As far as it goes your post seems clear and correct. However your last sentence begins with an interesting 'if'. Is it not possible that Jewish people inherit some of the attributes which make them succesful in particular types of activity? Is it not possible that great warriors are less likely to have wimps for kids? Is it not possible, since it is said that our genes determine our brains and thus our minds, that certain basic attributes of personality can be passed on genetically? (NOT acquired characteristics). Do not intelligent parents tend to have more intelligent kids? At this point I feel that Neville and I have a reasonable case here. I agree that there is no 'rich' gene. However there must be many genes which encode for characteristics which make their phenotypes more than averagely likely to become rich. (Good looks for instance). Certainly my genes make my workplace success more likely that do those of an elephant. To me your view (and paulsamuels) is anti-Darwinian. Have I misunderstood you?
maybe people that look good are also frigid you are assuming a lot of things...and assumption is the mother of all fuckups as we all know. A phenotype is not the same a genotype. A single phenotype can be caused by different genotypes. You assume that intelligence is genetic. That might be partly the case. You assume that all intelligence is caused by the same genetic constitution. That's almost certainly not the case. You assume that intelligent educated people only mate with intelligent educated peope. That's not the case. You assume that it is more likely that intelligent educated people reproduce more with other intelligent educated people then with stupid poor people. That might be the case. You assume that intelligent educated people have a higher fitness because they have better living conditions. We know that this is not true, because living conditions has nothing to do with reproductive fitness. Therefore one cannot just assume that intelligent educated people have more children. In fact we know that they have less children, because on average they start having children later. Why, because they make a rational decision to do so because they are on average better educated. You assume because educated intelligent people have more children now (which they don't) will continue to have more children forever. That's an assumption, because it can easily be said that having children late in life for educated intelligent people is fashionable at the moment. Maybe the situation will change in 10, 20 or 100 years. Hence there will not be any selective pressure towards more educated intelligent people anymore, which wasn't present in the first place. Now put all the if's and assumptions together and you have nothing left
And maybe people that look bad are frigid. Frigidity is irrelevant. This is an odd business. Here I am thinking I'm supporting Darwin and I get objections. Let me attempt to get back to basics. Firstly would you agree/disgree with any of these three statements?. When Africans were brought to the Americas as slaves it resulted in centuries of European/African interbreeding that continues apace. This interbreeding introduces new genes into the human gene pool in sufficient quantities to be of statistical significance. Social behaviour affects the gene pool.
this seems to be lamarckism. the darwinian type folks gets into a serious tizzy about this. see here for several quotes i made that seems (to me) to support this heresy
yes Not necessarily, since there can me more genetic diversity between two african persons than between an african and a european one. Not necessarily, sometimes, sometimes not.
No, I carefully said NOT acquired characteristics. I read some of the thread you pointed me to and support your fight against unwarranted dogmatism.
Greater genetic diverstity is not an issue. The point is simply that this interbreeding created genes that otherwise would not have existed. On the last point I agree that it is 'not necessarily'. However this means it does sometimes. I'll wait for paulsamuels response before moving on to workplace success etc.
interbreeding would create greater diversity if it were between two genetically diverse populations. Are you saying that they are? Because I am saying that they aren't.
I'm saying that saying that this particular example of interbreeding affects the human gene pool, and thus human evolution. I wouldn't like to guess what specific effect it might have over evolutionary time. It might be less diversity. Whichever it is it's a different gene pool.
ok...in a sense there would be only evolution if there was also a selective push towards specific genetic information. It is still one species after all...al the mixing in the world won't change the genetic information. And i don't really see a selective push happening at the moment, because a lot of social trends are under the influence of 'fashion'.
ANY change in the human genome is a 'push towards' specific genetic information. Chances are it won't make us fitter and it may even be insignificant, but these things can only be judged later (much later) in hindsight by anthropologists of the future. I take your point that a genetic change may not necessarily create a trend. But that does not mean that the genetic change is not part of our evolution, part of the genetic background from which trends emerge. I have a suspicion that we do not really disgree about all this. We are just considering evolution from different angles. In one sense evolution is about the evolution of our phenotype, hands and feet and suchlike, and on the other it is about the species as a whole. Would I be right in thinking that you are focusing on the former and me on the latter? Thus while the argument for the affect of social factors, including workplace performance, on human evolution is perhaps contentious if we are talking about our individual physical form, it does not seem, from what you say, that you think it is contentious when talking about the evolution of the species as a collection of types of people subject to statistical evolutionary trends.
Interbreeding DOES NOT create genes. Please, if you have questions about stuff, ask me, do not just make stuff up.
Fascinating opinion. However I prefer to accept the scientific evidence. How is it up there on Mount Olympus? Since you offered I do have a question. Do you agree or disagree with Dan Dennett when he writes: "Environmental changes due to cultural innovations change the landscape of phenotypic expression so much and so fast that they can in principle change the genetic selection pressures rapidly - the Baldwin Effect is a simple instance of such a change in selection pressure due to widespread behavioural innovation."
There is NO scientific evidence, and I challenge you to show even one reference in which a gene is created through interbreeding. Genes do not arise de novo due to interbreeding. I don't like Dr. Dennett's wording ("landscape of phenotypic expression" is ambiguous, at best) and he modifys the statement by using the phrase "in principle", however, if I may rephrase to give you an understanding of my position re: the above statement: If , Environmental changes due to cultural innovations change selective pressures affecting reproductive success, then they will affect human evolution. I'm not sure if that means I agree with Dr. Dennett or not. However, it has become apparent to me that you do not understand what you've read in Dr. Dennett's book.
How all of this modularity, complexity, and integration arose and changed during the history of life on earth is a central evolutionary question. Localized random mutation, selection operating "one gene at a time" (John Maynard Smith's formulation), and gradual modification of individual functions are unable to provide satisfactory explanations for the molecular data, no matter how much time for change is assumed. There are simply too many potential degrees of freedom for random variability and too many interconnections to account for. A Third Way (Alternatives to Creationism and Darwinism) Genome Organization and Reorganization in Evolution: Formatting for Computation and Function more ?
I thought that there were lots of established examples of the Baldwin effect. I thought that was why evolutionists accepted it as a real effect. Certainly Daniel Dennet, a much respected Darwinian theorist, accepts it. The examples of cultural change creating change in our fitness landscape are surely too numerous to count.
