The Twists of History and DNA 337
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times has a piece today talking about the possible connection between genetic evolution and history." From the article: "Trying to explain cultural traits is, of course, a sensitive issue. The descriptions of national character common in the works of 19th-century historians were based on little more than prejudice. Together with unfounded notions of racial superiority they lent support to disastrous policies. But like phrenology, a wrong idea that held a basic truth (the brain's functions are indeed localized), the concept of national character could turn out to be not entirely baseless, at least when applied to societies shaped by specific evolutionary pressures."
Just a Clue-In (Score:2, Informative)
Read Guns, Germs, & Steel (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bullshit! All men are the same! (Score:5, Informative)
buy it (Score:5, Informative)
Take 10000 ancient babies and 10000 modern babies though, place them in equal situations, and you'll see a pattern of differences between the groups.
It's easy to prove this for physical attributes like height. The Mayan and Inca people of Central America were very short. If you brought one to the modern world, part of that difference would go away (better food) and part would remain. Maybe the guy is 5'4" instead of the average 5'10", but you couldn't say for sure if it was something particular to an ancient person. If you got 10000 of these people though, and the average was 5'4", then you'd know there was a difference.
Re:As usual, humanity fancies itself above the fra (Score:5, Informative)
I agree with your point, but just for the record, that phrase by the Founding Fathers did not mean "equal in ability" or even "equal in value". It meant that no one is born divine, in the sense of more than human. This was a direct attack on the idea that kings are ordained by God.
uh, yes, it has been studied (Score:3, Informative)
Re:As usual, humanity fancies itself above the fra (Score:3, Informative)
Re:As usual, humanity fancies itself above.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:oooh... yes, define "superior" (Score:3, Informative)
A good example is the Rapanui of Easter Island. Their population grew to 10,000, larger than the island could handle and soon all of its resources were used up. Why? Because instead of working together, the leaders made a bad choice and began using everything to build big stone heads. They had no idea what kind of shit they were in until it was too late. The majority starved to death and the remaining people had to resort to eating the dead to survive. The population fell to 111.
Survival isn't just about how many offspring you produce. It's the quality, or output to society as a whole from each person that makes the difference.
Re:Germans (Score:5, Informative)
To date, there heve been exactly zero scientific studies that point to a genetic component of personality, including the famous twins studies of the late 1990s. Yet there have been literally thousands of studies that point to a cultural component, including those that show that early childhood trauma can result in physical damage to the brain.
This is, to put it bluntly, wrong (search for personality or behavior) [nih.gov]. For that matter, most people doesn't consider early childhood trauma to be "cultural". If someone were intending to show a genetic component to personality, he or she would first have to show a physiological component to personality. That has yet to happen. So your analogy of shortness and strongness, which are physiological traits, can not be applied to personalities, which are not physiological. The brain may be genetic, but we are many, many years from proving or even suggesting that personality traits are.
This too is wrong, and sounds a lot like some sort of vitalistic voodoo; in other words, much less scientific than the notion that genes influence personality. It is also inconsistent with what you said above (where you used the causal chain [early childhood trauma] --> [physical damage to the brain] --> [personality]).
--MarkusQ
P.S. "Strongness" isn't a word. I think you were looking for "Strength."
US aid to Britain during the War (Score:3, Informative)
The British got about $14 - $20 billion of war material from the US via the Lend-Lease program during 1941-1945. This was in 1940s dollars, so it really was a substantial fraction of GDP. None of this was repaid in cash; rather, in return, the US got leases on various British naval bases.
Now, the name "Lend-Lease" is a bit misleading. It was only named that to make the deal palatable to stingy American voters.
The "Lend" part refers to the idea was that the materials (tanks, trucks, ships, aircraft, food, fuel, clothing, etc.) would be lent to the allies, and that when the emergency was over, the allies would give back whatever was still in usable condition. Of course, at the end of the war, almost all these materials had been destroyed or otherwise used up, so basically nothing was returned.
The "Lease" part of course refers to leases on British naval bases. This is not a small matter. These bases have helped the US to project military power on the world ever since then. It is hard to put a dollar value on them.
When the US ended the program suddenly in 1945, there was a remainder of material still on its way to Britain. This was sold for about 10% of its market value. The British government paid for it with a loan at a 2% annual rate, which the UK still has not paid off. [wikipedia.org] (At 2% interest, who can blame them?) Again, this is separate from the Lend-Lease deal, which was repaid in bases, not money.
This was meant to be a good deal for the British, and it probably was. But it had a terrible effect on British industry. Part of the terms of Lend-Lease required that the UK not export the sort of materials that it was being given by the US. People were put to work at other wartime tasks, and so by the end of the war, industrial capacity in the UK was much reduced. Of course, in the US it was the opposite story.
The UK also got more than $3 billion from the Marshall Plan [wikipedia.org] -- which is more than any other country got, but still small compared to the Lend-Lease aid. IIRC, roughly half of this was in the form of a loan that had to be repaid, whilst the rest was basically an outright grant.
Most of this was justified in the US more by naked self-interest than pure charity. Otherwise there would have been comparable aid to the Axis powers during WWII and to Eastern Europe during the Cold War. But there is nevertheless a pretty clear case of American generosity and idealism in the great aid effort during the First World War which saved tens of millions of Europeans from starvation, [bbc.co.uk] but nowadays is almost entirely forgotten.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)