med data: men with gold chains vs. intelligence. look where they excel, sleeze mongering - a la carlos slim, vs inventiveness. The more the society becomes corrupt and multicultural (low trust) their 'tribes' flourish. as for the iq average: lebonon and turkey are multi-culti, like india. So i imagine there are average ig 85 bedoins along with average iq 100 meds.

Greece: don't know but I understand Ireland also has an remarkably low average 90 - 10 points below the rest of north europe. Massive brain drain?

Anonymous said...

i would say this is prima facie evidence that the NYT is solidly middlebrow, just hoping, fingers crossed, that nobody notices.

"let's talk about how a respected historical thinker actually endorses our worldview and way of thinking."

it's "what would jesus do" for the college set.

Dennis Mangan said...

Go, Steve!

Anonymous said...

One of your best articles, ever. Charles Darwin should be a central figure studied and elevated in White History Month.

Anonymous said...

The IQ data on Ireland is all over the place. From 87 (Gill & Byrt, 1973) to 97 (Buj, 1981.) But, considering the much larger Irish-Catholic population in this country compared to Ireland, and the fact that emigrants tend to have slightly higher IQ's than their home countries(or so I've read,) then there's probably been alot of brain drain away from Ireland. It's economy is less service-oriented compared to the Anglo countries, despite it's higher per capita income.

TGGP said...

Darwin did side with the "liberals" on the matter of Governor Eyre, which Mencius Moldbug finds very important.

Anonymous said...

I've always wondered about the Irish. On the one hand, they are descendants of the Celts, who were far more sophisticated than their Teutonic counterparts during the Roman period, and on the other hand, they have always been considered the dumbest and most reckless of Europeans. Modern day Ireland is not doing too bad either.

Anonymous said...

Given a land originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a thousand Celts, and in a dozen generations five sixths of the population would be Celts but five sixths of the property of the power of the intellect would belong to the one sixth of Saxons that remained. In the eternal struggle for existence, it would be the inferior and less favoured race that had prevailed and prevailed by virtue not of its good qualities but of its faults."

H.G. Wells uses the same reasoning and arrives at the same conclusions that Darwin did regarding this mechanism. It formed the base of his critique the systems of political economy which were to prevail in the US and the UK.

Wells:

Aggressive, intensely aquisitive, reproductive people . . . are the people who will prevail in a social system based on private property and mercentile competition. No creative power, no nobility, no courage can battle against them. And below in the slums and factories, what will be going on? The survival of a race of stunted toilers, with great resisting power to infection, contagion, and fatigue, omnivorous as rats.

[. . .]

Since the fittest under present conditions is manifestly the ratlike, the survival of the fittest that is going on now is one that is highly desirable to stop as soon as possible, and so far Socialism will arrest the survival of the fittest.”


- H. G. Wells, New Worlds for Old, pp. 186-187


Is it just me, or does the United States seem to have a vastly larger class of 'stunted toilers' than it did just thirty years ago?

Anonymous said...

That bit about the Irish raises a question: presumably you "race realists" accept that 19thC hypotheses dividing White Europeans into different races with different abilities were mistaken, so what makes you think yours are better, apart from its being easier to spot skin colour than skull shape.
As for Ireland suffering a brain drain to the USA, that seems unlikely. The first large-scale Irish emigration was, as is rather well-known, the forced emigration of people who didn't want to leave seeking survival, not the most enterprising seeking opportunity. If the Republic of Ireland really has a lower average IQ than the rest of Europe, that would suggest IQ is not as important as you think. By the standards of continental Europe, just having survived as a democracy since 1922 is a triumph. (BTW, "Eire" would be a better name there).
Darwin's remarks about the best emigrating raise another question: soon after he wrote, the filters on European immigration to the US changed, as cheap and easy transatlantic travel coincided with American industry's exploding demand for unskilled labour. If the hereditary hypothsis were correct, the descendents of ealier immigrants and of the "huddled masses" should be noticeably different. Is there any evidence of this?

Anonymous said...

1. What do you make of the data on the southernmost countries of South America?

Wikipedia reports Chile's GDP per capita (PPP) as $14,688. Uruguay is at $11,674, Argentina at $14,354. These are the wealthiest countries in Latin America, and the whitest. A hundred years ago they were, I think, better off than most European nations. They have stagnated since, and I'm not sure why. They're certainly underperforming considering their demographics.

Anonymous said...

Anon #1,

First of all, as I think Steve has mentioned before, you should be careful when examinig IQ data for single countries since there is a good deal of variance between different estimates of the same coutry, which is not surprising given the dificulties in forming a truly representative large sample and issues like tests standarization; instead one should try to look at general tendencies (be them regional, cultural, etc.).

Regarding the southern cone of South America, being from Chile myself, I can tell you, for what it’s worth, that Chile’s population is almost entirely mestizo to different degrees, having, a according to studies (you can Google ‘Rothhammer composición genética’), a total genetic composition of about 60% European and 40% Amerindian.

While I don’t believe that the people in the southern cone of South America have particulary high IQs (low 90s, maybe), I do agree that they underperform. I can’t be sure for the reasons of this, but my guess would be that it maybe related to cultural issues like work ethic (and ethics in general in the case of Argentina), and historical inequality and class struggles (which now are somewhat subsided, although our Socialist goverment still takes advantage of it in its calls and programs for a more “solidary” Chile, while coming up with with multiple “victimized” o “stigmatized” groups).

Anonymous said...

This might be an important difference between ethnic issues are treated in America compared to the situation in Europe; in the US elite seem to think that a return of race realism would result in slavery and/or segregation, because thats something that has actually happened in their immediate past. In Europe, in my view, elites seem much more likely to think that a change in the status quo of racial thinking will result in massive ethnic cleansing and/or genocide, because that is something that has happened in their recent past. At least this seems to be the thinking in Holland and Germany, the two countries most affected by the whole Holocaust trauma.

I am wondering if other folks agree or instead disagree by pointing out that ethnic cleansing also took place in the United States. Which attitude is more favorable for white activists or is there no difference?

Anonymous said...

HBD explains a great deal and it is of course true.

But I think we can learn a lot by looking at the exceptions to the rule.

The populations of Uruguay and Argentina are almost 100% derived from Europe and yet both countries have been unsuccessful economically

Sometimes two groups with the same exact racial make up and same exact IQ can take divergent paths.

I would put forth that a family of Germans 100 years ago living in Germany might have had exactly the same IQ and exactly the same income.

The family member that moved to the USA would have produced great grandchildren who make an average of $60 thousand a year

The family member that settled in Western Germany and thus was in the American occupation zone after the war would make an average of $55 thousand a year

the family member that settled in the East and thus was in the soviet occupation sector would make an average of $40 thousand a year (even after reunification people who grew up in the east have much lower incomes)

the family member that moved to Uruguay might have an income of $12 thousand

the family member that moved to Argentina might have an income if $15 thousand

My point is - culture and institutions have a *huge* impact on the income / GDP

it is not all IQ

Anonymous said...

I hate to trot out a cliche,
but in this case I must add
the the victors (i.e., Anglo
Saxon's) write the history.

The decentralized Irish held out as a free peoples stubbornly and it wasn't until the 17th century that the reputation of a feckless race took hold in the English speaking world.

The famine,brain drain and other
events obviously were a blow to
it's reputation and actual condition.

The the fact that Ireland is not
in the league of continental
giant Germany does not mean it isn't in a similar league to
Norway/Denmark in terms of
civility and efficiency. I was
in a meeting w/ execs from a
major German automaker recently
and out of 8 players there were
3 Irish-americans, 3 Germans, 1 Englishman and 1 Italian-American. Not sure what it
means, but it certainly doesn't
indicate a feckless people.

For this reason, Darwin is a good
stepping stone, but we need to
build up the genetic foundations of HBD so as not to to allow pro-Saxon propoganda to suffice for
anthropology.


(By the way, Darwin was on to something w/ the low-breeding
Scots. It's quite sad in a way.
I've noticed this in my wife's own family)

Anonymous said...

Darwin complains that the smart have few kids and the stupid many. Idiocracy, right? But how does this fact fit into Darwinism himself? Darwin just can't explain that. Why don't the smart, who are rich, have more children? Why don't they maximize their resources for reproduction? This is a great blow to Darwin's own theory.

Evil Sandmich said...

...if in each grade of society the members were divided into two equal bodies the one including the intellectually superior and the other the inferior there can be little doubt that the former would succeed best in all occupations and rear a greater number of children.True PC socialism having not been invented yet.

Fernandinande said...

I still find it amazing that people like Benfey and Gopnik actually get paid for spewing such trivial nonsense; it's lucky for them that there's a lot of people who're smart enough to read but not smart enough to think.

Anonymous said...

Another coup. Wonderful research.

Anonymous said...

Greece: don't know but I understand Ireland also has an remarkably low average 90 - 10 points below the rest of north europe. Massive brain drain?


Ireland is 93. The worldwide average is about 90. And Israel, reputedly populated by giant disembodied brains, comes in at 94, behind the US and most of Europe.

Fernandinande said...

Steve, I noticed that you filed this one under "Darwinism" - J. Hawks has a good rant about the (mis?)use of that term here.

Anonymous said...

they have always been considered the dumbest and most reckless of Europeans


You're thinking of the Poles.

Anonymous said...

With respect to fertility- Adam Smith, a far better thinker than Darwin, observed the close relationship between wealth and reproduction. That is, it's an inverse relationship. The better off people are the lower their fertility rate.

The modern Irish, with the same income as any others in the British Isles, breed at the same low rate as do the Scots.

albertosaurus said...

This talk about the Irish by Darwin and the various commenters is wrongheaded.

Just because many others atribute the performance deficiencies of Africans and Native Americans solely to environmental causes doesn't mean that all human performance differences are everywhere only genetic.

Ireland was consisdered the poorest nation in Western Europe until quite recently. Tourists and movie makers were charmed by these backward people - eg. The Quiet Man.

Ireland was the poster child for Weber's notion of "the Protestant work ethic". The north was rich the south was poor.

Catholic Irish immigrant's to America were poor, diseased, criminal and drunk. They also had an average IQ of 85.

That was then.

More recently Ireland has been called the "Celtic Tiger". It has become the fastest growing economy in Europe. When the Eastern European nations were preparing to enter the European Union they didn't want to model themselves after Germany and France (essentially no economic growth) but after Ireland.

In recent studies and polls Ireland routinely is named the most desireable place to live on earth.

What caused this incredible change? Tax policy. For those of you fuzzy on genetics and economics, this is an environmental factor not a genetic factor.

As for the Irish in America, Sowell ponts out that the early social deviant Irish in America have become essentially indistinguishable from the English in America on measures of income, social position, criminality and IQ.

It is hard to see how anyone today could make the observations that Darwin makes about the Irish and the Scots and attribute the dfferences to genetics. The term Scots in fact means Irish. The Medieval polymath Johns Scotus was John the Irishman. The Celts came into the British Islands along the south coast. They migrated west into Wales and then across the Irish Sea to Ireland. From there they crossed back into Scotland. Scotland was an early colony of Ireland. Later of course the Roman came but failed to conquer Ireland or Scotland. The point of all this is that haplotypes today show the Scots and Irish to be very close. For example R1b is very high among the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh.

At the same time that the eighteenth century Scots were producing all those geniuses, the Irish were just getting drunk - but they were genetically virtually the same people.

Cochran and Harpending's new book is called The 10,000 year explosion, their point being that genetic adaptations have happened and continue to happen. There has been enough time for genetic differences to arise since the ice sheets retreated. However the change in Ireland took place in 1989 when tax policy reversed. The Irish suddenly ceased being quaint simpletons dominated by superstition and became the model society for Western civilization.

Anonymous said...

"1. What do you make of the data on the southernmost countries of South America?

Uruguay, an almost all European country (including substantial German), has a per capita of $7000. Chile the wealthiest reports $10000. (Chile derives over half its export revenue from copper. It's the biggest exporter in the world) Also Chile is the least corrupt country in Latin America. On the Transparency Index it ranks with some European countries."

I have often wondered at these numbers and cannot provide any insight other than the obvious lesson. From the numbers, we can deduce that whites are not a people blessed with permanent success. Success has been forged through centuries of sacrifice and challenge. The nations of the West have succeeded because of long-term deliberate action. If we allow our houses, our communities, and our nation to devolve, then we risk all that has been accomplished.

Those of us who read this blog know that the promise of the West has already faded; the only remaining question is our commitment to saving what remains.

Anonymous said...

And don't get Darwin started on sex differences.

Anonymous said...

"The careless squalid unaspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits...."

Ha! So true -- at least in generations past.

Who was W.K. Greg anyway?

Anonymous said...

I've always wondered about the Irish. On the one hand, they are descendants of the Celts, who were far more sophisticated than their Teutonic counterparts during the Roman period, and on the other hand, they have always been considered the dumbest and most reckless of Europeans

You're assuming a continuity that may not really exist. First of all, the Irish are not descendants of the "sophisticated" Celts who lived in Northern Italy and Gaul. Are they even genetically all that close? "Celt" is a linguistic concept as much as it is ethnic. On top of that, Ireland has suffered a number of genetic bottlenecks since the Classical era due to plague and famine, and mass emigration. As Cochran and Harpending are showing 2000 years can be a long time - the average Irishman of 100 BC may have been very different from the average Irishman of 1900 AD. Hell, it looks like the average Englishman of 1909 may be a vastly different creature than the average Englishman of 2009!

Anonymous said...

It is always amusing to get a liberal really, really riled up about creationists and how they are suppressing science. Imagine, they think evolution doesn't apply to humans! Then, and only then, mention evolution as it applies to race. Sit back, laugh.

Anonymous said...

What do you make of the data on the southernmost countries of South America?


Culture matters.

There's a fine book by that name, edited by Lawrence Harrison and Samuel Huntington. It addresses the economic impact of culture rather than getting into meatier topics, but it still is a valuable addition to this topic.

Maybe Steve can give it a review?

Anonymous said...

Why don't the smart, who are rich, have more children? Why don't they maximize their resources for reproduction? This is a great blow to Darwin's own theory.

Not at all, it just means you don't understand Darwin. The theory of evolution is not a theory of progress. There are many problems with your question. First of all reproductive success over the long term is not always measured by the number of children you have. Adaptation to your environment is what determines survival. It may well happen that a plague or war takes out a large number of the low IQ population over the next few centuries - who knows? But also it may well be that high IQ is not as critical a survival trait as many of like to believe.

Anonymous said...

I don't think Steve likes Darwin's implications to their fullest, and for that matter neither did Darwin.

Survival of the fittest implies reproductive success that is most "fit" to a certain enviornment, said environment consisting in humans of social organizing principles and structures as well as the physical environment.

If we see lots of low IQ people having kids, certainly the implication (which Idiocracy did not have the courage to address) is that the trade-off of lower IQ but higher testosterone in men is desirable, Darwin in action, i.e. sexual selection.

Humans are the oddest creatures on earth, mixing constantly R/K selection. On the one hand, a constantly changing social along with physical environment creates the need for lots of descendants, putting high-IQ people at a disadvantage and high testostorone (the two are mutually exclusive) men at an advantage.

At the same time, even in changing environemnts, SOME high-IQ folks can produce great advantages. Which would be specifically England circa say 1700-1900, with great technical innovations allowing domination of much of the globe despite a small population and not particularly greatly educated workforce.

This is because, crucially, technology is freed from purely biological limitations in evolution, or in other words if you have enough High IQ people, and they cooperate, AND they are interested in technology, AND you have a few bright people who see the military use, you get tremendous advantages.

Repeating rifles gave American settlers and British soldiers key advantages over more numerous natives with short supply lines. The steam engine and steamships and railways insured that even long supply lines could produce lots of goods, food, supplies in greater abundance than the natives logistical supply line of zero.

Western society has been in tension between R/K reproductive strategies ever since. Women find for the most part, high testosterone men of average IQ preferable because society is chaotic and changing, and because they can afford to indulge their testosterone cravings. Enough women prefer high IQ men, because they see advantages of IQ in a chaotic environment when there is "enough" stability to allow maximum resource extraction by the High IQ.

Latin America is stuck mostly in the high Testosterone mode, because there just is not enough social stability to make the high-IQ mode of sexual reproduction a winning strategy for enough women. This is why Edison was American, why Tesla moved here, and not to say, Argentina which also had a closng frontier.

Anonymous said...

It is almost like these researchers never actually read any of Darwin's stuff, just the Cliff Note versions. Imagine that...

Anonymous said...

First of all, the Irish are not descendants of the "sophisticated" Celts who lived in Northern Italy and Gaul.

Actually, they are. As are the Bretons in todays France.


I've always wondered about the Irish. On the one hand, they are descendants of the Celts, who were far more sophisticated than their Teutonic counterparts during the Roman period


Is it news that peoples change over time? The Greeks of today, or even several hundred years ago, are not the Greeks of the Golden Age.

If Darwin came back today he'd be hard pressed to praise todays Scots as once did.

Around 1200 AD the Arabs rightly looked down their noses at the barbarians from Northern Europe. Fast forward several centuries and the situation is completely reversed.

Perhaps all this is rapid micro-evolution in action, or perhaps it has nothing to do with genetics at all.

Anonymous said...

John of London

That bit about the Irish raises a question: presumably you "race realists" accept that 19thC hypotheses dividing White Europeans into different races with different abilities were mistaken, so what makes you think yours are better, apart from its being easier to spot skin colour than skull shape.


I'm not one of the "race realists" but your question is illogical. The race realists theories are based on genetics, of which skin color is just one manifestation. Presumably you don't regard genetics as quack science.

Anonymous said...

USA! USA! USA!

Priceless. You are to lay off Idiocracy, World Police, et cetera, until I specify otherwise Steve. :)

Anonymous said...

Is it just me, or does the United States seem to have a vastly larger class of 'stunted toilers' than it did just thirty years ago?

That's gotta be the funniest thing I've ever read at iSteve! LOL funny. And no, despite the obvious first assumption, not because of the racial thing. It was just so out of left field, totally wasn't expecting it. Frickin' hilarious.

Anonymous said...

you "race realists" accept that 19thC hypotheses dividing White Europeans into different races with different abilities were mistaken

Oh, it's...you, John. Hi.

Why not just read Steve's stuff on race, particularly the ones with headlines like "my theory of race" or similar. Then you'd at least have an idea of the sort of writing coming from the guy who attracted everyone here.

(Yes, I reject the premise of your question)

If the Republic of Ireland really has a lower average IQ than the rest of Europe, that would suggest IQ is not as important as you think.

Maybe. The Saudis might agree.

James Kabala said...

John of London and Albertosaurus are right: The quotation about the Irish, and some of the other ones as well, undermine rather than promote Steve's theories, since they have not been borne out by the years between Darwin and now.

For example, Steve himself has written in the past about the late marriages of twentieth-century Ireland, which seems to resemble Darwin's Scot rather than Darwin's Irishman. (The Irish certainly did continue until recently to be known for fertility within marriage, but that's not what Darwin is talking about.) And I am misreading the passage, or does Darwin consider the "Scot" a subdivision of the "Saxon?" That certainly would be a culturally and politically rather than ethnically based statement.

Anonymous said...

At least this seems to be the thinking in Holland and Germany, the two countries most affected by the whole Holocaust trauma.

I am wondering if other folks agree or instead disagree by pointing out that ethnic cleansing also took place in the United States. Which attitude is more favorable for white activists or is there no difference?


As a friend of mine who is a French national explained to me, most Western Europeans are hostile to nationalism because ever since the emergence of the nation state after Westphalia, French, German, British, German, Spanish, Italian etc, nationalism was directed against other Europeans.

Remember that since Westphalia, the only serious military opponent of a European nation was another European nation.

Western Euros - with some justification - literally equate nationalism/racism/race realism with WAR, whereas Americans equate racism merely with slavery.

This makes a big difference in terms of the political temperment of white Americans and Euros.

Anonymous said...

As a Scots-Irishman I think the major differences with my southern Irish neighbours are cultural, not genetic.

zylonet is right that white northern Europeans are not blessed with automatic success. For most of history we haven't been very successful. That changed ca 1500 through to 1914. If we want to be successful again we need to work at it.

Anonymous said...

It is almost like these researchers never actually read any of Darwin's stuff, just the Cliff Note versions

Yes, and they don't realize what "cliff" didn't think was noteworthy!

Anonymous said...

There is a small but significant level of Amerindian admixture in Uruguay, the 'most European' of the South American nations -- around 10%.

I wouldn't try to press this point with most Uruguayans, though. Even worse if you mention it to an Argentinian.

Dutch Boy said...

I wonder about this high IQ vs high testosterone thing. When I was a kid plenty of the smart boys were also pretty good athletes and nobody thought it strange.

Anonymous said...

The subjugation of the Irish by the English over several centuries cannot be ignored when considering the cultural development of that country. Nor the very dominant control of the Catholic Church.

" ... the Irish are not descendants of the "sophisticated" Celts."

Not sure what evidence there is for this ... but if a peoples' material culture speaks for the level of their "sophistication", then the early Irish Celts (Dark Ages) were very sophisticated indeed. For a quick reminder, Robert Hughes' review of "Treasures of Early Irish Art" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is pretty good (or a visit to Dublin's National Gallery):

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912021-2,00.html).

Anonymous said...

People love to miss the point. The point of this post is to argue that Darwin wasn't politically correct when it came to racial differences, not to argue that Darwin was right about everything he wrote. Darwin intuited certain things that might even be wrong or shaky with deeper investigation. But I think that feeling grand because you can debate this or that empirical claim he made is to miss the larger point.

Anonymous said...

albertosaurus - Im not attacking the Irish here but the rise of the celtic tiger coincided with a massive injection of money from the EU over some years.

This has been mentioned on isteve before.

Im sure eastern European countries would love to take the Irish model, all European states would. Who wouldnt want to receive more in subsidies than you pay in dues? I think you can see how that model might be flawed.

Anonymous said...

"... the rise of the celtic tiger coincided with a massive injection of money from the EU over some years."

One of the reasons Ireland has done so well out of the EU is due to the skill and intelligence of its negotiators.

Anonymous said...

A question for those interested in IQ and Global Inequality:

Anonymous: Lynn and Vanhanen showed that the correlation between a country's GDP and its average IQ is statistically significant, but not absolute. There are no absolute correlations in the human sciences. If you want to find exceptions, you will always find them. They do not disprove general trends any more than the existence of Yao Ming disproves the fact that the Chinese are shorter on average than African Americans or than Norwegians.

About your specific questions:

The Wikipedia article "Demographics of Chile" states that 65% of Chileans are mestizos. 4.6% are pure Indian. It says that Uruguayans are 88% white, with the rest made up mostly of mulattoes and mestizos. The white portion of the population mostly comes from Spain (average IQ: 97) and Italy. Italy is notorious for having a huge north/side divide in IQ, as in everything else. Historically most emigrants from Italy have come from the poorer south of the peninsula and from Sicily. I've seen data on the IQ of Italian-Americans obtained early in the 20th century. The numbers were in the low 90s. Since Italy as a whole scores slightly above 100, this implies that northern Italy is 5 to 10 points above 100. If you know anything about European history, that makes sense. Anyway, almost half of the ancestry of modern Uruguayans is Italian. I'm assuming that these are southerners simply because southern Italy has always been poorer than the north, and poverty often drives emigration. In light of all this Lynn and Vanhanen's figure of 96 for Uruguay is not very surprising.

For many decades now Uruguay has been famous for left-wing economic policies. Those often, though not always, depress GDP.

You asked about Lebanon. Lebanese Christians, who indeed seem to be smarter than any other Arab group, make up less than 40% of the Lebanese population. Nobody knows how much less than 40% because nobody has done a census there in decades. It's a touchy issue. Within Lebanon Christians overperform economically, but are having fewer kids than Muslims and are emigrating in greater numbers (one of the few exceptions from the rule that poverty drives emigration). I'm not entirely shocked that Lebanon as a whole scores in the 80s.

Anonymous said...

'It would be difficult to distinguish between the remorse felt by the Hindoo who has yielded to the temptation of eating unclean food...'

-Darwin, The Descent of Man

Is it at all possible that Darwin when talking about different peoples might not have known what he was talking about?

Anonymous said...

To the anon with good answers for Lebanon, I'd like your take on the rest of the Med.

Do you figure the number for Turkey (90) is accurate? What about Greece? The rest of the Balkans?

Also Iran (84) is interesting. The true number is quite important to national security. It helps estimate what kind of weapons they can develop.
I wonder if there is anyone at the CIA interested in IQ and Global Inequality kind of stuff. They probably would have encouraged commissioning a real study.

Anonymous said...

a constantly changing social along with physical environment creates the need for lots of descendants, putting high-IQ people at a disadvantage and high testostorone (the two are mutually exclusive) men at an advantage.


I'm curious. Is there any data to support the idea that high testosterone and high IQ are mutually exclusive?

Anonymous said...

I'm not entirely shocked that Lebanon as a whole scores in the 80s.

It's interesting to me that nobody is picking up on Israels mediocre score. (94) Are Jews less intelligent than everybody believes?

B322 said...

I hate to trot out a cliche,
but in this case I must add
the the victors (i.e., Anglo
Saxon's [sic]) write the history.


I have no problem with cliches in general. The problem is that this one is just an overgeneralization peculiarly unsuited to the present. English-language history books (surely two of the winningest nations in history) demonize British and American actions in history as being "cynical" and "self-interested". (Yes, they use the modern definition of "cynical", which is "the natural human tendency to look out for one's own interests, when it crops up for some bizarre reason in evil white males".)

If the winners wrote the history books, why would American history courses omit the measure that freed the slaves? Ask American students who and what freed the slaves and they will contradict themselves: "Lincoln did, but he didn't really free the slaves." The Thirteenth Amendment was flushed down the toilet by Losers' History.

Ask American students if there is any evidence the Southern states seceded specifically to defend slavery. Blank looks. The articles of secession of Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, and South Carolina have been flushed down the toilet by Losers' History.

Ask Japanese students if they can name any really important, world-changing air attacks of the Second World War. More than two, of course - I have no problem if the first two that come to mind are the nuclear ones. It's just that, I'll wager that Pearl Harbor has been flushed down the toilet by Losers' History.

Anonymous said...

"It's interesting to me that nobody is picking up on Israels mediocre score. (94) Are Jews less intelligent than everybody believes?"

Probably.

The Ashkenazi have become the flagship for the Jews because of their prominence in places prominent writers live. They are indeed highly intelligent, having been chilled for several hundred years right in the same ice box next to the Poles, Lithuanians, and Hungarians, not too far from the Russians, Germans, and Swedes.

Israel isn't overwhelmingly Ashkenazi. Lots of Israelis are more-or-less local, having been baked in the same pizza oven for several thousand years next to Arabs, Turks, and Nubians.

My gut reaction is to retire the notion that Jews are an ethnic group. They are a religion. Too many factors separate populations of Jews from each other - IQ (it bears repeating), frequency of certain genetic diseases, a variety of cultural practices, etc. The ethnic groups are: Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Mizrahim, and probably some I've never heard of.

Says me. (That and $2.85 will by you the smallest at Starbucks, I think.)

Anonymous said...

Do you figure the number for Turkey (90) is accurate? What about Greece? The rest of the Balkans?

The Balkans and Turkey are an intermediate zone between Europe (average IQ: roughly 100) and the Middle East (average IQ: roughly 85). Just like on the color spectrum one color gradually and imperceptibly turns into another, racial characteristics - of which IQ is only one - change gradually in the absence of dramatic barriers like oceans or the Sahara desert. Economically and in their modern-day ability to produce extremely smart people the Balkans seem to be behind the rest of Europe, Turkey seems to be behind the Balkans, and the bulk of the Middle East is behind Turkey. The Middle East has small mercantile minorities (Jews, Armenians, Lebanese Christians) who outperform the average, but a mercantile minority is by definition an exception. This economic niche is simply too small to support large populations. Europe historically has had 100 IQ peasants, which, as Steve has pointed out, is pretty remarkable, and probably has something to do with how difficult it was to make a living as a peasant in the northern European climate.

Modern Greeks should not be confused with ancient Greeks, who were indeed very smart. They are different peoples. The ancient Greeks never claimed to be from Greece. They always said that they came to the Balkans from the north in two migratory waves, the later one being the Doric invasion. In classical times small communities of pre-Greek, non-Greek-speaking aboriginals of the peninsula (Pelasgians) remained. As to the racial characteristics of ancient Greeks themselves, I quote Carlton Coon's "The Races of Europe", page 145:

Greek literature and Greek art furnish an abundance of evidence as to the pigmentation and the characteristic facial features of the ancient inhabitants of Hellas. The Olympian Gods, ancestors of the semi-divine heroes, were for the most part blond, with ivory skins and golden hair. Athene was grey eyed. Poseidon, however, was black haired. These Gods were little different, if we may believe Homer, from their descendants the heroes, most of whom were white limbed and golden haired...

The Spartans were said to be blond, and in fifth-century Athens women bleached their hair with an herb which turned it golden yellow, in pursuance of a blond ideal


Look at Aristotle's features immortalized in this bust. He doesn't look very modern-Greek to me. If you read up on the ancient Greek national character, they seem positively Swiss-like in their fussiness and attention to detail. This is not something often associated with the modern Mediterranean.

After Alexander's conquest about half of the Greek population moved East to become urban elites in the new Hellenistic empires. According to McEvedy and Jones, the population of the Greek peninsula fell from about 4 million to about 2 million at this time. Over centuries these people disappeared into the general Middle Eastern population. Parallel to that the newly rich Greece could afford to import cheap labor (slaves) from the newly-conquered territories. This is how Greece acquired its modern mixture of European and Middle Eastern characteristics, with everything that implies, including an average IQ in the low 90s.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

It's interesting to me that nobody is picking up on Israels mediocre score. (94) Are Jews less intelligent than everybody believes?"

One should note that about 20% of Israel's population are arab.

Anonymous said...

Is anyone going to write to the NYT about this?

Or would that simply legitimize their abysmal rag?

Anonymous said...

All this "Celtic Tiger" boosterism is a bit misplaced. Doctor Housing Bubble has some good charts that show how Ireland's "miracle" is actually just another housing bubble funded by EU subsidies. It is deeper in debt, per capita, than any other EU country, I believe.

To get a better sense of what is going on there and how their intelligentsia is selling them down the multicultural river ("Ireland for the ... Nigerians!") go read Irish Savant, Corrupt Ireland, Hibernia Girl or any of a host of other Irish weblogs. Ireland is crumbling as fast as California, 2007's other paragon of multiculturalism and dynamic economic development.

Anonymous said...

Yes, a massive infusion of dollars from the EU and a change in tax policy is certain to make, say, Liberia into an international powerhouse in less than a decade...right.

Anonymous said...

Ashkenazi jews ... Mizrahi jews

Is this something like Anglo-Saxon and Celtic whites? :)

The term "Jew" can refer to the religion, in which case it's not a racial term at all. But Ashkenazi is simply another way of saying "European genes". The determining factor seems to be the European part rather than the Jewish part, otherwise the non-European Jews would display the same traits.

Anonymous said...

Ireland is crumbling as fast as California, 2007's other paragon of multiculturalism and dynamic economic development.

There goes my plan of escaping there once America finishes disintegrating.

Anonymous said...

Anon,

You bring a lot of clarity. Do you have any thoughts on Iran? (Any take on their ability to develop advanced weapons?)

Anonymous said...

I guess the Pope doesn't have as many fans as I thought. At least not as many as Darwin.

Anonymous said...

They do seem to have a good deal of Semitic /N. African admixture in the south, but then again maybe it's exaggerated?

It is slightly exaggerated. It would be more accurate to say that the N. African admixture is localized, mainly to Naples and Palermo.

Palermo is ground zero for Arab genetic ingress in Sicily, and Syracuse the farthest point from this incursion. Any traveller in Sicily can easily see that, travelling east to west on the island, that the population grows slightly more - what is the proper word - orientalized. In Palermo, you see the highest incidence of the hair in the extremely wavy/kinky range.

Palermo is also the root city for operation of the mafia, which has been chased back to that city, having previously enjoyed an unchallenged hegemony on the island. So there is both a racial and a cultural cline on the island, of which the inhabitants are very strongly aware. Prototypical Arab/Near Eastern family structures, clannish and predatory, arrive with actual Arabs/ Near Easterners, and are resisted by others whenever possible. Mussolini is remembered very fondly in Sicily for his efficient removal of the Mafia from the island.

When I was last in Sicily, people on the eastern part of the island openly referred to themselves as Greeks, using this as an ethnic and cultural distinction from what they saw as a contagion centered in Palermo. As a side note, the Norman occupation also left a genetic footprint, visible across the island in blond haired and blue eyed Sicilians who are often referred to as "Norman". If you have this coloration and are travelling in Sicily, don't be surprised if someone trying to get your attention keeps calling you "Norman".

It should also be noted that Sicilians are seen by other Italians as being very intelligent - often as too intelligent for their own good. Economic underperformance of the island has many causes, but many observers agree that they are reversible by comparatively simple steps. Sicily asked for, and got, a highway system. The mafia is, for the time being, bottled up in Palermo, and there are discussions underway for the construction of a bridge that would connect them to the mainland. Simple economic opportunity may be enough to improve the island's economic profile. Time will tell.

my grandmother's family was pure southerner and they were all pretty intelligent. Something i wonder about.

This squares with stereotypes that we see in Italy. Southerners are not seen as unintelligent - quite the reverse - but they are underdeveloped, the nation itself is barely a century old, there was a devastating war in the middle of the last century, and there is, of course, brain drain. Who wants to live in flyover country?

That Italy is gifted with an intelligent population that is more or less poorly governed (or incapable of serious government) is not in doubt. It is a charged question among Italians, who understand that they are not cognitively deficient, but who also can't understand, and are embarrassed by, their failures in government. This topic is the theme of Luigi Barzini's magisterial The Italians, which is eminently readable as well as being possibly the best book ever written about Italy.

All the Lega Nord stuff about labelling the South as a burden, the advocacy of geographical separation, comes from many causes. The north not only benefits by geographical proximity to Germany, Switzerland, etc. but also monopolized trade and means of capital accumulation by the 1500s. The South couldn't participate in trade because of Turkish slave raids - the whole population had to move inland, from whence our expression, 'the coast is clear'. And of course the 'papal states' were hardly engines of national unity or economic dynamism. So, here, I think that we see a real case of 'history matters' even more than 'culture matters'. Plus the North is aggravated by normal social dynamic observable in the United States: modern v. traditional, urban v. rural, etc.

On a final note, that may apply to the question of intelligence in the south, is the very real possibility that the popluations of eastern Sicily and southern Italy are probably better reservoirs of ancient Greek DNA than the Balkanized Slavs who now inhabit the Peloponnese. (NEVER mention this fact to ANY Greek). These regions were once known as Magna Graecia - something like our 'Anglosphere', consisting of colonies and settlements that remained in the cultural orbit of the mainland. This seems like an interesting question for the DNA boys. Certainly a cultural memory of Magna Graecia lingers in the region.

Anonymous said...

Doctor Housing Bubble has some good charts that show how Ireland's "miracle" is actually just another housing bubble funded by EU subsidies.

That would seem to put them one up on us, considering our housing bubble was founded on smoke, mirrors, and borrowed money.

Anonymous said...

I am not that familiar with Urugauay or Argentina

But I think both of them should be carefully studied.

Any country that is of 90% European ancestry that has such low income should be better understood

First of all my understanding is that when IQ's are tested in Argentina and Uruguay the IQ results are generally in line with European results (or perhaps only slightly lower)

We all accept that the communist system took some pretty high IQ people in Eastern Europe and drove down their per capital income -hard as it is to believe but the evidence seems to me to indicate that the political / social system in Uruguay and Argentina did something very similar.

A pessimist would point to Uruguay and Argentina and say that high IQ populations voted repeatedly to put in place a government that destroyed the economy. And this high IQ population put in place a culture and society that held down per capita income.

Stepping back, let's say that the IQ of ireland is roughly equivalent to the IQ of Argentina - it seems that the Irish took a country that was very poor and backward in the 1920's and turned it in to a successful state through great tax policies and education policies.

The Argentines took a country that was very successful in the 1920's (highest per capita income in the world except for USA) and turned it in to a low income disaster area with silly tax policies and a bunch of other dumb stuff.

Seems like IQ is destiny most of the time but Argentina and Ireland show it is not always so

Anonymous said...

"both conclude that Darwin, ..., was no racist."

ha ha ha. Anybody even half familiar with British colonial institutions knows that they had very clear ideas about the hierarchy of races and their respective rights. All of this was codified in colonial law and enforced in their structures. Apartheid laws, for instance, were just stricter codifications based on an infrastructure of race-based legislation of the British Colonial era. I'm sure that even liberals of the day were rabid racists by our contemporary over-sensitive PC standards.

I also noticed this attempt at sanitising Darwin in the European press. Pretty obvious for anybody in the know. I guess the left needs Darwin as an antidote to the Church but superficially detests racism, thus they try and make him over as the Morris Dees of our day.

Why don't these suckers just get a decent ideology then they don't have to keep trying to squeeze blood out of a stone?

Anonymous said...

my grandmother's family was pure southerner and they were all pretty intelligent.
Even madison grant acknowledges the particular genius of the med race. that said, in the south, siciliy for example you do see fair skin - and they had the expression 'norman eyes' for light eyes...guess who the upper classes are descended from?

Anonymous said...

I wonder about this high IQ vs high testosterone thing.

Uhm, you should wonder about all of Evil Neocon's assertions. As far as I know he's his own source on this one.

Anonymous said...

"Or are N. Italians just the smartest race in Europe, so they bring up the mean? Then again, my grandmother's family was pure southerner and they were all pretty intelligent. Something i wonder about."

Northern Italy is also known as Süd-Tirol and was part of the Austrian Empire, i.e. essentially Germanic. The Lega North movement clearly shows there is a cultural/ethic divide in Italy, which is not strong enough to rip the country apart but definitely a political driver. Many models you would consider Germanic or French are from Milan (e.g. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy) and other northern Italian cities. They are probably racially more Germanic or Celtic than whatever the Italians were. Most of the industry is also located in the north and generally the South is considered to be populated by mafia and welfare cases. Some may be intelligent but probably cannot move the general culture in the right direction.

To get a good idea of how splintered Italy has been for centuries you need to read Machiavelli. He is forever being drawn on by popular manager mags to push their latest sleazy ego principles, but in actual fact he was really concerned with statecraft and how to deal with infighting in Italian politics. It seems his desire was to unite Italians and create a strong state. My feeling is Machiavelli was more like Bismarck except that the latter successfully implemented his wily skills whereas Machiavelli was more successful as an author, i.e. a failed politician.

Anonymous said...

Political Correctness requires that some people be sacraficed while others are rehabilitated. Elanor Rosevelt is an example of someone who by todays standard would be considered a white supremist and anti-semite. However, because she is a feminist icon there needed to be a revision of her record. In spite of the fact that Darwin is an old white guy he is too important and well known so his dirt needs to be swept under the rug.

Anonymous said...

Turks have a largely European culture and genes. Lebanese Muslims presumably don't, being more like other Arabs. I suspect there's a lot less cousin marriage in Turkey than among ME Arabs."

I read (sorry, don't have the source),that the Lebanese have a genetic profile that differs from other Arabs generally, and puts them closer to Europeans. I don't know about Turks,though a lot of them look about as Euro as any people I've seen.
The Lebanese, however, consider themselves to be different from other Arabs, or perhaps not Arab at all. I have heard this from middle eastern people, including a Persian.

Anonymous said...

Ashkenazi is simply another way of saying "European genes". The determining factor seems to be the European part rather than the Jewish part, otherwise the non-European Jews would display the same traits.

You're balling up species and genus.

When considering all groups, namely, non-Jews of all kinds and Jews of all kinds, one sees that among Jews "Jew" is the genus and "Ashkenazi" is a species. That is, there are non-Jews and there are Jews, and Jews are subdivided into European Jews and non-European.*

Only when considering ONLY Jews is what you say true: only then does Ashkenazi mean European; it means European Jews. But when you include plain Europeans in the equation, what distinguishes Ashkenazim is their Jewishness. Me, I don't consider ONLY Jews.

(* Of course there are more divisions than that.)

Anonymous said...

Catholic Irish immigrant's to America were poor, diseased, criminal and drunk. They also had an average IQ of 85."
Where do you get this stat? Just sounds good to you? Makes sense if they test 93 today?
IQ tests weren't invented yet when the bulk of the Irish arrived here, between 1846 and 1870, mostly in the wake of two major famines. They were indeed the poor immigrants to end up here but their criminality was rarely expressed in homicide or rape. It was mostly brawling and drunkeness and rioting. Bad enough, but generally not what is considered major league today.
Most of the rural Europeans did test at about 10 points below what is now their average, but urbanization and education changed them.

Anonymous said...

Only when considering ONLY Jews is what you say true: only then does Ashkenazi mean European; it means European Jews.

Well, yeah. The point I was making was that the intelligence aspect of European Jews derived more from the European part than from the Jewish part.

Anonymous said...

the intelligence aspect of European Jews derived more from the European part

It might have derived less from outbreeding than from European environments (alienation and cold weather). Also, I'm not convinced that average Sephardic IQ at the diaspora was so bad.

SAVANT said...

The Eu funding component of Ireland's spectacular development, while important, has been over-stated. If you add up the net inflow of EU funds over the full range of ireland's membership it amounts to less than 1% of today's GNP.

Mind you, we're racing California to the bottom, for broadly similar reasons.

Melykin said...

"The remarkable success of the English as colonists compared to other European nations has been ascribed to their daring and persistent energy, a result which is well illustrated by comparing the progress of the Canadians of English and French extraction;"
-----------------
Truer words were never spoken (provided "English" includes Scots). Quebec is still dysfunctional, corrupt and shiftless compared to the rest of Canada. Quebec continuously whines and complains and threatens to separate from Canada, even though it gets much more out of Canada then it puts into it. I wish to God they would separate. I'll help them pack and drive them to the bus.

Practically all French colonies ended up badly. Even Louisiana seems dysfunctional compared to other states. And think of Haiti, Rwanda, Cambodia , and so forth... there are all sh*tholes.