3 ms·

You don't need hundreds of thousands of years to have meaningful shifts in allelic distribution. 10,000 years of agriculture is more than enough to select for h

You don't need hundreds of thousands of years to have meaningful shifts in allelic distribution. 10,000 years of agriculture is more than enough to select for height, lactase persistence, and more [1]. I don't think it's a far shot to conjecture a relationship between certain modes of civilization and cognitive features that they select for. I can't point to conclusive empirical evidence for this but my problem is just with people making the study of these issues taboo and denying the scientific possibility. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151123202631.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151123202631.h...

sudosysgen 5y ago
I'm not making these issues taboo. You claim that agriculture selected for height, yet height amongst humans was of almost identical height except for a few outliers. What the study you linked showed was a change in around 12 genes across 10 000 years of agriculture that were all related to diet or sunlight exposure. This was because they moved to an environment that forced a completely different diet. However we know that for 10 000 years we could notice almost every kind of societal organization in most geographical regions, from hunter-gatherer societies, to agricultural societies, to urban societies, etc... From Africa, to Asia, to India, to the Americas, every single one of these societal structures were observed, and in almost every case the optimal predictor of the presence of these structures were economic and political, not genetic or of ancestry. So again, that leads me to the question I formulated above, which populations that you're thinking about did not organize in which societal mode? What hypothesis do you have linking which organizational mode to which population leading to which expected cognitive effect? I honestly, really cannot find anything. If you could find something, a study could be made, just like the one you cited above, trying to find the genetic changes as populations transitioned societal modes or between populations in similar environments but different societal modes (the last are fairly rare just off the top of my head). There just isn't enough to make a solid hypothesis here. If you can make one that's worthwhile I'm all ears, but there just isn't anything to draw on.

sudosysgen 5y ago

I'm not making these issues taboo. You claim that agriculture selected for height, yet height amongst humans was of almost identical height except for a few outliers. What the study you linked showed was a change in around 12 genes across 10 000 years of agriculture that were all related to diet or sunlight exposure. This was because they moved to an environment that forced a completely different diet. However we know that for 10 000 years we could notice almost every kind of societal organization in most geographical regions, from hunter-gatherer societies, to agricultural societies, to urban societies, etc... From Africa, to Asia, to India, to the Americas, every single one of these societal structures were observed, and in almost every case the optimal predictor of the presence of these structures were economic and political, not genetic or of ancestry. So again, that leads me to the question I formulated above, which populations that you're thinking about did not organize in which societal mode? What hypothesis do you have linking which organizational mode to which population leading to which expected cognitive effect? I honestly, really cannot find anything. If you could find something, a study could be made, just like the one you cited above, trying to find the genetic changes as populations transitioned societal modes or between populations in similar environments but different societal modes (the last are fairly rare just off the top of my head). There just isn't enough to make a solid hypothesis here. If you can make one that's worthwhile I'm all ears, but there just isn't anything to draw on.