ED MILLER: EVOLUTION AFTER AFRICA MAY HAVE SELECTED FOR HIGHER IQ \doc\web\99\16\edmill.txt Follows the thinking of Rushton that differencs in race IQ are evolutionary. From: Ed765@aol.com Date sent: Sun, 21 Nov 1999 22:31:24 EST To: genetics@darwin.psy.fsu.edu, hbe-l@a3.com, Ian.Pitchford@scientist.com, H-Bd@egroups.com Subject: [h-bd] Evolution of human intelligence [ Double-click this line for list subscription options ] Ed Miller here: On August 26 Skinner made a long post which suggested that in some ways his ideas resembled mine. I am finally getting around to posting this commentary.I will make some commentary on some of his ideas and use this as a chance to acquaint any who may be interested of some of my papers. An argument can be made that humans left Africa in an interglacial period, since the earliest "modern" fossils are in Israel and are associated with tropical animals. It then turned cold and it appears these early moderns were replaced with Neanderthals (younger Neanderthal fossils are found in the area, although some have argued this is evidence that too populations occupied the same range). The tools associated with the earlier moderns are similar to those associated with the Neanderthals, suggesting they had not yet reached the intellectual level of current humans. My own theory is that human intellectual ability continued to evolved after leaving Africa under the pressure of a colder climate (and with gene flow from the south blocked). This raises the non-politically correct possibility that populations that had been left behind in Africa might differ from the populations in Eurasia, which is probably why few have commented on the obvious fact that to achieve current intellectual levels, the first moderns in Eurasia would have had to undergo further development. This, and related ideas are discussed in my paper on Neanderthals titled "Out of Africa": Neanderthals and Caucasoids? Skinner then argues that after the departure from Africa humans continue to grow in intelligence, and that this growth continued by means of mutations. This is plausible since it can be argued that cold climates selected for intelligence and other traits. I made the argument that that storage was more important in cold climates in "Climate and Intelligence", and then later argued that in cold climates it was very important to know whether ones mate was cheating, and that this was facilitated by high intelligence. This was in "Environmental Variability Selects for Large Families only in Special Circumstances: Another Objection to Differential K Theory". To me this is a much more plausible argument than merely asserting that intelligence is a K characteristic, and that a lower degree of variability northern latitudes that selected for K characteristics. Indeed, in another paper ("Could r Selection Account for the African Personality and Life Cycle") I had argued that there was no real evidence for differences in variability between the different latitudes. However, I do agree with Rushton that most of the traits that he labels K are selected for in cold climates. I give the details in "Paternal Provisioning versus Mate Seeking in Human Populations". While it is very likely that there was continued selection for intelligence after leaving Africa, there is no reason to presume a single mutation was the cause of higher intelligence. As was pointed out, the available behavior genetic evidence is that there are multiple genes that affect intelligence. However, we have similar theories for the somewhat lower levels of intelligence in the new world. Namely that the mutation or mutations for higher intelligence occurred after the migrants had crossed over to the New World. I extend this to apply to Indians in the Americas, and to the Australian aboriginals The Evolution of Australian and Amerindian Intelligence. References Climate and Intelligence, Mankind Quarterly, Vol. XXXII (Fall/Winter 1991) No. 1-2, pp. 127-132. Could r Selection Account for the African Personality and Life Cycle, Personality and Individual Differences, Vol 15, (December 1993), No. 6, 665-676. Paternal Provisioning versus Mate Seeking in Human Populations, Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 17, 1994, No. 2, 227-255. Environmental Variability Selects for Large Families only in Special Circumstances: Another Objection to Differential K Theory. Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 19 (December 1995), No. 6, 903-918. African Exodus: -Re-Evaluating an Hypothesis. Mankind Quarterly, Vol 38, (Fall/Winter 1997) No. 1-2, 39-54. Eugenics: Economics for the Long Run. In Research in Biopolitics, Vol. 5, Steven A. Peterson, Al Somit, Eds. Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press, 1997, 391-416. Could Nonshared Environmental Variance Have Evolved to Assure Diversification Through Randomness? Evolution and Human Behavior, Vol. 18 (May, 1997) No. 3, 195-221. "Out of Africa": Neanderthals and Caucasoids? Mankind Quarterly Vol. 37 (Spring, 1997) No. 3, 231-253 The Evolution of Australian and Amerindian Intelligence, Mankind Quarterly, Vol. 37 (Winter 1996) No. 2, 149-186. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Accurate impartial advice on everything from laptops to tablesaws. http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/1701 How to contribute to H-Bd: 1. To reply privately to just the sender of this message, click the "Reply" button on your email package. 2. To reply publicly to the entire H-Bd list, click the "Reply All" (or equivalent) button on your email package. 3. 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