11 Comments
User's avatar
Keith's avatar

Really interesting. I read Rushton quite a few years ago when he was still alive and liked his Life History Theory. His name rarely crops up nowadays and I wondered why. But I suppose it wouldn't, except in race realist circles.

I like the way you rephrase the more difficult bits into layman's language. Without those translations into normal people speak I wouldn't have to stamina to decypher what was being said. Thanks for that.

Expand full comment
Ferien's avatar

It's funny that if you wake up any of these biologists at night and ask them why marsupial mammals are dumber than placental mammals, they'd easily answer than short gestation and need to have functional brain early leaves marsupials with less time to develop complex brain, but here they crimestop

Expand full comment
John DeMarco's avatar

Maybe misreading the article, but we rationalized slavery because there was an (incorrect) assertion that Africans were a different species than "us".

A key part of the abolitionist movement was that we are all human and therefore are equal under Nature, or God. While I'm all for using genetics for disease prediction and treatment ("personalized medicine"), I think articles like these turn back the clock to a worse time in humanity.

While I'll stop short of calling it "scientific racism", it's probably unnecessary and can be misused especially when the correlations are so weak. We have enough racists and bigots, we don't need ammo for any more.

Expand full comment
Paolo Giusti's avatar

"I refuse to accept a scientific hypothesis because it would make me look bad" ftfy

Expand full comment
Brad Erickson's avatar

Rushton’s work should by carefully and systematically revisited in current contexts; his findings would (again) be validated. Then, widely published. Then, promulgated. Truth.

Expand full comment
jonathan amit's avatar

But do these 11 genetic variants associated with earlier age of walking partially explain why blacks walk earlier? Are they more common in African populations?

Expand full comment
Emil O. W. Kirkegaard's avatar

If you read the post, you would know the answer is: we don't know yet.

Expand full comment
jonathan amit's avatar

I just think it would be interesting to know about population differences in these 11 genes, I’m guessing that they should be most common in African populations and least common in East Asian populations which are supposed to be the slowest in learning to walk according to Rushton’s theory.

Expand full comment
Emil O. W. Kirkegaard's avatar

Yes, and no one did this analysis yet.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
May 14
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Emil O. W. Kirkegaard's avatar

Amazing stuff.

Expand full comment
Ferien's avatar

>156 patients and 28 embryos

looks like a typo

Expand full comment