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Gene studies confirm "out of Africa" theories

Hatuey

Rule of Two
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Gene studies confirm "out of Africa" theories - Yahoo! News


You are all now my African brethren. But no reparations for you. Only us darkies.
 
I didn't realize this theory was still even in dispute...

On the subject, I highly recommend everyone read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.
 
I didn't realize this theory was still even in dispute...

On the subject, I highly recommend everyone read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

Religious folks who want to believe there is a fairy in the sky dispute it.
 
So, have you read Alice Walker?
The theory she puts forth in her books is this:
White people are a mutation- like albinos, I guess.
We started out as albino african black people.
We were driven out of our tribes and villages, exiled for being freaks.
Somehow, a number of us exiles hooked up with each other and traveled north, into the cold, away from the land of plenty, and eventually made our way to Europe and started a new race.
But instinctively, subconsciously, we've always hated and resented black people for rejecting us and driving us away.

Which book discusses this theory? I think it's The Temple of My Familiar.

Food for thought.
It actually makes sense, the way she outlines it.
It sounds silly, summarized like that, but maybe I'm leaving something out.
it's been awhile since I read the book.
 
Variations in skin color evolved long after humans migrated out of Africa. There are evolutionary advantages to having darker skin in hot climates, and lighter skin in colder climates. Just like there are evolutionary advantages to having slanted eyes if one lives in areas of Asia prone to dust storms.
 
Kandahar said:
On the subject, I highly recommend everyone read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

I have to add my recommendation here as well. I really think this is one of the best books I've ever read.
 

I tend to think we will have VERY LIGHT skin in a few centuries. And it will be f*ing freezing in those wheat fields. The only thing evolving is technology.
 
God made genes to test your faith.

That said, make sure you hit me up by the Lake of Fire while in Hell.
 
Thank you. There's a eugenics group that I would love to show this to.
 
Aren't the only Eugenics people left racists and nazis? Ignoring morality, Eugenics is simply incorrect scientifically anyway.
Surely there is no credible scientists that still think eugenics is correct.
 
Well now I wouldn't say that

Aren't the only Eugenics people left racists and nazis? Ignoring morality, Eugenics is simply incorrect scientifically anyway.
Surely there is no credible scientists that still think eugenics is correct.

Define "correct." I can think of a great many geneticists who will tell you that Eugenics works, that you can breed for a desired outcome, but none who would regard it as a good idea or moral to do so. I believe Dawkins once put it that "you could breed for high jumpers or distance runners, but at a certain point you would find that they would (while better at running/jumping) become utterly incapable at other activities.
 

That actually makes no sense whatsoever. Just sounds like an appeal to social discomforts more than being based on any kind of scientific analysis.
 
--snip-- You are all now my African brethren. But no reparations for you. Only us darkies.

LOL, you mean we have to pay reparations to those who remained in Africa too?
 
Re: Well now I wouldn't say that


You could breed a high jumper with a high jumper, that doesn't mean that the offspring will be ALL hight jumpers. You have to factor in recessive alleles and maybe multiple genes into the equation. Heterozygosity prevents eugenics from actually working.

That's why you can't breed the race to be all intelligent, that is why you can't breed out genetic disease, that is why you can't really breed towards a certain genetic goal.

Example, trying to destroy the "red hair" gene, which is recessive. You can prevent people with red hair from breeding do that they can't pass on their DNA, fair enough they the world population with red hair (its at 1%) would drop. But people with blonde, brown, black hair can still carry the red gene, and therefore come of their children will have red hair. This of course is a very simplified example.
 
Eugenics from my understanding is nothing but directed evolution, much like creating hybrid flowers. Many generations, and even more failures are required to create anything resembling the intended results, thus as this is done on a human population which obviously carries the ethical backlash it is destined to failure from the onset. That The Nazis could even think of it was a result of the dictatorship....not the science.

Oh....and as for reperations....I intend to Sue Queen Elizabeth personally....for forcing my ancestors to flee Europe.
 
How do you think we domesticated mountainlions into kittens?


What you do is breed high jumpers, test the offspring, and breed the best jumpers among them. It can be done, just like we breed dogs, however you might end up with a high jumper with a learning disability.

That's why you can't breed the race to be all intelligent, that is why you can't breed out genetic disease, that is why you can't really breed towards a certain genetic goal.

You cannot breed for intelligence because we don't exactly know what causes it or how to quantify it. However, you can in fact breed for a genetic goal. Its called selective breeding, we do it with our vegetables, with our livestock, its how we've domesticated animals.

Selective breeding (aka Eugenics) works, how else did we make poodles of wolves and calicos out of mountain lions.


And under Hitler's Eugenics he would kill off all ginger's, and all gingers born of non-gingers. Presto: No redheads.
 
Re: Wtf?

Morality of Eugenics

You hang out w/ Eugenics groups?

Group, singular. Eugenics, in the purest dictionary meaning of the word, is something I believe in very passionately-- but because of the unfortunate associations from the Holocaust, and other early 20th Century atrocities, otherwise intelligent and forward-thinking people aren't willing to touch the topic with a ten foot pole.

I managed to track down a eugenics group whose objectives aren't bogged down in idiotic racist ideology or toxic politics, and I joined them. They aren't quite ideal on non-racism, but they are reasonable enough for my purposes and prohibit racist statements that aren't supported by scientific evidence.

Their goals certainly have nothing to do with "white supremacy" or genetic "purity", whatever that is supposed to mean.

Aren't the only Eugenics people left racists and nazis?

Close to, unfortunately.

Ignoring morality, Eugenics is simply incorrect scientifically anyway. Surely there is no credible scientists that still think eugenics is correct.

As long as evolution is correct, and is based on genetic inheritance, eugenics will always be possible-- it's nothing more than selective breeding for the purposes of perpetuating or extinguishing specific genetic traits. Human beings have shaped every species we deal with in this fashion, for millennia, and we are not exempt from it.

And I am certainly not "ignoring morality". It is possible to engage in eugenic practices and even consciously shape others' reproductive choices ethically. The difference is, instead of focusing on "undesirables" and removing them from the gene pool, you focus on desired genetic traits and encourage their propagation.

Of course, there are also ethical ways of reducing the spread of undesired genes. Provide free sterilization upon request... and you'll actually improve the quality of the gene pool without even screening recipients. Encourage the use of PGD and help people afford it, and many people will screen their offspring voluntarily.

Evolution is a game of statistics. Anything which makes the traits you desire more likely to spread-- by however small a margin-- is going to move the species (or the subset you're working on) in that direction.

Define "correct." I can think of a great many geneticists who will tell you that Eugenics works, that you can breed for a desired outcome, but none who would regard it as a good idea or moral to do so.

No less than James Watson himself believes that ethical eugenics policies are a good idea. Before the godawful mess he got himself into at Cold Spring Harbor, he was one of the most respected men in the field-- and still is, in some circles.

Methods and Functions of Eugenics

I believe Dawkins once put it that "you could breed for high jumpers or distance runners, but at a certain point you would find that they would (while better at running/jumping) become utterly incapable at other activities.

However, you can breed for above-average quality in as many areas as possible. The process is much slower but much more effective in the long-term-- as it does nothing more than mimic natural selection in a highly competitive environment. Or you can pick a single trait to focus on, and simply disqualify anyone who falls below a certain standard in other areas.


It doesn't make it impossible-- only slower. Like I said earlier, it's a game of statistics. Especially when you're dealing with ranges of ability, instead of single on-off genetic traits, you can most certainly influence evolution in certain directions.

Example, trying to destroy the "red hair" gene, which is recessive. You can prevent people with red hair from breeding do that they can't pass on their DNA, fair enough they the world population with red hair (its at 1%) would drop.

True enough, before the invention of genetic testing and sequence mapping. If we can find the gene responsible for red hair and isolate it, we can prevent the carriers of the gene from reproducing-- or, using PGD, you can allow single-copy carriers to reproduce, but select against any embryo which also possesses the gene.

Of course, you couldn't get everyone to consent to this... but neither I nor the group I belong to wants to influence the evolution of the entire human species. It is actually better, in my opinion, that multiple eugenic programs exist, using different methodologies and selecting for different traits-- and allowing the majority of the species to refrain from artificial selection.

Same concept as the use of the "control group" in scientific experiments.


What causes it? No, we don't have a firm grasp on that. How to quantify it? Maybe not precisely, but we can certainly get a general feel for it-- and as I've already stated a couple of times, it's a game of statistics. Deliberately select for high intelligence, and the average intelligence will be higher as early as the second generation; as long as the program is functioning, each successive generation will be incrementally more intelligent than the last.

It's a matter of looking at the long game, instead of demanding immediate results.
 
Hilter was hardly the first to use Eugenics. In fact nations like Canada, Sweden and the US had eugenics programs and laws long before Hilter came to power. In fact many historians believe that Hilter got his inspiration for Germany's eugenics programs from North America, where most experts of eugenics came from.

And the said laws and policies continued to be used in quite a few countries, including the 3 mentioned up to the 1970s.

Eguenics policies were used in quite a large part of society, from marriage laws (banning interracial marriage), to immigration laws (only whites, from certain "attractive" areas). Many historians believe that the motivation for the quotas in 1925 immigration act were based in eugenics theories, and looking at the quotas one can clearly see a high bias against non anglo saxon/nordic people, and that especially hit eastern europeans and especially jews, who were by many seen as "undisirable" and this was long before Hitler came to power.

But most eugenics policies was targeted against minorities, like orphans and the mentaly ill. In the US especially the black and african american communities were hard hit by these laws and polcies, with forced sterilizations of orphans and homeless blacks. In Europe forced sterilizations were done on a large part of the mentaly handicaped for decades.

Eugenics is the dirty secret of the western world, as we practiced it far longer than Nazi Germany and even after the fall Nazi Germany, which is such a double standard.
 
As far as I am concerned, technically speaking, we practice it with our sexual discrimination.
 
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