"It seems like wishful thinking to assume that all of these traits could be fine-tuned within a sun population but brain function would remain exactly the same in all mankind."
Thank you for breaching this delicacy. I've wondered about this more than half my life.
The characteristics of a population represent equilibria established by se…
"It seems like wishful thinking to assume that all of these traits could be fine-tuned within a sun population but brain function would remain exactly the same in all mankind."
Thank you for breaching this delicacy. I've wondered about this more than half my life.
The characteristics of a population represent equilibria established by selection pressures. Notions of race focus too much on melanin content; melanin levels represent an equilibrium between two primary factors both bases on ultraviolet light:
1) protection from melanoma, favoring more melanin
2) promotion of ergosterol to vitamin D, favoring less
Equatorial people have no shortage of UV and so have no ssues with vitamin D; polar people are in little danger of melanoma but need UV for nutritional health.
Malaria affects equilibria in many characteristics; sickle cell anemia kills a quarter of those with two alleles yet malaria would kill them all; with SCA the blood cells burst open before the parasites are mature. Favism (allergy to fava beans) confers malarial immunity.
But these are physical characteristics. Selection pressure for intelligence is cultural. It's only weakly advantageous to a society of hunter-gatherers. It's a lot more advantageous now.
Much though I detest Murray's foregone conclusions, it does seem a little absurd to presume that cultures as different as tropical aboriginals and urban Europeans would experience identical selection pressures for intelligence.
But now the selection pressures are based mostly on pretty. SF writer CM Kornbluth wrote two short stories ("The Marching Morons" and "The Little Black Bag") in which the world of the future if populated with a tiny minority of hyper-intelligent people and a majority with IQs around 45 on our modern scale.
"It seems like wishful thinking to assume that all of these traits could be fine-tuned within a sun population but brain function would remain exactly the same in all mankind."
Thank you for breaching this delicacy. I've wondered about this more than half my life.
The characteristics of a population represent equilibria established by selection pressures. Notions of race focus too much on melanin content; melanin levels represent an equilibrium between two primary factors both bases on ultraviolet light:
1) protection from melanoma, favoring more melanin
2) promotion of ergosterol to vitamin D, favoring less
Equatorial people have no shortage of UV and so have no ssues with vitamin D; polar people are in little danger of melanoma but need UV for nutritional health.
Malaria affects equilibria in many characteristics; sickle cell anemia kills a quarter of those with two alleles yet malaria would kill them all; with SCA the blood cells burst open before the parasites are mature. Favism (allergy to fava beans) confers malarial immunity.
But these are physical characteristics. Selection pressure for intelligence is cultural. It's only weakly advantageous to a society of hunter-gatherers. It's a lot more advantageous now.
Much though I detest Murray's foregone conclusions, it does seem a little absurd to presume that cultures as different as tropical aboriginals and urban Europeans would experience identical selection pressures for intelligence.
But now the selection pressures are based mostly on pretty. SF writer CM Kornbluth wrote two short stories ("The Marching Morons" and "The Little Black Bag") in which the world of the future if populated with a tiny minority of hyper-intelligent people and a majority with IQs around 45 on our modern scale.