tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post4543513423805467926..comments2024-03-15T20:52:26.967-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Are Europeans all Middle Easterners?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-56618008192631150232010-10-24T19:52:42.972-07:002010-10-24T19:52:42.972-07:00"What do you mean, makes no sense? Why can..."What do you mean, makes no sense? Why can't genetic mutations account for difference in skin color and other physical features?"<br /><br />Why would they genetically mutate? Why are these genetic mutations not showing up now? If a pair of, oh, sub-Saharan Africans, produced a straight-haired, blond, Nordic looking child and it was PROVEN that the black parents were responsible--well, that would be all over the nightly news. Maybe on the cover of National Geographic. Because it doesn't happen.<br />It doesn't make sense that "genetic mutations" (does anybody get how rare they are and that they don't follow climate?) could explain racial differences. Yes, there is a certain fitness about paler people in colder climes (although the Eskimos would be an exception here); kinky hair holds perspiration so the person doesn't become dehydrated, thin noses breath mountain air better, etc. etc. But would a bunch of Africans dropped in Sweden and mating only among themselvs, develop into Nordics in a few tens of thousands of years? Would they be any closer to that type at all?<br /> Of course not. And the Swedes living in Africa would never turn into Africans.<br /> Genetic mutations are just not that convenient.<br /> I think there is a great deal we don't know yet about how the races developed, or how they came to be where they are.<br /> Just a few weeks ago there was an article disputing the out-of-Africa theory and claiming that the races developed as separate species in different areas of the world. Just as plants and animals have done. Now that makes far more sense than thinking everybody was once a sub-Saharan African.leslienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-6211877599903980832010-10-22T00:20:26.156-07:002010-10-22T00:20:26.156-07:00"But it seems a priori implausible that a tho..."But it seems a priori implausible that a thoroughly lactose intolerant population would have adopted this harmful culinary habit."<br /><br />Starvation.<br /><br />People eat anything when they're starving.Wandrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-62020162382937820672010-10-20T23:08:33.628-07:002010-10-20T23:08:33.628-07:00I have a question about lactase persistence. Is th...I have a question about lactase persistence. Is the ability to digest milk simply triggered by drinking large amounts of milk after infancy, or is it necessary also to have the inherited predisposition to lactase persistence? In other words, would every human population group be able to digest milk, if only their culture had a habit of milk-drinking, or is this ability confined to certain groups, whose cultures have adopted milk-drinking as a consequence? The evidence I saw in the wikipedia article on the subject did not make this clear one way or the other.<br /><br />This relates to an anthropological question: if the original human population were lactose intolerant, as the theory goes, how do we imagine they would ever have adopted milk-drinking? I understand that, once milk-drinking had been adopted, some hypothetical mutation allowing lactase persistence would have appeared and been selected for by normal evolutionary selection pressure, i.e. since everyone had to drink milk, those who couldn't digest it died without reproducing, while the minority of mutants who could survived and reproduced, giving us the Scandinavians. But it seems a priori implausible that a thoroughly lactose intolerant population would have adopted this harmful culinary habit. We would have to imagine some very severe environmental pressure that would have brought about this apparently disastrous cultural invention.jgresshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03287009809340785879noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-31441513594871482172010-10-20T20:40:21.247-07:002010-10-20T20:40:21.247-07:00Whiskey
"Milk only becomes a really important...Whiskey<br />"Milk only becomes a really important part of the diet, and consumption of it really large, after the bulk of the Dark Ages passed."<br /><br />The sequence doesn't simply jump from hunter gatherer to settled arable farming. There's a big stage in between of nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoral and mixed farming and farming mixed with hunting etc.<br /><br />Anon<br />"How hard would it have been more men thousands of years ago to figure out agriculture?"<br /><br />Think of it numerically. If every geographical location was rated according to the conditions for settled arable farming on a scale of 0 to 10 and if the available tools and techniques were rated from 0 to 10 and if the minimum combined score for settled arable farming to be more productive than semi-nomadic was 10 then initally when the tools and techniques were at 0 then the only viable places would be those where the conditions were 10.<br /><br />People would have foraged for food and many of them may have had the idea to farm those plants but that's not enough. The conditions have to be such that it's more productive to do that than take your herds on a circuit of grazing spots.<br /><br />The "10" spots were the ultra fertile flooding river valleys between the Tigris and Euphrates, Egypt, Ganges etc and they only spread to the "9" spots once those people developed tools and techniques to the "1" level. Then to the "8" regions once the tools and techniques had developed to the "2" stage etc.Wandrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81828837486971033072010-10-20T18:59:38.113-07:002010-10-20T18:59:38.113-07:00Sounds like this might be the next bit of cultural...Sounds like this might be the next bit of cultural marxist scam science designed to make white people feel they have no claim to their homelands.<br /><br />1)<br /><br />Farmers don't invade.<br />Nomads invade.<br />Nomads are nomads because they *herd *animals*<br />The animals they got their milk from.<br />The milk they got their lactose tolerance from.<br /><br />White people came from the steppes.<br /><br />The proof of that will be on the steppes - somewhere.<br /><br />They invaded south and east - europe, india, iran etc.<br /><br />The vaccuum they created over time with their constant invasions was gradually filled up behind them by people from the east but originally the steppe nomads were white.<br /><br />2) Agriculture started in the middle east because it was the only place crops like wheat would grow *wild*<br /><br />It grew naturally with zero farming tools and zero farming techniques.<br /><br />Over time the people there developed tools and techniques that made it much more efficient. These advances made it possible for agriculture to spread to places which wouldn't have been possible before.<br /><br />Like Greece.<br /><br />The Ancient Greeks had trading colonies all around the coast of what is now Turkey, all round the Black Sea, all round the coast of the northern med and Italy.<br /><br />The Greeks brought agriculture to the semi-nomadic lactose tolerant tribal herders of Europe.<br /><br />2,500 years ago and up to 1453 the great economic, trade and cultural struggle was between the Greeks and their various competitor Semitic tribes. This cultural marxist BS sounds like an attempt at a final nail in the loser's coffin.Wandrinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-26439867423731917072010-10-20T15:10:14.296-07:002010-10-20T15:10:14.296-07:00RE PIE incursions/colonization:
Sure...first consi...RE PIE incursions/colonization:<br />Sure...first consider this article,<br />http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=980<br /><br />...a very remote date (let's say 3000 BC, though some say it's farther back than that) for dispersal is simply not possible given what we know about how fast pre-literate languages branch. Basically, if they had spread at that early a date, you would have seen different language families forming.<br /><br />Second consider Robert Drews' book The Coming of the Greeks. He makes a very strong case for late dispersal, and for arrival into Greece around 1600 BC. He also makes a strong case that there were no large migrations of peoples, it was a case of elite conquest, probably driven by the new war chariot technology.<br /><br />Since you study linguistics, Drews proceeds from the relatively recent Gamkrelidze and Ivanov study that places the homeland just south of the Caucasus Mts.; this I believe is the most comprehensive linguistic study of the problem to date, and it also contains several facts that discount possibility of very early dispersal.<br /><br />I would guess conquest of Greece and Italy 1600-1500 BC, the Baltic region somewhat later (to gain control of the amber trade) and temperate/NW Europe much later. Perhaps they didn't get to the British Isles until around 500 BC.<br /><br />That said, I find Harpending and Cochran's theory exciting, but I don't see how it fits this evidence.<br /><br />Note to Cochran: it is true that the Germans can't really discuss these subjects openly, but your own theory is based on Gimbutas', and hers in turn became popular because it made it all sound like a gradual, peaceful movement of pastoral peoples from the steppe. The reality WAS in fact probably closer to what people thought in the late 19th century: a military elite of heroic charioteers subduing native populations much larger in number.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-31527968847280618532010-10-20T12:20:51.366-07:002010-10-20T12:20:51.366-07:00Linguistic and other historical evidence is beginn...<i>Linguistic and other historical evidence is beginning to show that PIE (Aryan) colonization of Europe didn't begin until much later than previously thought--it was more like 1600 BC at the earliest, much later for temperate and northern Europe--and so it is probably not directly related to strictly biological facts like lactose tolerance.</i><br /><br />Any links/cites on this? I studied Indo-European heavily in grad school but from the very narrowly linguistical (Ask Me About The Third Laryngeal!) side and am only know beginning to educate myself on the wider issues. This goes quite against my received understanding but I'd be intrigued to read up.ERMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17340380454478007082010-10-20T00:00:13.978-07:002010-10-20T00:00:13.978-07:00Was this comment even remotely serious? If not try...<i>Was this comment even remotely serious? If not try replacing "agriculture" with "computer" or "car engine".</i><br /><br />Er, you don't find computers or car engines, or their precursors, in nature. You do find agriculture's. That's one theory of how it started; you find a nice stand of plants you find beneficial, you start yanking out all the competing stuff you don't find beneficial...Svigorhttp://majorityrights.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-66378898568793881632010-10-19T19:54:31.186-07:002010-10-19T19:54:31.186-07:00But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the...<i>But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles are edging toward a different conclusion. Many are struck by the overall genetic similarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of years by a single people that have remained in the majority, with only minor additions from later invaders like Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Normans.<br /><br />...<br /><br />As for subsequent invaders, Ireland received the fewest; the invaders’ DNA makes up about 12 percent of the Irish gene pool, Dr. Oppenheimer estimates, but it accounts for 20 percent of the gene pool in Wales, 30 percent in Scotland, and about one-third in eastern and southern England.<br /><br />Still, no single group of invaders is responsible for more than 5 percent of the current gene pool, Dr. Oppenheimer says on the basis of genetic data. </i><br /><br />It seems they're assuming that the invaders from the continent had no genes in common with the natives. If this was so, then indeed, this sort of figure for outside admixture would show up. But it could theoretically be up to twice that, or even more...corvinusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-57497223244955704982010-10-19T19:43:49.285-07:002010-10-19T19:43:49.285-07:00they wouldn't have developed straight blond ha...<i>they wouldn't have developed straight blond hair ... </i><br /><br />It's obvious, Europeoples got blond or red hair by mating with fair-haired Neanderthals.David Davenportnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-72224879151008994292010-10-19T15:53:36.383-07:002010-10-19T15:53:36.383-07:00Linguistic and other historical evidence is beginn...Linguistic and other historical evidence is beginning to show that PIE (Aryan) colonization of Europe didn't begin until much later than previously thought--it was more like 1600 BC at the earliest, much later for temperate and northern Europe--and so it is probably not directly related to strictly biological facts like lactose tolerance.<br /><br />This study smells of PC crap.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-21023013462834237532010-10-19T12:40:56.234-07:002010-10-19T12:40:56.234-07:00How hard would it have been more men thousands of ...<i>How hard would it have been more men thousands of years ago to figure out agriculture? It should be readily apparent to almost anyone. </i><br /><br />Was this comment even remotely serious? If not try replacing "agriculture" with "computer" or "car engine".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42004439140034177432010-10-19T09:13:51.316-07:002010-10-19T09:13:51.316-07:00@Whisky
You only see evidence of cheese-making (t...@Whisky<br /><i> You only see evidence of cheese-making (the best way to store milk) after that, for example.<br /></i> <br />Uhhhh, there is definitely much older evidence of cheese-making than after the Dark Ages, by several thousand years. Dude, Homer wrote about it for crying out loud that is not obscure!Lisenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12783513587664963122010-10-19T07:59:29.459-07:002010-10-19T07:59:29.459-07:00Sykes believes in the 'out of Iberia' theo...<em>Sykes believes in the 'out of Iberia' theory of British origin. <br /><br />L21 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) present in R1b (y-chromosome DNA haplogroup) present in the Irish and Scots have no substantial genetic link with the Basques or those of the Iberian peninsular.</em><br /><br />Not true. R1b is strongly found as genetic markers amongst Basques and in the Iberian peninsula.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-23596024224635624042010-10-19T05:54:23.539-07:002010-10-19T05:54:23.539-07:00They wouldn't have developed straight blond ha...<i>They wouldn't have developed straight blond hair and Nordic features. Makes no sense. </i><br /><br />What do you mean, makes no sense? Why can't genetic mutations account for difference in skin color and other physical features?Lucillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03225011724349777456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-89456642037323740532010-10-19T02:16:59.844-07:002010-10-19T02:16:59.844-07:00"gcochran I think it is difficult to imagine ...<i>"gcochran I think it is difficult to imagine a historical process that moves a lot of people from Bavaria to the Punjab"<br /><br />I don't know what time frame you're talking about [maybe you're referring to the paleolithic?], but, at least in the opposite direction, Punjab -> Bavaria was almost exactly the path taken by the Hunnic Empire.</i><br /><br />The Huns, and later Turks and Mongols, reversed the historic trend. Prior to their displacement, the "Indo-Aryans" (Scythians, Cimmerians, Alans, Parthians, etc) occupied central asia and the steppes of southern Russia/Eurasia and migrated both east and west. <br /><br />This trans-Eurasian continuum of Indo-European speakers was made possible by the domestication of the horse, which made rapid migration of entire nations (together with their cattle) possible. Thus you get the Tocharians, for instance, in Western China, thousands of years BCE, with all those obviously European blonde or red-headed mummies dressed in plaid wool clothing. <br /><br />You probably don't get many people moving from Bavaria to the Punjab, but you do got lots of Indo-European horse tribes moving both east and west, connecting Bavaria and the Punjab by way of the Eurasian steppes. <br /><br />The Huns are simply the first instance of the reverse of this process, with non-Indo-European, non-"white" horse tribes moving from east to west. Prior to the Huns, Turks, Mongols, etc., the horse tribes were mostly an Indo-European or Indo-Aryan monopoly.<br /><br />But the Huns didn't start out in the Punjab. They started out in the wild steppes to the north of China, what is today called Mongolia and parts of Siberia. They adopted the Indo-Aryan horse "lifestyle" and made it their own.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-66914773564525637892010-10-18T23:12:45.319-07:002010-10-18T23:12:45.319-07:00Repent Ye Pteronadons, the beta has come amongst u...Repent Ye Pteronadons, the beta has come amongst us – he is called Whiskey, and great is our lamenting<br /><br />---More seriously, Some Female says:<br /><br />The Middle East is a place that has gone through the cycle of civilizations earlier/more dramatically than The West (see my post Ah So Yours is a Much Younger World), and thus shows the later stages of post-crash (resource depletion, Islamic conquest) quite clearly. The Middle East as it appears today is by and large a regression from the achievements of its prior more-heavily Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian height (said achievements were pre-Islamic, but to an extent/temporarily copied by the conquerors, e.g. the grand "mosque" in Istanbul is a former Byzantine church in Constantinople)Escapisthttp://escapistart.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-64369918482074675732010-10-18T22:35:15.743-07:002010-10-18T22:35:15.743-07:00It would be useful to know how many generations it...It would be useful to know how many generations it takes to "evolve". We have been breeding dogs for a very long time and someone with the right knowledge could probably tell us how long it would take to breed a new line of dogs. <br /><br />A population, living on the edge of starvation might go through a very short weeding out period where the ones that barfed and farted died off quickly while the ones who liked milk and developed cheese survived and thrived. You can harvest 4X the proteen by milking vs. hunting or raising meat.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-15029938444153766842010-10-18T21:51:14.417-07:002010-10-18T21:51:14.417-07:00The Cochran theory is perhaps the explanation for ...The Cochran theory is perhaps the explanation for -13910 haplotype in the Lactase control region. The archaeological presence of cattle does not mean diary farming. And diary farming that is using yogurt and cheese does not mean milk-drinking. The Cochran theory is specifically related only to the latter. I saw this blog post of this position which seems to corroborate such an idea:<a href="http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/genetic-determinism-sociology-and-history/" rel="nofollow">Lactose tolerance</a>Learnernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81367777977499569632010-10-18T20:39:56.063-07:002010-10-18T20:39:56.063-07:00I have some Jersey and Hereford cattle on land whi...I have some Jersey and Hereford cattle on land which was last cultivated 16 years ago. Even then the land was not ploughed as such, but lightly grooved with a tyne cultivator to receive a new seed bed. <br />Even these modern breeds are partial to grazing deep rooting herbs such as brassicas, plantain and chicory, and will also eat willow, poplar and alder to access a wider range of minerals.<br />There is a move towards minimum shallow tillage farming using green crops or herbicides to suppress weeds instead of ploughing/inverting the soil and so disturbing the natural layering of biofauna.<br /><br />Early farmers would have been aware of the important part played<br />by the 'underground livestock' as did Darwin with his many years of earthworm study.<br />If they were mixed farmers...some grains, some cattle, as many farmers still are in Europe, they could have used 'mob stocking' to concentrate fertility in one area before very shallow tyne cultivating to rotate with a grain crop like barley to make the most important of all products...beer.<br /><br />Instead of using the electric fence as we do now, light timber hurdles would have corralled the cattle over the paddock to concentrate their fertility and break up the soil.<br />The plough is over-rated and over used, I wonder if much of the over use was due to farmers conforming to the prevaling wisdom of the time and keeping the landlord and villagers impressed with a neat and 'well fitted out field'.<br /><br />Wooden ploughs were still being used in parts of the Netherlands up to WW1, but a well performing scythe and sickle would have been vital in securing enough hay for the winter. <br /><br />Some dairy pasture farmers here in NZ are gradually changing away from the 'green desert' of only rye and clover mix to incorporating more of the deep rooting herbs like chicory, and planting more forage trees. To a townie's eyes though, it doesn't look as neat, but there is more nutrient and variety in the diet of the cattle, and a marked decrease in Vet bills.<br /><br />Almost a return to what farming must have been like all those years ago.<br /><br />Farmer FFFnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-13354813613662700642010-10-18T18:43:48.572-07:002010-10-18T18:43:48.572-07:00"What exactly are they referring to as corn? ..."What exactly are they referring to as corn? grains"<br /><br />If you don't know anon, why do you ask the commenters rather than looking it up? Americans took the word corn, which refers to (yes) grains and identified it with one grain, whereas the English continue to use the word as it was used originally. Anything written before the 1850's probably has this usage as well as current writings coming out of England and its sphere.<br /><br />Well done, gcochran. Cheese may be a great way to store milk calories, but drinking it is a good way to survive. And those people probably had stomaches to handle some nasty old milk and residue.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81309940449014081832010-10-18T17:37:25.498-07:002010-10-18T17:37:25.498-07:00It's hard to say how many of the wrong-looking...<i>It's hard to say how many of the wrong-looking things in that article are due to translation, journalism in action, or plain mistakes.<br /><br />-gcochran</i><br /><br />As far as I can tell, the article's origin was the LECHE project, which is funded by a dairymen's PR org that is trying to penetrate the East Asian market.<br /><br />Here's a revealing quote from <a href="http://sites.google.com/a/palaeome.org/leche/" rel="nofollow">their website</a>:<br /><br /><i>Milk - the ultimate health drink for Europeans over the last 7000 years! <br /><br />[...]<br /><br />Drinking raw milk has been very good for you for over 7,000 years!</i><br /><br />Now, I don't have any problem with corporate boosterism (or milk drinking for that matter), but when you go from anthropology --> dairy farming --> Der Spiegel --> English translation there is bound to be some rather odd distortion. <br /><br />Looks to me like those German dairies are pretty sophisticated when it comes to PR and marketing. Of course, there's also the issue of which side butters Der Spiegel's bread -- the milkmen or the professors. <br /><br />Seems pretty obvious to me...<br /><br />Amusing stuff. I'll raise a glass of milk to those sneaky German cowherds.Billhttp://welmer.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-15199360405623829012010-10-18T17:34:18.487-07:002010-10-18T17:34:18.487-07:00Or have you never heard of Caesar, Tacitus, etc., ...Or have you never heard of Caesar, Tacitus, etc., classical writers of the same period who confirm plenty of dairy farming going on in Northern Europe?"<br /><br />Obviously dairy farming of some kind has been going on in northern Europe from time immemorial. And of course you winter stock with dried grasses, not grain. Grain wasn't fed to livestock very often, I don't think, untill the affluent Americans began to corn feed everything edible on four feet.<br />There is reference to dairy, to milking cows, goats and sheep, in mythology and tales going back donkey's years, into the mists of time.<br />Whiskey lives in his own world. He's not always wrong though. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.leslienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-25860461774065371302010-10-18T17:22:20.951-07:002010-10-18T17:22:20.951-07:00A couple of points on premodern European agricultu...A couple of points on premodern European agriculture and livestock management:<br />Before modern times, Europeans attempted to keep their draft animals and breeding stock alive over the winter, but did not hesitate to cull and salt up those animals which might a burden to feed (November was nicknamed "blood-month" by the Anglo-Saxons because it was the time of slaughter.) The notion of keeping all of your animals alive year-round as a modern dairy farm does was impractical for Medieval Europeans, mouldboard plough or no.<br />The second thing to keep in mind was that for premodern agricultural people, the season of greatest want was not winter, but immediately prior to harvest - last year's stocks were running low, and this year's yield was not yet ready. For most of northern Europe, this was late Summer or early Fall. For a people who also engaged in dairy farming, however, the same season was one in which dairy products were readily available. I imagine this was the season in which dairy products made the difference between starvation and survival.Herewardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-77580728669000099142010-10-18T15:20:24.478-07:002010-10-18T15:20:24.478-07:00In the later Triassic, the mighty Pteronodons migr...In the later Triassic, the mighty Pteronodons migrated to the city in search of HB 8+ females. Alas, some fell on this epic journey.<br /><br />But those who made it underwent a great transformation - they became Alpha Male Pterodactyls! Even Uncle Engelbert<br /><br />-------------More seriously<br />The Middle East underwent significant climate/resource changes relative to ancient times (e.g. the now-gone forests of Lebanon and Syria) and also probably genetic changes due to the Islamic conquest and resulting social/political structure.Sexy Pterodactylhttp://sexypterodactyl.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com