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Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf]

reich.hms.harvard.edu

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Re: Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf]

#11

Post by kloop »

Tor3 wrote: post #6
shadowtree wrote: post #3

Blank Slate hypothesis is now officially refuted, correct? Different evolutionary paths between races/regions, with impact on mental health and cognitive performance.

Just where did you get that from? Certainly not from the paper.

I think they're talking about this bit:

> We finally observed signals of selection for combinations of alleles that today are associated with three correlated behavioural traits: scores on intelligence tests (increasing γ = 0.74 ± 0.12), household income (increasing γ = 1.12 ± 0.12) and years of schooling (increasing γ = 0.63 ± 0.13). These signals are all highly polygenic, and we have to drop 449–1,056 loci for the signals to become non-significant (Extended Data Fig. 10). The signals are largely driven by selection before approximately 2,000 years )*, after which γ tends towards zero

Presumably pressure in different regions lead to different combinations of those alleles, which I think they are shorthanding a bit, but the fact that those alleles exist makes blank slate theory a kind of rough assumption

Re: Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf]

#12

Post by Nesco »

Tor3 wrote: post #6
shadowtree wrote: post #3

Blank Slate hypothesis is now officially refuted, correct? Different evolutionary paths between races/regions, with impact on mental health and cognitive performance.

Just where did you get that from? Certainly not from the paper.

There is a graph arguing “intelligence” has been positively selected in west Eurasian population in this paper according to a polygenic score (page 8 fig. 4)

Now I would be quite curious to know how they constructed this polygenic score

Re: Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf]

#13

Post by svnt »

kloop wrote: post #11
Tor3 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just where did you get that from? Certainly not from the paper.

I think they're talking about this bit: > We finally observed signals of selection for combinations of alleles that today are associated with three correlated behavioural traits: scores on intelligence tests (increasing γ = 0.74 ± 0.12), household income (increasing γ = 1.12 ± 0.12) and years of schooling (increasing γ = 0.63 ± 0.13). These signals are all highly polygenic, and we have to drop 449–1,056 loci for the…

I haven’t had time to really dig in to the paper but these data (from only one region) are limited in their ability to compare regions, right?

If anything they seem to support homogenization of intellectual capacity/mental health in Eurasia since 2kya.

The methodology, if it holds up, seems to hold a lot of promise for answering questions like this in the future.

Re: Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf]

#14

Post by svnt »

shadowtree wrote: post #3

Blank Slate hypothesis is now officially refuted, correct? Different evolutionary paths between races/regions, with impact on mental health and cognitive performance.

No one in adjacent fields has been seriously engaging tabula rasa speculation from the 17th century for quite some time prior to this paper.

What you think the implications are of that for your present day lived experience, that might be a different conversation.

Re: Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf]

#15

Post by lukev »

shadowtree wrote: post #3

Blank Slate hypothesis is now officially refuted, correct? Different evolutionary paths between races/regions, with impact on mental health and cognitive performance.

To be clear: most people who are keen on making such an argument, or who are identifying racial genetic differences as the primary takeaway of studies like this, are doing so to justify racism, either implicitly or explicitly.

But that's a strawman. Racism is wrong, even if there are minor genetic variances across populations (which... seems obvious?) Variance within a population strongly dominates the weak cross-population effects, and personal history (nutrition, education, etc) strongly dominates that.

And that's setting aside the moral implications of judging someone or changing your behavior towards them even if you have somehow measured them to be "less intelligent," as if that was a single axis of worth.

Because, apparently, this needs to be said.

Re: Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf]

#16

Post by timmg »

vintermann wrote: post #5

The dataset excites me more than the fairly vague conclusion that some SNPs possibly linked to traits were selected for (or hitched along to genes which were selected for). Genetic archaeology is just so much more exciting than this. But I bet there will be a ton more of that too, thanks to the high quality dataset.

> the fairly vague conclusion that some SNPs possibly linked to traits were selected for

Interesting. I find that part of the paper the most exciting. We always knew selection would happen for valuable traits. But seeing demonstrations of it in the timelines we have is pretty important.

Re: Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf]

#18

Post by card_zero »

lukev wrote: post #15
shadowtree wrote: post #3

Blank Slate hypothesis is now officially refuted, correct? Different evolutionary paths between races/regions, with impact on mental health and cognitive performance.

To be clear: most people who are keen on making such an argument, or who are identifying racial genetic differences as the primary takeaway of studies like this, are doing so to justify racism, either implicitly or explicitly. But that's a strawman. Racism is wrong, even if there are minor genetic variances across populations (which... seems obvious?) Variance within a population strongly dominates the weak cross-pop…

This interest in IQ has a negative effect on the concept of intelligence, never mind human unity. It attaches exaggerated importance to test scores, jobs, and school. It tends toward snobbery.

Re: Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf]

#19

Post by bcjdjsndon »

MarkusQ wrote: post #17
bcjdjsndon wrote: post #10

How did they decide what made a trait adaptive?

The didn't decide, they observed; consistent directional pressure over thousands of years is strong evidence that an allele is being selected for.

So if it survives it's fit, if it's fit it survives? The old tautology

Re: Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf]

#20

Post by georgeburdell »

lukev wrote: post #15
shadowtree wrote: post #3

Blank Slate hypothesis is now officially refuted, correct? Different evolutionary paths between races/regions, with impact on mental health and cognitive performance.

To be clear: most people who are keen on making such an argument, or who are identifying racial genetic differences as the primary takeaway of studies like this, are doing so to justify racism, either implicitly or explicitly. But that's a strawman. Racism is wrong, even if there are minor genetic variances across populations (which... seems obvious?) Variance within a population strongly dominates the weak cross-pop…

And yet you are also likely to argue “weather is not climate”. Differences in population characteristics of all kinds have massive societal implications and we should lean into addressing them.
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