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Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution

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Re: Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution

#181
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that humans have very limited genetic diversity compared to most other animals, because of the population bottlenecks we've been through. And further, that diversity is mostly between individuals, not between groups. The distinction is easy to see in cats vs dogs: they both have similar overall genetic diversity but two Chihuahuas have virtually all the same genes (the small angry ones) while two…

> The average european person and the average east asian person are a little bit different genetically, but way less different than any two real europeans or two east-asians are to one another. This is always touted as an “racism-is-not-only-immoral-it-is-scientifically-wrong” argument, but it is a fallacy. Example: The average height (a trait with very high heritability) of Dutch men is 6’0 feet (183 cm) and the ave…

> Example: The average height (a trait with very high heritability) of Dutch men is...

I would not give too much credence to the various figures often given for the average height of men and women in x country without careful research, since they have highly variable degrees of support.

For years I had heard repeatedly that the average height of a man in Indonesia was 158 cm or 5ft and 2 inches. This seemed so absurd to me and provoked enough scepticism that I eventually attempted to track down the source of that figure. It turned out to be from Wikipedia and the citation was a study that measured the heights of the elderly yet all of those repeating that figure neglected to mention, or were in all likelihood entirely ignorant of, that detail. I am similarly sceptical of some of the claims made about the average height of the Dutch, the subject of which seems to be a particular favourite among height myth-mongers.

With respect to young adult men I have found that figures based on measurements obtained as part of fitness screenings for mandatory military service are the most reliable due to their large sample size (at least an order of magnitude larger than the largest academic studies) and overwhelming lack of selection and sampling bias. A minority of nations have such systems and fewer still publish the data obtained in public. Yet even this would not answer the question for the whole population.

Re: Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether it’s filtering or not is highly relevant. It takes much longer to develop new features via random mutation and selection than it does to alter the distribution of existing features via selection. This is trivially true, no? I’m not sure what the argument against this is, please elaborate.

Like I said, it doesn't matter what you call it, what matters is that you won't find stable associations of civilizational progress and ethnic groups over the course of history. You can compose other coherent arguments for causal genetic superiority, but it can't be "civilizational achievement".

Okay, I am focusing on the one assertion you made which I quoted, and I think you are arguing the top level point back at me.

Features can change at a population level in the amount of time that different human groups have been separated from one another. That is all I’m saying here. It seemed like you didn’t agree with that point, and I’m interested if you can refute it in a well reasoned way since the implications are pretty counter-zeitgeist and being outside the zeitgeist is annoying.

By the way, “genetic superiority” is a category error and I find it annoying when people talk like that. An animal can only be better or worse in a particular environment, and even then different animals can exist in a similar niche without being better or worse. This sort of rhetoric has made this area very hard to discuss.

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