theories

so i think the connection between inbreeding (or outbreeding) and the evolution of the “innate social aptitudes of man” [pdf] works something like this:

inbreeding in and of itself does not change the frequency of genes (alleles) in a population [pg. 65], but it does move them around, concentrating them in certain family lines.

if, then, some sort of genetic mutation arises in one family line which, let’s say for the sake of argument, results in the carriers somehow behaving more altruistically towards their fellow family members than strangers, and this results in them being able to increase their inclusive fitness, then that genetic mutation will be selected for.

it will really be selected for (i.e. the selection rate will be accelerated) because of the inbreeding because: 1) since the inbred family will have greater than average numbers of this “altruism gene” because it is inbreeding, its members will likely execute a greater total number of altruistic behaviors towards one another and, so, they will really benefit fitness-wise from this new gene. also, 2) perhaps — perhaps — all else being equal, the inbred family members will feel even more strongly altruistic towards their fellow family members than an outbred family would since they are so much more genetically similar to their family members. to be honest with you, i’m not so sure about that second proposition, so i’m just going to skip it for now and focus on the first one.

wrt the first proposition, that the rate of selection of “genes for altruism” is faster in an inbreeding population is exactly what wade and breden found when they ran some models — the more inbreeding, the more rapid the selection of the altruism genes:

you can imagine why.

if you have a bunch of different families in a population, and one of those families possesses some sort of “familial altruism” gene which means that its members help each other out (or whatever) more than the members of the other families do, and this increases the fitness of a majority of this special family’s members, then they are simply going to be more successful than the other families. they’ll leave more descendants behind and, thus, more of those genes behind. IN ADDITION, if this successful family ALSO inbreeds, each of its members is much more likely to have at least one, or even two, copies of this familial altruism gene, so more members of this successful family will be even more altruistic to each other and voilà! — they’ll increase their fitness and success even more than they would have done without the inbreeding.

these familial altruism genes — genes that lead to behaviors in which individuals somehow favor their own family members over non-family members — and by family members i mean extended-family members — are only going to arise, of course, in a population in which there is more than one family. if you’ve got some tiny band somewhere that has absolutely no contact with any other group (doubt that’s ever existed), then my evolutionary scenario simply won’t happen. it’s the competition between the individuals from the different families that is driving this.

naturally, genes in any population — even an inbreeding one — won’t remain restricted to any one family for very long. no family anywhere inbreeds 100% exclusively, so if some successful familial altruism genes do arise in some inbreeding family somewhere, they will quickly spread to the other families in that population. thus, there is probably an ongoing familial altruism genetic arms race in inbreeding populations.

also, i think fewer familial altruism genes — or not such strong ones, perhaps — are going to arise in a comparatively outbreeding population. the accelerated selection due to the inbreeding won’t be there, nor will this arms race to keep one step ahead of the joneses when it comes to familial altruism. additionally, i think that in an outbreeding population, there’ll be greater selection pressures than in an inbreeding population for “reciprocal altruism” genes — i.e. genes which lead people to be willing to cooperate more with non-family members — since more of those sorts of behaviors will likely be required to be successful in life.
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so what do these “familial altruism” genes look like?

i dunno.

maybe there are differences in oxytocin-related genes? — the luuuuv hormone that “turns out to be the hormone of the clan.”

or — ya’ll know that i’m kinda fascinated by interclan fighting which is the flip-side of being nice to your family (i.e. be extra un-nice to your non-family) — so maybe one familial altruism gene is the “warrior gene” (MAO-A gene)? dunno.

one that i speculated about before is CYP21A2, the gene connected to congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a recessive genetic condition which affects the production cortisol which, in turn, affects the production of androgens (like testosterone) — notably, in the most common form of CAH, androgen levels are increased. the condition is a recessive one, so you need to have two copies of the deleterious allele to have the condition, but as i mentioned in my previous post on CAH, carriers with one copy of the allele have been found to have excess androgens — and androgens have been connected to aggression. (also, children with CAH have been found to have smaller amygdalae, so … they’re less fearful? don’t know if this also holds true for adults with CAH.)

increased aggression? fighting at the drop of a hat? interclan fighting? see where i’m going with this?

the interesting thing is — at least i think it’s interesting — is that there are different frequencies of CAH found in different populations. what we’d really want to know, of course, are the gene frequencies for CAH for different populations, but in lieu of those … here are some incidence rates of classical CAH in different populations [numbers acquired from or via here and here]:

1:282 – Yupik Eskimos, Alaska
1:2,141 – La Reunion
1:4,081 – Western Australia Aborigines
1:5,000 – GLOBAL
1:5,000-7,000 – Moroccan Jews
1:5,041 – Zurich, Switzerland
1:7,000 – Kuwait
1:10,866 – France (Whites)
1:10,866 – Italy (Whites)
1:11,500 – Sweden
1:11,764 – Netherlands
1:14,300 – Hungary
1:14,403 – Croatia
1:14,500-23,344 – New Zealand
1:14,869 – Western Australia
1:15,518 – Emilia-Romagna, Italy (Whites)
1:15,800-18,000 – Japan
1:17,098 – Scotland
1:19,939 – Minas Gerais, Brazil
1:20,000 – Norway

i dunno, but i see — maybe — the more inbred clannish fighters (yupik eskimos, moroccan jews, kuwaitis) having more cases of CAH than the more outbred peaceniks (new zealanders, norwegians, even northern italians). also…

- “The Texas data indicate a lower disease frequency in African-Americans when compared with Caucasians, and international data indicate higher frequencies in native Yupik Eskimos, Brazilians, residents of La Reunion, and Filipinos.” [source]

- “The prevalence of the disease [non-classical CAH] in Ashkenazi Jews was 3.7%; in Hispanics, 1.9%; in Yugoslavs, 1.6%; in Italians, 0.3%; and in the diverse Caucasian population, 0.1%.” [source] (non-classical CAH refers to a less severe form of CAH which might not get noticed until adulthood when it expresses itself in features like a woman having, perhaps, a bit too much facial hair.)

again, what we’d really want to know are the gene frequencies for CAH in different populations. then the über-human savants that we call population geneticists could do their math wizardry to see if these genes were under positive selection or not (zey hav vays av mayking ze data talk). (another interesting thing, btw, is that there are many different mutations in this gene which cause a range of CAH conditions from mild to severe — and different mutations are more common in different populations — see here and here and here for instance.)

of course, maybe these mutations in CYP21A2 aren’t being selected for for increased aggression/upside-down familial altruism. maybe it’s something else. witchel, et al., found that heterozygotes for mutated CYP21A2 alleles (i.e. individuals with just one copy of the cr*ppy gene) had increased cortisol levels and cortisol is, apparently, important for the immune system, so maybe these mutants simply survive infections better. others have found a possible connection between higher iq and CAH (masculinization = higher iq?) — see here and here and here — so maybe that’s it.

or maybe these genes are not being selected for at all. however, fertility rates of people (women) with CAH are low, so it seems like a strange bunch of genes to have around if they don’t have some sort of benefit.

previously: inbreeding and the evolution of altruistic behavior and looking for altruism genes and visions of altruism genes

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consanguinity and democracy

steve sailer posted about this paper the other day — from the amazingly awesome michael woodley and his partner in crimethink edward bell:

Consanguinity as a Major Predictor of Levels of Democracy: A Study of 70 Nations

oh, how such a study just warms hbd chick’s cold, little heart! (~_^)

using the good, ol’ consang.net data on cousin marriage rates (which are great but have a lot of problems — i’ll get into that in another post) and data on democracy from polity iv and the eiu democracy index, woodley and bell found pretty strong negative correlations between first-/second-cousin marriage rates in societies and how democratic those societies are: –0.632 between consanguinity and the polity iv data, and –0.771 with the eiu data. (as steve points out, a -0.6 correlation in the social sciences is something to make you stop and go hmmmm, never mind a -0.77 correlation.)

in other words, the more cousin marriage in a society, the less democracy.

woodley and bell also looked at a lot of other neat stuff like economic freedom+consanguinity+democracy and percent muslim+consanguinity+democracy and pathogen index+consanguinity+democracy (i like that one!), but i’ll get to those in another post. (in fact, the rest of this week is probably going to be devoted to the woodley and bell paper here on hbd chick, so if you’re sick to death of hearing about inbreeding and democracy, don’t say you haven’t been warned!)

woodley and bell say:

“Consanguinity … appears to severely restrict the political and social fluidity characteristic of democratic systems, as individual allegiances are primarily to kinship groupings where sophisticated group-level free-rider detection and social identity mechanisms serve to discourage expressions of self-interest that do not maximize collective utility (MacDonald, 2001, 2002). This process of collective utility maximization is consistent with the notion of inclusive fitness in which individuals exhibit altruistic behaviors toward those with whom they share genes, thus indirectly increasing their fitness (Hamilton, 1964; Rushton, 1989, 2005; Trivers, 1971).”

they also say:

“A further shortcoming of the study is its cross-sectional nature; a panel study using data gathered at regular intervals would be ideal for testing the hypotheses and models presented in this study.”

yes. i’ve been thinking that there are at least two things going on with regard to inbreeding and man’s innate social aptitudes (and their expressions like democracy or no democracy):

1) genetic similarity. so, as woodley and bell said, “individuals exhibit altruistic behaviors toward those with whom they share genes.” thus, in highly inbred societies, individuals favor their own extended family members at the expense of their neighbors and unrelated members of their society simply because they are much more genetically related to their [edit] extended family members than individuals in outbred societies are to theirs. this is a very direct effect — change the relatedness, change the behavior patterns. and, so, liberal democracy will simply never work in inbred societies — or not work very well anyway — because you get clannishness.

2) the evolution of “genes for altruism” over the longer term. i think that, in addition to genetic similarity, we’re also looking at populations with different types and/or frequencies of “genes for altruism” due to their long-term mating patterns. i think it could’ve made a difference that northwest europeans have been outbreeding a lot since the early medieval period while arabs having been inbreeding a lot since … well, i’m not sure … probably since at least whenever some jewish tribes from the levant migrated into the arab peninsula. this is a long-term effect — change the relatedness over the long-term, and you might change at least the frequencies of “genes for altruism” in the population. you’d think the selection pressures for different sorts of altruism genes would change, too, if you went from an outbred to inbred society (bushmen vs. yanomamo, for example) or vice versa. in other words, you’d think different altruism genes might be selected for in different types of societies.

this is one of the reasons that i say there are problems with the consang.net data, i.e. that they lack time-depth or, as woodley and bell said, they offer only a cross-sectional look at consanguinity.

for instance, the consang.net data for china averages to a rate of 5% (per woodley and bell), but all of the data for china come from the twentieth century. however, the chinese have been seriously marrying their cousins since at least the third century b.c. and, as far as i know, the rates only slowed down in the twentieth century (and maybe not to the extent one would think from looking at the consang.net data) — and after that, they kept on marrying very locally (endogamously) until very, very recently.

i think woodley and bell would find much higher correlations between consanguinity and democracy if they had long-term consanguinity data. (what will probably need to be used is some sort of genetic data.)
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the woodley and bell paper [pdf].

the classics: Veil of Fears by stanley kurtz; Consanguinity prevents Middle Eastern political development by parapundit; and Cousin Marriage Conundrum by steve sailer.

previously: democracy and endogamous mating practices and the corporate nature of european societies and liberal democracy and “hard-won democracy” and consanguinity + corruption = correlation

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assortative friendships

do you pick your friends ’cause you like them, or ’cause they have certain genes? (or is that the same thing?):

“Correlated genotypes in friendship networks”

“[K]inship may not be the only basis on which natural selection might possibly operate at the group level. For example, if genetic differences between social networks (or, conversely, genetic similarity within networks) were found at significant levels among humans, it would enhance the opportunity for natural selection to operate at the level of social groups established on a basis other than kinship….

“[N]o work has yet established that, net of such stratification, there are any genes that are correlated (either positively or negatively) between individuals in nonreproductive, friendship unions. To study whether such correlation exists, we analyzed two independent samples with information about respondents’ genes and about respondents’ friendship ties and social networks: the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and the Framingham Heart Study Social Network (FHS-Net). Add Health allowed respondents to name up to 10 friends at each of three waves over 6 y (27), and the FHS-Net captured up to two close friends at each of seven waves over 32 y (28).

“In Add Health, subjects were genotyped for one marker each in the DRD2, DRD4, CYP2A6, MAOA, SLC6A3, and SLC6A4 genes (Materials and Methods). Figs. 1 and 2 show how genotypes for two of these genes are distributed in the largest connected component of the friendship network. Notably, significant clusters of similar genotypes for DRD2 suggest the possibility of homophily, but the substantial absence of any connection between individuals with minor alleles of CYP2A6 suggests possible heterophily….

“These results suggest that there is genotypic clustering in social networks that exceeds what might be expected solely from population stratification. People’s friends may not only have similar traits, but actually resemble each other on a genotypic level, even at the level of specific alleles and nucleotides.

“Thus, homophily and heterophily in friendships, expressed at the genetic level, may have notable implications for our understanding both of the way that our genes can shape our environmental exposures and the way that our social environment can influence our behavior (21, 22, 28, 35). A feedback process might emerge whereby a person’s genes lead to the selection of friends with certain genotypes, which in turn facilitates or modifies the expression of a person’s own genes…. Such a process could also play out over longer time scales; the human evolutionary environment is not limited to the physical and biological environment, but also includes the social environment, which may itself be an evolutionary force (37, 38).

“In some sense, humans might be ‘metagenomic’ not just with respect to the microbes within them (39, 40), but also with respect to the humans around them. We could possibly view an individual’s genetic landscape as a summation of the genes within the individual and those around him, just as in certain other organisms (14, 17).”

metagenomic. i like that. i like it a lot!

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i call b.s.

dennis links to roissy who links to barking up the wrong tree who posts about a study which purportedly shows that human mate selection is more about “market conditions” than assortative mating.

possibly. but the researchers haven’t shown that in this particular study because the people they studied (speed daters) WERE ALREADY SELF-SORTED. see here:

65%+ of them were college graduates versus 20% of the population at large (“bhps” — british household panel survey — column). 83% of the men were in skilled or professional jobs while 86% of the women were — compared to 40% and 52% of the general population respectively.

as bruce said over @dennis’: “Key concept: range restriction.”

yup. these people didn’t have to worry about finding a “like” partner out of this sub-group of the population ’cause they were all already pretty alike. they could just pick the nearest warm body to mate with ’cause they had already self-sorted.

total b.s.

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linkfest – 05/22/11

Gene responsible for the unique development of human brains is ‘discovered’ – LAGMC3. see also al fin.

Researchers uncover a new level of genetic diversity in human RNA sequences – rna-dna differences (RDDs).

A bad apple in Duckworth’s IQ-Motivation meta-analysis? – important review from statsquatch.

Hazy Recall as a Signal Foretelling Depression – “[R]esearchers at Oxford, Northwestern University in Illinois and other universities are conducting studies with thousands of teenagers to determine whether those with overgeneral memory are more likely to develop depression later on.”

Scientists find “master switch” gene for obesity

The £400 [$650] test that tells you how long you’ll live – telomere test.

Scientists find genetic link to depression

Happy people die younger than their more reserved peers, study finds

Q&A: Novel study suggests autism three times more prevalent than thought – in south korea.

Nicotine is less addictive for smokers who have a particular genetic quirk, study finds – via diversity is chaos.

Does Cupid play politics? That ‘something special’ might be your mate’s political ideology – “Researchers discover spouses select partners based on social and political attitudes.” via parapundit.

Proof heart disease is an ancient problem: Autopsy finds 3,500-year-old Egyptian princess had clogged arteries – “44 out of 52 mummies examined had clogged arteries”

Not-so-similar fate of identical twins infected with HIV-1

bonus: Military Social Influence in the Global Information Environment – A Civilian Primer

tribalism on the innerwebs

well, the recent “revolutions” may have been facilitated by fb and twitter, but tptb in saudi arabia are concerned that the internet is facilitating tribalism. and they don’t like it. not one little bit:

“Internet reviving tribalism in youth“

One would have thought that after nearly 80 years of Saudi Arabian national unity, fervent tribal sentiments would have started to wane as a consequence of a growing national consciousness. [well, not if u keep marrying ur cousins @ a rate of 50%+ - hbd chick.] This might have been the case except for the advent of the Internet and satellite television which have provided platforms for tribal inflamed rhetoric and, sometimes, zealotry. Saudi tribesmen, especially the younger generation, are rediscovering their tribal identities. Arabian tribal ties are maintained through bloodlines which often create a very strong generational consciousness.

From time immemorial, the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula have been organized on the basis of tribal and clan kinships, with traditions and customs handed down from one generation to another. With the absence of a real and larger nationhood, prior to the foundation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, this tribal organization was the normal state of affairs for a very long time. It would thus be unrealistic to anticipate the total demise of such tribal sentiments at any time in the near future. [yes. yes it would. particularly if ya'll keep inbreeding.]

In the last few years, with the arrival of the Internet, individual tribes and tribal clans have started to develop websites so that their members can meet in cyberspace to advertise and document their social events, remember their past, post their poetry, share photographs, and chat with one another. The Internet has been used as an effective means for tribal members to share their rich legacy of memories, express their desire to continue to live together and perpetuate the value of the heritage that they have inherited from their ancestors. All of which is perfectly fine.

The danger, however, arises when these tribal websites are abused by some zealous members to brag in chat rooms about tribal ancestry and past presumed ‘glories’. If one is not careful, these websites can turn into tools for intertribal rivalry and competition, similar to what had been the case with some satellite television stations. This can create a socio-psychological rift between members of the Kingdom’s different tribes and clans, and between them and other citizens of the country, resulting in a setback to years of bridging historical differences between different tribes, and threatening the national fabric of our society.

Tribal websites often have clear and valuable objectives which can unite members of the same tribe or clan, but they must avoid inflamed rhetoric and the demeaning of others.

previously: genetic similarity theory in play on MyFace and cousin marriage conundrum addendum

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linkfest – 01/23/11

Mammoth ‘could be reborn in four years’

Average IQ by occupation (estimated from median income) – by mr. audacious

Roman rise and fall ‘recorded in trees’ – “An extensive study of tree growth rings says there could be a link between the rise and fall of past civilisations and sudden shifts in Europe’s climate.”

Dieting while pregnant can lower your baby’s IQ – (duh)

Religiosity and the origins of civilization – @evo and proud – “The causes of civilization are not to be found in early art, writing, or architecture. These are merely the consequences of a preceding mental revolution.”

Best friends forever: It’s all in our genes, say scientists – genetic similarity theory. see also Brain Genes Influence Friend Choices @futurepundit.

Blood group O ‘protects against heart attacks’

Watch out feminists: Why acting like a man at work won’t get you promoted at work

White ethnic groups more likely to vote Republican than whites in general and More on ethnicity and voting among whites from inductivist. “Americans of English/Welsh, Dutch, and German descent are significantly more likely to vote Republican, compared to other whites.”

Dumb Farmers @overcoming bias. see also If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking?

Miscellaneous musings on the Ainu, I @ahnenkult. via race|hist|evo notes.

Worm Sperm – “Sperm built to resist being sucked out after copulation.” see also The sexual battles of flatworms: barbed sperm, mating rings, traumatic insemination, and going down on yourself

9,000 Years Ago, North Americans Tamed–and Ate–Dogs

genetic similarity theory in play on MyFace

well, whaddya know!:

“Study: Race plays a minor role in forging Facebook friendships”

“Social pressure and ethnic, social and geographic origins appear far more influential

“… True to past research, the sociologists initially saw same-race friendships develop rapidly: White students befriended each other one-and-a-half times more frequently than would be expected by chance, Latino students befriended each other four-and-a-half times more frequently, and African American students befriended each other eight times more frequently. But when the researchers dug deeper, race appeared to be less important than a number of other factors in forging friendships.

“‘Much of what at first appeared to be same-race preference, for instance, ultimately proved to be preference for students of the same ethnic background,’ Lewis says. ‘Once we started controlling for the attraction of shared ethnic backgrounds or countries of origin, the magnitude of racial preference was cut almost in half….’”

whew! thank god people aren’t pickin’ their MyFace friends ’cause of waaaaycism! what a welief! *wipes brow* now i can sleep better at night!

point is, tho, that the peeps ARE picking and choosing their friends to a large degree based on ETHNICITY – in other words, they’re picking friends that are A LOT like themselves genetically speaking.

genetic similarity theory (see here, here and here) in play on MyFace, yessiree. (not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

interesting that latinos and african americans befriendster fellow ethnics at greater rates than white(r) people.

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