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"Such competence is potentially heritable and is reinforced by the human tendency to mate with partners of similar traits and ability." So does this mean that

"Such competence is potentially heritable and is reinforced by the human tendency to mate with partners of similar traits and ability." So does this mean that over tens of thousands of years rich people could evolve into a separate race ?

lepukowsky 13y ago
According to Wikipedia, that question doesn't really matter: "race has no taxonomic significance and that all living humans belong to the same species" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28human_classification%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28human_classification%29 I suppose if some group of people got themselves into their own species, where they could not in fact mate with what we know as "human", it would be a pretty big deal. Edit-- I quoted the same line... please feel free to respond to my comment below.
- larksimian 13y ago
  'Race' is a dumb concept. We know that there are groups of people that are biologically distinct from others. Not to say that they can't interbreed, merely that there are genetic/phenotypic differences between groups. Probably the most obvious example is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease#Epidemiology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease#Epidemiolog... which is a condition that mostly appears in people with ancestry in regions that expose them to malaria. Skin color is obviously a biological difference that distinguishes different human populations, it just doesn't correlate with all the stuff we actually care about, for instance intelligence. 'Race' is loosely correlated with some specific biological traits, for instance http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/guide/hypertension-in-african-americans http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/guide/... As for hyper-successful people breeding themselves into a sub-group with specific traits, for better or for worse, this is obviously possible http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prognathism#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prognathism#History
  - jmerton 13y ago
    Thanks for the links. My area of (amateur) research is "contra-science," and one sub-set I find most interesting is so-called "race." What is called "race' seems actually to be the result of environmental/geographic induced gene expression. My favorite examples is a South African sub-culture that possesses the Cohen gene (Tribe of Isaiah), but looks identical to their neighbors. They have been in South Africa for about 800 years.
jmerton 13y ago
No. Crudely put, the rich guys get the pretty girls. This re-averages the IQ. There's an article somewhere; sorry I don't have a link handy. Edit: This re-averages the overall genetic factors.
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  And pretty girls are healthy ones. Which lets powerful ones avoid degeneration.

lepukowsky 13y ago

According to Wikipedia, that question doesn't really matter: "race has no taxonomic significance and that all living humans belong to the same species" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28human_classification%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28human_classification%29 I suppose if some group of people got themselves into their own species, where they could not in fact mate with what we know as "human", it would be a pretty big deal. Edit-- I quoted the same line... please feel free to respond to my comment below.

larksimian 13y ago
'Race' is a dumb concept. We know that there are groups of people that are biologically distinct from others. Not to say that they can't interbreed, merely that there are genetic/phenotypic differences between groups. Probably the most obvious example is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease#Epidemiology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease#Epidemiolog... which is a condition that mostly appears in people with ancestry in regions that expose them to malaria. Skin color is obviously a biological difference that distinguishes different human populations, it just doesn't correlate with all the stuff we actually care about, for instance intelligence. 'Race' is loosely correlated with some specific biological traits, for instance http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/guide/hypertension-in-african-americans http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/guide/... As for hyper-successful people breeding themselves into a sub-group with specific traits, for better or for worse, this is obviously possible http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prognathism#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prognathism#History
- jmerton 13y ago
  Thanks for the links. My area of (amateur) research is "contra-science," and one sub-set I find most interesting is so-called "race." What is called "race' seems actually to be the result of environmental/geographic induced gene expression. My favorite examples is a South African sub-culture that possesses the Cohen gene (Tribe of Isaiah), but looks identical to their neighbors. They have been in South Africa for about 800 years.

jmerton 13y ago

No. Crudely put, the rich guys get the pretty girls. This re-averages the IQ. There's an article somewhere; sorry I don't have a link handy. Edit: This re-averages the overall genetic factors.

guard-of-terra 13y ago
And pretty girls are healthy ones. Which lets powerful ones avoid degeneration.