tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31265055.post2916296847539512312..comments2023-09-20T14:18:32.900+02:00Comments on Obscene Desserts: Some thoughts on evolution, history and capitalist genes...JCWoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02585322642151280666noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31265055.post-67584427126813256052013-02-05T00:53:19.601+01:002013-02-05T00:53:19.601+01:00Professor Steve Hsu, who is involved with the BGI ...Professor Steve Hsu, who is involved with the BGI cognitive genomics project has commented on how Clark's argument could also apply in China (he also notes the book 'The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution" is useful for understanding Clark's argument).<br /><br />"So we have at least two documented cases of the descendants of the rich replacing the poor over an extended period of time. My guess is that this kind of population dynamics was quite common in the past. (Today we see the opposite pattern!) Could this type of natural selection lead to changes in quantitative, heritable traits over a relatively short period of time? <br /><br />Consider the following simple model, where X is a heritable trait such as intelligence or conscientiousness or even height. Suppose that X has narrow sense heritability of one half. Divide the population into 3 groups: <br /><br />Group 1 bottom 1/6 in X; < 1 SD below average <br />Group 2 middle 2/3 in X; between -1 and +1 SD <br />Group 3 highest 1/6 in X; > 1 SD above average <br /><br />Suppose that Group 3 has a reproductive rate which is 10% higher than Group 2, whereas Group 1 reproduces at a 10% lower rate than Group 2. A relatively weak correlation between X and material wealth could produce this effect, given the demographic data above (the rich outreproduced the poor almost 2 to 1!). Now we can calculate the change in population mean for X over a single generation. In units of SDs, the mean changes by roughly 1/6 ( .1 + .1) 1/2 or about .02 SD. (I assumed assortative mating by group.) Thus it would take roughly 50 generations, or 1k years, under such conditions for the population to experience a 1 SD shift in X. <br /><br />If you weaken the correlation between X and reproduction rate, or relax the assortative mating assumption, you get a longer timescale. But it's certainly plausible that 10,000 years is more than enough for this kind of evolution. For example, we might expect that the advent of agriculture over such timescales changed humans significantly from their previous hunter gatherer ancestors. <br /><br />This model is overly simple, and the assumptions are speculative. Nevertheless, it addresses some deep questions about human evolution: How fast did it happen? How different are we from humans who lived a few or ten thousand years ago? Did different populations experience different selection pressures? Amazingly, we may be able to answer some of these questions in the near future."<br /><br /><br />http://infoproc.blogspot.co.nz/2011/08/demography-and-fast-evolution.htmlMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01133142115539961665noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31265055.post-56220549929031184602007-08-15T15:48:00.000+02:002007-08-15T15:48:00.000+02:00Yes, the where-and-when question is also relevant....Yes, the where-and-when question is also relevant. If you look at Clark's paper (I link to it) you will find a lot of economic data which seems to seek to explain the timing. <BR/><BR/>It does seem to me, though, that any kind of serious argument about why there is an extremely rapid period of economic growth and the surmounting of the subsistence barrier, you are, inevitably, brought back to the 'institutional' history that Clark--judging by the NYT article--seems so eager to distance himself from. <BR/><BR/>What is the alternative: were all these individuals interacting with each other in the absence of institutions and their genes reached some kind of tipping point in the 1780s? <BR/><BR/>Perhaps this is fleshed out in the book (and if anyone has read the book, please feel free to enlighten us on that), but (just to be very, very brief) it seems that you're going to have to rely on far less generalising levels of explanation to get an answer to the where-and-why question you raise. And many social and economic and 'institutional' historians have done just that. <BR/><BR/>I mean, just spontaneously I can think of a variety of 'institutional' (or social) factors that were relevant to England's lead: being an island (the long-term political stability and need to develop an effective navy); the relative continuity of the monarchy, which was gradually over time reigned in by the nobility (the long history of constitutionalism); the (relatively) open nature of the elites; the dissolution of the monasteries (freeing up a lot of land for market-based agriculture); the victory of Parliament in the late 17th century (the resulting stability of banking and the creation of a secure national debt plus investment in war); the relatively capitalist nature of farming and the enclosure movement (grim, but economically stimulating).<BR/><BR/>I mean, these are all debatable, of course. But, at least they point to why England at that time and place gained such an advantage.<BR/><BR/>One that, however, was quickly lost as other nations caught up quickly and even outdid them within a century or so.<BR/><BR/>I suppose Clark could admit that and expand his genetic argument to Western Europe and the countries settled thereby. <BR/><BR/>But then there's the curious case of Japan...<BR/><BR/>It _may_ be that Clark has some kind of ideological axe to grind against 'institutional' history. I might have a lot of criticisms of the World Bank and IMF, but his reference to them as 'cult centers' (in the NYT article) sounds a bit...odd.JCWoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02585322642151280666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31265055.post-59605215609888864422007-08-15T15:25:00.000+02:002007-08-15T15:25:00.000+02:00The other thing that strikes me, now I think about...The other thing that strikes me, now I think about it more, is, from your presentation and that in the New York Times, is that it doesn't really work as an explanation of why there or then. It's a structural explanation, in the sense that it picks out features of the structure of the thing that underwent the event it's trying to explain, but structural explanations tend to have the weakness that, since structural features generally persist over time, and are shared by other similar things, they don't explain why what happened happened when or where it did. If there was this general dispersion of genetic makeup predisposing people towards the institutions of capitalism through the middle ages, what's special about Britain, and what's special about the late eighteenth century?Rob Jubbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17832981726367701536noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31265055.post-10294106807479437052007-08-14T22:17:00.000+02:002007-08-14T22:17:00.000+02:00Thanks Rob, for your comment.I...want to be a bit ...Thanks Rob, for your comment.<BR/><BR/>I...want to be a bit more generous to Clark's argument than your first (and last) sentence, partly since my critique is based upon one of his essays and a questionably written review in the NYT and partly because his colleagues in economic history seem to agree that the <I>economic</I> part of his approach has something going for it. <BR/><BR/>Although, it does seem in some way that without the genetic bit, the argument becomes a rather more redundant: historians have been talking about economic development, capitalist transformations, changing values, etc. for a long time. But...you know, it's not my field, and maybe there's really something outstanding in the his book on that point. <BR/><BR/>Furthermore, it's possible that in his book, he delves more thoroughly into dialogue with evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, geneticists, etc. Maybe he has evidence of genetic change that goes beyond the rather thin speculations that I think are visible in what I've read so far. <BR/><BR/>Having read summaries of the book and considered his essay, though, I doubt it.<BR/><BR/>I also think the <I>possibility</I> of genetic change relevant in some way to behaviour within historical time is not to be dismissed outright. It's something that should be investigated. But I think the way it's raised in Clark's argument is a problem (for the reasons I explain at some length). <BR/><BR/>It's not enough to say that people's 'values' or culture or behaviour changed at some point in history (we, um, knew that) and then say 'it might be genes' without 1) presenting more evidence for the genetic argument and 2) having a serious discussion of why one thinks the models provided by evolutionary psychologists are wrong. <BR/><BR/>Thanks!JCWoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02585322642151280666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31265055.post-77720883107915518282007-08-14T17:59:00.000+02:002007-08-14T17:59:00.000+02:00This has to be some crazy crock of shit. Your poin...This has to be some crazy crock of shit. Your point about the environment is incredibly well-taken, I think, and should form the basis of a rebuttal of the claim, but more than that, what I want to know is if this has any basis at all, I would expect to see hard scientific evidence of otherwise inexplicable consistent genetic difference between contemporary populations and those of the late middle ages. Anyone making this claim, if it has any real legs, would be getting some actual genetic research done. Unless Clark is, then you'd have to assume he's bullshitting.Rob Jubbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17832981726367701536noreply@blogger.com