How can you believe in evolution but no social darwinism

[Cheetah]

You really think the phenotypic variation in the outside appearance of humans requires 2% of the genome?

How did I talk about the outside appearance?

I don't know where you get those figures but if true 40% is pretty damn high considering all the wars young men have fought in over the millennia.

Come again? Considering "all the wars young men have fought in over the millennia", how low would you have expected this figure to be? About 60% of all men who have ever lived does not have descendants living today. That significantly more than half of all men lose out in the evolutionary game is quite noteworthy.

Anyway, I got the numbers from a talk by Roy F. Baumeister, of the Florida State University. He himself referred to "recent research with DNA analysis". I'll see if I can find a better citation.

I believe this is semi-true but how to explain why these days (at least in the US) females seem to be much more motivated than males to do well in school, get into a good college, etc.? (I can't objectively quantify this but it seems to be the case)

By noting that everyone in the US is told to "go to college and get a good job", and the fact that intelligence follows a Gaussian distribution in the populace. Such a distribution means that there are a few stupid, a few smart, and many average intelligent people. However, the Gaussian curve is different for men and women, in that men have a greater variance than women. So we do in fact have more stupid men and more smarter men than women, and also more of the averagely intelligent people are women.

Since intelligence is more and more needed the higher in the educational system one gets, it is logical to expect the dumbest people to fall off first. And since a majority of stupid people are men, they fall out and the result is that by college entrance there are more women than men. However, as one goes further up, the stupidest people still continue to fall out, and after getting to and passing the average intelligence that means more and more women fall out relative to men. So at the "top", there is a greater amount of men than women. Though remember that all of the people at the top are very intelligent. Just as the people who fell off early are less intelligent, no matter whether they're men or women.

+Necessary disclaimer about this being "in general", "statistically speaking", etc. You can always find exceptions, but this is the more "normal" case as it is.

 

[Dachs]

Someone needs to cite a credible source to definitively end this back-and-forth about hunter-gatherer societies.

Credible anthropological source? Isn't that something of a contradiction in terms?

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, sure. We may be as different from chimps and bonobos as they are from each other - but the reverse is also true: We may be as equal to one or both of them as they are to each other.

Perhaps, but that doesn't suggest that we should look to them for inspiration or justification, as FAL seems to think.

Well, I learned that a specie means that two individuals can have fertile offspring. Furthermore, I see species as being different beings, and races as being variations within one specie. Now, if you say that polar bears and kodaks have undergone speciation and are now two different species, that seems wrong if they can still have fertile offspring. But if you feel able to distinguish between two races of bears to such a degree as naming them different species, then couldn't it follow that Murky is in his right to consider Eskimos and, say, Bushmen, as two different races? Saying they are two different species is wrong in any case, as a pairing of an Eskimo and a Bushman can most definitely have fertile offspring.

Well, in regards to the Kodiak and the Grizzly, that's not something I can answer; I suppose you'd have to take that up with a biologist.
Anyway, in regards to humans, that still doesn't act as an argument for the recognition of "races", because the distinction between the Kodiak and the Polar represents the sort of monolithic division which simply does not exist within the human race, and certainly not in the superficial, appearance-based terms along which traditional races are drawn (as I said, most humans are a sub-set of a sub-set of Sub-Saharan Africans). At the very best, one could draw some crude cladistic diagram of Upper Palaeolithic populations, but it's unlikely that this would have much to do with later-established ethnicities (genetically, the Celts and Anglo-Saxons of the British Isles are extremely similar, and certainly not two distinct monoliths), let alone the colonial-era understanding of "race".

Of course social status is not accorded to men only. Social status is something every being in a group has, whether it is a male, female or cub. However, social status is more important for men because it is a sexual selection trait that women look for. Men doesn't care much about a potential mate's social status (as long as it isn't too low for the wrong reasons...). If a woman is young and beautiful she has already achieved close to top score. Men on the other hand has more to win and more to lose by whether or not they have a high social status. Thus, men compete more to gain higher status, men risk more for it, and men are driven more towards it than women.

While some of that is certainly true of traditional societies, social status is not, as FAL suggests, the sole determinant of human pairing; at a very basic level, both men and women look for partners who are able and reliable as co-parents, who are faithful to the relationship, and who they actually have some level of romantic and sexual chemistry with. "Marry the rich dude" is a distortion which results from later social models, not the default.
And, as I have mentioned, the sort of absolute social status in question is not innate to human society, but requires a certain level of material surplus to develop. In more simple societies, the sort of single-axis competition to which you refer often does not exist.

And while hunter-gatherer pairs may be mostly monogamous, it is fully possible to have serial monogamy. Remember that traditionally, a high percentage of women die in labour, which means that the man is then available to get a new woman.

True, but that's really no closer to the sort of promiscuity which FAL seems to be arguing as natural (although not, despite his Social Darwininsm, morally right; a flaw in his reasoning there, I think).

What's gynofocality?

Well, firstly, it's me mangling my words; a better term would've been "matrifocality". Silly me.
Anyway, it refers to a culture which focuses on women, rather than men, something which usually manifests in matrilinear and matrilocal traditions, which is to say descent and inheritance being traced primarily through women, and in which men live the family of their wife, rather than the other way around. It's distinct from matriarchy in that does imply the dominance of women, but simply a lack of explicit patriarchy.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

How did I talk about the outside appearance?

You were referring to "races", right?

 

[Archbob]

Traitorfish. hunter-gatherer societies were not monogomous. What makes you think that?

Is that what you want to believe because it fits your belief system?

Most hunter-gatherer societies are monogamous, so... I disagree? And also wonder why you believe that social status is necessarily something accorded to men alone, given that there are many human societies exhibiting, to some degree, tendencies towards gynofocality?

This is really not an accurate statement. While there are monogmous hunter-gather societies, there many non-monogomous ones also. It depends a lot on the surrounding environment. There are a lot of tribes where mates switch after a certain period of time. But the better men attract the better mates, thats predominent through every society, ancient or modern.


Genetic studies basically show that most humans on earth are decended from a few "super ancestors" at some point in history instead of even descended from a collective bunch of plain "ancestors". These super ancestors are pretty much all prominent man. The original "Adam" around 65kya(older by others) by some estiments, is the father of everyone on earth. There were many other men at the time.

So either his genes were superior or he obtained a huge amount of women -- back when we were still hunter-gatherers, or more likely both.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Credible anthropological source? Isn't that something of a contradiction in terms?

Well, something more credible than just them saying it then.

 

[Traitorfish]

Traitorfish. hunter-gatherer societies were not monogomous. What makes you think that?

I was under the impression that the majority are non-promiscuous (perhaps a better term to use, as it does not rule out polygamy). Is this not so?

Is that what you want to believe because it fits your belief system?

I was not aware that I was an ideological proponent of monogamy.

And, um, that's all you have to say in response to my post?

 

[Archbob]

I was under the impression that the majority are non-promiscuous (perhaps a better term to use, as it does not rule out polygamy). Is this not so?

No, they were not monogomous. And even in the monogomous ones, the better men attracted the better mates, thus giving advantageous traits to their child, making him more likely to survive.

Our DNA descent shows that we are all descended from a few common(or one ultimately) ancestor. But DNA evidence proves that there were many other males around at the time. He likely got all the women, showing that even then, societies did not follow the one-man, one-women rule.

Monogomy has always been somewhat constant among commoners in society, it was never the case with Lords, Kings, and Rulers. And it is the decendents of these tribal chiefstans, the lords, the kings, and the emperors that are disproportionately abundant in society, showing that human society has favors higher-ranking males in an evolutionary sense since the the beginning.

 

[Traitorfish]

No, they were not monogomous. And even in the monogomous ones, the better men attracted the better mates, thus giving advantageous traits to their child, making him more likely to survive.

That is a grossly over-simplistic summary of human mating habits (and the androcentricism of your view does not help).

Our DNA descent shows that we are all descended from a few common(or one ultimately) ancestor. But DNA evidence proves that there were many other males around at the time. He likely got all the women, showing that even then, societies did not follow the one-man, one-women rule.

Wait, you think that this is because all early humans- who apparently all lived in one small tribe- are descended from a single generation of super-studs? Do you realise how utterly ridiculous that is?

And I don't know how you go about incorporating the Mitochondrial Eve into this theory...

Monogomy has always been somewhat constant among commoners in society, it was never the case with Lords, Kings, and Rulers. And it is the decendents of these tribal chiefstans, the lords, the kings, and the emperors that are disproportionately abundant in society, showing that human society has favors higher-ranking males in an evolutionary sense since the the beginning.

That does not follow. All it demonstrates is that heavily privileged individual are less constrained by certain social restrictions, which is... Obvious? Blatantly so?

 

[Archbob]

That is a grossly over-simplistic summary of human mating habits (and the androcentricism of your view does not help).

Its how evolution works. Those with more fit traits survive.

Wait, you think that this is because all early humans- who apparently all lived in one small tribe- are descended from a single generation of super-studs? Do you realise how utterly ridiculous that is?

And I don't know how you go about incorporating the Mitochondrial Eve into this theory...


That does not follow. All it demonstrates is that heavily privileged individual are less constrained by certain social restrictions, which is... Obvious? Blatantly so?

You can argue with genetics if you want, but your fighting a losing battle. Y-chromosome tracing (tracing the descent of males) shows that all(or at least most) males on earth are descended from 1 single male, and that he longed long after the first anatomical "homo sapien" evolved. All genetic evidence points to common ancestry for pretty much everyone on earth, and that common ancestor lived way after our species was anatomically modern. You won't find many respectable scientists that will argue otherwise. I've watched hundreds of human evolutionary documentaries and they all say the same thing. The date of this common ancestor is debated, but all the dates presented are well after the evolution of H. Sapiens itself.

Genetics and scientific evidence supports this point of view, not yours.

Yes, and that heavily privileged class is much more successful on evolutionary terms than your common man.

Basically, at this point, your refusing to actually look at scientific DNA evidence thats been validated countless times regarding the ancestry and descent of your species because it does not fit with your worldview.

M-eve also lived much earlier than Y-Chromosomal Adam, which further supports human polygamy in the early days. Since polygamy has almost always meant one male to many females. So the descendents of Y-Chromosome Adam would have come from many women. Therefore you need to trace much further back in time to Find M-Eve than Y-Chromosome Adam.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Er, you do know that Y chromosomes aren't passed to females, right? So that means that having only a female child can remove the trace of a father's Y chromosomal DNA. Add in the effects of low populations and bottlenecks, and you have the recipe for random fixation of one version of the Y chromosome.

 

[Traitorfish]

Its how evolution works. Those with more fit traits survive.

You can argue with genetics if you want, but your fighting a losing battle. Y-chromosome tracing (tracing the descent of males) shows that all(or at least most) males on earth are descended from 1 single male, and that he longed long after the first anatomical "homo sapien" evolved. All genetic evidence points to common ancestry for pretty much everyone on earth, and that common ancestor lived way after our species was anatomically modern. You won't find many respectable scientists that will argue otherwise. I've watched hundreds of human evolutionary documentaries and they all say the same thing. The date of this common ancestor is debated, but all the dates presented are well after the evolution of H. Sapiens itself.

Genetics and scientific evidence supports this point of view, not yours.

Yes, and that heavily privileged class is much more successful on evolutionary terms than your common man.

Basically, at this point, your refusing to actually look at scientific DNA evidence thats been validated countless times regarding the ancestry and descent of your species because it does not fit with your worldview.

M-eve also lived much earlier than Y-Chromosomal Adam, which further supports human polygamy in the early days. Since polygamy has almost always meant one male to many females. So the descendents of Y-Chromosome Adam would have come from many women. Therefore you need to trace much further back in time to Find M-Eve than Y-Chromosome Adam.

You do not know how human genetics work, nor do you at all understand the concepts of Y-Adam or M-Eve. I see no profit in debating this further with you.

 

[Archbob]

You do not know how human genetics work. I see no profit in debating this further with you.

No, I know how it works. You seem to not want to believe scientific research because none of it actually actively supports your point of view. Every bit of scientific research evidence support common ancestry both on the male and female lines. None of it supports the egalitarian view and of monogomy that your so fond of.

Even your own wiki article you posted does not support your view as it states that M-Eve is much older than Y-Adam because males are able to re-produce more than females. This would not matter if humans were monogomous. But it does matter, because humans were not.

@SS-18: That why I specifically specified that it was all males that were descended from this one male. Likewise M-Eve can only prove all females are descended from this one female because M-DNA is only passed on the maternal line.

 

[Traitorfish]

No, I know how it works. You seem to not want to believe scientific research because none of it actually actively supports your point of view. Every bit of scientific research evidence support common ancestry both on the male and female lines. None of it supports the egalitarian view and of monogomy that your so fond of.

FAL, you think that Y-chromosome Adam was a prehistoric super-stud who shagged his way to genetic ubiquity. You have no idea what you are talking about.

(And, again, at what point did I advocate monogamy? I merely suggested that non-promiscuity (which, I will grant you, I clumsily conflated folded into monogamy in earlier posts) is the norm for human society.)

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

@SS-18: That why I specifically specified that it was all males that were descended from this one male. Likewise M-Eve can only prove all females are descended from this one female because M-DNA is only passed on the maternal line.

Random allele fixation does not mean that everyone is descended from one ancestor. Unless you're saying that the autosomal and X chromosomal information of those other males are wiped out too.

 

[El_Machinae]

FAL: Let's cut to the chase. Should I be treating you the way Y-Adam treated his non-related peers? Is that what you're suggesting we mold society towards?

 

[Archbob]

FAL, you think that Y-chromosome Adam was a prehistoric super-stud who shagged his way to genetic ubiquity. You have no idea what you are talking about.

(And, again, at what point did I advocate monogamy? I merely suggested that non-promiscuity (which, I will grant you, I clumsily conflated folded into monogamy in earlier posts) is the norm for human society.)

I do know what I'm talking about. DNA tracing does actually say all men originated from one man. You try to make it sound ridiculous. But Y-chromosonal evidence suggests just that. And if not one man, it suggest that all humans came from a very small group of men which got a disporptionate amount of women.

Just the fact that M-eve is much Older than Y-Adam support polygamy and the that humans have always been stratified in terms of rank and prominance and that these differences have always attributed to evolutionary success.

You have to face the facts and the implications, humans were never really egalitarian.

Random allele fixation does not mean that everyone is descended from one ancestor. Unless you're saying that the autosomal and X chromosomal information of those other males are wiped out too.

The Y Chromosome is passed on identically from father to son. Sometimes there is a mutation along one of the billions of base pairs. That mutation will also be passed identically to all subsequent generations. Its actually a pretty good tracing. By tracing these mutations(which actually happen at a surprisingly normal rate), you can track lineages. There's only been a few thousand generations between us and this ancestor. Our descent is really not that ancient.

 

[Cheetah]

Perhaps, but that doesn't suggest that we should look to them for inspiration or justification, as FAL seems to think.

But it doesn't suggest we don't look at our closest living relatives to perhaps find a clue to better understand ourselves.

Well, in regards to the Kodiak and the Grizzly, that's not something I can answer; I suppose you'd have to take that up with a biologist.
Anyway, in regards to humans, that still doesn't act as an argument for the recognition of "races", because the distinction between the Kodiak and the Polar represents the sort of monolithic division which simply does not exist within the human race, and certainly not in the superficial, appearance-based terms along which traditional races are drawn (as I said, most humans are a sub-set of a sub-set of Sub-Saharan Africans). At the very best, one could draw some crude cladistic diagram of Upper Palaeolithic populations, but it's unlikely that this would have much to do with later-established ethnicities (genetically, the Celts and Anglo-Saxons of the British Isles are extremely similar, and certainly not two distinct monoliths), let alone the colonial-era understanding of "race".

Yes, I more or less agree with what you write here.

Though my common sense - and we all know how untrustworthy the common sense is - suggests that it would be very strange if there isn't some form or racial property that can be pointed out, when we simply look at the different appearances of Khoisans, Eskimos, Indians, Chinese or Scandinavians. It seems so obvious that there must be something there - but yet, there isn't...?

While some of that is certainly true of traditional societies, social status is not, as FAL suggests, the sole determinant of human pairing; at a very basic level, both men and women look for partners who are able and reliable as co-parents, who are faithful to the relationship, and who they actually have some level of romantic and sexual chemistry with. "Marry the rich dude" is a distortion which results from later social models, not the default.
And, as I have mentioned, the sort of absolute social status in question is not innate to human society, but requires a certain level of material surplus to develop. In more simple societies, the sort of single-axis competition to which you refer often does not exist.

The way I see it, it is the properties of each individual that creates the "romantic and sexual chemistry". Those properties are only compounds of other properties. "Marry the rich dude" was also never really true. It has always been "Marry the high status dude", which, since humans started to settle down, often came to mean "the rich dude". High status males are seen as more reliable co-parents, both because they have access to more resources, and because they are more vested in their society for the simple fact that their status is dependent on their society. And of course both men and women would prefer faithful partners, which, as I have argued before, is a reason why men would rather settle with a less promiscuous woman.

I'll further meet you halfway, and agree that the "single-axis competition" that you choose to call it, did increase in significance once humans settled down and were able to gather more material surplus. But I can't in good reason say that it hasn't always existed in some form. When not material wealth, then physical appearance and abilities, alliances and the "right" friends are able to also create a social status hierarchy.

You were referring to "races", right?

Well, yes. I'm still not quite following you. If there is such a thing as different races among the human specie, then it would be quite strange if the only differences were small differences in physical appearance.

 

[Arakhor]

DNA tracing does actually say all men originated from one man.

Actually, Y-Adam is our most recent universal ancestor. Let's keep the creationism to the right thread, eh?

 

[Archbob]

FAL: Let's cut to the chase. Should I be treating you the way Y-Adam treated his non-related peers? Is that what you're suggesting we mold society towards?

Adam in all liklihood did not treat his peers at that badly because there just wasn't that much material stuff to fight over. But he did get first dibs on the meat from a hunt and the women. Its really not all that different from the society we have today where the rich and powerful get first dibs on everything. We've basically evolved into a soceity that nature predicted we would.

Actually, Y-Adam is our most recent universal ancestor.

But just the fact that he's much younger than the most recent universal female ancestor suggestions polygamy and a rank and hierachal standing among primitive people.