How can certain ailments that are profoundly maladaptive persist, for example flat feet, high arches, n fasciitis? Inability to walk seems highly unlikely to be selected in any environment yet such issues are quite common. I suspect there is more than evolutionary adaptation at work, that is, a tendency for any system to create spontaneous randomness from the functioning of the system itself, even in the absence of pathogens. Quantum biology?

You said :

Look, basic evolutionary theory shows that an allele can only come to high frequency through selection (or perhaps founder effects). Harmful mutations quickly disappear over evolutionary time – even a tiny fitness cost drives alleles to zero frequency with time. So if we see a phenotype that’s extraordinarily common, selection must have been involved.

But that’s an argument that something’s selecting for schizophrenia, right? Age of onset isn’t early enough to prevent reproduction. Whether or not schizophrenia is related to some other positive outcome or some is just a close variant of some sets of proteins involved in various aspects of intelligence, it isn’t so maladaptive or it wouldn’t be here, right? Or is the argument that it keeps getting created by genetic load, cropping up on lines that have almost too many healthy mutations to make it? It being caused by N various proteins or sites not getting made rather some small set of things that are being created?

It would seem that there should be a Big 5 or whatever personality inventory Gene model then for ethnic groups. If certain cultures promote and select for certain personality behaviors in their populations, shouldn’t you say the French, have a distinct personality disorder profile from, say, the Germans? Has anyone done that research?

My Polish relatives and experience in Poland all seem to have what we call Borderline personality disorder as their national character trait. Certainly ain’t pathological for them. And such traits, along with pessimism and anxiety disorders seem awfully well adapted over the last 400 years of war…

But these two notions of disorder –one, broken at the organic level vs. a continuum from acceptable to unacceptable experiences at the interaction/personality level were broadly understood from the beginning. That’s why DSM ha
Yes, it seems the correct axes should be identifying these “bugs” vs “evolutionary features maladaptive in current culture”. But even here, be careful. The data on autism is especially interesting.

Axis 1 disorders should be, largely speaking, understood to be broken brains that can not be made well. Axis 1 means you are not taking in reality and therefore cannot process it to reality. Maybe pharmacological solution could mediate or alleviate symptoms, but nothing could undo that your brain had a pathology. Schizophrenia, manic “bipolar” disorder with psychosis are good candidates.

Axis 2 disorders then can address a different beast. Patients suffering from a) a mismatch between current culture and their genes for that culture that affect their thinking and mood. These are not maladaptive over the long haul, but perhaps badly matched to lifestyle. Anxiety disorders, for example, might be a clear indication that your genes aren’t meant to be a 80+ hour a week MD or work on skyscrapers. A therapeutic model that encouraged people to *change their circumstances to fit their genes* would be a boon to the happiness and productivity of people, if not to BigPharma.

But personality disorders should be a third axis then. These are people whose individual genes make them maladaptive to OTHERS in the culture not just to themselves. This needs to be handled but how? Perhaps there’s a better environment for a narcissistic personality, than, say, being CEO of Apple, but maybe they’re isn’t *for them* even if we’d all be a lot happier without him as our boss.

Still, though, what if a disorder isn’t due to a bad mutation or genetic load of bad mutations? Look at autism rates of Somalis in Minneapolis and Sweden. Something in their genes disproportionately aren’t adapted to something about life several tens of degrees if latitude from where they evolved. But if the issue there is similar to sickle cell or to flattening hemoglobin, where it’s not some genetic load but a lack of development of a general to help process, say Vitamin D, then maybe that doesn’t belong on the axis at all. Or, say, if Somalis lack some immunity to exposure to a virus that Norwegian genes have developed over the last 600 years, does that really for the “bad for species” label?

We need a new model.

Should add this too, then!

“FAS is unlikely to be a pure genetic confound. E.g. look at animal lit.”

https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0094621

Sad that you are making people claim that “FAS does not exist”. Drink up, pregnant women. (Much like Econ professor, Emily Oster, in “Expecting Better”). As an adoptive mom of someone prenatally exposed (and a biological mom of three not exposed), it is frustrating to even see this discussed. Alcohol passes the placenta. It is a teratogen. It messes with cell differentiation. They have duplicated with mice the studies that show facial developmental problems by exposing them to alcohol. Seriously, the faces look the same (mice and humans!) And they know what days the facial bones form, etc. These are not heritable. These are environmental-gestation is a pretty important environment. But someone can still have a perfectly normal face and still have a damaged brain from alcohol exposure, because the brain is developing throughout the entire pregnancy. SO, if Mom can’t get alcohol on those special days, face looks fine. I am not a scientist but it is revolting to have people try to use big words and yet say such disastrous things. Maybe some studies of the adoptive community would help? There is not yet an easy biomarker for prenatal alchohol exposure (though meconium at birth and also possibly hair tests at birth can show some alcohol use in latter trimester)https://www.verywell.com/meconium-test-exposes-drinking-during-pregnancy-63566. This line of comments is Anti-Science. Alternative facts. I fear for this society where nonsense can rise to the top. https://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?live=10172&bhcp=1

Not fully disagreeing, but in a social species, for example ants, the drones serve a purpose. So ant colonies that pass on the gene mix that produce the right ratio of drones go on to survive.

So, it’s not necessarily a Darwinian as in deadly trait.

But why is this article identifying behaviour of state as equal and same as behaviour of actual nations? These european democracies arent direct democracies as swiss one. For example in Germany most of medias are purely german and monopolied by political lobby. In such situation you cant even expect vote of peope to be their vote since they decide on base of information surrounding them that is mostly filtered world view created by nearly staterun media.

How many Germans really wants to accept aliens from so exotic countries and how many more of them would do it if they could get daily real, not biased, not politically filtered informations about immigration.

Also times when european nations of same universal greeko-romano-christian civilisation were involved on daily basis in wars against each other aren’t far. Communism was crushed just 25 years ago, very lately finally ending WWII for east half of Europe. So how altruistic were these nations then, not long ago to kill each other everyday?

Also how can Germany be seen as monolithic country with one dominant personality trait if it is geneticly a multilayer amalgamat of: Scandinavian protoGermans close to todays Danes (a mix of oldeuropeans mixed with minority of preslavs and later with coming Celts) later conquering Celts on south and Slavs o east, today being genetic proportional mix of 40% Celts, 40% old europeans and 20% Slavs.

If genetics is a basis for people bahaviour than this genetic proportions should be seen also in actual shades of behaviour of such society.

You have also Chechs. Slavic nation in 30% of celtic genes, not common in slavic countries, genes of western, german heritage, impact of long many ages long conquer and immigration process. Such 30% admixture is not enough to explain today Chechs behaviour who could be called cold Scandinavians of Slavdom or eastern westerners. The fact which changed national behaviour of Chechs much more comes from one most important moment in chech history. That is moment of their new identity being born in fire of national uprising. When Chechish nationalism flourished it was born in sharp opposition to german political, religious (catholic) and economical occupation. This uprising was crusched ending with todays nearly tehistic Chechs stance and cold, west-like identity, behaviour. It is also quality of elites and social or religious history which decids of future all society behaviour not only genes.

Unfortunately Google doesn’t have the entire book online, but Chapters 7-12 of this book lay out most of the information known up to this point:

Antiepileptic Drugs and Pregnancy: A Guide for Prescribers
By MJ Eadie, FJE Vajda

https://books.google.com/books?id=3lh1CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA188&lpg=PA188&dq=Nicolai+et+al,+2008+valproate&source=bl&ots=7NcMBwWg1W&sig=XbOo6IE3elJoEr_gTLU06O5cX_w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwil-JCe0qLLAhWGloMKHSY1AyAQ6AEIITAA#v=onepage&q=Nicolai%20et%20al%2C%202008%20valproate&f=false

Children exposed to alcohol in the womb need to be compared to their full siblings who were not.

At least with regard to antiepileptic drugs that is precisely what is observed. The facial and other birth defects which characterize fetal valproate syndrome are found only when a woman was taking valproate. If she was off medication or on a safe drug like Keppra with her other children they won’t have the syndrome.

The evidence so far here has not been kind to FAS.

OK, I’ll bite. What is this evidence?

Key fact to keep in mind: ALL human behavioral traits are heritable.

Consider this fact (if it is factual – http://www.livescience.com/17971-drinking-pregnancy-worst-trimester.html):

Any drinking during pregnancy increases the odds of fetal alcohol syndrome, but the risk to the fetus is highest if a pregnant woman drinks during the second half of her first trimester of pregnancy, a new study finds.

Now, drinking specifically in the second-half of the first trimester (that is, as opposed to drinking in the early first, or the second or third) is a behaviorial trait. We should expect that it’s heritable. But doesn’t the putative result add credibility to “FAS” being alcohol induced? First, because it articulates with an enivornmental explanation. Second, because specific second half of first trimester drinking is unlikely to be highly heritable; timing is likely to depend on contingencies.

Would you humor me by indicating what’s wrong with this logic?

When the genetic analysis does not show defects known to cause dysmorphisms the genticist will attribute the dysmorphisms to teratogen exposure.

Are you saying that the same facial dysmorphism characterizing FAS is present in specific genetic disorders? (What about the test scores.)

You seem to presume the specific constellation of facial dysmorphisms can result from causes other than teratogen exposure or particular genetic syndromes. I don’t know where you got this idea.

I hope also to clarify that genetic disorders can cause facial dysmorphisms. See for example Down Syndrome:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome

If a Microarray analysis shows a child has Down Syndrome then a geneticist will identify it as responsible for the dysmorphisms even if the mother drank or took a teratogenic drug. When the genetic analysis does not show defects known to cause dysmorphisms the genticist will attribute the dysmorphisms to teratogen exposure.

Again I do not know of cases in which the constellation of dysmorphisms is present in children who do not have a genetic disorder like Down Syndrome or have not been exposed to a teratogen. If you do, I’d like to take a look.

you would need to find some way of testing for FAS that was able to control for genetic differences between people. There is one easy class of studies that can be done for this.

Say you studied the children of low IQ mothers who don’t drink and high IQ mothers who do. If you found the specific constellation of symptoms in the second group and never in the first, would that satisfy your standard of evidence?

I googled “Flynn effect in testing children” and got 1.2 million results. All of the first ten dealt only w children.

I think I stated the answer to this question very clearly earlier. Cognitive impairment from teratogen exposure is marked by clear genetic test results, a specific constellation of facial dysmorphisms, and IQ test results in which subtest scores do not correlate.

Regarding the cause of early maturation and its deleterious effect on final IQ, I’ve more questions than answers. https://majorityrights.com/weblog/comments/a_possible_explanation_for_the_flynn_effect

Flynn effect was erroneous, actually resulting from early maturation, so that today’s 10 year old has the maturity of yesterday’s 12 year old, but the final IQ will be lower. Cause of the early maturation? chemicals which are endocrine disruptors? [No, I would say antibiotic residue in meat & poultry] Any tests on Vegetarians?– altho milk & eggs still affected. Is early maturation absent in rural villages where meat is unadulterated?

As of right now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates a growing number of children, one in 68, is believed to have an autism spectrum disorder. That’s a 30% increase from estimates in 2012.Nov 16, 2015. That’s an awful lot of imaginative diagnosis. You are probably aware that an MRI is often used to make the diagnosis objective.

The mechanism through which autism is aquired by some children has been isolated, and a cure devised which has been successful in many cases. http://healthimpactnews.com/2015/is-the-u-s-medical-mafia-murdering-alternative-health-doctors-who-have-real-cures-not-approved-by-the-fda/ The trouble w being close-minded is that you shut yourself off from the possibility of new knowledge.

“Harvard’s announcement continues:

The average loss in IQ was reported as a standardized weighted mean difference of 0.45, which would be approximately equivalent to seven IQ points for commonly used IQ scores with a standard deviation of 15. Some studies suggested that even slightly increased fluoride exposure could be toxic to the brain. Thus, children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas. The children studied were up to 14 years of age, but the investigators speculate that any toxic effect on brain development may have happened earlier, and that the brain may not be fully capable of compensating for the toxicity.“Fluoride seems to fit in with lead, mercury, and other poisons that cause chemical brain drain,” http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/02/harvard-study-published-national-institute-health-journal-finds-fluoride-lowers-childrens-intelligence-7-iq-points.html

There are many other references demonstrating fluoride’s toxicity to the developing IQ.

I wouldn’t bet on E O Wilson’s expertise outside of ants. He’s the fella that made up all that “Sixth Wave of Extinction” fantasy that has persuaded everyone to throw their brains away. I think his book came out in 1992, in which he claimed that 27,000 species were going extinct every year. As Willis Eschenbach has pointed out, that would mean half a million extinctions by now, but we are able to name exactly 6 mammals and 3 birds which have gone extinct in the past 500 years on the main continents. (A different story for islands & Australia) http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/25/always-trust-your-gut-extinct/

This really fascinates me. Thanks, Jayman.

Speaking of obligate homosexuality in humans I realize that in the animal kingdom there is a wide range of same sex behaviour that has been observed but I’m wondering if the author or anyone else knows how prevalent or not it is in the animal kingdom to eschew mating like many human homosexuals do?

Such a vast increase in autism in a short period would mitigate against a hereditary origin. Vaccines or other environmental insults are suspect. ONE DAY OLD babies now receive their first vaccinations.

IQ is known to be subject to environmental insult. Fluoride is well-documented to reduce children’s IQ. The much-vaunted “Flynn effect” wherein IQ is purportedly increasing turns out to be an artifact of earlier maturation. Children’s IQs are higher earlier, but due to the earlier maturation, IQ stops developing earlier, too. The result is that FINAL IQ is lower. Antibiotics fed our animals and poultry cause early maturation & development. One wonders about the antibiotic residues consumed by people, especially given their indubitable early maturation.

What about situations in which right side of the bell curve parents have a mother who drinks during the pregnancy and the child is born with the pattern of defects which indicate fetal alcohol syndrome? I know of several clients who are quite smart ladies who took an antiepileptic drug during pregnancy and have children with severe cognitive impairment and the constellation of facial defects common to teratogen exposure, alcohol or otherwise. Is that baloney as well?

The whole medical genetic community has just made up something which isn’t real? There’s no such thing as cognitive impairment from teratogen exposure?

Why would women who drink while pregnant tend to pass on specific facial features: small eye openings, smooth pliltrum, and thin upper lip? (As distinguished from a propensity to various birth defects.)

It can’t be a disorder if it’s present in 1/3rd to 1/2 of the population. This is ruled out by basic evolutionary theory

Then, with its 1/3rd prevalence rate, near-sightedness (in youth) isn’t a disorder? But I doubt you could find a culture in where it’s adaptive.

Also, what if the condition is an unfortunate consequence of an adaptation, as is theorized for certain diseases among ashkenazi? Does this count as a disease or an adaptation?

Well I thought the post referred to Germany taking refugees to illustrate the development of NW Europe is inevitably towards more universalism as time goes on. If’d say the evidence in living memory, from Germany especially, is that NorthWest European countries can be extremely universalist or parochially ethnic nationalist as the times require.

Don’t bet your money on it.

You’ve never met someone who is not quite on the Asperger’s spectrum, but has enough of those characteristics to be considered weird? Such people design bridges; they run wafer fabs in which a hundred processes must be applied in the correct order and with precise adherence to the rules; and they keep the Internet running.

You know, I love seeing all the ways people defend this stupidness. It can’t be a disorder if it’s present in 1/3rd to 1/2 of the population. This is ruled out by basic evolutionary theory

If some characteristic causes a population to die out, then natural selection is vindicated, and of course “basic evolutionary theory” holds. You seem to be arguing that “maladaptive” implies “pathological”, but then you appear to want certain exceptions. The Xhosa who killed their cattle and then starved to death had maladaptive, and therefore pathological, beliefs.

[…] Jones talks to Stefan Molyneux (video). Pygmies just became a little awkward. Mainstream HBD against ‘pathological altruism’. The canceled Derb speech. Diversity and its discontents. The […]

No, you don’t quite understand what I’m saying, it seems.

You must elaborate then!

See Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany (2010). Nazi behavior has deep historical roots in Germany.

Fair enough, but you ought to say that Germans are not what you mean by Northwest Europeans when you say, as you do above that:-

The reality of environmental mismatch puts the kibosh on a popular concept in the alt-right sphere, referring primarily to Northwestern Europeans: that is, “pathological altruism.” Specifically, some in this space view the universalist acts of Northwestern Europeans – such as inviting refugees and other immigrants from poor and/or war-torn Muslim countries (despite the higher crime rate and lower socioeconomic performance of these immigrants) – to live in Northwestern European countries as a type of pathology – i.e, a disorder. [...]
A somewhat less deceived writer advises that if groups want to act altruistically towards other groups they should at least look for groups that follow the same rules. But this is as far as the book goes. Group pathology leads only to mistreatment of out-groups. Apparently none of the authors can conceive of pathology in which the in-group mistreats itself for the benefit of strangers.

Yet, of course, it is not a disorder. “Pathological altruism,” at least when used to refer to this aspect of Northwestern European behavior, is a silly term.

As I detailed in my post The Rise of Universalism, the universalist behavior of Northwestern Europeans is a natural consequence of their special flavor of reciprocal altruism, which is not strictly kin-centric and views all people (indeed, often non-humans as well) as potential recipients for sympathy. In that post, I explain how modern technology led to an inevitable increase in universalism among Northwestern Europeans – that runaway universalism was inevitable. Clearly an inherited phenotype can’t be a pathology when it is possessed by sizable fractions of the populations under consideration. Rather universalist sentiment is a feature, not a bug (or more accurately, it is the result of a feature).

The Germans followed Hitler and Merkel.

unfortunate beneficiaries of genes that were adaptive in their ancestral environments – albeit at more moderate levels

This overlooks another phenomenon. A characteristic such as autism may be influenced by many genes; and the dose makes the poison. Lower doses may be adaptive, even in the present environment; and to say that the unfortunate person who has “too much of a good thing” does not have a disorder but was merely dealt a bad hand of cards is incorrect. A genome can be maladaptive, even if the individual alleles are not.

Pathological altruism – of course it’s pathological. It is an overdose of something that is beneficial (altruism). Beliefs can be pathological – for example the Xhosa Cattle Killing Movement. Perhaps that episode could be classed as an excess of something that might be beneficial in small doses (magical thinking).

It is particularly interesting that pathological altruism is rarely an extreme example of reciprocal altruism, but is nearly always offered at the expense of a third party. Chancellor Merkel does not invite the world to come and live with her, but with other Germans – and indeed with the citizens of other EU countries over which she has neither formal nor informal authority.

I call this Pathological Altruism by Proxy. The altruist gains social kudos for her generosity, but the cost is borne by somebody else. When the cost may be as extreme as the abolition of the altruist’s country, it is as maladaptive as the Xhosa Cattle Killing phenomenon. Those who practise PAP, such as Merkel, commit social looting in the same manner as the financial looters identified by Akerlof and Romer.

http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~promer/Looting.pdf

“Sex at Dawn” is a speculative fiction, based on assumption that somehow humans were more similar to bonobos than to chimpanzees. You should treat it as “50 shades of Gray” pretending to be popular science (which is not).

In terms of the validity of various types of mental disorders an important consideration should be whether or not they are correlated with negative real world outcomes.

Although ADHD may be a poorly labelled disorder (in my opinion it lumps together a number of different problems) it is correlated with a lot of negative real world outcomes – higher rates of auto acccidents, higher rates of drug use, higher imprisonment rates, higher unemployment rates etc. Hence, it does appear to be a disorder that needs to be taken seriously.

On the other hand, generalised anxiety disorder, doesn’t really have any major negative correlations, so labelling GAD as a disorder may be counter production.

Another problem is that in the real world disorders are usually hastily diagnosed according to self-reports from patients, so we don’t really know how common they are. ADHD for example, is a developmental disorder, so no adult or teenager should be diagnosed with ADHD without some external evidence like school reports indicating concentration problems from a young age.

Germany followed a certain Austrian, instead of laughing at his ideas, which as he clearly set out in a well known book, was persecution of minorities and aggressive war by Germany to conquer other countries.

As I detailed in my post The Rise of Universalism, the universalist behavior of Northwestern Europeans is a natural consequence of their special flavor of reciprocal altruism, which is not strictly kin-centric and views all people (indeed, often non-humans as well) as potential recipients for sympathy. In that post, I explain how modern technology led to an inevitable increase in universalism among Northwestern Europeans – that runaway universalism was inevitable. Clearly an inherited phenotype can’t be a pathology when it is possessed by sizable fractions of the populations under consideration.

Regional variations in Hitler’s support may have had deep roots still visible today. Those articles you referred me to do show that, but do not obviate the need to answer my point. Again, please explain why Germany as a whole followed a man who had nothing to offer but his message, which was the very opposite of universalism.

Thumbs up for your erudition and emphasis on biology, but thumbs down on what you write about
homoeroticism. This behavior is too widespread in human hunter gatherers and other primates for it not to convey some adaptive advantages. Man oh man do I have a great read for you and others interested in deconstructing the Rubic’s cube of sexuality: “Sex at Dawn (the prehistoric origins of modern sexuality.” I just can’t believe what complete sluts we used to be. Here is a revealing excerpt: “Recognized as a way to to build and maintain a network of mutually beneficial relationships, non reproductive sex no longer requires special explanations. Homosexuality for example, becomes far less confusing,in that is is, as E. O. Wilson has written, “above all a form of bonding consistent with with the greater part of heterosexual behavior as a device that cements relationships.” As you probably know, Wilson is known for his role as “the father of sociobiology” and “the father of biodiversity” (from Wikipedia)

So JayMan, how will it all play out around 2040, when you have this ethnic coalition of Blacks, Hispanics and the LGBT folks? We know the LGBT’s will do everything in their power to suppress real Christianity and marginalize Christians. [If the Blacks and Hispanics don't decide they don't need them and turn on them.]

Do you think any of these groups are going to cross ethnic boundaries and share power with normal White people? Especially when White people have all this undeserved privilege and will be older and have more money, and especially when their ancestors have spent the last 500 years enslaving, colonizing, exploiting and oppressing the non-Whites? Won’t it be time for a not-so-liberal and not-so-universal payback?

You did not calculated it, did you? Just eyeballing? Or perhaps you do not even know how to calculate it, or what correlation is? So what is it: 0.4 or 0.7?

One clarification. If a child has those facial features and a clear genetic test, then you can safely attribute it to a drug or alcohol. So it’s going to be the geneticist at the hospital who actually makes the diagnosis.

“But nonetheless the correlation is present.” – what is the value of this correlation?

You misunderstood my question. But nonetheless, you answered it quite well. Now, what kind of children would you expect such dull, irresponsible women would have?

Oh, now I think I see your point. Damage due to teratogen exposure, at least alcohol and antiepileptic drugs, is marked by a common set of defects, things like low set ears, widely spaced nipples. Here’s a nice picture:

If a kid is born looking like that, you can be pretty much certain the mother was drinking or taking a teratogenic medication.

Another interesting thing shows up in IQ testing. So yes of course they register as having low IQs just like you’d expect. But what is really common is for subtest scaled scores to be ridculously out of whack.

In a normal child the scores will tend to correlate. So using the WISC as an example, their letter-number sequencing score will be within about 1 standard deviation of their matrix reasoning score, and so on with the other subsections. This holds true whether someone has a low, average or high IQ.

But in a child with Fetal Alcohol or antiepileptic drug syndrome, the scores will not correlate at all. One subtest score might be 2-3 standard deviations higher or lower than another. And they almost always have very low processing speed.

Here’s an example for a child exposed to an antiepileptic drug in utero:

Verbal Comprehension

Similarities – 13
Vocabulary – 9
Comprehension -1

Working Memory

Digit Span- 5
Letter/Number- 10

Perceptual Reasoning

Block Design-1
Picture Concepts – 4
Matrix Reasoning- 7

Processing Speed

Coding – 3
Symbol Search - 1

Index/IQ Score

Verbal Comprehension – 87 (19%)
Perceptual Reasoning – 63 (1%)
Working Memory – 86 (18%)
Processing Speed – 56 (<1%)
Full Scale – 68 (2%)

Whatever the reason for it, letting all those Muslims and others from the third world into Europe is a terrible mistake.

Our ER docs classify them (the BT of LGBT) as “gender identity disorder”.

But that’s a far cry from Jayman’s suggestion that evolutionary analysis issue in an exclusionary criterion for DSM disorders!

Jayman implies that evolutionary adaptations are more refractory to treatment than are Darwinian diseases. This seems untrue. The success rate for treating bipolar depression (Darwinian disease) isn’t better than for dysthymic disorder (adaptation). Jayman doesn’t provide an argument for his expectation that evolutionary adaptations will tend to be untreatable, and the treatment for unipolar depression is one of psychiatry’s success stories. Schizophrenia (mutation overload) is more refractory to treatment than unipolar depression.

You have to understand the appeal to someone suffering under the White Man’s burden and recovering from the shock of WWI and WWII. People actually thought the UN was going to prevent war, and religion and ethnicity would all disappear, and humanity would become one happy family, and wealth would be distributed fairly across nations. The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

Further, people still believe in this $#!+ even though there is not a shred of evidence that it could ever happen, no matter how hard people believe in it. The lust for power, war and greed runs too strong in this species for the humans to ever bake the pie-in-the-sky on their own efforts. There are simply those of us who choose to embrace reality as it actually is, red in tooth and claw, and those of us who want to hold onto moralistic pipe dreams that make them feel good, and look down on the reality-oriented.

Bah! Or even Meh!

As I detailed in my post The Rise of Universalism, the universalist behavior of Northwestern Europeans is a natural consequence of their special flavor of reciprocal altruism, which is not strictly kin-centric and views all people (indeed, often non-humans as well) as potential recipients for sympathy.

That explains why Hitler never amounted to anything by screaming at public meetings about the “nightmare vision of the seduction of hundreds of thousands of girls by repulsive, crooked-legged Jew bastards” and ” Jews who bring the Negroes into the Rhineland, always with the same secret thought and clear aim of ruining the hated white race by the necessarily resulting bastardization”.

The primacy of sex drive and sexual reproduction to fitness (without it, little else really matters, evolutionarily) means that evolutionary theory can be used to evaluate other claimed disorders like

Hitler was childless by choice, and he committed suicide. Had he succeeded, and he came astoundingly close to total success, Germans’ genes would have benefited from a massive expansion. Take a smaller more comprehensible scale “in the extremely competitive and aggressive Scandinavian society in which blood feuds were taking place everywhere, often lasting for many years and several generations “. Viking berserkers had less reproductive success, although their brothers had more through benefiting from their nutter bruv’s reputation. There are many kinds of ‘feature’ and I don’t think the person you are quoting as an authority sees many group selection features for what they are.

Sex drive is continuously distributed across the human population.

Not across the planet it isn’t (hardly surprising when there are some places where monogamy has been obligate, others where men could have multiple wives. Homosexuality also varies in prevalence around the globe.

In the account of a Viking market at Volga in 922, the Arab diplomat Ibn Fadlan describes how the Vikings (the Scandinavian Rus) regularly had sex with their slaves, often in public, and in groups of both sexes. This activity took place both in front of potential buyers and their own formal partners, whether wives or girlfriends, who seemed unaffected (Sørensen 1973: 70; Price 2005)

Europeans do not look like other people. Since the 2013 discovery that prehistoric European hunter gatherers had dark skin and light eyes (originally suggested to have been the case in a 2009 comment on ‘Facial color and sex recognition’ by me) has caused the vitamin D suggestions to be dropped and skin lightening to be a assumed side effect. Yet, no one can tell you what European pigmentary traits are actually a side effect of. Nor can they explain why the highest (ie most feminine) digit ratios in the world are found in north west Europe.

France and Portugal’s alc. consumption rate really surprised me (higher than UK, Germany etc.??)

It’s a slightly weird idea that the map on agriculture in Europe tells you anything about the length of time that population was adapted to agriculture.

Agriculturalists in Britain came from France and Germany, who came from Spain and Greece, who came from Turkey (and maybe it’s more speculative) with quite a low degree of admixture. So the date of agriculture in a region doesn’t really tell you anything about how long this population was adapting to agriculture (because a late date of agriculture doesn’t mean the population actually living in a region has had less time to adapt – they would have had as long a time to adapt, in a different place).

More salient are probably the differences in actual Yamnaya related and WHG related ancestry *within* Europe.

JayMan:

I beg to differ. Eric Kaufmann’s book, The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America, has a good discussion of the rise of Liberal Universalism in the 20th Century. Anglo-Saxons have always been a “liberal” ethnic group, which was used as an ethnic boundary marker to distinguish themselves from “illiberal” ethnics, e.g. Catholics like the French and the Spanish. It worked pretty well until Industrial Capitalism, when Industrialists wanted mass immigration to suppress wages, and was not opposed due to Anglo-Saxon liberalism and beliefs that Divine Providence would inevitably Anglicize these immigrants. When Divine Providence failed to come through, WASP nativism became a political phenomenon.

The second piece is that Anglo-Cosmopolitanism and the decline in WASP identity coincided with the rise of a consumer society, in which Anglo cultural particularity was denigrated, and the non-Anglo cultures were romanticized and used to push Anglo’s from tradition to new patterns of consumption.

I don’t think the big driver of liberal universalism is ethnic particularity of Anglo-Saxons (rather, it exploited a vulnerability in Anglo-Saxon culture), I think it is a feature of Industrial and Post-Industrial Capitalism needing to form a blank cultural slate so it can market lifestyles to consumers.

Unfortunately, it has become sterile (and this is more fatal than the lack of xenophobia), and demographic changes will insure the rise of a new elite from the romanticized identity groups, who are all strongly ethnocentric. Unless the Anglos and related Anglicized ethnics can begin to assert their own ethnocentrism and particularity, they will be pushed out completely or assimilated into a non-liberal political culture (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but you won’t be living in a place that resembles America anymore). Because every action creates an equal and opposite reaction, I suspect the re-particularization of Anglo’s et. al. is inevitable. Eventually it will sink in that liberal universalism is something only educated Anglos and Anglicized Europeans really believe in. The Eloi will find themselves surrounded on all corners by rival bands of hungry Morlochs, and their high IQ’s and degrees from Harvard won’t save them.

But no matter who wins in this coming struggle, liberal universalism will not survive, because they will have no place in ethnocentric traditionally minority identity groups or in the re-particularized white ethnic groups.

I also suspect the fall of liberal universalism will trigger an economic transformation will undermine the existing system of consumer capitalism, to some people’s chagrin.

As I suggested, I don’t know who will win (but I would take Gaddaffi’s pronouncements seriously), or to what extent the existing forms of early 21st Century American society will survive in some fashion, so I can’t offer some prophesy, other than to say giving lip service to liberal universalism may be an effective mass political strategy at the present time, but be ready to switch gears soon. Civic nationalism. But I am probably wrong, and we are all about to meld into some big happy melting pot like Newark.

But I can drink – and I do drink. However, I do not dare to drink too much.

This article reminds me of late American author John Foster Fraser “antisemitic” claim: “Alcohol is Jewish.”

“The Jews are masters of the whiskey trade in the United States. Eighty per cent of the members of the National Liquor Dealers’ Association are Jews. It has been shown that 60 percent of the business of distilling and wholesale trade in whiskey is in the hands of the Jews,” John Foster Fraser in his 1916 book ‘The Conquering Jew’.

In his August 1, 2012 article, entitled ‘Rise and fall of Bronfman liquor empire‘ Catholic pastor Ted Pike claims ‘Alcohol is Jewish’.

Ted Pike is against the Organized Jewry, but he certainly is no friend of Muslims. He has criticized writer and author Mark Glenn and other Catholic writers for their association with Muslims against Israel…..

https://rehmat1.com/2012/08/08/rev-ted-pike-alcohol-is-jewish/

Now, I would say you are correct.

In 150 years, if we understand the chain of causation arising from genetic problems, it’ll be a different story. But you have to practice medicine *now*, so you are of course correct.

I *do* wonder if the incredible heterogeneity of psychopharmacologic responses has genetic roots. I mean, aren’t there psychiatrists seeing if people with polymorphisms in serotonin receptors respond differently to different SSRIs or something? (And if not, this might be an interesting direction for your career…)

Sociopathy strikes me as adaptive in the modern business world.

The purpose of this crappy piece appears only to frontpage bogus map with Russia in red. Production of vodka – product developed somewhere in Europe – declined in Russia in recent years, and so does consumption. On the contrary, the Russian tourists in Europe and on Turkey resorts recently had any opportunity to observe a zoo of drunken Germans and Dutch. Drunken Finns just go visit Russia themselves. Today, drunken youth parties are common place in universities of the West, phenomenon almost unseen in Russia. Maybe, author implies, in several places of EU, more muslims mean greener map?

Well, how do you think we got 23 pairs of chromosomes? Chimps have 24 pairs.

That doesn’t make sense to me. The genome is supposed to be split evenly, each pair separated. Trisomy happens when one of the pairs does not actually separate . It’s a mechanical error, a screw up in the normal workings of reproduction. I’m pretty sure chimps or any other animal can have a similar disorder.

Who drinks during pregnancy?

Hoooooo boy. You sir are grossly underestimating the irresponsibility of the left end of the bell curve. Our firm has clients who didn’t realize they were pregnant until 5 months along. They went to a doctor because they felt sick and then literally said “I’m pregnant? Really?” after missing their period for 4 months. How is this possible? How? I know right? We ask that all the time for so many other reasons but the stark reality remains reality. My opinion, and of course I could be wrong, is that some people are incredibly, just ridiculously stupid.

Seriously though, pregnant women who smoked crack and shot heroine throughout the pregnancy. Women who binge drank, women who smoked meth. All noted offhandedly in their medical records. There is a whole other world out there and it is insane.

[…] http://www.unz.com/jman/features-and-bugs/ […]

That’s normally a naturalistic fallacy. Also, multiple twin studies, tens of thousands of them actually, show that homosexuality is environmental in origin.

http://www.mygenes.co.nz/summary.htm

I read another studying saying it had a heritability of 33 percent. It’s environmental in origin.

These are mutations, right? Similar to genetic load.

I don’t think mutations is the right word. Trisomy results from an error in egg or sperm cell development where the cell contains 24 chromosomes instead of 23. With deletions a significant subset of a chromosome is simply missing. These seem qualitatively different from mutations.

There’s tons of room for disorders that stem from environmental insults, including pathogens.

Environmental insults is a sensible way to group pathogens, teratogens, brain damage from physical injury, mal-development from chronic malnutrition, etc.

Though fetal alcohol syndrome probably isn’t real.

That’s very surprising to read. I have trouble imagining the possible reasoning behind it.

It seems to me the very notion of “Disorder” is incoherent.

For starters, the term disorder carries the strong implication that things that are disorders ought to be fixed while things that fail to be disorders should not be. However, it’s easy to come up with examples of traits that are clearly selected against but nevertheless may create great personal happiness while others (such as a high level of vigilance/worry/etc..) that are evolutionary favored cause substantial disutility. For instance, as your earlier discussion hints at, genetic predisposition for criminality may well be a favorable adaptation but yet both make society worse and make those with the adaptation less happy.

However, setting this point aside there just doesn’t seem to be a coherent way to classify features as defects or somehow evolutionary selected.

For instance what about traits which are an unfortunate consequence of genuienly beneficial genes, e.g., traits like sickle cell arising from getting a combination of individually beneficial genes or the greater vulnerability to various neurological conditions suffered by the Askenazi (sp) jews that appears to be an unfortunate side effect of genes that were selected for their IQ benefits?

More generally, the fact that evolution selects for genes while disorder is a term that applies to organism traits suggests no such definition is possible. For example consider a gene on the Y-chromosome with the effect (through some mechanism…maybe simple dislike of women) of causing men with the gene to favor male offspring (and other male relatives with the same Y chromosome) at great expense to their female offspring. Such a gene would be selected for even as it reduced the chance that it’s holder’s genes on other chromosomes would be passed on. Not to mention what is a useful adaptation is relative to the comparison class (consider two mutations of the same gene that both provide protection against a disease but one does so better).

Yes, I used toy examples and no real genes will behave in such a simple fashion but it illustrates the underlying difficulty of such a definition.

Given the questionable desirability of such a concept and the difficulty providing a coherent definition why bother with the notion at all?