FWers might be interested in a pre-dogwalk rattle this morning written in
reply to a non-FWer who made contact with me recently.
<<<<
I'm still in admin purdah at the moment (or, rather, it being 1 October,
I'm at the beginning of it now) but I can't resist the temptation of
briefly commenting on yours to start the day off.
In your second paragraph, your mention of slime molds and amoebae suggested
that you were going to elaborate on the process of evolution by which a
unitary species (the very first lifeform) has become increasingly
differentiated into a multitude of specialised species. The implication of
this is that only by differentiation can life as a whole take fullest
advantage of the resources available.
But the drift of your third paragraph goes in a different direction -- that
in some way individual races will have to become a unified species with a
unified governance in some way -- like slime mold, presumably. I don't see
this. Take the ant or bee colony as an example. Here, a highly unified
organism can only operate by means of having specialist types within it.
However, I think it is highly probable that man will become increasingly
differentiated -- even to the extent of diverging into different species.
Sociologically, I suggest that a bifurcation is already happening in
developed countries -- and quite rapidly, too. Our increasingly high-tech
society is already causing this to occur. For example, in England, despite
an egalitarian education system since WWII, and decreasing attainment
standards required to enter university (and, up until now, free tuition and
weekly benefits), the best universities are becoming increasingly dominated
by middle-class students. There was a surge of working class children into
the universities (of which I am a representative) immediately after the war
and this generation rose easily into the middle- and professional-classes,
but since then the fluidity has quickly subsided. The whole drift of
educational theorists and, particularly, Labour administrations, has tried
to keep the egalitarian surge going in the last 30/40 years but it simply
hasn't worked. We are now into a situation so well described by Murray and
Herrnstein in the "Bell Curve" of an increasing underclass with
substantially lower IQs than the norm and a yawning gap opening up. The
more democratic the education system, the more stratified society will become.
But now, on top of all that, we are at the dawn of the biogenetic age. In
"Remaking Eden", an otherwise pedestrian (though well-written) book, Lee M.
Silver (Prof of microbiology at Princeton U.), presents a case in the last
few chapters of the probability of speciation into different species. To my
mind, his logic is irresistible. One's initial reaction is one of horror,
but I cannot see any other long term prospect -- particularly, as I suggest
above, there is a very clear trend towards two classes in developed
societies already.
The one big argument against this bifurcation becoming permanent is
demographic -- that inter-racial mixing (and thus inter-IQ) mixing due to
immigration is occurring at a faster rate than physical (and breeding)
separation (hitherto required for speciation). It is clearly true that
high-IQ parents at the present time are having fewer children at far less
than replacement rates (and so are all other parents in developed
countries). Nevertheless, the pace of innovation means that high-IQ
individuals with high level technocratic skills is becoming increasingly
required. One result of this seems to be that income differentials are
growing within developed countries.
However, if IVF and embryo selection keeps on increasing at a fast rate, as
Lee Silver suggests (and as the facts clearly show at the present time),
and if income differentiation continues, I think we *will* see physical
separation at a faster rate than now ('gated' communities is a recent, and
growing, phenomenon), even though, in the foreseeable future (until we have
in vitro gestations!), the high IQ segment of the population may be
declining as a proportion of the population for demographic reasons.
But let me now change tack completely because another, more democratic,
tendency may also be possible. On FW list I have frequently mentioned the
likelihood that when oil and gas resources start to decline and new energy
sources will be required, biogenetic knowledge will allow us to tap more
directly into the prodigious supply of solar energy which the earth
receives every day. However, it won't come in concentrated form, as now
(producing the sort of highly concentrated 'metal-bashing' type of
industrialisation which tends to leave out most countries in the world from
participating), but much more equally over the land surface of the earth.
I've been suggesting that biogenetic production systems with specialised
DNA 'software' will be able to produce materials which will replace many of
those we use today. (For example, spider's silk is many times stronger than
steel wire of the same gauge. The latest Boeings will have a much higher
proportion of organic plastics than ever before -- replacing aluminium and
steel for parts of the plane's bodywork.)
And already, to my surprise, this idea is already being seriously
considered. Craig Venter, of human genome fame, is now proposing to create
minimum life forms from artificial chromosomes (of about 300-500 gene size)
which will be able to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, or create hydrogen as
a future fuel for transport and production systems. If this is going to be
possible (and I see absolutely no reason why not dspite the undoubted
complexity) then we are now at the beginning of the possibility of
widespread production systems in almost all countries, thus reducing the
highly polarised economic situation that we have today. Of course, this
will require a well-educated high-level talent in all countries and may
exacerbate the social and IQ polarisation *within* countries.
Keith Hudson
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Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
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