ShrinkWrapped

The Evolutionary Time Bomb

In December of 2008, I wrote about Race, Ethnicity, and the Genetic Time Bomb and the great danger inherent in our burgeoning knowledge of genetics:

The accumulation and interpretation of information derived from our increased ability to parse the genetic code contains within it a potential time bomb of epic proportions.  The damage that the nuclear bomb of genetic knowledge threatens to produce is incalculable, potentially made far worse by our inability to think about, let alone talk about, the data.

It remains early in the science of genetics.  Decoding the human genome is a recent advance; as with all forms of information science, the cost of decoding the human genome has been rapidly decreasing (following its own Moore's Law of exponential progress) and early indications are that some of the data is going to shatter a multitude of unspoken assumptions.

It has long been an article of faith among social scientists (and many geneticists) that there are no meaningful differences genetically between the various races of man.  The usual dismissive comment is that we are all more alike than different (an obvious and relatively meaningless truth.)  Although evolution is also accepted as an article of faith among the left leaning academic soft sciences, the usual covert assumption made is that evolution occurs very slowly and that since the beginning of culture, man has essentially been static in evolutionary terms.  Thus, animals and plants could show remarkable phenotypic changes in the course of only a few generations, man was uniquely resistant to or insulated from evolutionary pressures.  Again, this was almost always an unstated assumption, since if it were too baldly expressed, its lack of substantive supporting evidence would have been too obvious for comfort. 

The following January, I wrote about The 10,000 Year Explosion: A Most Dangerous Book; Cochrane and Harpending's book posited that not only has evolution not stopped with the arrival of modern man but in fact, evolution has been speeding up.  They made explicit the implication that homo sapiens has recognizable subpopulations.  I noted the danger that such an observation posed for our society:

This presents two extremely worrisome dangers. 

First, racists (of all colors and ethnicity) will be able to use the data of population genetics to support their twisted views on those they demonize.  One race treating another as less than human is a historical fact, just as specific tribes treating non-members as less than human is the default position of homo sapiens.

The second danger is more insidious.  For those who adhere most assiduously to Politically Correct-thinking and for that large body of followers for whom PC-thinking is more a posture than a coherent philosophy, the idea that different human populations could have different biological endowments is anathema.  The thought-police will need to redouble their efforts to prevent dangerous thoughts in so far as the evidence continues to show that population genetics is a real discipline which is discovering real differences. 

Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending are probably incorrect about many, perhaps most, of the details in  The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution  but their basic thesis, of accelerating evolution in Homo sapiens, is now inching into the Mainstream consciousness:

Human Culture, an Evolutionary Force

As with any other species, human populations are shaped by the usual forces of natural selection, like famine, disease or climate. A new force is now coming into focus. It is one with a surprising implication — that for the last 20,000 years or so, people have inadvertently been shaping their own evolution.

The force is human culture, broadly defined as any learned behavior, including technology. The evidence of its activity is the more surprising because culture has long seemed to play just the opposite role. Biologists have seen it as a shield that protects people from the full force of other selective pressures, since clothes and shelter dull the bite of cold and farming helps build surpluses to ride out famine.

[Interestingly, the New York Times reporter, Nicholas Wade, uses some of the same data that was central to Cochran and Harpending's thesis, ie the distribution of the gene(s) governing the persistence of lactose tolerance in adults, for the core of his story.]

Many of the comments to the Times story are, as expected, devoted to assailing the Neanderthal Republicans, Tea Partiers, et al as less evolved, which is amusing but irrelevant to any serious discussion.  Comments about Lamarck simply suggest that some Times readers lack the genes for reading comprehension, again, amusing but irrelevant.  I sampled about half the comments and most had almost nothing to do with the data discussed.  The interaction of culture and evolution is incredibly complex and it will take  a very long time to even begin to reconstruct the genetic changes (and the complex feedback loops) that facilitated the increasingly complex culture to which we are heir.  The most salient fact to emerge from the article, however, and a fact only a few of the commenters noted, is that the support for separate, unequally endowed, human subpopulations, has now increased and can be found cited in the pages of the New York Times.  Both denying and affirming this reality carry significant dangers, which we have not yet begun to address.  It is worth wondering if our species has the maturity to deal with the implications.

Apes and Angels

In January I offered my take on The 10,000 Year Explosion and called it a most A Most Dangerous Book.  I suggested that Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending had fired an early salvo in a battle that is going to reshape or destroy our culture, and probably our world, in the next 20-30 years (the time frame is mine.)   The book does not aim to solve the "Nature vs Nurture" conundrum but presents evidence from the field of population genetics to support their theory that, contrary to conventional wisdom in evolution and sociology, evolution has been speeding up in the last 10,000 years rather than remaining static.  As more and more evidence accrues elucidating the influence of genetics on behavior and population abilities, a clash is inevitable between science and political correctness.  I commented:

In Race, Ethnicity, and the Genetic Time Bomb I discussed the coming collision between the accumulating body of scientific data regarding human evolution and differentiation, and the PC shibboleth that all men and all populations are exactly equivalent.  The corollary to this assumption has become conventional wisdom, ie that any differences in outcome between populations can only be the result of discrimination by the powerful against the weak.  Various iterations of this assumption have become so deeply ingrained in science and society that it is considered a career destroyer to publicly question the idea. 

I cautioned in that post that as the science accumulates, the demarcation between scientific investigation and social transgression would become increasingly difficult to maintain.  Simply asserting that a minority group may have different levels of ability can mean academic death.  Now, more than ever before, the legacy of Darwin, supported by evolutionary biology, is bringing political (ideological and religious)  shibboleths into stark question.  Both the left and the right have exhibited an unconscious splitting in their relationship to Darwin's monumental achievement and this is the field of interest of Apes or Angels, by Neil Troost.  This slim, readable volume could well be considered a companion piece to Cochran and Harpending's book.  Dr. Troost unflinchingly examines the distortions of both left and right that interfere with an understanding of the meaning of Darwin's theory and the implications of our growing knowledge of evolutionary biology that is putting flesh onto the skeleton of evolution.  

In his introduction, he describes the conflictual relationship of both left and right to Darwin and his implications:

While we can thank Darwin for identifying our family tree and disabusing us of our wishful thinking, we are less certain of his revelations of human diversity.  As modern genetics increasingly supports Darwin's observations on human variability, the West is embroiled in a political war over the interpretation and meaning of these findings.  Secular humanism, set adrift from Christianity in part because of Darwin, now opposes the facts of human inequality first pointed out in 1871 by the great naturalist.  As in Galileo's day, science is under siege for discovering uncomfortable truths.  Pope's are no longer the enemy, but doctrinaire liberals within the scientific community are!  Darwin, the immortal hero of science, gave us ideas that offend both sides in the culture wars.  Liberals generally accept evolution and make it a foundation of their materialism, but they despise the idea that human races might be unequal.  Conservative Christians hate the idea of evolution without god, but, until recently, they accepted biological inequality without debate.  To understand who we are we must have the courage to follow Darwin's route to human nature, clearing the brush of superstition and myth while recognizing that  our common humanity may not be enough to overcome the problems of extreme diversity.  Struggle and strife, part of the basis of evolution, may well be ineradicable.

Dr. Troost spends the first part of the book reviewing Darwin's theories and some of the implications of his findings.  He has a habit of asking obvious but dangerous questions:

(p. 30)  Belief in inequality is not racist if we are talking about biological facts.  Darwin was against slavery but accepted inequality.  If I see a Kenyan runner and runners from Italy or Belgium, I am not a racist if I "stereotype" Kenyans by predicting victory in a marathon based upon race and nationality.  This is simply scientific generalization based upon evidence.  Racism is either a false generalization used denigratingly or the use of a true generalization to suppress or punish people.  One can believe in the fact of inequality and treat people as individuals, knowing that group differences are statistical.  As Steven Pinker put it: "equality refers to fair treatment and not human biology."

Sadly, a significant proportion of the population will take offence at his statements and accuse him of racism for merely acknowledging reality.  At the same time Dr. Troost offers ample ammunition for the religious right to attack.  He has little tolerance for Supernaturalism.

(p. 106) Evolution does produce increased diversity, complexity, amount, and scope of life.  Is this the work of a divine agency?  Since such an agency is unnecessary for evolutionary purposes, it is illogical that a purposeless process would result in process.

Between the Cosmologists who can theorize that the universe evolved out of nothing (quantum fluctuations in the vacuum) and evolutionary biologists, it is clear that a plausible, scientifically consistent explanation can encompass our origins and development without the necessity of a deity.  Faith in G-d must be maintained, if at all, in contradistinction to science.  (Whether religion has instrumental utility is another and longer discussion altogether, barely touched upon by Dr. Troost.)

If Darwin erodes the philosophical underpinnings of religion, leaving the religious right adrift, the greater danger going forward is that work in evolutionary biology will erode the philosophical underpinnings of the liberal ideal, leaving the left adrift.

As we understand how genes and genetic controls respond to environmental effects, we will be able to approach the answers to explosive questions, such as:

What is "g", the measure of general intelligence often described by IQ?  What genes encode for what proteins that lead to more efficient nerve conduction, more complex neural networks, and the resulting advantages in mentation and better problem solving that are the core biological substrate of intelligence?

At that point, the finding that certain genes are over-represented in some populations and under-represented in other populations is going to create problems that  our society, crippled by PC imposed elective mutism in relation to such subjects, will have great difficulty metabolizing; synthesizing our knowledge in ways which do not threaten social cohesion and amity will only be possible if we can talk about forbidden topics in a candid manner.

For the last 100 years we have known that there are persistent, reliable differences in IQ between groups and for the last 50 years there has been a mountain of material published attempting to deny the implications of such distinctions.  Dr. Troost's contribution is useful in illuminating just how heavily the scientific data weighs in one direction.