Marlowe Hood, AFP, October 28, 2009
Culture, not just genes, can drive evolutionary outcomes, according to a study released Wednesday that compares individualist and group-oriented societies across the globe.
Bridging a rarely-crossed border between natural and social sciences, the study looks at the interplay across 29 countries of two sets of data, one genetic and the other cultural.
The researchers found that most people in countries widely described as collectivist have a specific mutation within a gene regulating the transport of serotonin, a neurochemical known to profoundly affect mood.
In China and other east Asian nations, for example, up to 80 percent of the population carry this so-called “short” allele, or variant, of a stretch of DNA known as 5-HTTLPR.
Earlier research has shown the S allele to be strongly linked with a range of negative emotions, including anxiety and depression.
Critically, it is also associated with the impulse to stay out of harm’s way.
By contrast, in countries of European origin that prize self-expression and the pursuit of individual over group goals, the long or “L” allele dominates, with only 40 percent of people carrying the “S” variant.
The study, published in Britain’s Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, offers a novel explanation as to how this divergence might have come about.
Setting aside discredited ideas linking genetics and race, the researchers suggest that culture and genes may have interacted over time to shape the process of natural selection, helping individuals—and the societies in which they lived—to survive and thrive.
Ancient cultures in Asia, Africa and Latin America highly exposed to deadly pathogens, they conjecture, may have tended toward collectivist norms in order to better combat disease.
That social transformation, in turn, could have favoured the gradual dominance of the risk-avoidance S allele.
“We demonstrate that evolution is operating at least two levels,” said Joan Chiao, a professor at Northwestern University in Chicago and lead author of the study.
“One is biological, which is well understood. But there is also a level where cultural traits may have been selected for themselves, emerging in congruence with the selection of different types of genes,” she explained by phone.
One well known example of so-called “culture-gene co-evolutionary theory” has to do with drinking cow’s milk, something humans are not intrinsically adapted to do.
Over time, milk consumption led to both the genetic selection of protein genes in cattle, and a gene in humans that encodes lactase, an enzyme that can break down the otherwise indigestible lactose in dairy.
In the case of collective cultures and the S allele, “we don’t make a strong claim on the chicken-or-egg problem” of which came first, said Chiao.
“What we are proposing is that cultural and genetic selection actually operate in tandem, and that you can view human behaviour as a product of culture-gene co-evolution,” she said.
The study also argues that collectivist cultures may help protect against the genetic risk of depression that comes with having the S allele.
“Such support seems to buffer vulnerable individuals from the environmental risks or stressors that serve as triggers to depressive episodes,” said Chiao. The fact that the United States and Europe have higher rates of anxiety and mood disorders despite having the L allele may come from the stress of living in highly individualistic cultures, she suggested.
“People have treated natural selection as a rationale for looking for universal traits, across populations and species.”
“But what really matters is the diversity across populations and species which may help us better understand how natural selection has operated at both individual levels and ecosystem levels,” she said.
Original article
(Posted on October 29, 2009)
Comments
Here is a perfect example of the ridiculous and disingenuous distortions and lies that we all must make whenever we talk about race. The authors say, “Setting aside discredited ideas linking genetics and race . .” But the entire article is about linking genetics and race — i.e., they showed that one race primarily has the short gene and another race primarily has the long gene, and that genetic difference may correlate with or even be responsible for major behavioral differences between those races.
We are truly living in an Orwellian world where up is down and down is up.
Marlowe Hood, AFP, October 28, 2009
“Culture, not just genes, can drive evolutionary outcomes, according to a study released Wednesday that compares individualist and group-oriented societies across the globe.”
- - Reading this is almost laughable, not because it’s not true - it may very well be true, but read this quote from the end of the article - -
“But what really matters is the diversity across populations and species which may help us better understand how natural selection has operated at both individual levels and ecosystem levels”
- - Notice that perpetual word - DIVERSITY, that everyone and his grandmother is using today so extensively. “What really matter is the DIVERSITY …” The writer herself is proving her own point. She is so affected by this Diversity con game that the people who have an agenda where we’re concerned are playing on us that she has given “Diversity” the most important role. What I suspect she’s trying to do is cleverly getting us to believe in DIVERSITY.
- - And we know where DIVERSITY is leading us.
“Setting aside discredited ideas linking genetics and race…”
So scientists have found that a difference in genes explains the oft-noticed observation that whites are more individualistic than the more conformist Asians- yet they reject their own findings because it’s polically incorrect to believe in genetic racial differences!
The evidence is staring them right in the face but they ignore it because it goes against their secular religion called multiculturalism.
But there is also a level where cultural traits may have been selected for themselves [what??], emerging in congruence with the selection of different types of genes,” she explained by phone.
“Selected” how? Consciously? You mean some East Asian patriarchs ca. 20,000 BC sat down in a pow-wow and decided, “We’re in a dangerous environment. From now on, our culture has to be more risk-averse” and that “cultural” decision was some kind of “co-factor” in evolution of this S-allele? There’s no evidence for such a ridiculous scenario.
But the alternative is no less preposterous: that environmental adaptive imperatives “selected” for distinctive “cultures” (“collectivist” vs. “individualist”)as much as for genes. This is completely circular, unscientific and politically motivated reasoning - a silly attempt to “de-link” documented differing behavioral traits of races from both genetics and evolutionary theory, and yet another violation of Occam’s Razor in the service of political correctness and contemporary race denial hysteria.
Far out, but isn’t this Lamarkism, or a variant of it?
But I like this article—all the more reason why the European race is the most creative, daring, and curious that has ever existed!
That’s an awfully convoluted story to basically say when whites are depressed it has nothing to do with environment. Sometimes genes count for something, other times they don’t.
“The fact that the United States and Europe have higher rates of anxiety and mood disorders”
Maybe the depression is triggered when those of us with the “L” allele are subject to repression by those with the “S” allele. Repression from laws, taxes, regulations, forced multiculturalism from the collectivist with the “S” allele that suppresses are natural individual tendencies.
interesting but hardly new:
it has long been obvious that a culture can select for aggression, intelligence, conformity, artistic talent, athletic prowess, etc.
Those carrying the preferred trait (and corresponding gene) will have better reproductive chances, and the gene corresponding to the prefered trait will gradally come to predominate.
All perfectly commensensical, perfectly simple, and perfectly obvious to anyone with a minimal grasp of the principle of natural selection and its interaction with culture.
Also perfectly obvious to anyone who has ever bred flowers, dogs, pigeons, etc.
Only the blanket denial of Darwinism from the right (Creationism) and the left (denial of racial difference) kept something so stunningly obvious from being the conventional wisdom for so long.
What complete hogwash! What(or whom)praytell creates cultures in the first place? Are cultures not a direct product of various peoples and thus, also genetic to a large degree? This whole idea is reality turned on its head!
Is this really what “science” has come to?
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
I believe culture is affected by genes as well.
I teach this thesis since 1970-s.
The whole article is about race and genetics so I don’t understand how he can saying linking them is discredited.
With most articles here I can read through them and get a coherent consistent message. But so often with articles dealing with genetics and race I find myself getting to the end and saying to myself “huh?”. It’s as if the writer to protect his hide has to put in a disclaimer even if it contradicts the rest of the article. Maybe this is a skill that journalists have to develop in order to survive.
Wait, I’m lost. They found genetic differences between the races, and this is proof that race doesn’t exist? Aren’t they just replacing the word “genes” withthe word “culture,” and calling it a day?
8 Elitist is on the mark. Somewhere between natural selection of wild animals and selective breeding of the domesticated, lies “cultural selection”. Any trait that promotes breeding success, in any creature, will be passed along to the next generation. If a culture values certain traits and not others, those people with the valued traits will be sexually favored, and pass those traits along to their many offspring.
“Setting aside discredited ideas linking genetics and race, the researchers suggest that culture and genes may have interacted over time to shape the process of natural selection, helping individuals—and the societies in which they lived—to survive and thrive.”
It has already been pointed out the absurdity of the above statement. What’s sad is that the vast majority of Americans would just gloss over it without giving a thought to what it’s actually saying. I look for the truth - and for that I’ve been accused of being “over-analytical”. The only thing the average reader will get from that statement is “blah blah blah… race is not real… blah blah blah”. And then they’ll resume their blissfully ignorant lives.
Posters 1, 2, & 3: Don’t worry too much about the absurd disclaimers. At present, scientists still have to kiss the ring of anti-racism, but their work is undermining racial orthodoxy. A writer can say “behavior and intelligence are inherited”, followed by some comment on the “pseudo science of eugenics”. Which statement is to be believed?
The genes for their behavior were there but they were selected by specific behavior (animal equivalent of culture; IE, non-aggressive behavior) to produced animals we could utilize.
The study is done in America, so I’m sure those sampled were 95% South Chinese.
Reading the convoluted illogical explanation *Marlowe* Hood’s article of her *Joan* Chiao interview reminds of many discussions I had with my ex-wife. Are we suppose to be reading their minds …
This research may be the scientific explanation as why IQ is not the most important things. Now we may have a physical attribute, that can be measured, which explains why Mongoloids with their higher average IQs are less creative then Caucasians.
Multicultist talk about protecting cultures, so if there is indeed a so-called “culture-gene co-evolutionary theory”, the Multicultist will not want to soil unique cultures with foreign genes.
But the so-called “culture-gene co-evolutionary theory” of human evolution is about a profound as astronomer announcing that his search has led him to a “planet-sun co-development theory” of solar system creation. Sure, it may be true that every sun has planets, but surely there can be no denying which on is the driving force between the two entities in the evolution of a solar system.
What would somebody think of a article on astrological research that made the statement:
Actually, it sounds like something Galileo my have written just before he demonstrated that the earth orbited the sun to appease the Church.
Posters 1, 2, & 3: Don’t worry too much about the absurd disclaimers. At present, scientists still have to kiss the ring of anti-racism, but their work is undermining racial orthodoxy. A writer can say “behavior and intelligence are inherited”, followed by some comment on the “pseudo science of eugenics”. Which statement is to be believed?
Two possibilities. Either they don’t really believe there’s no such thing as race and they are covering their rear ends so to speak, or they still buy into the multicult but are willing to do honest research on people.
the researchers suggest that culture and genes may have interacted over time to shape the process of natural selection, helping individuals—and the societies in which they lived—to survive and thrive….In the case of collective cultures and the S allele, …said Chiao[,] “What we are proposing is that cultural and genetic selection actually operate in tandem, and that you can view human behaviour as a product of culture-gene co-evolution,”…The study also argues that collectivist cultures may help protect against the genetic risk of depression that comes with having the S allele. “Such support seems to buffer vulnerable individuals from the environmental risks or stressors that serve as triggers to depressive episodes,” said Chiao. The fact that the United States and Europe have higher rates of anxiety and mood disorders despite having the L allele may come from the stress of living in highly individualistic cultures, she suggested.
Chiao is trying to have it both ways: she posits something she calls “culture,” which is apparently self-replicating the way genes are, and which is (astonishingly!) apparently of equal importance with genes in human evolution. (Her theory cannot be meaningfully compared to selective plant and animal breeding by the way because such a process is both deliberate and obviously selective for genetic traits, not “cultural” ones).
In the case of “collectivist” (a slippery and undefined term) ethnies, according to Chiao, this “culture” supposedly is adaptive to the S-allele carried by such non-European peoples, helping them “cope” with the depression the S-allele causes, and “co-evolved” with that gene.
Yet in the case of the “highly individualistic” culture of Europeans, Chiao implies that that culture is maladaptive for the L-allele common in that race. Unless Europeans really don’t know what’s good for them and have “co-evolved” a “culture” that produced civilizational achievements yet left them feeling miserable all the time, Chiao’s “culture” theory explains nothing about human evolution, and particularly the evolution of human behavioral traits, that can’t already be explained by the action of genes in a given environment, including the environment’s so-called “culture.” Making “culture” a co-factor with genes in evolution is therefore a transparently political concession, not a true scientific hypothesis.
Setting aside discredited ideas linking genetics and race, the researchers suggest that culture and genes may have interacted over time to shape the process of natural selection, helping individuals—and the societies in which they lived—to survive and thrive.
I love it how liberal writers toss off nonsense like, “[the] discredited ideas linking genetics and race.” What has been discredited? Last I checked two black people will have a child who is black, no matter what culture they’re in. It sure looks genetic to me. Saying that culture and genes interact is neither new nor profound. Genes create phenotypes, phenotypes create cultures, how well phenotypes succeed in reproducing within the culture they are embedded in determines the future gene frequency. This is natural selection 101. What here discredits ideas linking genetics and race? Especially when this article points out that a gene responsible for some aspects of behavior has different frequencies in different races. That sounds like a good topic for an Amren conference talk.
This is scary because our culture in this Country (USA) is not European but is African American. Andrew Sullivan recently was trashing a Pat Buchanan article and said that white Americans are blacker than they think, and of course they are, they are acting more and more black. I hear adult white men and women often saying things like “dis” “dat” etc. and generally being African in many other ways.
I believe it’s a two-way street, but culture is more affected by genes than vice versa. A culture that is surrounded by warring cultures will need to breed bigger, stronger warriors. A high-tech culture will move toward brains instead of brawn. Hunters will be leaner and have longer legs than farmers.
Isn’t there a tribe in East Africa, Kenya maybe, that has a culture of cattle herding on foot, and also produces most of the world’s top middle distance runners? It was a long time ago that I read that so my details are shaky, but that clearly sounds like culture influencing evolution.
# 23 said “Genes create phenotypes, phenotypes create cultures.”
Let me expand on that: Genes create phenotypes, phenotypes create cultures, culture is part of the environment, which then selects. i.e., whether it is cold winters (non-culture) or rearing cows & having milk (culture), both can act to select for certain genes. In both cases, the surrounding environment (natural & cultural) is determining who lives and who dies, who breeds successfully and who does not.
Asians and bad driving is not well supported by the data.
New Zealand statistics:
* Last year drivers identified as being Asian were involved in 8 per cent of injury traffic crashes where ethnicity was recorded, and 5 per cent of fatal crashes.”
New Zealand is not the world, anonymous. Oriental drivers exist in many other White countries and seem to have bad driving reputations in many of them. Perhaps NZ has stricter licensing procedures than other places. Perhaps NZ lies about race, like all the other White countries.
The marxists still operate the same way, simply making statements and pushing them as facts, in a ‘by the way’ or very casual manner. When you see statements like “… discredited ideas linking genetics and race,” you can bet nothing at all has been discredited. They use the same tactic whether it’s claiming something has been extensively studied or that race is a “social concept” and so on. Just another of their worn out tactics.
