# did celibacy harm the gene pool in medieval Europe? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 15, 2013, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-celibacy-harm-the-gene-pool-in-medieval-europe/663543 "2013-07-15T08:43:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-celibacy-harm-the-gene-pool-in-medieval-europe/663543/41 "2013-07-19T16:52:30Z")
I believe the logic of the Ashkenazi situation is this - the Jewish culture of the time respected book learning and scholarship; the rabbis chosen from their best and smartest were given good jobs as rabbis to the communities, where they enjoyed and decent standard of living and could afford and raise more and healthier children. As a result, being smart and capable of book learning was a survival edge for genes. Similar arguments have been made for the Chinese, and centuries of civil service exams where anyone of any background could join the civil service, and have a secure income to raise a family, based mainly on intelligence. The obvious clarifications are: - was there really a selection for intelligence, or were the “winners” just no smarter than everyone else, but lucky? - is intelligence differentialreally genetic, or are we mainly seeing the lucky ones who got better nutrition, etc.? (General consensus IIRC seems to be intelligence is about 50% inherited, 50% envionment.) -how significant was the resulting reproduction differential, the key to genetic dominance? Did rabbis really have more (surviving) children? -how long did this go on? OTOH, as Richard Feynman once pointed out, culture goes a long way. He suggested the Jewish and Chinese, and the East Indians, had a respect for learned men in their culture. Rather than denigrating them as “eggheads”, learning your lessons and moving up would be respected if you became a scholar. maybe it’s social pressure more than genes. And of course, the debate on the OP, the coutnerpoint - did the clergy selection system really pull the best and brightest out of the gene pool? Or a random selection, not heavily weighted? Presumably the first son, given rank and privilege, made up for the children his clergy brother failed to have… ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-celibacy-harm-the-gene-pool-in-medieval-europe/663543/42 "2013-07-19T17:11:11Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > IAnd of course, the debate on the OP, the coutnerpoint - did the clergy selection system really pull the best and brightest out of the gene pool? Or a random selection, not heavily weighted? Presumably the first son, given rank and privilege, made up for the children his clergy brother failed to have… Yes, and not only that. What’s being ignored here is that European Catholics weren’t a small isolated population. Even if the selection process resulted in a disproportionate number of people with a smart gene not reproducing, those genes would have been widely spread through the population already. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-celibacy-harm-the-gene-pool-in-medieval-europe/663543/43 "2013-07-19T17:55:19Z")
Yes, to what extent were “_ **smart** _ people removed from the gene pool” by clergy selection? Considering that people entered the clergy for a lot of other reasons, as hashed over above, what proportion were “oh, you’re a smart one. We’ll make you a priest”? 1% of the clergy? 5%? What proportion of the population were clergy? The point is not whether other people had those genes. the question is whether having those genes reduced the odds of having children to any extent whatsoever. Even a 1% differential over a long period can have significant effects. However, a review of history suggests that culture and educaton overall seem to be more important than any genetic component. When Europe had the edge in education, technology, and commerce, they were the dominant scholars and “samrt people”. Now that other parts of the world are catching up, we see the same thing from them… As for Jewish culture, it may be a simple recognition that the one thing no pogrom or persecution can take from you is your education. If you are a doctor, lawyer, or university professor that can help you get a job anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-celibacy-harm-the-gene-pool-in-medieval-europe/663543/44 "2013-07-19T22:58:57Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > … If your position is that you can provide no facts to back up any of your assertions … No, that is not my position. My position is that that the only GQ answer possible with the information we have is that we do not know: it is possible even if, for several reasons, improbable, as anything other than a minimal effect. The facts I need to back up that assertion are few: that those who claim that there was, as a matter of fact, no impact, have only speculations about key information we’d need in order to answer factually to support their contention. I do not know why that very simple position is so controversial here where people should understand the difference between GQ and GD or IMHO. Yes on beaten to the ground. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2013, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-celibacy-harm-the-gene-pool-in-medieval-europe/663543/45 "2013-07-20T01:37:49Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > And the scriptorium work frequently was not one monk copying out one book at a time, it was a room full of monks sitting there while the reader spells out each word letter by letter and the poor bored to tears monks would write them out on preruled pages that had blanks left for the artists to make the fancy letters and decorations. I can not imagine a more boring job than to be effectively a typewriter. Not to mention that there very frequently was a heavy disparity in the level of luxuries between the poor typewriter monks and their officers - the officers tended to be the nobles, and the scriptors were peasants - and the peasants frequently got grain mush, bread, cheese and small beer with frequent fasting and good meals only on special holidays while the officers ate well. > > If you wanted to “be” somebody in a monastic scriptorum, be fantastic as an artist and work as an illuminator, you got a room to work in that was warm in the winter and you didn’t have to hear someone droning on spelling out each word [frequently the scriptorums were the only deliberately toasty warm rooms in a monastary, not for the comfort of the monks but so their fingers would be able to draw and color the illustrations. The poor typewriter monks would not be kept as warm, but they would have minimal heat.] I asked for a cite or two, but said I’d get around to a response. No response from **aruvqan** , so I guess I’ll just answer with the bare minimum: Except for “I can not imagine a more boring job than to be effectively a typewriter,” every single sentence in the quoted post, including subordinate statements within them, is false. Cite: me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-celibacy-harm-the-gene-pool-in-medieval-europe/663543.md?page=2)