Ecological correlations between IQ, skin color, temperature and GDP per capita

Posted by Melba Peachtoast on December 09, 2005, 02:22 PM | #

Thanks, Mr. Richards. I was unaware of this pukka paper. Keep up the good work, mate! Pip,pip!

Posted by John S Bolton on December 09, 2005, 03:52 PM | #

The objections of Sternberg and his contingent would seem to include dishonesty and attempted deception. They make it sound as if the measurement of skin color could be off by more than negligible amounts relative to the gargantuan correlation they’re up against. In Europe, Iceland, Finland, Estonia and Sweden in the north, and France, Hungary, Switzerland and Slovenia to the south, all register as having the same skin color. The entire range in Europe is only 1/4 of what is rated in the world. Only eight gradations were to be discriminated, but the objections dishonestly make it sound as if there were difficulty of discrimination, as if on the order of 100 times as many gradations were to be distinguished.

Posted by Martin Hutchinson on December 09, 2005, 04:49 PM | #

Why no Latin Americans? Some of them, like Brazil, have heterogenous populations, yet Argentina and Chile for example, are as homogenous as any Mediterranean country (all of which are pretty mixed owing to millenia of sea-borne nookie.) They’re the obvious example of lightish skinned people who have failed to get their act together economically, and I suspect would drag the correlation down a lot.  Nice theory, that may well be right, but as with many of these things, More Work Needed.

Posted by J Richards on December 09, 2005, 07:12 PM | #

Martin,

If you are going to investigate whether skin color is a possible biological correlate of intelligence and whether the association between these variables can be accounted for in terms of the same selection pressures, then you have to focus on indigenous people.  Whites in Argentina and Chile constitute diaspora populations.  You will note that the approximately 200 million whites in the U.S.A. are left out, too.

Speaking of the homogeneity that you mention, this is a problematic notion.  Consider the two figures below from a study that JW Holliday has talked about.

In the figures below, EUA = white, AFR = black African, AMI = Native American, EAS = East Asian, SAS = South Asian, AFA = black American, PRN = Puerto Rican, MAM = Mexican-American and MXN = Mexican.

Cluster analysis of 199 ancestry-informative markers at k = 6 (i.e., 6 clusters) produced the following average contribution of the six clusters in the populations studied.

However, guess what happens when the proportion of each cluster in an individual (shown on the y-axis) is plotted for each consecutive individual (on the x-axis)?  See below. 

Do you see much homogeneity in the PRN, MAM and MXN populations in the figure above?  Notice how the proportion of the cluster that is predominantly found among Europeans considerably varies from person to person in the mixed-race groups, even among the South Asians, in spite of the much more extensive race mixing among South Asians and the South Asians being clearly distinguished from Europeans at k = 5.

Another way of looking at the above is shown in the two photos below.

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías has the skin color of a tanned European, but look at his facial features.  Given his curly hair, he may even have a significant Negroid element in him, though it doesn’t show in his skin color.  Therefore, since race mixing can produce varying combinations of racial genetic affiliations at the same loci among individuals with recent common ancestors belonging to different races, it is not advisable to use them for the study by Templer and Arikawa.

Posted by jonjayray on December 09, 2005, 07:21 PM | #

JR

Can you move your table below the fold?

It is putting a big blank space into the front page of the blog

Posted by J Richards on December 09, 2005, 07:32 PM | #

Woops!

I forgot about the bug in Internet Explorer.  It is time for people to switch to a standards-compliant browser such as Firefox or Opera.

Posted by John S Bolton on December 09, 2005, 09:44 PM | #

Searching for “evolution of human skin coloration”, by Jablonski and Chaplin, one finds that skin color measurement has become quite objective, and much more so than is needed for only eight gradations. They actually used sattellite data collected over years, to determine the amount of solar radiation at very numerous locations all over the world, to correlate with skin color of indigenes.

Posted by Martin Hutchinson on December 09, 2005, 10:47 PM | #

I don’t see why being a disapora is a problem for the analysis.  I agree entirely that say Venezuela and Brazil, with a large initial Amerind population and substantial slavery, might well be too mixed to analyze, but that’s not true of Argentina or Chile, which were almost empty at the time of the Conquistadores (certainly after their smallpox epidemics) and didn’t have much slavery (wrong climate) and hence are very largely Spanish/Italian.  They should have the wealth of Spain or Italy, and they don’t.

You’ve got South Africa after all, which is more or less entirely disapora, Dutch, English, Jewish or Zulu.

I suspect there’s been a little careful adverse selection of countries where the theory doesn’t work, to make the numbers look better.  I can’t believe it isn’t true even with those countries included, so it would be much more impressive to include everywhere and accept somewhat fuzzier correlations.

Posted by J Richards on December 10, 2005, 02:42 AM | #

Martin,

The correlation between skin color and IQ will not change if you include nations such as Argentina and Chile, while controlling for ancestry.  Lynn and Vanhanen summarized the average IQ of Argentina as 96 and estimated the average IQ of Chile as 93. 

JW Holliday has previously cited a number of studies showing that the seemingly-white upper class in Chile easily has upwards of 20% non-white ancestry.  You will want to read this and this.
 
Chile is not the only example of its kind in South America, and the lower average IQ of the seemingly-white there compared to their European counterparts can be attributed to Native American admixture and also Negroid admixture in a number of cases.  On the other hand, Lynn and Vanhanen have previously addressed the correlation of IQ with GDP for the entire dataset, and the values are not substantially different from the subset reported here.  Besides, IQ is explaining at most half the variance in the global distribution of GDP per capita, i.e., one obviously has some nations better off or worse off than what they would be if IQ were perfectly correlated with GDP per capita, and adding Argentina to the mix is not going to alter the results substantially.

Regarding South Africa, the South African data is for blacks; whites are not included.

Posted by John S Bolton on December 10, 2005, 05:43 AM | #

All this is to be expected. The racial egalitarian establishment squirms with alarm and hatred when presented with such overwhelming correlations as these. Tropical-adaptedness appears to be all but identical with mental retardation. It can’t be climate either, or the tropical-adapted wouldn’t bring the low abilities with them when they move outside the climate zone of their ancestors’ adaptation. This is why the comparison has to focus on indigenous rather than colonized populations; to pick out the genetic influence.  The arrow of causality is also indicated by the correlation being so much higher between IQ and coloration, than between IQ and national average production per capita. It is possible to hold down the northern-adapted with extremes of communism, as in Russia, China, or NKorea today; but you can’t raise the independent productiveness or significant cultural accomplishment of tropical-adapted peoples without changing their genes.

Posted by John S Bolton on December 10, 2005, 06:05 AM | #

That is, not that they can’t be raised at all, but that they won’t on average reach the level of the northern-dadapted living in more or less free condition, in terms of the criteria mentioned just above.

Posted by J Richards on December 10, 2005, 09:15 PM | #

Tropical-adaptedness appears to be all but identical with mental retardation.

I like this statement.  The threshold for mental retardation should be 85 since people with this IQ could either not pass American High School or barely pass it, and the threshold was indeed 85 originally, but was dropped to 70 to make blacks look better, which you likely know. 

Tropically-adapted people generally score below 85 IQ points, on average, i.e., the majority of these people are aptly designated naturally mentally retarded; naturally in the sense that their mental retardation does not result from developmental insults/disruptions.

Posted by John J Ray on December 14, 2005, 08:21 AM | #

Sternberg is just a fraud.  Disregard him.  As I have said elsewhere:

Sternberg’s “triarchic” theory: One of the people best known among psychologists for disparaging the importance of IQ (‘g’ or general problem-solving ability) is Robert Sternberg. He is much less of a lightweight than Gould and his ilk and does acknowledge the reality of IQ but says that it is only one of three types of important mental functioning that can be measured.

But the other two he puts forward are pretty desperate proposals. The second one he himself summarizes as “street smarts” so is nothing more than knowledge of a particular culture or environment—and nobody has ever disputed that you need both intelligence and knowledge to solve problems well. So while knowledge is important, to refer to it as an “ability” is evasive. And his third alternative is creativity—which again seems reasonable at first. The problem with creativity, however, is that there appears to be no such thing. Different indices of creativity often fail to correlate with one another. You can be creative in one field and not in another. I myself, for instance, am highly creative at scientific writing or I would not have 250+ academic papers in print—but I would not be able to write a novel for nuts. So although problem-solving ability is demonstrably general—which is why we have the concept of IQ—creativity is not. So Sternberg is still left with IQ as the single useful generalization about abilities.

And the criticisms of his work simply seem to have driven Sternberg to retreat further and further into dishonesty. He simply ignores whole bodies of data—including things he had acknowledged in his own earlier work—as Linda Gottfredson (PDF) points out.

Posted by eman on July 18, 2006, 09:17 AM | #

Yawn.

The list just reads like a list of places with high population densities. The rest are poor countries.

Living in cities increases your “IQ”.  IQ is not a measure of your creativity, which surely is true intelligence. It might even be better used as a test for certain mild forms of autism.

How does the writer account for the miraculous increase in IQs of Irish people within 1 century (especially in the USA), even though their skin colour hasn’t changed?

The whole set up of this study begins with a conclusion, and attempts to prove it. Ignoring facts is not science. It’s just propoganda.

This type of dumb thinking really gets up my nose. Really does. How do you guys sleep at night?

Eman

Posted by J Richards on July 20, 2006, 05:01 AM | #

Eman,

Living in cities increases one’s IQ?  The blacks who moved to Detroit and the big cities of America quickly converted the inner cities to Third World hellholes.  Did their IQs increase?  Nope, the majority of them remain mental retards.

Whereas intelligence is characterized by a g factor, there is no such analog for creativity.  People creative in one area are typically uncreative in others.

What do you mean by a miraculous rise in the IQs of the Irish within a century?  The Flynn effect has been documented throughout the world.  The IQs of both blacks and whites increased in the 20th century, as per the Flynn effect, which has been taken into consideration in the data analysis, but the IQ gap between blacks and whites has remained.

No, the study cited does not begin with a conclusion.  You have obviously not read it properly.  The study started with a question and attempted to answer it by examining data.  Besides, you are the one who is ignoring the facts, the main fact here being, roughly stated, that the darker a geographic population, the dumber it is.

Posted by Ivor Umber on December 20, 2006, 06:14 PM | #

High IQ comes from both heredity aswell as enviroment. A well-to-do family of any shade or shape can bring up a healthy, well-read and a knowledgeable child.
An environment that values intellectual ability, brings out the manifestations of a good IQ of a person.
Beauty is a holistic concept which Socrates used to debate, until reaching a eporia(a state on inconclusive uncertianity). It does not merely consist of a certian bone structure, skin shade or hair colour.
Good health, nobility of one’s personal character plus clean wholesome looks all contribute to create a personality, that can do more with a smaller IQ than what a haughty and proud dummy, with a higher IQ may not be able to do. 
The World is what it is because of the foundation of morality laid by the Indians (Buddhism) and the Middle Easterners (with the Judeo-Christian Tradition). Can we say that these beacons of World morality lacked the IQ of a present day resident of a cold climate?

Posted by J Richards on December 21, 2006, 05:44 AM | #

Ivor Umber,

This entry is about IQ, not beauty, character or personality.

Yes, the environment contributes to IQ, but racial differences in IQ are primarily genetic.  In the U.S., upper class blacks are outcompeted by low class whites in aptitude tests such as the SAT:

From the Journal of Blacks in Education -

Whites from families with incomes of less than $10,000 had a mean SAT score of 993. This is 130 points higher than the national mean for all blacks.

Whites from families with incomes below $10,000 had a mean SAT test score that was 17 points higher than blacks whose families had incomes of more than $100,000.

If the Indians and Middle Easterners had IQ comparable to those of people that have evolved in the cold north over tens of thousands of years, then it would show in the IQ tests, but it doesn’t show.  You cannot assume that the present inhabitants of India and the Middle East have been indigenous to the region since the beginning of civilization.  Many white tribes have migrated to these regions and settled there within recorded history, and their achievements should not be assigned to the dark natives there.  For instance, read about the Aryan migration toward India.  Besides, it is far from true that the foundation of morality was laid by Buddhism and Judaism/Christianity.  Try reading the Old Testament and ask yourself if the ritual practices mentioned there are not a blot on humanity’s past.  The roots of morality predate civilization.

Posted by Ivor Umber on December 24, 2006, 12:42 PM | #

J. Richards
Your comments are indeed enlightening, but please consider the topic at a greater depth!
The authors Donald Templer and Hiroko Arikawa mention an “Ecological Correlation”, between:
1. Climate: Their first point is that colder the climate, the palerthe skin, and vise versa. So if the so-called “White” skin is related with a higher IQ, the IQ goes down as the skin gets darker. The second assumption is that the “Whiter” a skin, the more “beautiful” a person is. Inteligence Qoutent or IQ is the qoutent of a person’s “Mental Age” and “Chronological Age”. The point that I want to make is this; some darker persons may have higher IQs than that of those with paler complexions. Mental age increases in a wholesome environment, which may not neccessarily be an environment of abundance. Statistics take a whole group of persons and bundles them together, on some particular parameter; but in this way “Individual Differences” are ignored. Remember that Eastern High cultures like those of Mesopotamia, India and Egypt etc., by far preceeded the Greco-Roman roots of Post-Modern Europe and its not-so-distant cousin, the USA. It is true that these days, the “White” regions, mostly with a cold climate are more advanced technologically than everybody else, but remember what Isaac Newton once said:” I saw further because I stood on the shoulders of GIANTS.” The older Asiatic civilisations saw their peaks, but are now in a decline due to over-population, most of all. Nonetheless, do not make the fatal assumption that the “White” (Which to me look more like ranging from pale yellow to pink, pinker to pinkest) have a high IQ pre-programmed into their genes or jeans.
2. Per Capita GDP: True, the “White” majority countries do have a higher per capita GDP, better schooling and so higher IQs. But what has this higher GDP and IQ brought about? The fact that more than 50 % of babies in Sweden are born to unmarried couples? That almost 50 % pregnancies in Europe happen to post-pubescent and under 19 girls? That more than 40 % of the marriages in Europe and the USA, end up in divorces? Whereas in Asian countries family comes first and divorce is so rare so as to be unthinkable, under most circumstances. These are not “Welfare States”, and the traditional family ties that bind people together,  provide for social security, as a cultural norm in Asia.
3. High IQ: What has high IQ given to the Pale skinned people. Highest rates of street crime? Most polluted urban atmosphere? “A Creed of Greed” that sends old people away from their children?
I believe that just statistical data, is not enough, having used tons of it during the time when I was doing pharmaceutical Market research.  Its how you interpret the data, and how it is applicable on a case to case basis, that gives it its significance, if any.  And I think the data that tries to correlate Climate and skin colour with IQ and high per capita GDP, has only time-limited validity, and has not been proven to be a permanent genetic mutation, either in this article, or anywhere else. Can anyone prove the case to be otherwise?

Posted by J Richards on December 28, 2006, 03:43 AM | #

Ivor Umber,

In the very beginning, I pointed out that we are dealing with ecological correlations, i.e., populations not individuals.  Of course, some dark people can be more intelligent than some light/white people; nowhere have I implied otherwise, and it was pointless for you to bring up the issue.

There is no assumption that the whiter the skin, the more beautiful a person is.  Where is this implied on this page?

The skin of whites does not range from pale yellow to pink; European skin unexposed to the sun ranges from white to pink, and the pink color is due to hemoglobin, not any kind of melanin, i.e., pink skin is still white as in absence/near-absence of melanin, and the amount of melanin in skin is what matters as far as the study is concerned.  You may say that white skin is not white as in how white is defined in physics, but then by the same reasoning, black hair is not black if one goes by the definition of a black body in physics.  However, some people’s hair and other’s skin are best described as black and white, respectively.

As far as the early civilizations go, there are a couple of things you need to look into:

Take a look at Figure 2 in this study and see what is the average proportion of membership in the European cluster for North Africans/Middle Eastern people, based on neutral DNA markers.  You will note that the proportion is substantial but less than in Europeans.  So what happened?  There were white people in the region responsible for the civilizations there, but they eventually absorbed too much Negroid/non-white elements to sustain their civilizations. 

See this dendogram taken from the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 1993;36:1-31, showing the relationship of skulls from pre-dynastic and late-dynastic Egypt to modern populations, and note that the ancient Egyptian populations are closest to modern Europeans of all populations.  In this study, the neutral craniofacial inter-landmark distances assessed will distinguish two populations derived from the same ancestor if they have been reproductively separated for at least 2,000 years, and the ancient Egyptian samples are over 2,000 years old.  Therefore, don’t assume that close but nevertheless separated-from-modern-Europeans ancient Egyptian skulls imply that they were not white.  There are plenty of sculptures and other literature from ancient Egypt showing the dominant people to have been white.

There are a couple of references as to Chalcolithic (3rd millennium) Palestinians, Siculans, Chalcolithic Sardinians, Atlanto-Mediterraneans in Mesopotamia, ancient Libyans, Hissar III (Bronze age) North Iranian proto-Nordics and Bessarabian Scythians being types of white people; see American Anthropologist, 1946;48(4 part 1):493-533.

I have already cited evidence about the Aryans.  Even prior to the Aryan migration toward India, there were people from the Middle East that migrated there; see the J2 haplogroup trail in this figure taken from Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Jan 24;103(4):843-8.  Who these people were, I don’t know, but it is unlikely that they were the typically dark types of India since when the pre-Aryan Indus Valley civilization flourished in the Northwest part of south Asia, there was no civilization in other parts of India where the dark ones resided.

The notion of the Middle East being the origin of civilization has increasingly been undermined over the years.  The achievements of the ancient Northern Europeans have increasingly come to light in the past couple of years.  The Celts had better helmets, better shields and better chariots than the Romans, and they were more adept at using the chariots.  An Iron Age road at Corlea in Ireland has recently been dated to 148 B.C., and wooden roads built in the same way and around the same time have been found in other parts of Northern Europe.  The first important Roman road was the Appian Way, built in 312BC, but the “Upton Track” wooden road in south Wales dates to the 5th century B.C.  The ancient Celts were also excellent metal craftsmen, and they used their skills to build sophisticated arable farms using iron ploughshares (4th century B.C.) and a harvesting machine similar to a comb on wheels that beat off the ears of corn and deposited them in a container like the grass box of a lawnmower.

The earliest sewage system has been found in Skara Brae, predating that at the palace of Knossos by about 1,500 years.  Take a look at the sophistication of Bronze Age Danes here and here.  The Nebra disk in Saxony-Anhalt, about 3,600 years old, is probably the oldest concrete representation of the cosmos.  And, one shouldn’t forget the technical prowess required to erect massive megaliths in Northern Europe.

Ancient pyramids dwarfing the one in Giza have been reported in Bosnia.

James Bowery came up with this entry about early European developments, and we will probably come up with a better summary of the picture later.

The point is that you cannot assume that whites have civilizationally/technologically shone only recently and that the earliest developments are coming from non-whites.

You have again brought in issues not relevant here by asking what has high IQ given to whites if we have a high proportion of births outside wedlock, a high rate of teenage pregnancy, a high divorce rate, most polluted cities, a creed of greed that sends old people away from their children and a high level of street crime?  High white IQ has given to whites and the world modern civilization, technology, medicine, material comforts, a better understanding of the world, and other goodies. 

Besides, your impression of social problems in Western nations is way off the mark:

Out of wedlock births: The majority of births in Sweden are indeed out of wedlock, but believing this to be a social problem is surely to be ignorant of the history of Northern Europe.  The Church did not control marriage until the 12th century, and before this period, Europeans, especially those north of southern Europe, conducted a variety of informal ceremonies that could be considered to be marriage.  People chose their own partners, and entered into what could be considered a marriage ceremony after establishing and consummating their relationship, and not unusually after the woman became pregnant or had a child.  With the decline of Church influence, Swedes have simply gone back to their ancestral practices, but it is important to realize that there is no epidemic of single motherhood in Sweden.  The typical white Swedish child is conceived in a loving relationship and born to a man and a woman, both of whom are the child’s biological parents, although the biological parents may not be married at the time of conception or even birth.  Many Swedish couples marry after the birth of their first child.  The typical Swedish child is raised by its biological parents.

The out-of-wedlock-births statistic does not imply any sort of immoral behaviors.  On the other hand, it is completely natural for people to choose their own spouse, and the truly immoral practices are seen in the Middle East and South Asia where people are often married to people that they do not know.       

Divorce rates:  Some inflated divorce statistics in the West are based on the flawed technique of taking into account the number of marriages and divorces per year but not the number of pre-existing marriages in any given year.  Whereas I do not know the actual statistics, it is obvious that the divorce rates are higher than in the Middle East and South Asia, but this far from implies any sort of worse marital relationships in the West. 

A desire to divorce can arise in either partner.  However, if you have massive female illiteracy and low status of women such that few can lead an independent existence, which is the case in the Middle East and South Asia, then women-initiated divorce will generally not be feasible.  This should substantially reduce the divorce rate.  Then, it is very reasonable to postulate that if a man doesn’t like his wife for any reason, and there is a shortage of women, which is especially true of India, and the man is guaranteed of a woman that cooks and cleans for him if he remains married to her, then why would the man want to divorce the woman unless he was forced to?  The Middle East and South Asia do not have a widespread dating culture, especially in the villages, and if a man who is not young divorces his wife, then how easy will it be to obtain another woman and how easy will it be for a not-young woman to obtain a new husband?

There is no way the differential divorce statistics can be used to infer worse marital relationships in the West.

Teenage pregnancy - Your claim, “That almost 50 % pregnancies in Europe happen to post-pubescent and under 19 girls” is grossly exaggerated.  Several European nations have among the lowest prevalence of teenage pregnancies in the world.  Consider the births and abortions per 1,000 girls in the 15-19 age range (from 1996, UNICEF Innocenti report card, issue 3, July 2001): Sweden (7.7, 17.7), Netherlands (7.7, 3.9), Spain (7.5, 4.9), Finland (9.8. 9.6), U.K. (29.6, 21.3), Hungary (29.9, 30.2).  For comparative purposes, the births and abortions per 1,000 girls in the 15-19 age range for Japan in 1996 were 3.9 and 7.1, respectively.  Even if you take the highest values (e.g., England, Hungary), you are still looking at only 50-60 pregnancies per 1,000 girls in the 15-19 age range.

Parent-child relationships: The great majority (easily 95%) of white adults maintain a close relationship with their parents.  For you to infer otherwise based on parents and their adult children living apart, among Northern Europeans in particular, reflects another great ignorance about Western culture.  Whites generally have strong respect for privacy and independence.  Whites know that it is important for their children to be self sufficient and hence encourage their grown up children to live independently.  The typical white parents weep when they send their children to an out-of-town college.  Whites realize that their adult children would like to have opportunities to socialize with their peers without having non-peers (elderly relatives) in their midst (home).  Whites also realize that they cannot control their grown up children and neither do they want to be controlled by their grown up children, and hence seek to live independently.  No love or respect between parents and children is lost by the living-apart arrangement.  The typical white person would spend an exorbitant amount of money to keep his old parents alive.  Moreover, most whites also have the wealth to avoid pooling resources in the form of living in extended families.       

Pollution - 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China (source) and the remaining 4 are Delhi, Calcutta, Cairo and Jakarta.  Big cities such as Los Angeles and New York City do have a lot traffic congestion and crowding, but a lot of it has to do with uncontrolled immigration into the U.S., both legal and illegal, thanks to a hostile alien ethny that has steered U.S. immigration policy toward disaster, and to a lesser extent greedy big business, which favors flooding the U.S. with cheap labor.

The point about the ecological correlations not being proven to be related to genetics is of little relevance.  It is clear that -0.92 correlation implies that populations that moved up North became both smarter and lighter.  Nobody is suggesting that the rise in IQ has to do with skin lightening, but that the very high correlation is most likely explained by common underlying factors.  The involvement of genetic factors is an inference that is strongly supported by the data here and elsewhere.

Posted by noah rosenbrute on December 28, 2006, 06:35 AM | #

One correction: my reading of the Rosenberg paper is that there is no specifically “European” cluster, but an “Eurasian” one that includes also includes the Middle East and Central/South Asia.

“....five clusters with K = 5 in Figure 2 of the present study and in Figure 1 of [3]—corresponding to Africa, Eurasia (Europe, Middle East, and Central/South Asia), East Asia, Oceania, and the Americas—an intercluster population pair is plotted only if it includes one population from Africa and one from Eurasia, one from Eurasia and one from East Asia, or one from East Asia and one from Oceania or the Americas.”

Posted by J Richards on December 28, 2006, 07:15 AM | #

Brute,

The cluster marked by blue is European, though it is not geographically limited to Europe.  People in the Middle East, Central Asia and the northwest portion of South Asia have substantial membership in this cluster, which reflects Europeans moving into these regions and then absorbing non-Europeans.

Posted by noah rosenbrute on December 28, 2006, 09:16 AM | #

There is nothing in the original paper to suggest that the blue cluster is specifically European, and the authors themselves designate it as “Eurasian (Europe, Middle East, Central/South Asia).”

The fact that Europeans tend to be “more blue” than these other peoples does not itself demonstrate that the blue component originated in Europe, or that these other peoples are, essentially, heavily admixed Europeans.

Looking closely at Figure 2, we see that the blue components of the Kalash and of the Druze compare favorably with that of Russians.  However, other studies (eg, Cavalli-Sforza), as well as ethnic history and phenotype, clearly cluster Russians with Europeans, with Middle Eastern and Asian groups (eg, Druze and Kalash) being different. And, Rosenberg’s recent paper on South Asians, using a more detailed genetic study, shows them clearly clustering as a separate racial entity.

Posted by J Richards on January 05, 2007, 01:39 AM | #

Brute,

There is nothing in the original paper to suggest that the blue cluster is specifically European…

I am not under any obligation to restrict myself to the results at hand; I am free to fit the data with known facts.

the authors themselves designate it as “Eurasian…

...because people with substantial membership in the blue cluster are not limited to Europe.  The term “Eurasian” is not without problems.  The core element in Asia is the pink cluster, not the blue cluster.  Additionally, people with substantial membership in the blue cluster are also found in North Africa, but the authors do not use the term Euro-Afro-Asian.

The fact that Europeans tend to be “more blue” than these other peoples does not itself demonstrate that the blue component originated in Europe…

Agreed; it could have originated in Australia and eventually disappeared there and become the dominant element in Europe.  But what is the most plausible inference given other knowledge?

...or that these other peoples are, essentially, heavily admixed Europeans.

Heavily admixed Europeans cease to be Europeans.

Looking closely at Figure 2, we see that the blue components of the Kalash and of the Druze compare favorably with that of Russians.  However, other studies (eg, Cavalli-Sforza), as well as ethnic history and phenotype, clearly cluster Russians with Europeans, with Middle Eastern and Asian groups (eg, Druze and Kalash) being different.

Rosenberg’s study used neutral loci whereas Cavalli-Sforza’s used loci involved in gene expression.  Under selection pressures, two populations split from the same ancestral groups will diverge faster with respect to the genes under selection compared to neutral loci.  Therefore, the story inferred from neutral loci may not exactly correspond to that inferred from loci involved in gene expression.  For instance, since you mentioned phenotype, this recent study utilizing neutral interlandmark distances shows that southern Europeans craniofacially cluster with Middle-Easterners/North Africans prior to joining the Northern European cluster.

And, Rosenberg’s recent paper on South Asians, using a more detailed genetic study, shows them clearly clustering as a separate racial entity

So?  I have never disputed that East Indians and whites do not belong to the same race, but this new study sampled people from all over India and also included insertion/deletion polymorphisms, whereas the study in question limited itself to microsatellites and populations in the northwest region of south Asia, Pakistan/Afghanistan to be more specific.  Some of the Pakistani/Afghani tribes sampled have many individuals whose overwhelming membership is in the blue cluster, and an examination of them will reveal some of them to be visually indistinguishable from Europeans and many others to be close to Europeans, as opposed to the more-distinct-looking-in-general people from India and Bangladesh.

Posted by rosenbrutey on January 05, 2007, 06:40 AM | #

“I am not under any obligation to restrict myself to the results at hand; I am free to fit the data with known facts.”

I think you are trying to fit the data to your own preconceptions, rather than with “known facts.”

“Agreed; it could have originated in Australia and eventually disappeared there and become the dominant element in Europe.  But what is the most plausible inference given other knowledge?”

Come one, now.  That’s not what I am saying.  The first major split was African vs. non-African; if you use only a very small number of markers, that’s all you are going to get to see.  Then the East Asians split away from the “Eurasian” group, which is the level of analysis you get from the first Rosenberg paper.  The first racial divergence at this point was likely Euro-middle east vs. South Asia (newer paper), then Euro vs. Middle East.  Later, you get subracial divergence within Europe itself (Seldin paper).  Later still, you get the coalesence of various ethnic isolates within the subraces, which may be detected in the future by studies using a very large number of ancestry informative markers.

In order to designate a genetic cluster as “European” you’ll need to use a sufficient number of markers that can distinguish the major genetic clusters of different groups; an alternative explanation to the assumption that the first Rosenberg paper already had reached that level and, hence, the “blue” represents actual European ancestry.

“Heavily admixed Europeans cease to be Europeans.”

True enough, but that’s assuming that the Rosenberg data is based upon enough markers to distinguish various lines.  Alternatively, these other groups are not European simply because they represent an alternate ancestral line.  Are “semites” actually merely Europeans who became partially admixed with Africans, as your interpretation of the data suggests?  Thus, if you find, for example, a Syrian who tests for no African influx would such a person be equivalent genetically to a European?  No.  With a level of markers sufficient to separate Europe from the Middle East, Middle Easterners would have their own separate genetic profile, independent of African admixture.

“Rosenberg’s study used neutral loci whereas Cavalli-Sforza’s used loci involved in gene expression.  Under selection pressures, two populations split from the same ancestral groups will diverge faster with respect to the genes under selection compared to neutral loci. “

Bamshad’s data suggests you can get ~ equal results with neutral or expressed loci, although the latter are more problemmatical due to effects of selective pressure.

If you look at the new Rosenberg study, with neutral loci, Russians are closer to other Europeans than are the other groups.  Note carefully: in one study using neutral loci, it appears that Kalash/Druze rival Russian “Europeaness”; using a greater number of markers, Russians cluster closer to Europeans.

Why?

The first study was looking as “Caucasianess” in general and in may be that the Kalash and Druze have the same level of non-East Asian, non-Amerind, and non-African “Caucasian” ancestry as do Russians.  The latter study begins to separate out the components of these narrower racial groups (but not quite enough to separate out all the middle easterners), showing, for example, that the Kalash, at a high enough level of distinction, are quite different from Europeans - despite their “heavily blue” character in the first paper.

Posted by noah chosenbrute on January 05, 2007, 10:28 AM | #

“Therefore, the story inferred from neutral loci may not exactly correspond to that inferred from loci involved in gene expression.  For instance, since you mentioned phenotype, this recent study utilizing neutral interlandmark distances shows that southern Europeans craniofacially cluster with Middle-Easterners/North Africans prior to joining the Northern European cluster.”

But, Brace makes the rather remarkable assertion that his work mirrors that of neutral gene makers because the craniofacial differences have, allegedly, no selective value.  His work however does not in fact mirror the results of neutral gene assays, suggesting that craniofacial differences may indeed have selective value, which seems to be the point you are making.

But, that’s not relevant to the issue at hand, because Rosenberg’s later work shows, using neutral gene assays, Russians being closer to other Europeans than are the Kalash, despite the similar “blueness” of these groups in the original paper.

The most conservative interpretation of Rosenberg, and that which fits other data, is that the “blue” represents ancestry that is shared between “Caucasian” groups due to shared ancestry prior to further racial differentiation.

Posted by Luigi Cavalli-Brutza on January 05, 2007, 12:48 PM | #

It’s been a while since I went through Cavalli-Sforza’s work, but this review:
http://www.prometheism.net/articles/genhistory.html

by Ed Miller suggests that most of the data in the Cavalli-Sforza work dealt with neutral (or near-neutral) genes.  I’d need to take another look at the original work to see if Miller is correct.

However, Bamshad showed that with enough genes studied the results with neutral and adaptive gene sequences will be roughly similar, so, in any case, the results from the Cavalli-Sforza work would be expected to approximate that seen in later studies with larger numbers of neutral sequences, which it does to a considerable extent.  Although of course, some important details may differ.

Posted by Cavalli-Brutza on January 05, 2007, 04:51 PM | #

“... but this new study sampled people from all over India and also included insertion/deletion polymorphisms, whereas the study in question limited itself to microsatellites and populations in the northwest region of south Asia, Pakistan/Afghanistan to be more specific.  Some of the Pakistani/Afghani tribes sampled have many individuals whose overwhelming membership is in the blue cluster, and an examination of them will reveal some of them to be visually indistinguishable from Europeans and many others to be close to Europeans, as opposed to the more-distinct-looking-in-general people from India and Bangladesh.”

Let’s consider this.  First, the added and different markers in the latter paper shouldn’t be an issue, unless there is evidence that these markers are inappropriate and giving misguided results.  Otherwise, the authors are simply adding more markers to make a more informative and powerful study.

Comparing the two studies, the following populations from Central/South Asia were in common: Balochi, Brahui, Makrani, Sindhi, Pathan, Burusho, Hazara, Uygur, and Kalash.  In all cases, the added markers diminished the blue component, replacing with other ancestries, and in the case of the Kalash, the blue was predominantly eliminated.  Yet, for the European and Middle Eastern populations, the blue remained essentially as before. 

This suggests that some component of the blue in the first paper was some sort of component of Caucasian genetics that is found in Central/South Asians, and when sufficient markers are used - as in the latter paper - this specific component can be separated out from the general blue.  This suggests that the blue in the original paper is NOT specifically European, if some component of this blue can be altered into non-European “red” or “yellow” if more markers are added.

The blue component that remains in these samples in the latter paper are not necessarily specifically European, as the blue remains unchanged in the Middle Eastern samples.  Also, of the added populations, blue is highest among Parsis, which suggests that for these populations, blue may be more diagnostic of Middle/Near Eastern ancestry than European.

Of course, it IS possible that the Central/South Asian blue in the latter paper - but not in the first paper - represents European genetics, but it is more likely that it represents contributions from geographically closer populations in the Near East.

What about the Paki/Afghani tribes with a heavy blue component?  Will many of these look indistinguishable or nearly so, from Europeans?  I am not an expert on the physical anthropology of this region, and I am aware of Sailer’s famed “Eric Idle” Paki tribesman, but I am skpetical that a significant proportion of these people actually truly look similar to Europeans.  Anecdotal evidence by Sailer and others can be matched by my own experiences with people from these regions, who have their own distinctive look.

Even more to the point, even if they did look similar to Europeans, that does not imply a “recent” ancestral connection.  Papuans share similarity to sub-Saharan Africans in many traits, but genetic data show these groups to be distant.  However, I agree that it is possible that the more European-looking Paki/Afghans may have some European ancestry - the point is that there is no genetic evidence that clearly supports (or refutes) that contention.

If such evidence is presented, then certainly I’d re-examine the whole situation.  As of now, there is none, and there is no support for this in the Rosenberg papers, which was my whole point to begin with.

More data are needed before we can accept a significant European genetic contribution to these peoples.

Posted by Fred Scrooby on January 07, 2007, 03:32 PM | #

Just want to mention in regard to the term “cluster” used quite a bit in this thread that it’s been appropriated as a synonym for “race” (“population cluster”) by marxoids and the honesty-challenged morals-challenged squeamish among researchers and the professoriate (I’m not referring to its use here by J. Richards or Brute, of course).  Prof. Hawks predicted this would come to pass in his New Years predictions of a year ago:

7. “Population cluster” will become the new “race.”  This one is debatable, but enough papers on multi-ethnic SNPs have used the term this year, that I think it is emerging as the replacement for the race concept for a certain class of geneticists.  I expect it will continue — “cluster” has such a neutral computer-program-centric connotation, that people like to use it.

______

(Incidentally, the work load at my job has surged again, leaving me less time for keeping up with the internet and posting comments.  I’ll be participating less for a while.  I hope this situation won’t last.)

Posted by Billy on April 02, 2007, 08:21 PM | #

People can talk about genetics and climate till their “blue” in the face, and all that does is add confusion to an already confusing debate. Well, should I say, confusing to some. However, it’s not confusing to me at all. I have a rather easy time comprehending these sorts of matters. First of all, genetics can drift causing certain populations of the world that look similar physically to appear to be unrelated or distantly related genetically. There’s still a lot that has to be learned about DNA and genetics before we throw ourselves completely at the mercy of genetic explanations for things. We’ve only scratched the tip of the iceburg on the human DNA. Where it can solve murders and such, it’s by no means the end all of discussions on matters as broad as race. Contrary to many pseudo-scientific data, all people of Earth are the same exact species. Also, all people with obviously “black” skin are related as well. There is no such thing as a “Black” White person or a “White” Black person, albinism notwithstanding. Those are oxymorons to say the least, not to mention a 5 year-old kid would see that contradiction! There are basically 3 “races” or groups of mankind and those are the White race which is composed of 2 groups, the Mediterannean (aka. Semitic) Whites and the Nordic (aka. Japhetic or Indo-European) Whites, and the Blacks (Hamites). A fourth race, (Mulatto) could be counted as well, especially since the majority of the population of Earth would physically and noticeably fit into this category. The others such as Alpines, Dinarics, Armenoids, etc., etc., etc., can all be more or less explained by ancient, medieval, and even modern mixing to varying degrees by Nordics and Mediteranneans and even some Blacks. Limited inbreeding could also enhance this as well. Mixing, inbreeding, survival of the fittest, and deliberate selection explains the physical differences between the peoples of Earth, not the climate, sun, or lack of sun. There’s too many exceptions to the climate theory rule to even suppose that it had anything to do with altering the racial features of mankind. The dark-skinned, haired, and eyed Eskimos of the Arctic and the Black Aboriginal Australians are two such major modern examples of exceptions. The ancient Sumerians and Canaanites are two more major examples from the ancient past. The Sumerians described themselves proudly as Black people. It is known that the Cushites or Nubians were the progenetors of the Sumerians prior to the Cushitic migration to Africa (I.e. Cush, a son of Ham, was the father of Nimrod). The Black Yoruba claim to be descended from Nimrod (Sumerians) as well. The Sumerians were one of the first great post-flood civilizations to rise to world noteriety some 4,000 plus years ago. At the same time, to the east of Sumer (modern Iraq) was the country of Elam and to the immediate North was Media—both part of what is now Iran. The Elamites were a Semitic people with Mediterannean White features such as medium build and stature, dark, brunet hair, dark eyes, prominant Semitic facial features, and light skin that easily tans to chocolate in the sun. But, their untanned skin is very light to almost fair. The Medes of Media were a Nordic people with blond (red, strawberry, light brown) hair, blue-green-gray eyes, and a fair complexion. The Sumerians described themselves as “black-headed.” It could not have meant just hair color since a good majority of the Mesopotamians, White or Black, had dark or black hair, so that by itself would hardly have been a distinguishing factor, black skin being the next obvious and more logical difference. The Sumerians in turn, described other people living to the north of them similar to the Medes in the hill country to the immediate east of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers known for their fairness of skin, hair, and eyes (Indo-European=Japhetic peoples). It’s also worthy to note that King Sennacherib of Assyria, another Mediterannean White nation, described the Canaanites as being “black-skinned” as well. Canaan, we know was a brother of Cush, so this makes since. So here’s the original three groups of man in a nutshell. The Black (Hamitic) Sumerians and Canaanites, the Mediterannean (Semitic) White Elamites, and the Nordic (Japhetic) White Indo-European hill people. Look at a map. The Sumerians and Elamites, Medes, and other Indo-Europeans roughly lived in that same general area at roughly the same time, exposed to the same or similar sun rays, but you have genetically Black Sumerians, genetically White Elamites, and Indo-Europeans. The time necessary to create those differences did not exist, and even if it did, they weren’t separated enough geographically for climate to be extreme enough to create those differences. It should also be noted here that People in hot, tropical climates did wear clothes more or less and did go inside dwellings to escape the intense sun rays and heat of mid day. The bottom line is that the races already existed prior to people’s migrating around the globe and settled where they knew they could handle it best and were best suited to exist. The Eskimos have lived in the Arctic regions for thousands of years, so going by the climate change theory, they should have Nordic features (I.e. blond-red-light brown hair, blue-green-gray eyes, and light to fair skin, but they don’t! The same goes for the Mongolians. Just look at their location on the globe! There’s been Whites living in Africa for thousands of years too, but, unless they’ve got some Black admixture in them, they are as White today as they were when their ancestors settled there 4,000 years ago! Why haven’t they developed black skin? I’m sure somebody will come up with a cock and bull explanation for these numerous anomalies, but as I continually find out, none is satisfactory or makes sense. Look at a globe of Earth and you will see these fallacies come to light. Mongolia is on a lattitude with the extreme northern USA and much of southern Canada. Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, all the way over to the Far East coast is on a lattitude with extreme northern Africa and the Southern states here in the USA. Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey are on a lattitude with the Middle South up to southern New England. Going by all this, these nations and peoples are not even far enough south towards the equator for the sun to turn people slightly dark, let alone black even if it was able too! On the other hand, the Deep South states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, louisiana, and Texas are well within the lattitudes of much of northern Africa which was home to mainly Black people in antiquity. There have been Whites living here for centuries, save for modern moving around, in the Deep South, so why have they not turned Black, or at least a dark brown? What about the Aboriginal Americans who’ve lived here for longer than that? Why are they not Black? Well, evidence suggests that the “Indians” are themselves an ancient Black/White Mulatto. Early explorers into the interior of the Americas found White “Indian” tribes and Black “Indian” tribes. The more common being the pseudo-called “red” people which are actually ancient Mulattos, since there’s no such thing as actual red skin melanin. Again, further data to debunk the climate-race theory. There’s plenty more evidence and data, but this is already longwinded enough. Much Abliged

Posted by OdinThor on June 10, 2007, 09:59 PM | #

The sumerians have been blue-eyed.

Look here:
http://forum.skadi.net/blau_ugige_sumerer_blue_eyed_sumerians-t84487.html?t=84487

That means, they must have been some sort of european people.

“The Sumerians described themselves as “black-headed.” It could not have meant just hair color since a good majority of the Mesopotamians, White or Black, had dark or black hair, so that by itself would hardly have been a distinguishing factor, black skin being the next obvious and more logical difference.”

Posted by 17% on June 11, 2007, 09:32 AM | #

Racial science marches onward.  Stay tuned to Majority Rights comments threads for the latest, well written and well reasons advancements in this field.

Posted by Russian on August 13, 2007, 09:16 PM | #

Skin color coefficient:

Azerbaijan 2.0
Georgia 2.0
China 2.0
Cyprus 2.0
Portugal 2.0
Spain 2.0
Turkey 2.0
Uzbekistan 2.0

RUSSIA 2.0

HOW WAS THAT CALCULATED? ARE AUTHORS BLIND OR THEY JUST TOOK THOSE DIGITS FROM THEIR MIND?

Do your really think that Russians have the same skin color as Turks, Azerbaidjanians and Uzbeks?

THIS RESEARCH IS FAKE!