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

reich.hms.harvard.edu

31–40 of 72 posts

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

#31
post #15

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…

I think the discussion in recent years has refocused, embracing ethnonatalist implications and challenging the core assertion that "racism is wrong".

My main resistance to that is much the same as yours: the differences are so small, that re-architecting society around them is not going to be enough juice for the squeeze.

But one could also argue that the juice is not even the point: by re-architecting society in this way, you "pre-brutalize" your population so that their threshold for violence against "others" is lowered. Thus your population is closer to being wholly militarized, and theoretically is more effective in war, and is less captured by "weak" or "unmanly" moral ideals, such as empathy.

While this might seem a virtue to someone of an expansionist mindset, in application this principle never, ever works well - again, thanks to those tiny differences. If a citizen is pre-brutalized to have a lowered resistance to killing those with curly hair, how long is it before they kill their next door neighbor with wavy hair, over something like lawn furniture?

Pre-brutalizing your populace to killing any sapiens is enough to brutalize them towards harming anyone else. This is the core of the "imperial boomerang", or the colonial boomerang theory, as to why the great wars of the 20th century took on such a nasty character. The ease with which we dehumanized subject populations was - all too easily - redirected against the neighbors, most memorably with Germany trying to re-create the American West to their East.

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

#32
post #13
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, this paper doesn't seem to talk about regional differences. The implication seems to be that it wouldn't be surprising to find differences between groups that separated more than 2kya, as there was active changes going on before that time. Not that it predicts any specific differences

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

I would be interested in how you came to that conclusion, unless I'm misleading your post and you specifically mean West Eurasia

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

#33

One of the authors of this paper, David Reich, has written a book called "Who We Are and How We Got Here", which is worth reading. My thoughts on it: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2605841954

Absolutely worth reading.

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

#34
post #15

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…

> 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.

That may certainly be true.

(Not OP, but) I always shutter when we want to deny scientific results because it might be "helpful" for someone making a racist argument.

My personal belief is that truth is the goal of science. Even in cases where the truth is uncomfortable.

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

#35
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

people trying to force everyone else to accept their poorly defended notions of race superiority have a much larger social impact than any quantifiable differences in the genetics of populations.

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

#36
post #34
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. That may certainly be true. (Not OP, but) I always shutter when we want to deny scientific results because it might be "helpful" for someone making a racist argument. My personal belief is that truth is t…

There are a few scientific topics that are too easily manipulated by bad actors who ignore all the nuance. You have to tread very, very carefully on those and ask yourself what good vs. what harm can come from it. We know from history that giving opportunist leaders a chance to classify humans into distinct sub-groups based on intelligence and other key traits ends in catastrophe.

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

#37
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That may certainly be true. (Not OP, but) I always shutter when we want to deny scientific results because it might be "helpful" for someone making a racist argument. My personal belief is that truth is t…

There are a few scientific topics that are too easily manipulated by bad actors who ignore all the nuance. You have to tread very, very carefully on those and ask yourself what good vs. what harm can come from it. We know from history that giving opportunist leaders a chance to classify humans into distinct sub-groups based on intelligence and other key traits ends in catastrophe.

I understand what you are saying and I don't disagree with the idea that bad actors will use science in bad ways.

But I think going down this path of denying (or hiding) science that can be used for bad ideas ends up causing (rightly, imho) a distrust of science -- which is far worse.

A distrust of science (not saying it was caused by this particular issue) is how we ended up with so much anti-vax sentiment in the US. And that is the reason we are seeing outbreaks of diseases that used to be minimal.

I think if you want people to "trust the science", you have to trust the people.

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

#38
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Evolution is survival of the fittest. That's not a tautology, it actually says something, namely that the traits which survive and thus propagate tend to be the ones that enable some form of adaptation to its living conditions to the individual. The paper lists a bunch of examples:

  - lactose tolerance
  - immunity and disease resistance
  - lighter skin at northern latitudes
  - metabolism and vitamin D processing changes in response to changes in diet after the rise of agriculture
All these traits go beyond just increasing the odds of survival, they improve the life of the individual directly. I.e. they confer fitness. Individuals carrying those traits will, on average, in that ecosystem they are inhabiting, be more healthy than those who don't.

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

#39
post #34
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. That may certainly be true. (Not OP, but) I always shutter when we want to deny scientific results because it might be "helpful" for someone making a racist argument. My personal belief is that truth is t…

It's very nice to believe in a pure system that exists outside of politics, but that's simply not how the world works, and it never will be.

There is no scientific breakthrough that has occurred sans politics. Politics choose the winners and the losers, and the realm is science is no exception.

All science is political, because the scientific institutions are made up of people, who are political. Your research project lives and dies by politics, as does your dissertation, who gets published, who receives awards, etc.

So when it comes to research of limited utility that has a nasty cadre waiting in the wings to pounce upon it, the wise person would think twice.

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

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The flip side is everything is being degraded by random mutation. It's like holding a large ball in place on a hill that sees frequent tremors. If the ball is still halfway up the hill it's being held in place, if it's being held in place it's still halfway up the hill. It might be considered a tautology if you're only working with symbols and ignore all the mechanistics.

> The flip side is everything is being degraded by random mutation

"degraded"? Aren't random mutations precisely one of the core mechanism of adaptation?

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