RoR: Forum

I haven't had the time to look the researcher's work yet. Here is some of his work. Gregory Clark

Post 1

Wednesday, August 8, 2007 - 5:09pm

This will remain mere speculation unless an actual genetic mechanism, say an increase in the frequency of a gene that can be shown to dispose people to delay gratification, can be found. This idea, long known as Social Darwinism, is not at all new. And I am surprised that this man hasn't already be burnt at the stake by the liberal intelligentsia.

It has also long been argued that Ashkenazi Jews, who were forbidden until the Enlightenment (and in some ares later) from owning land, evolved to be more intelligent because only those who were successful as money-lenders, doctors or scholars and the like could support their families. The high incidence of certain genetically inherited neurological syndromes among the Ashkenazim makes this idea plausible. Genes that lead to autism, OCD and Tourette's when found in two copies might lead to higher mental acuity when possessed in only one copy. Many people now speculate that Einstein, who did not speak till four, and who thought primarily visually, not verbally, had Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of Autism often associated with high intelligence.

Poles, Russians, and other minorities from areas where industrialization had not yet taken place have also done quite well in England. Christopher Hitchens is half-Polish. Did the study use such people as a control group?

But this study itself is little more than speculation. Without the actual demonstration of a biological protein-mediated mechanism, it is, interesting, but not hard science.

Ted Keer

(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/08, 7:19pm)

Post 2

Thursday, August 9, 2007 - 4:41pm

Like Ted, I am inclined to think of this as another bit of neo-Social Darwinism. Clark's claims that changes in behavior (via genetics) helped cause the Industrial Revolution. This does not square totally with the historical evidence or two studies that I am aware of. The historical evidence suggests that the increases in political, economic, and social freedom along with technical innovation (particularly the substitution of coal for water as a fuel source for factories) produced the behaviors that lead to the Industrial Revolution. Two studies bear this out. The First is an analysis of data from the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index, which demonstrates a high degree of correlation between a country's political and economic freedom (with economic freedom being the degree of involvement of the government in the economic) and its economic prosperity. The second comes from Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work. In it, Putnam and his co-authors follow the results of the Italian Government decision in the early 1970's to decentralize health, welfare and education funding to the individual states. By 1990, it was clear that the states in Northern Italy had far higher levels of spending and greater customer satisfaction than states in the South. He said the differences can be explained by the idea of social capital--the sum and density of social, politician and economic interactions between people. Historically, the people in northern cities had greater social interactions, which led to greater trust and accountability. Also, these areas historically had greater economic and political freedom (think of the City States of Florence and Pisa).

All this being said, I still think it would be interesting to have a geneticist attempt to carry out such a study. My sense, though, is that if there were a genetic component, it would have had a minor influence.

Post 3

Thursday, August 9, 2007 - 5:43pm

I would argue it's not natural selection that caused the Industrial Revolution, but rather it allowed it to be as an option among our capacities. It's clear that it wasn't automatic, otherwise thousands of years ago when the first human empires were forming that they would have achieved the Industrialization Period way before now (to which I ask: where the frack is my flying car?). What needs to be understood is that the claim that evolution causes things is a bit daffy, does gravity cause the airplane? Did the constant of electrostatic forces of molecules cause the formation of nanotechnology? I ask these questions not to be answered, but rather to illustrate the absurdity of assuming a consequence of reason as a direct consequence of Nature. One could equally ask, did my thoughts create that thunderstorm that just happened last night (which oddly it did happen, but not due to my thoughts, of course).

Or as one person said, "genes don't tell us what roads we will take, but roads we can..."

-- Brede

Post 4

Thursday, August 9, 2007 - 7:57pm

Brede,

Are you saying that the political or socioeconomic changes open up a niche which would favor the investor? That would be a possible hypothesis, but it then requires that two, rather than one phenomenon be explained.

Kevin,

It seems we essentially agree. I just want to make it clear that by using the term Social Darwinism (which meant many different things for different people) I didn't mean to be disproving the thesis by calling it by a discredited name. I think it's a very unlikely but just barely possible thesis that needs a heck of a lot more work before anyone should jump on the bandwagon. I am reminded of Michael Crichton's Next which "shows" that blondes are going extinct, that blondness was inherited from the Neanderthals, and that the imminent extinction of blondes is a centuries-old unproven hoax.

Ted

Post 5

Thursday, August 9, 2007 - 8:24pm

Ted: Are you saying that the political or socioeconomic changes open up a niche which would favor the investor?

Me: To respond to the question: possibly, but I prefer to consider that the evolution of a species is more broad-based in that it doesn't dictate exactly what niche a species may or may not occupy. Specifically, consider us humans, as the ultimate adapters. We can take just about any environment over by making micro-climates/environments suited to our needs. Whereas our most significant cousins, the great apes, have to focus on one niche to survive, and if that niche's primary environmental factors change they're finished. Where as we humans adapt to survive.

In fact, consider that the most recent extinct level event occurred around 200,000 years ago with the eruption of the hyper-volcano that rests underneat modern Yellowstone National Park. Some say it could have been the 'cause' for our species to evolve to fill the largest set of niches left behind by the extincted species. Others, as I've read, suggest our species survived it, showing us as the ultimate survivors (next to viruses and the cockroach (lol)). All of that is pure conjecture since no one has a TARDIS on hand to go see for us. Either way it bears considering. And the fact we've survived the last Ice Age, and according to some dig sites, we actually advanced technologically in that time frame, it's proof in the pudding, as it were, that we're a tough little nugget of a species. That flexibility to survive is what allows us to go forward, and eventually get better technology. We just last long enough to get to this level of sophistication.

Our economic systems are the side-effect of our aptitude to survive well, but not guiding us to them. We lead ourselves to what we have now by figuring out how to survive beyond the momentary. So, again, our evolution didn't tell us what roads we will take, rather what roads we can, in that our adaptations allow us to think beyond the moment. And to utilize that ability to give us a broader set of niches to fill with the possibility of creating new ones as well. Thus, as a side-effect of our adaptations, we were able to choose our current state of living. Which is far better than how we lived in the past (considering, that technically I own more wealth than most of the European noble-folk did in the Medieval period).

-- Brede

Post 6

Thursday, August 9, 2007 - 10:03pm

I tried reading the author's papers. In my opinion They were not written very clearly, so I have low confidence in his conclusions.

Post 7

Thursday, August 9, 2007 - 11:24pm