A theory on trust and phenotypic diversity in Europe

Thus swyved was this financieris wyf

Browsing through the news in England last week, I came across an article detailing the latest relationship woes of Boris Johnson. First some excerpts, then a theory:

Boris Johnson is at the centre of a riddle surrounding the paternity of a wealthy socialite’s baby daughter.

Helen Macintyre, 36, split from her long-term partner shortly after the baby was born last November when he discovered through a DNA test that he was not the father.

[..]

Miss Macintyre had spent significant amounts of time with the Mayor before the pregnancy, leading to tensions in her long-term relationship with Pierre Rolin, with whom she shared a £5million house in Belgravia, central London.

The 36-year-old first met Mr Johnson when she was a student and he was a journalist. Their friendship was rekindled when he became Mayor and he invited her to be an unpaid fundraising adviser to the Olympics.

The closeness between them, which included regular dinners and phone calls, had already troubled Mr Rolin, 47, although he had made a donation to the Olympics arts project Miss Macintyre was involved in.

Miss Macintyre became pregnant early last year, and gave birth to daughter Stephanie in November.

Friends of Mr Rolin, a financier, said that when the girl was born her appearance shocked him and led to jokes that ‘she looked a lot more like Boris’.

He took a paternity test and discovered that he was not the father, prompting the couple to split. Miss Macintyre is now living with William Cash, the son of a senior Conservative MP.

There were claims last night that Mr Johnson, a twice-married father-of-four, had also taken a DNA test.

[...]

But a friend of Mr Rolin said: ‘The gossip among Pierre’s friends was that this child, when newborn, had shocking wild red hair and bright blue eyes - and we were all saying she looked a lot more like Boris than Pierre, who is a French-Canadian with dark hair.

‘And the appearance of the baby came on top of a lot of calls between Helen and Boris, and her acting as an art adviser to him. So soon after the baby was born they split up.

‘It was some time later, just to be sure beyond doubt, that Pierre had a paternity test - and proved he was not the father of Stephanie.’

And a friend of Miss Macintyre said she had initially believed her unborn child was Mr Rolin’s - but had already told him that she had enjoyed a fling with Mr Johnson.

Only when the child was born did Miss Macintyre join everyone in surprise at the little girl’s appearance, saying: ‘There is no red hair in my family, or Pierre’s.’

[...]

She began her relationship with Mr Rolin, a property investment specialist, close to the end of 2006.

A divorced father-of-two, he showered her with gifts including a Mini Cooper with personalised plates, Cartier jewellery, and trips to St Tropez.

She rekindled her friendship with Mr Johnson in January 2009 and had a series of dinners.

She also bumped into the Mayor, when Mr Rolin was also present, at an economic conference in Switzerland the next month, where they are understood to have had drinks as a group.

The Mayor is said to have had a hotel suite next to theirs.

In May last year, when Miss Macintyre was in the early stages of her pregnancy, he appointed her as a ‘Fundraising Campaigner’ for a visitor attraction at the new Olympic Park being built in East London.

Her most significant success came when she persuaded Mr Rolin to donate £80,000 to the project - which was used to establish plans for a 400ft tall £20million tower to be built at the Olympic site.

A friend of Miss Macintyre said: ‘Pierre became jealous of Helen and Boris’s close bond and was suspicious of an affair. She would go to meetings at City Hall and they would meet for dinner afterwards.

‘When Pierre was away on business she would arrange for Boris to come over to the house. Helen would tell the staff not to come in over the weekend because Boris was uncomfortable with them around.’

A theory:

From a fitness point of view, about the only thing worse than death is being cuckolded. One would expect strong selective pressure for mechanisms that limit the likelihood of being cuckolded. These need not necessarily be biological adaptations; they could also result from cultural evolution (although there is evidence to suggest a heritable basis for social trust- PDF). In the absence of methods to detect cuckoldry after the fact, methods to limit it would be based on distrust of other members of the community. I wonder whether the phenotypic variability in European groups played some role in the evolution of individuals and/or societies characterised by relatively high levels of trust. If detection of cuckoldry were made easier by the high phenotypic variability characterisistic of Europe, this would limit the requirement for distrust of other community members in preventing cuckoldry in the first place.

Just a theory, perhaps a just-so story, and perhaps not the first time it’s been suggested. As for evidence to support this, one could test whether in other (primate) subspecies (or closely related species), subspecies (or closely related species) with more phenotypic variability exhibit less intrasocietal strife. Perhaps this explains part of variability in social behaviour of chimpanzees (very aggressive) and Bonobos (less aggressive). From the Wikipedia entry on Bonobos:

Frans de Waal, one of the world’s most respected and popular primatologists, states that the Bonobo is capable of altruism, compassion, empathy, kindness, patience, and sensitivity. How peaceful Bonobos are has been disputed by some, but in general scientists agree with these assessments and the fact remains that thus far there are no confirmed observations of lethal aggression among Bonobos, either in the wild or in captivity.
[...]
The Bonobo also has highly individuated facial features, as humans do, so that one individual may look significantly different from another, a characteristic adapted for visual facial recognition in social interaction.

Surely there are many other factors at work here, and we wouldn’t necessarily expect this relationship to hold between all subspecies (or closely related species), but perhaps we would observe a positive correlation between phenotypic diversity and trust. If anyone is aware of other examples that support or oppose the hypothesis, please let me know.

In order to support the assertion that higher levels of phenotypic diversity would reduce cuckoldry, we can examine nonpaternity rates. Here are results from a review of different studies on humans groups:

[IMG]http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/xx249/Aletheia14/nonpaternity.jpg[/IMG]

Although there are some inconsistencies (e.g. different rates for Mexican and French samples), the overall trend is for higher nonpaternity rates in non-European populations (I would imagine that strict, complex religious customs are primarily responsible for the low rates among jewish populations studied). What is the social trust level in those populations? The Yanomamo are a famously warlike tribe (see Chagnon’s documentaries). Based on their genetics, they do not appear (to my admittedly untrained, racially distant eye- more on this caveat below) phenotypically diverse (though they’ve resorted to some rather painful ways to make up for that):

[IMG]http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/xx249/Aletheia14/Alto_orinoco5.jpg[/IMG]

Here are some kinfolk of Detroit negroes (Detroit being a famous example of high concentrations of negroes destroying a city):

[IMG]http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/xx249/Aletheia14/DSC0028815583905_std.jpg[/IMG]

And finally, some Europeans:

[IMG]http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/xx249/Aletheia14/nyjo-lst063818.jpg[/IMG]

I realise that this pictorial approach to anthropology is flawed. It could well be that people in the first 2 pictures are related. And they would not look so similar to a member of the same race (own-race recognition bias is a well studied phenomenon). The most obvious phenotypic diversity typical for Europeans is hair and eye colouration, and I would also expect that the finer facial features of Europeans allows for more accurate assignment of child/parent relationships (though I admit to not knowing of relevant studies here- if someone knows of pertinent literature on facial diversity in Europeans vs non-Europeans, in particular using such to predict parent/child relationships, please let me know).

The idea that phenotypic diversity could be a force for increased social trust seems counterintuitive, or at least seems to contradict what we know (e.g. from Putnam) about the effects of diversity on social cohesion. One important condition, however, would be that this diversity occurs within a genetically relatively homogenous population that does not differ too fundamentally (implicit bias tests suggest that there is inherent apprehension of racial others). If this theory were true, it would also mean, tragically, that one of the characteristics of Western society (trust) that make it great (I’m not one of those who think we should act more like jews), but which is a weakness elites exploit to push through race-replacement, will result in the destruction of one of the things that helped make it possible.

Posted by Dasein on Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 01:41 PM in Genetics & Human Bio-Diversity, Social Sciences
Comments (6) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by Gorboduc on July 18, 2010, 04:35 PM | #

. . . she had enjoyed a fling with Mr Johnson.

surely she meant “endured”?

Anyway, there was this some time ago:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article391143.ece

Judging from the not terribly blonde line-up of the youth band (flugel, muted trumpets, at least 3 saxes,) they’re playing jazz which isn’t really a white music.

Posted by Leon Haller on July 25, 2010, 08:22 AM | #

I wonder whether the phenotypic variability in European groups played some role in the evolution of individuals and/or societies characterised by relatively high levels of trust. If detection of cuckoldry were made easier by the high phenotypic variability characterisistic of Europe, this would limit the requirement for distrust of other community members in preventing cuckoldry in the first place.

1. Were Europoid societies in ancient/primitive times characterized by greater levels of trust than non-Europoid ones? What about today?

2. What about Japan? Limited “phenotypic variability” (haha - translation: everybody looks alike), but high levels of trust (fewer lawyers, low criminality).

3. Is cuckoldry such a big deal among Africans? “It takes a village to raise a child” - remember that gem from the Clinton years? It does so because most Africans have no idea “who they daddies be”. Admittedly, there is tremendous distrust among Africans, but I suspect that is due to their lack of genes for altruism and general ethicality.

4. Might levels of trust parallel IQ?

5. The history of Europe has been one of tremendous inter-ethnic warfare. Why (hypothesized) greater trust within, say, Scandinavian or Germanic tribes, but not between Swedes and Germans more broadly (given the close genetic relatedness of all these groups)?

I’m sceptical of a lot of sociobiological ‘explanations’. It is important to bring biology into social scientific discussions, but it can be pushed too far. “Man is the creature who makes his own history” is obviously untrue. But so is the notion that genetic replication ultimately explains all. How else to explain the constant proclivity of whites to work against their own genetic interests? There is this little thing called “mind”, and that in turn produces this little thing called “culture”, which is of ever greater importance as natural evolutionary factors recede into our species’ past ...

Posted by Dasein on July 26, 2010, 04:56 AM | #

Leon,

Thanks for the interesting comment.

1. Were Europoid societies in ancient/primitive times characterized by greater levels of trust than non-Europoid ones? What about today?

I’m not sure how world societies compare historically, but I think that European socities were generally less tyrannical than the world average (perhaps someone who knows more can comment on this).

Today, I think it is fairly clear that European countries, on average, have very high degrees of trust relative to the rest of the world. One oft-cited measure for this is the Corruption Perceptions Index, which shows European and European-derived countries as being more transparent- people trust that strangers will deal with them fairly.

[IMG]http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/xx249/Aletheia14/1000px-World_Map_Index_of_perception_of_corruption_2009svg.png[/IMG]

2. What about Japan? Limited “phenotypic variability” (haha - translation: everybody looks alike), but high levels of trust (fewer lawyers, low criminality).

You picked the good example of an exception to European dominance here. I’d said that the adaptations could be genetic and/or cultural, so I would not be surprised to find some non-European exceptions.

As for ‘looking the same’, the research I’ve found suggests that the races are almost as good at recognising the faces of people from their own race. And there are papers suggesting that physiognomic facial variation is similar between races (though I could only find 3 relevant papers, 2 of which were from the same jew in the 1970’s, who looks to have been an anti-‘racist’, and I can’t get a PDF).

What’s most relevant for the theory, though, is whether Europeans are better at recognising parent-(especially father) child relationships. I have some evidence, although a bit weak, to support this, and will provide details when I summarise the paper in a follow-up comment. That paper, though, does not consider the full gammut of European phenotypic diversity (e.g. freckles, moles) and does not use knowledge of extended family in assessing the relationship. This, I think, is where European phenotypic diversity would provide the best ability for crude paternity testing.

3. Is cuckoldry such a big deal among Africans? “It takes a village to raise a child” - remember that gem from the Clinton years? It does so because most Africans have no idea “who they daddies be”. Admittedly, there is tremendous distrust among Africans, but I suspect that is due to their lack of genes for altruism and general ethicality.

Cuckoldry is a big deal in any population. Next to death, it’s probably the worst thing that can happen from a fitness point of view. Africans will have developed strategies to compensate for it. Another paper I found shows a correlation between paternal investment and father-offspring resemblance in Senegal. In polygenous societies, like those commonly found in Africa (seems to be more a Bantu thing- for example, pygmies are very ‘K-selected’), we see other behaviour that is likely adaptive, for example investing in the children of sisters.

4. Might levels of trust parallel IQ?

I would imagine there is some positive correlation there, which would actually be complementary to the theory- people who are more intelligent could make better use of family histories to determine whether phenotypic traits support paternity claims.

5. The history of Europe has been one of tremendous inter-ethnic warfare. Why (hypothesized) greater trust within, say, Scandinavian or Germanic tribes, but not between Swedes and Germans more broadly (given the close genetic relatedness of all these groups)?

I’m not sure if it’s been more extreme than in other parts of the world (again, someone more knowledgeable on this can hopefully comment- certainly Europeans became experts at mass slaughter in the 20th century, but this had more to do with their scientific and engineering genius). The theory would not necessarily do away with the importance on in-group/out-group distinctions. It would mean that you would be more trustful of those in your in-group. The whole thing gets complicated, though, as there are a number of factors that come into play. Is Chinese society less trustful because too many ethnic groups have been forced together? You could also argue that the more ethny-based states in Europe would lend themselves to more trustful societies. That could be part of the explanation too.

I’m sceptical of a lot of sociobiological ‘explanations’. It is important to bring biology into social scientific discussions, but it can be pushed too far. “Man is the creature who makes his own history” is obviously untrue. But so is the notion that genetic replication ultimately explains all. How else to explain the constant proclivity of whites to work against their own genetic interests? There is this little thing called “mind”, and that in turn produces this little thing called “culture”, which is of ever greater importance as natural evolutionary factors recede into our species’ past ...

Yes, I am as well. It’s very tempting to come up with grand theories to explain everything. This is one of the beginner’s mistakes too for people who get into racialism; they think everything can be explained by race or genetics. There’s the temptation to shoehorn everything to fit with a pet theory (I think Rushton is also guilty of this to some extent).

I’m not sure a theory like this can be ‘proved’ to most people’s satisfaction. The most interesting piece of evidence, I think, though it’s only a single example, is the difference between chimpanzees and bonobos. Someone who knows more about primatology might be aware of other examples that support an overall positive correlation between phenotypic diversity and trust (and again, we might still find exceptions to the trend).

A theory like this, providing the evidence to support it is not exaggerated, might be useful for getting people to appreciate European diversity, which is its main benefit, IMO. An interesting topic over the dinner table, would also make people think more about their ancestors (hopefully in a positive way!). I was also pointed to an older article by Salter that presented a somewhat similar theory.

Posted by Armor on July 26, 2010, 10:49 AM | #

LH: “The history of Europe has been one of tremendous inter-ethnic warfare.”
Dasein: ”(...) this had more to do with their scientific and engineering genius).”

In places and times where European society had social classes and a formal hierarchy, the elites felt less proximity with ordinary people, and it probably made war more likely. The elites would use mercenaries.

Posted by Leon Haller on July 26, 2010, 01:23 PM | #

Dasein, thank you much for this very considered response. I have to get doing some work, but I’m going to consider your answers later tonight (CA time). You seem very knowledgeable in this stuff. Are you a scientist?

Posted by Dasein on July 26, 2010, 03:30 PM | #

Leon, thanks a lot. Yes, I would call myself a scientist (though I have a rather eclectic background). This is not my area of expertise, however. I find population genetics and sociobiology very interesting, and have tried to pick up things as I go along. The absurd thing is that science supports our position, but most professional scientists don’t (at least the ones I know).

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