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Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Racism is due to speciation tendencies in humans | |||||||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
The behaviour is genetic, RAZD, not cultural. I disagree, genetics can be responsible for some but not all behavior: some is learned and some learned behavior is passed from one generation to the next. See Japanese Macaques.
quote: Genetics can enable a variety of behaviors, but the behavior learned is not determined by genetics.
Compare this to humans, and it would be something like our ancestors meeting up with Neanderthals in Europe after thousands of generations of separate lineage from a common ancestor group. No mating calls involved, ... (judging from the speculative reconstructions of their faces). There were probably many more "cultural" clues of differences that we can determine from the evidence. Personally I think legends of trolls and goblins and such may be explained by sapiens meeting neander. But we are also talking an instance when speciation has already occurred long before.
... The European Jews managed to keep a separate cultural identity in Europe for two thousand years by religious separation, but if you look at them, they certainly failed to maintain the racial purity ... I don't think you can get sympatric speciation due to non-genetic (cultural) behaviour in our species or any other. So far just your opinion, imho. I can equally argue that these mechanisms are responsible for preserving all the cultural diversity (polytypic?) for thousands of years instead of ending up with homogeneous (monotypic) humans. Again, the question is, why did they (and many other similar groups) engage in this behavior? Was this xenophobia reinforced by religious tradition and dogma? Or was the tradition and dogma due to the xenophobia? One would expect the tendencies to ebb and flood depending on whether there was high or low selective pressure, as I would also expect different individual to behave differently (ie - to different degrees) such that selection would operate on the basis of the behavior. With low selective pressure there would be high tolerance, with high selective pressure there would be low tolerance. Look at the immigration issue in the south: when times are tough you don't want a bunch of (them) foreign neighbors but other (us) people moving into the area are tolerated.
It may be that looking at black and white America has distorted your view. Your intermarriage rate is low because of the cultural legacy of separatism. In London, where the modern black population started arriving in living memory (1948) the mixing rate is much higher, and the U.S. is certainly heading the same way slowly, in its usual conservative fashion. Again, the point I have been making is that IF speciation were to occur within humans what would it look like? Given that (sexual selection) behavior is involved, one would look for instances of behavior that divides populations into "us" and "them" -- it would look like racism and xenophobia, preserving cultural heritage, self-segregation, and, when competition was high, genocide. Enjoy. Edited by RAZD, : involved Edited by RAZD, : clarity by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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Coyote Member (Idle past 2137 days) Posts: 6117 Joined: |
Racism as we know it was most likely rare pre-Columbus and pretty much non-existent in the ancient world.
In the ancient world most racial traits had a clinal distribution, whereby your neighbors looked pretty much like you did and you couldn't easily travel far enough to see huge differences. Long-distance travel was not common in ancient times (I am not counting migrations, as those took large amounts of time and racial traits could change during the course of the migration). The European explorations post-AD 1500 allowed people to travel long distances, far outstripping the gradual clines and bringing into contact groups with far different racial characteristics. Coupled with the link that was often made between racial and cultural levels, the racism we know today became possible.
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
The hypothesis doesn't strike me as at all likely. Substantial genetic differentiation between human populations is almost always the result of geographic isolation, not cultural antagonism. How many instances are there of populations living in close proximity but nonetheless developing nontrivial genetic differences?
As far as I can see, xenophobia typically permits you to hate strangers, act with violence toward their males and steal their women. That is not a formula for genetic isolation.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1436 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
As far as I can see, xenophobia typically permits you to hate strangers, act with violence toward their males and steal their women. That is not a formula for genetic isolation. And kill the male children. Rape all the women and girls. Just like in the Bible eh? Certainly this is isolation of male genes isn't it? How long until male genes in one group are different from male genes in another group, starting with a common population?
Substantial genetic differentiation between human populations is almost always the result of geographic isolation, not cultural antagonism. The question is: if speciation is behavioral, what would it's effects look like in humans? Enjoy. by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:No, killing all the male children eliminates male genes; it doesn't isolate them. And if one group doesn't kill the males in the other but only impregnate the females, they have mixed all genes (except for mtDNA) from one group into the other. quote:It would look like a failure to mate between groups that had the opportunity to do so. Since this is almost never what we observe in humans -- who will mate with just about anything with two legs (and some aren't even that discriminating) -- the hypothesized mechanism seems not to be operating in humans, at least not often enough to make speciation at all likely.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2508 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
RAZD writes: I disagree, genetics can be responsible for some but not all behavior: some is learned and some learned behavior is passed from one generation to the next. I know that. I was making the point that the Warblers' behaviour is not cultural. I know that cultural behaviour exists, and I've observed it in Asian Macaques myself (they build up city cultures, so it's easy to observe the young learning definite non-genetic behaviour from their elders, like how to drink from a Coke bottle!). I made the comparison with the Warblers to us and the Neanderthal because, as you say:
But we are also talking an instance when speciation has already occurred long before. Basically, the birds don't find each others' calls sexy for the same reason that Neanderthal features wouldn't look good to us. Separate biological evolution due to (lengthy) geographic isolation. Negative sexual selection for biological reasons bears no relationship to our cultural taboos on different groups mixing. The two groups in Northern Ireland do not have a much lower intermarriage rate than black and white Londoners because of any biological differences, and if they managed to keep up their culture of separation for the next three thousand years (which they won't), they would still show less biological differences than black and white Londoners.
So far just your opinion, imho. I can equally argue that these mechanisms are responsible for preserving all the cultural diversity (polytypic?) for thousands of years instead of ending up with homogeneous (monotypic) humans. How could the inhabitants of six continents and numerous islands have been "homogeneous" a thousand years ago? Both cultural and minor genetic differences would have been inevitable.
Again, the question is, why did they (and many other similar groups) engage in this behavior? Because we're the "ultra-cultural" animal. We can become extremely addicted to our cultures. That's a necessarily shallow answer to your question, because many aspects of human behaviour are still a mystery, as you know.
Was this xenophobia reinforced by religious tradition and dogma? Or was the tradition and dogma due to the xenophobia? Different religious traditions and dogma always drive xenophobia, although its questionable as to whether fear of a religion is always actually a phobia, as they're notorious killers of "out groupers".
Again, the point I have been making is that IF speciation were to occur within humans what would it look like? Given that (sexual selection) behavior is involved, one would look for instances of behavior that divides populations into "us" and "them" -- it would look like racism and xenophobia, preserving cultural heritage, self-segregation, and, when competition was high, genocide. Here's where I think you're wrong. It would look like, for example, you being able to look at a group of humans, lets say the Japanese, and say that you find none of the Japanese women sexually attractive. Then you ask around, and find that sexual distaste for the Japanese is widespread amongst both sexes of all other groups in the world. That's the kind of way that symptoms of speciation via sexual selection would show. I think we're far too much of a mobile and social animal for sympatric speciation to take place, and sympatric now means the world. We don't really have speciation tendencies, or if we do, they're easily overridden by our tendency to fuck far and wide and promisciously.
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Taz Member (Idle past 3322 days) Posts: 5069 From: Zerus Joined: |
Coyote writes:
Racism as we know it didn't even exist in most parts of the world even during colonial periods, Europe included. As noted by many non-European descent people who had lived in both Europe and the colonies around the world, racism was simply almost non-existent in Europe while it was like a plague in the colonies. Europeans who lived in Europe simply didn't think about it much and they actually treated people of other races pretty much the same as they did each other. It's only the Europeans who live in the colonies in Asia, Australia, and the Americas that were extreme racists. Racism as we know it was most likely rare pre-Columbus and pretty much non-existent in the ancient world. I'm trying to see things your way, but I can't put my head that far up my ass.
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Hyroglyphx Inactive Member |
Racism, and other xenophobic, is behavior that reduces breeding between varieties of humans. Conclusion: this is how speciation would occur in humans. Seems like a convenient way to conflate that which you denigrate from a social perspective, with something you agree with from a scientific perspective. It may be the case, but it is entirely anecdotal. The longer you remain at EvC, the more you assert either anthropomorphic or God-like tendencies to nature, it seems to me. You seem to ascribe nature a will and cognitive ability to choose something, as if nature itself has a mind, will, and purpose. I'm not saying that it is completely out of the question, but I see more of a personal motivation spawning from these hypotheses than it does with any actual scientific basis. The philosophy of science often produces these things only to pawn it off as having some scientific backing. Edited by Nemesis Juggernaut, : edit to add “I know where I am and who I am. I'm on the brink of disillusionment, on the eve of bitter sweet. I'm perpetually one step away from either collapse or rebirth. I am exactly where I need to be. Either way I go towards rebirth, for a total collapse often brings a rebirth." -Andrew Jaramillo
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IamJoseph Member (Idle past 3699 days) Posts: 2822 Joined: |
quote: In ancient times, superstition was a very real premise - the main factor here is that it is an authentic, true reporting - this is how it was. Certain kinds of wars forbid taking prisoners, the same faith being applied if one lost a war. It was seen as a cursed seed being left to grow again, thus a superstition, which predated today's religions. Today's racism is from the exploiting of inherent, generic belief tendensies in humans, and attaching subsistance of that belief on the hatred of another, and this is resultant from scriptural crimes. That this racism can pass off within genes or some other means of transmission, is evident from it is not subject to truth in the racism - thus it is mixed up with belief in God and salvation. This can turn into a deep hatred, usually becoming more intense when the lie is exposed - because the host has nowhere else to turn, so it releases hate and war instead. Edited by IamJoseph, : No reason given.
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IamJoseph Member (Idle past 3699 days) Posts: 2822 Joined: |
quote: Funny you should say so. IMHO, europe invented racism in the modern world, killing off more humans than any other group in geo-history. This is true even when europe's last two worst centuries are not in the equation. And all those murders were resultant from the Gospels. The two most racist religions are the two which claim ascendence to Judaism. Its elementary, Dr. Watson: both these groups want the witnesses for the prosecution dead. Europe has only gotten calmer since America entrenched a new form of christianity - one based on laws [The Constitution].
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Artemis Entreri  Suspended Member (Idle past 4259 days) Posts: 1194 From: Northern Virginia Joined: |
ethinc religions are more racist than universal religions.
Judaism - God's one chosen people.Hinduism - they still will only marry each other, and discriminate agasint each other based on geography, and language. Im not saying they're arent racists in christianity, but the desire for conversion usually trumps it.
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