At 14:54 02/01/2004 +0100, you wrote:
Keith.
If there is a species and it is possibly to put its members carrying a special quality in one group and the members lacking this quality in another group, and this quality is inheritable, you might get to different species. If this species is jews, and the quality is intelligence, you will get in one group intelligent jews and in the other group stupid jews. Right?
Not necessarily. It all depends on whether the genes responsible for nerves/brain development within the appropriate chromosomes are able to line up and successfully swop genes at the point of fertilisation. If there are distinctly new genes involved in someone of high intelligence then it's unlikely that their respective chromosomes will line up comfortably with someone of low intelligence and therefore speciation could take place. But this is very unlikely, I'd have thought -- at least not unless there were many generations of cultural or geographical separation involved as well, in which case other new genes would be involved, not necessarily to do with intelligence.
The differences in abilities between individuals are not necessarily due to the possession or not of specific genes, but as to how long the genes concerned express themselves at the developmental stage in the foetus. It is likely that our intelligence compared with the chimpanzees is due to about 80 new genes (mainly responsible for the development of the frontal lobes of the cortex). It is highly likely that the difference between someone of high mental ability in some respect or other (not necessarily to do with ability to do IQ tests) is to do with how long one or more of these 80 genes are allowed to do their developmental stuff when their important time comes in the foetus. These development times are in turn dependent on other genes (not necessarily anything to do with the new 80) and these may only be trivially different as between high and low ability individuals. In other words, their chromosomes line up comfortably at fertilisation -- and thus no new species is possible for this particular reason.
The fact that Jewish parents tended to look for high-intelligence males to marry their daughters would in no way lead to speciation (separation of species) by itself. All Jews would remain inter-fertile. It could, however, lead to a wider span of abilities within the species. When Anmerica threw its doors open to immigration at about 1870 (subject to decent health on arrival) then it would necessarily have been receiving immigrants (Jews or otherwise) of higher-than-normal abilities and enterprise. Given that a slightly wider-than-normal spectrum of abilities arose within Ashkenazi Jews for cultural reasons for about 500 years, then it's perhaps not surprising that American Jews still have different abilities from Americans derived from the usual European stock -- even if they themselves tended to be at the higher end of abilities.
However, speciation can occur -- and relatively rapidly, too -- in some species for what seem to us to be trivial reasons, such as slightly different feeding habits or differences in sexual display. It is well known in biology and is called "Sympatric speciation". But in these sorts of cases I don't think that any research has yet been done to establish what precisely are the different genes that have accumulated in one group and not the other (causing mismatches at the point of fertilisation and causing them to be mutually infertile).
It worries me that a high-tech society will produce two rather different social classes with different mental abilities, and I think there are clear signs in the past century and particularly in the last few decades that this is occurring. (Because the industrial revolution occurred in England before other countries I think the signs are clearer here than in most other places, and it's interesting that it was an Englishman, Michael Young, in his book "The Rise of the Meritocracy", who first drew attention to this danger.) But this by itself, even though the intelligentsia and the less intelligent classes don't intermarry very much, doesn't imply the beginnings of sympatric speciation -- any more than well-defined differences in ability -- athletic and intellectual -- between American Jews and African blacks. They can still intermarry and have children if they want to.
Hope this answers your query.
Keith
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Keith Hudson
- To: Tor F�rde
- Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 7:29 AM
- Subject: Re: [Futurework] Selective breeding?
- At 23:18 01/01/2004 +0100, you wrote:
- I was wondering about the theory of Keith Hudson about selective breeding of jews in Eastern Europe.
- It's not a theory of mine. It's an observation from history.
- The aim of selective breeding is to develop a specie who carries some preferred qualities by allowing only those carring these qualities to breed.
- That's what animal breeders do. In western society today anybody can breed. Or, rather, any woman can breed if she finds a male that she thinks will be a good father and provider. Eugenics got a bad name in the last century because the state or medical authorities decided who should breed.
- Where only the most intelligent jews allowed to get children? What about the more ordinary jews, Keith?
- Whoever said that "ordinary" Jews couldn't breed? I didn't say so.
- Keith
- Hilsen
- Tor F�rde
- email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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- Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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- From: Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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