Ourcrazymodern?

B-I-N-G-O,
and Bingo was his name, oh!
Thanks a lot, Lubeboy!

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

highthief

I wanted to highlight this after all this time as I was just reading about the success of the Kenyan middle distance runners and how they have come to dominate middle distance running. I will paraphrase what the author, Nicholas Wade, write in "Before the Dawn":

Kenyans hold all the fastest 3,000 metre steeplechase times and about 50% of the best 5k and 10K times in the world. Within Kenya, most of these fastest times are held by Kelanjin speaking people of the Great Rift Valley, particularly a small group of this population called the Nandi. They comprise less than 2% of the general Kenyan population but are the largest single group of elite runners in the country and have won more than 20% of the elite middle distance running events in the world the last few years.

Interestingly, Kenyan attempts to extend their track dominance to the sprints has failed completely - the best Kenyan 100 metre time ranks about 5,000th on the all time list.

John Manners, an author of various works on running, ascribes a genetic component to the Nandi success at middle distances. Not only do they live at a 2,000 metre altitude, one of their customs may have led to a genetic preference for excellent distance running.

The Nandi have a custom of cattle raiding - this raiding is done over long distances. The better a man was at running for distance, the better his success at raiding. The more success he has at raiding, the more wives he can afford - consequently, men who are good raiders (and thus, good runners) have many more children than men who are not good runners/raiders.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

Jenny_Lyte

I have a personal rebuttal against this. It has no real basis in proof other than history and may make me sound extremely racist and bitter. But, here goes. Sorry if I offend anyone, but now you will know how I felt when this article was published.

It's not a black versus white thing. I don't think it ever was. It's modern Westerners versus indigenous tribes. Africans, Australian Aborigines, Native Americans, etc. have always been considered backwards ignorant savages that new nothing of how the world was supposed to work. They wore less clothing than Westerners. Many were nomadic. Their customs and society were so different from traditional Western Christian values, that they had to be heathens. Europe began the colonization of Africa and Australia, disrupting the way of lives of many suddenly displaced and oppressed peoples. America began importing African slaves and also began a continuous westward expansion destroying the American Indians in the process. Eventually, these backwards ignorant savages became absorbed into the Western way of life. Now, Africa is ripped apart by civil war, disease and famine. Not a good way for the first civilization on Earth to end up. Native Americans are living in third-world countries right in our own backyards.

These were peoples who lived with the land, not on it. They worked with nature, they did not control it. They shunned technology and one result of that was the absence of a population explosion. They were often nomads and as a result did not scar the Earth with cities and other permanent dwellings. There were no problems like crime, traffic and pollution. They lived in a peaceful coexistence with the world around them. It could be argued, and rightfully so, that they almost lived like animals.

Fast forward to 2008. Over population, global warming, violence, etc. These were not problems of these "savages" these problems are the result of this "civilized" Western way of thinking.

Keeping all that in mind, I ask you: Who's really of inferior intelligence?

Again, I apologize to anyone I have offended. Just something to think about is all.

highthief

While I agree that some of the people of the more "primitive" parts of the world have not destroyed their environment nor created many of the problems of the modern world, the fact is that many have utterly wrecked their own environments and many live in utterly murderous societies that can hardly be held up as paragons of virtue.

The Easter Islanders, for instance, destroyed their own society by using up all the trees on their island, and ended up reverting to a more primitive and poorer society. They manufactured and experienced their own man-made environmental disaster and were certainly not the only tribes to have done so.

The Yanomamo Indians of South America are incredibly violent, and death from the hands of another is expected. The Mojave Indians considered 30% casulaties to be normal and the Mae Enga tribe of New Guinea experienced 40% losses.

Many, if not most, hunter-gatherer societies were every bit as nasty and cruel and as stupid as modern societies.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

Jenny_Lyte

While all of that is true (and I am taking your word for it) did these things happen before or after interaction with Westerners? For example, many (many, but not all) wars between American Indian tribes were due to them being forced from their homes by European settlers and forced to encroach on the territories of neighboring tribes. War is human, regardless of color, nationality or level of "civilization" but I'd be willing to go out on a limb and guess that the Western world is responsible for many more wars than any primitive society. Again, this is all an educated guess. History's not really my thing. My knowledge in these subjects are limited at best.

highthief

Before and after - if you look at the history of Central and South America for instance, and their well documented empires, wars and human sacrifices, it's pretty evident they were every bit as brutish as Europeans, Asians, Egyptians, Persians, or any one else.

Many anthropologists would argue that "civilized" societies are much more peaceful than hunter-gatherer type societies - that we (the civilized) have largely evolved so as to be able to get along with one another, to live in close proximity to each other, to invest in shared resources, without resorting to violence in our everyday lives. Whereas many hunter gatherer tribes consider violence to be part of their everyday lives because they have never had to learn to get along with their neighbours in the same way "we" have.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

Ourcrazymodern?

The value of scientific inquiry is additional understanding, right?
If we cannot find our oneness (pretend I said commonality), we ain't gonna get there.

IJUHP!

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girldetective

OP = No, my question is this. If you had an airtight test to gauge a persons intelligence, no claims of cultural bias could be made, would it be ethical to use it on a population? Normally I am always for the truth scientifically. It doesn’t matter how inconvenient that truth is or how unpopular. In this scenario though, I have to wonder, what good it would do?


This could be a question that sees fruition in the US -- look at the current admin's view on testing. In the end I'm not sure IQ testing the masses would serve many purposes of good. Speaking sociologically I think that at some point each of know someone smarter than ourselves (or at least we wonder if they may be), and I think we each tend to gravitate toward what we can understand and where we can be be understood to some degree no matter how small. Which makes global education the utmost value. Zapatisa, baby!

Ustwo

You are in fact far out on a limb.

War is just what we humans do, its practically a universal across the globe.

We westerners just seem to be very good at it (the ones were weren't good are no longer around to complain), so we win more than we lose and then some of us feel guilty about our fathers, grandfathers, greatX5 grandfathers winning those wars and then think its all our fault.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Plan9

Violence is FUN!

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

hrandani

Western civilization invented war. wow.

abaya

What kind of anthropologists have you been talking to?? Citation needed, por favor.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

highthief

From Before the Dawn, by Nicholas Wade.

Further, and here Wade quotes Allan Johnson and Timothy Earle from the Evolution of Human Societies:

Further, an examination of hunter-gatherer societies in such diverse regions as New Guinea, Africa and South America shows just how violent these societies can be. Richard Borshay Lee in his book The !Kung San finds that the murder rate amongst the !Kung is 3 times that of the United States, easily the most murderous of Western nations.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

Ustwo

The Nobel Savage is just a figment of the Western mind.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

highthief

Further, Keeley in War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage says that more than a third of the Yanomamo males, on average, died from warfare.

The beating of wives is commonplace.

I think there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that settled, urban societies are, in their day-to-day lives, more peaceful than many, perhaps most, hunter-gatherer societies.

Now obviously, we - due to our technology and large nation-states - are capable of inflicting more death in war, but the average guy or gal sitting in front of his computer monitor is likely to be less violent than a Yanomami or !Kung or New Guinea tribesman, IMO.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

abaya

I'm well aware of that, Ustwo, and I also agree with it heartily. I think that idea is just as naive as it is arrogant to think that only industrial societies have evolved to be non-violent.

Highthief, thanks. However respectable he may be, Nicholas Wade is a science reporter, not an anthropologist. When I asked for a source, I was looking for peer-reviewed work that showed quantitative evidence of violent activities from society to society, controlling for socio-economic levels and population size. If you could show me a study like that, I might be more convinced.

Thing is, the problem is not that I think all hunter-gatherer societies are singing kumbaya and waving flowers around peacefully... quite the contrary. I'm well aware of scale of violence in many of those types of societies, that's nothing new. You're right about Richard Borshay Lee and the !Kung--and while I tend to agree with the materalist approach of the book you mention by Johnson & Earle, Marvin Harris' ideas--the source of materialist theory--just can't be used to explain every aspect of cultural evolution.

To make an all-encompassing statement that industralized societies are more peace-loving and less violent than hunter-gatherers is rather absurd. Have you lived among hunter-gatherers? I have. We're ALL capable of being violent assholes, depending on our circumstances... not because we're more "evolved." Let's put you in the middle of the 9th Ward or the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina and see how peace-loving you manage to be.

I was also reading along with your Wade quote, and came to the last sentence: "the different set of intellectual capacities that is rewarded by the institution of property."... what do you take from that? What does the institution of property have to do with intelligence? Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but tell me what you got from that.

Yeah, yeah, the famously violent Yanomamo. That's anthropology 101, no need to bring them up.

Does it occur to you WHY the "average" guy--who happens to own a computer, and have the time to sit in front of it, rather than trying to get the next meal from the Savannah--MIGHT be less violent than someone who isn't sure of where their next meal is coming from? Come on, you can come up with a better argument/example than that.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Ourcrazymodern?

I wonder, again, what happened to "Race, Intelligence, and The Value of Scientific Inquiry"?

It seems to have drifted, which may be a good thing, given that it's a very odd
topic, but pussyfooting around it by distracting from it isn't helping the evolution of our philosophies regarding it.

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BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Ustwo

This just proves the point. The nature of our lives allows us to be non-violent.

No one is saying we are 'better' as humans, but our society allows us to have internet arguments rather than worrying about who is going to bash us over the head with a stone axe. When that sort of violence does happen, we have elaborate infrastructure (police, courts) to punish the aggressor.

I'm honestly not sure what you are defending here.

Extreme violence was the currency of Central and South America prior to Europeans, the Moche make the Aztec's look like pacifists for example. We had cannibalism and highly defended settlements in the American south west in Chaco canyon. We had/have violent hunter gatherer types in the South Pacific and Asia. Even the Hawaiian islands were nothing but constant warfare and raiding until Kamehameha united them violently.

I don't think its a stretch to say our society is less violent than a pre-industrial one. Just look at our own history for that.

Its sort of telling that the oldest European corpse was found with an arrow in his back.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

abaya

Close. I would say that the socio-economic status of our individual lives helps most individuals to have less reason to be violent... certainly, I'm not making excuses for violence, but there are contexts that must be considered.
Well, that was the gist I was getting from this portion of the thread... that humans living in an industrialized society are more innately peace-loving than those humans who are living in hunter-gatherer societies. And yes, I do take issue with that. However, if you are not saying that, then no, obviously I have nothing to defend.
... part and parcel with the Europeans, let's not forget. I already stated that I think the Noble Savage idea is a crock of shit, but my addition is that the West is not morally superior by sole virtue of its level of material development. Just because we've developed more sophisticated, efficient methods of killing does not make us somehow less violent by nature.

As I already said, we're all potentially violent assholes at heart, given a particular context--and I'm not talking about how "civilized" our society is, as a context. I'm talking about distribution of resources, etc... and that can happen well or poorly at any level of social evolution.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

highthief

Abaya,

I provided you with quotes from Wade - a scientist and graduate of Cambridge although not an anthropologist - his expertise is more noted in genetics but I don't think that invalidates his work (which is endorsed by Edward Wilson and Lionel Tiger, noted anthropologists), Lawrence Keeley (prof of Anthropology at University of Illinois), and Allan Johnson and Timoty Earle, anthropologists and authors of anthro textbooks. I think you can ignore the line that is confounding you as in this passage he is linking several things together.

You cannot dismiss the Yanomami just because it is "Anthro 101" - you have to refute the argument with your own evidence, not simply wish it away as being too basic. How about your own evidence (without resorting to Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, perhaps?) to refute my position?

Even Jared Diamond, that great defender of the "noble savage", admits the New Guinea tribes have a great history of violence. Now he takes an opposite approach and suggests because New Guineans have to survive by their wits they are in fact more intelligent than "civilized" people.

The approach I endorse, to come back to your question, is that people whose ancestry is attached to advanced nation states have indeed evolved to become more cooperative, to be able to deal with more complex societies, laws and day to day living. Those who in our deep past could not handle living in close proximity to their fellows got banished or killed or were generally less successful in propagating their lines. Whereas the people able to adapt peacefully to complex social rules generally propogated and delivered their genetic predispositions for advanced social intelligence to their progeny. Just as we have deliberately domesticated wolves and turned them into dogs, and aurochs and turned them into cows, so have we domesticated ourselves (albeit not deliberately) with a resultant genetic shift in our society.

Their are exceptions of course - Genghis Khan famously fathered hundreds if not thousands of children so that today 8% of Asians may carry his genes. But even then, though he was a violent so and so, there's no doubting his intelligence and ability to administer a complex empire.

It's interesting - earlier in the thread the issue of the Ashnekazi Jews was brought up and how they have scored higher on intelligence testing. I was not sold on their innate intellegence at the time, but the more I consider the matter, the more I think I agree that due to the occupations Jews were forced into in Europe in the Middle Ages, the greater their average intelligence became, as those successful at finance and similar occupations, were more genetically successful.

Just skimming the net and found this article from the Economist:

http://www.economist.com/displaystor...ry_id=10278703

Kim Hill reports in the Journal of Human Evolution in 2007 that

Hill K, Hurtado AM, Walker RS. 2007. High adult mortality among Hiwi hunter-gatherers: implications for human evolution. J Hum Evol 52:443-454.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

Ourcrazymodern?

To think it took "5 million years" of "Nobel savages" to get here.

(I must own that the term "Nobel Savage" has truth in it, Ustwo.)

I am amazed this has gone on so long...

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abaya

Alright, I took some time to think about this thread before coming back to reply.

RE: Wade, I did not say that he was an unintelligent man, nor that his work was invalid. However, anthropology is still not his field... he does an admirable job of synthesizing a lot of different ideas in one place, definitely. But as with many journalists (and even Jared Diamond, who commits grave errors in pulling everything into his "grand narrative," most notably in Collapse), we still have to be cautious of what his "big picture" is... and whether or not that is scientifically sound. I just have my doubts, that's all... I'd like to see more of his work before I go accepting ALL of what he writes as being true.

As for the Yanomami, I don't know what we're arguing about there. We both agree that they're one of the most well-known violent people groups in the world. You want me to give more evidence to refute a position that you already agree with?... I'm confused.

Now, as to your approach: Okay. What I hear you saying is that you think individuals living in advanced nation states and complex societies are, by sole virtue of being born into those societies, more peaceful and "domesticated." Is that right? And conversely, you believe that any individual born into a "hunter-gatherer" society, whether yesterday or thousands of years ago, will be innately more violent and prone to killing and injuring other people. Am I following you?

So it doesn't matter what kind of human being you are... it only matters what kind of society you are born into, right? So those groups of Kenyans massacring each other over the weekend?... violent because they were not born into an advanced nation state, and for no other reason. They'll never stop being violent. And those 400-500 murders that take place each year in Philly, New York, etc... violent because... they were born into an advanced nation state?... The people who were violent and dangerous during Hurricane Katrina, getting in fights over food and water... hunter gatherers? Oh wait, they were born into a civilized society, so I thought they were supposed to be more cooperative and domesticated?

See, this is the flaw that I see in your thinking. I do not argue with the theories of *general* human social evolution... yes, with the agricultural and industrial revolutions, we've had to come up with more laws and ways of preventing and resolving conflicts with each other, especially in densely inhabited urban environments and large, possibly unwieldy populations that are sharing limited resources. Fine and well.

But what I don't agree with is the extension of that general theory, into individual behaviors... to explain why entire societies are violent, TODAY, not in our deep history. To say that certain groups are violent because it's "in their nature," not because of their external circumstances, socio-economic status, etc. Perhaps I have misunderstood you, up until this point... feel free to let me know. But what I hear you saying is that hunter-gathering individuals, now in the 21st century, are INNATELY more violent than industrialized individuals, who are all peace-loving folk. And that just doesn't make sense.

I guess I just don't see how you can disagree with the idea that we are all capable of being violent assholes, given a particular set of circumstances and pressures. That just seems like common sense to me. But what you seem to be saying is that no, violence is only explainable by what kind of society you were born into, not by other circumstances such as marked difference in socio-economic status, inequal distribution of wealth (which, by god, still happens in advanced nation-states!!! Say it ain't so.), etc.

Am I misunderstanding your point? Please let me know. Frankly, if we are just miscommunicating about a common point, I'd rather be done with this seemingly pointless thread.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

highthief

Re the Yanomami - you seemed to be dismissive of them because their society is talked about in introductory anthro classes. This is why I have responded as I did.

Re being born into advanced societies - generally, I think we (that is to say Europeans, Chinese, etc) have evolved to fit those societies. We have evolved to fit into these societies at a genetic level because it benefits us, and so we have learned to live in close proximity to one another without resorting to violence to resolve issues (in general) just as being a little more aggressive complements many hunter-gatherer lifestyles.

Human beings are as succeptible to ongoing evolution as ever - we have evolved to fit our environments. I don't see that as any great leap of logic.

Now, understand, this is a general not specific situation. You cannot attribute any one act - be it rioting Kenyans or murders in Detroit - to this fact. Nor does it mean that every European is less violent than the next hunter-gatherer - there is a great deal of overlap. But I do believe some general conclusions, as already outlined, can be drawn from the studies already mentioned.

I'm not sure why you see the thread as pointless, abaya. I think there has been a lot of worthwhile discussion, even if I don't agree with everyone's POV.

I do wish you would try to cite some studies yourself if you disagree with me, especially after I went out of my way to answer your question.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

abaya

I see it as pointless because no one's ever going to budge on their points of view. If you inherently believe that modern, complex societies are unconditionally, on every level (controlling for socio-economic status and distribution of wealth), less violent to live in than modern hunter-gatherer societies, I just don't know what to say. We're talking apples and oranges here (especially when you start bringing in the genetic view) and nothing that either of us says on this little forum is going to change those views.

I've collected data in the Philly ghetto, and collected data in rural, dirt-poor Zambia. Let me tell you, I'd rather be living in rural Zambia on a day-to-day basis than spend a few nights in the Philly ghetto.

The reason I asked you to cite studies (and I do appreciate you doing that, btw--it gave me a better context to understand where you got your ideas from) is because you opened this section of discussion with a statement about "anthropologists." I wanted to know which anthropologists you were talking about, because most anthropologists I know are hard-core believers in cultural relativism. Not extreme relativism, mind you, but at least some degree of relativism, of looking at the behaviors of each society (and by extension, individuals in those societies) within their own particular contexts. I can't cite this as a "study" in anthropology, since it's a theoretical orientation that informs pretty much every study in the field... going back to good ol' Franz Boas, the founder of the modern discipline. So, for that, check The Mind of Primitive Man, Franz Boas, 1911.

I'm really just tired of arguing about this right now. No one on this thread is ever going to change their personal "gut feelings" about race, intelligence, etc... and every time I come back here, I just get fired up and waste my energy. That's all. Hopefully other people are reading the discussing and gaining some insight, but they're not posting here, so I don't know.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Ustwo

I don't think anyone said that, I think the point is we are a lot less likely to die violently.

I don't necessarily agree with Highthief in that we have evolved to fit these societies. I only have to go back a few hundred years to find Vikings in my and my wifes blood.

But abaya there is a fine line between the old 'White Mans burden' where every thing in the west was considered superior to other cultures, and trying to make everything relative. Some things we have done are perhaps superior, and many things are better. Its not really PC to say that, and I"m guessing you are surrounded by PC thought based on your postings, but there is nothing wrong with thinking that perhaps we do a few things better then people who are still in the stone age.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

highthief

But you see, I DID change my POV.

I was not sold on the Ashnekazi having a greater inherent intelligence (at least the way we in the West measure it) than the average Westerner, chalking it up to many environmental factors that influence Jewish children as they grow up.

But, looking more deeply into it, I do think there is likely a genetic component to their higher tested IQ scores. Environment does factor in, I think, as well, but so does genetics.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by.

If you buy into Ashnekazi intelligence being genetically based, you really only have to go back a few centuries to discover the purported roots of their intelligence (confined to certain areas, permitted to work in very specific industries, and enjoying prolific numbers of offspring if successful in those industries).

In relatively small populations in relatively small areas (such as the Jews in question), you only need a few generations to begin to see such affects on a population as a whole.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

sapiens

Differences in Ashnekazi Jews and other groups in intelligence (as measured by the WAIS or some other standard IQ measure) could have a heritable component entirely independent of the adaptationist explanation you suggest above. It could just be a founder effect/genetic drift.

highthief

True, it could be a fluke effect of drift - until such time as the genes responsible for higher IQ in that population are pinned down and dated we cannot say for sure.

Still, I think given other aspects of how various populations test in IQ - even people raised together in the same socio-economic environments yet who have dissimilar ancestries - does lend credence to the concept of certain populations have an average greater ability in some mental areas than other populations, although with considerable overlap. It would be bizarre to think the human mind is immune to evolutionary forces when every other visible and readily testable aspect of our being has so obviously been shaped by evolutionary adaptation over realtively short periods of time.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

ring

I don't see this thread as pointless....
The verbal parrying that I have been listening to,has temporarily
replaced the bloody sword I feel some of us would use if circumstances
were to radically change...history has a history...
Why do I need to drag up 'sites' when what is apparent to me, about
human behavior is in plain sight in this thread,

Studying a few generations? does anyone else see the arrogance
of coming to hard and fast conclusions about something so recent and
subjective in nature?

enlighten me more..please...how can my point of view change..
if I don't even know where the window is?

highthief

Very significant genetic changes can occur - especially among smaller, restricted populations - in just a few generations.

Good examples are to be found in studying the animal biology of small islands. Within a few generations, major changes in size and behaviour can occur - human beings are not immune to similar forces within our own environment - I think it would be arrogant to think we are above such forces.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

Ourcrazymodern?

"in just a few generations" =
It's just us here, people.

I further pretend that our limited perspective contributes to our lack of it and the concept of race.
Intelligence should help us, but it obfuscates matters by using too many words, which might also help us, if we listened as much as we spoke.

A funny thing: Our retardation in these areas transcends our races, and even our intelligences.

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BE JUST AND FEAR NOT