Is there any evidence of a difference in temperment between the races

[Darth_Panda]

My answer to the OP:

There is conflicting anecdotal evidence, and no scientific evidence. Maybe there will be someday, but there isn’t right now.

eta: by scientific evidence, I mean something published in a peer reviewed journal.

[just_some_guy5]

We frequently make racial distinctions in a biological context (e.g., certain groups are more prone to specific diseases compared to the general population). However, distinctions based on temperament are more difficult to discern (i.e., nature versus nurture) and understandably more controversial in nature.

If I had to give a “best guess” answer to the OP, I suspect those groups with the mildest temperament would be those groups that were the earliest adopters of agriculture (i.e., southwestern and southern Asians from what I recall), as this was a pretty clear shift away from hunting and gathering and therefore offered the most compelling evolutionary upside from such behavior.

[mac_bolan00]

but even then, wouldn’t constant war also prune the male population so that only the war-worthy will continue? north and western europeans seem to have this history. i can’t speak of their general temperament but they are war-like to be sure.

[just_some_guy5]

@mac_bolan00

but even then, wouldn’t constant war also prune the male population so that only the war-worthy will continue? north and western europeans seem to have this history. i can’t speak of their general temperament but they are war-like to be sure.

I’m sure there are many with more expertise on this subject but I would argue that war didn’t have a particularly substantial impact on evolution given that one could make a reasonable argument that the very best fighters in a war were actually most likely to perish during said war. Add to that the fact that until the 20th century disease was the leading cause of death during war. My thought process is that the agricultural lifestyle has had upwards of 250 generations to impact genes (250 x 25 years = 10,000 years) and would thus have a greater impact. Of course that’s just my humble opinion.

[just_some_guy5]

Apologies for my awful math in the previous post:

10,000 years / 25 years per person = 400 generations :o

[Blake]

@just_some_guy5

We frequently make racial distinctions in a biological context (e.g., certain groups are more prone to specific diseases compared to the general population). However, distinctions based on temperament are more difficult to discern (i.e., nature versus nurture) and understandably more controversial in nature.

We frequently make fashion distinctions in a biological context (e.g., certain colours are more prone to being bitten by mosquitoes diseases compared to the general population). That doesn’t mean that fashion has any biological reality or that it can be linked to anything beyond the very factors that we used to define it.

If I had to give a “best guess” answer to the OP, I suspect those groups with the mildest temperament would be those groups that were the earliest adopters of agriculture (i.e., southwestern and southern Asians from what I recall)…

So you are arguingt that people with the mildest temperaments would be Iranians, Iraqis, Northern Chinese… and Armenians. :dubious:

… as this was a pretty clear shift away from hunting and gathering and therefore offered the most compelling evolutionary upside from such behavior.

Indeed. Because we all know that all agricultural people are peace-loving while all HGs are bloodthirsty and violent. :dubious:

[mac_bolan00]

i will answer the main question this way, yes there is a difference in temperament between whole populations: tribes, villages, nations, and almost certainly races. the reason is not so much biological as it is cultural and stage of development. if we tract the main recorded wars, they emanated from city centers that in turn grew proximal to fertile regions. from this basic city-state pattern of economic and military growth, we began to see cases of a highly developed city state region being overthrown by more nascient power centers clearly still at the stage of growth. examples are persia fallen to macedonia, macedonia fallen to rome, rome falling to western europe, contantinople falling to the ottomans.

so a national/racial temperament depends on what stage of development it’s in. that’s my theory.

[Alka_Seltzer]

@code_grey

If Colibri says that we should use the term “population”, sure, why not. So we can go to West Africa and classify people into a couple of “populations”. Then we can see what the temperaments of these populations are like. And maybe compare that to the temperament of some far away population, let’s say the Finns, the Roma and the Ainu.

Your idea of what constitutes a population is naive. It’s highly unlikely that someone could be identified as specifically Finnish by genetic profiling. The Finns have not been isolated enough to develop a distinct genetic identity. On the other hand, West Africans are (comparitively) very genetically diverse. Therefore comparing the temprament of Finns and West Africans is meaningless, you haven’t chosen your test groups scientifically.

If groups of people were identified using genetic profiling it might be possible to make some comparison of temprament. There would be huge problems in conducting such a test (how do you adjust for cultural factors?), but it might be possible to draw some weak conclusions.

On the other hand, we have very good evidence of how strongly culture effects behaviour. Genetically, we have changed little over the last few thousand years, but that time period covers all known human civilisations, and all the differences they have exhibited.

@code_grey

so how many Tiger Woods’s are there? Vs how many people who are actually 90-100% West African, look that way and act that way?

What on exactly does it mean to “act West African”? Play the balafon? You seem to have some pre-concieved notions here.

[Telemark]

@mac_bolan00

i will answer the main question this way, yes there is a difference in temperament between whole populations: tribes, villages, nations, and almost certainly races.

Since there are no human biological races, and you haven’t supplied a definition of race that is anyway meaningful, this part of your statement makes no sense.

so a national/racial temperament depends on what stage of development it’s in. that’s my theory.

That’s your hypothesis. If you had some data that supported you it might rise to the point of a theory. Right now, the data that exists doesn’t support you or is neutral.

[John_Mace]

@code_grey

you must be joking. South America is populated by distinct stable endogamous groups such as “whites”, “Amerindians”, “mestizos”, “mulattos”. These groups often live in their separate regions as the overwhelming local majority, but in some cases the whites blend in with mestizos (see Mexico). Sometimes the regional conflicts between these regions lead to calls for secession of the wealthier whiter regions from the subsidized non-white ones.

No, I wasn’t joking, but I did mistakenly leave out Mexico, which is part of North America. So let’s look at that country (from wikipedia):

In May 2009, the Institute issued a report on a major genomic study of 300 mestizos in the Mexican population. Among the findings it was reported that over 80% of the population is mestizo and that the proportions of European and indigenous ancestry are approximately even.[186] A study presented by the American Society of Human Genetics has shown (based on genes) that, on average, Mestizo Mexicans are (genetically) 58.96% European, 31.05% “Asian” (Amerindian), and 10.03% African.

So, 80% of the population is mestizo, with your “average” mestizo being tri-racial, pretty much like Tiger Woods. I put average in quotes, because there is going to be a wide range of mixtures.

Central and South America is not much different. Sure, there are some isolated areas where people are largely Native American, and some urban areas where Europeans have managed to stay apart from the indigenous populations, but those are not the norm. Brazil is the largest country in South America, and that population is notoriously mixed, although more skewed towards the European/African ancestries. Still, your “typical” Brazilian is tri-racial, with European, Africa and Native American ancestry (in that order).

So yes, your find the “Tiger Woods Genetic Syndrome” to be the norm throughout the entire Western Hemisphere, south of the US. And with Hispanics (mostly Mexicans) now the largest minority in the US, you will find well over 10% of the population of that country to be part of the syndrome, too.

I’m baffled as to why you continue to post on a subject that you clearly know nothing about.

[Deegeea]

@John_Mace

Of course temperament is determined by our genes. Else, we’d have the same “temperament” as chimps or lizards. As for your example, though, “easy going” is as likely (or more) to be culturally/environmentally influenced as it is to be genetically influenced. We don’t have the knowledge or technology to prove your assertion, and so I wouldn’t state it as a fact. Your parents my be “easy going” because they were raised in a comfortable environment. If you’re not raised in one so comfortable, you might not be “easy going” regardless of your genetic make up.

Of course we have the ability to do scientific studies to ascertain the genetic effect on temperament on individual, not species level; they are called twin studies. Here’s links to a few. Now, “easy going” and “short tempered” and “melancholic” are not scientific terms, I was making those up, I admit it. You can find the real scientific terms in the studies. “openness” “neuroticism” & so forth.

Department of Psychology

http://www.springerlink.com/content/h0p0146543145k4u/

This study, I believe, went beyond that and used genetic analysis, phenotypic analysis of paired physical and temperamental traits, and family relationships to compare genetic effects on those who were not twins:

Heritability of Cardiovascular and Personality Traits in 6,148 Sardinians

I believe it’s been demonstrated and reproduced experimentally that there are, in fact, measurable effects of genetic heritage on temperament in humans, that is separable by statistical analysis from the effect of cultural and individual environmental effects. ( *edited in postscript: If you’re going to get super technical about my terminology, I can about yours, too: science does not attempt to “prove” anything so the statement that there is no technology to prove my assertion is both true and irrelevant * )

[Surreal]

@Alka_Seltzer

Your idea of what constitutes a population is naive. It’s highly unlikely that someone could be identified as specifically Finnish by genetic profiling. The Finns have not been isolated enough to develop a distinct genetic identity.

Wrong, that would actually be relatively simple to do. In fact, it’s even possible to distinguish Eastern Finns from Western Finns:

Genome-Wide Analysis of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Uncovers Population...

In this study, we analysed almost 250,000 SNPs from a total of 945 samples from Eastern and Western Finland, Sweden, Northern Germany and Great Britain complemented with HapMap data. Small but statistically significant differences were observed between the European populations (FST = 0.0040, p<10−4), also between Eastern and Western Finland (FST = 0.0032, p<10−3). The latter indicated the existence of a relatively strong autosomal substructure within the country, similar to that observed earlier with smaller numbers of markers. The Germans and British were less differentiated than the Swedes, Western Finns and especially the Eastern Finns who also showed other signs of genetic drift. This is likely caused by the later founding of the northern populations, together with subsequent founder and bottleneck effects, and a smaller population size. Furthermore, our data suggest a small eastern contribution among the Finns, consistent with the historical and linguistic background of the population.

[Surreal]

Be sure to check out the 3D animated Figure S1 from the link above.

[Alka_Seltzer]

@Surreal

Wrong, that would actually be relatively simple to do. In fact, it’s even possible to distinguish Eastern Finns from Western Finns:

That’s interesting, other profiles I’ve seen haven’t been nearly that specific.

[Alka_Seltzer]

@Surreal

Be sure to check out the 3D animated Figure S1 from the link above.

That illustrates it well, I was expecting to see most of the European population run together much like the british and german populations do.

Still, my main point stands. If you were to perform the same profiling for West Africa you’d see a lot more variation and sub-groups than in the European samples. Therefore comparing West Africans with Finns is meaningless, you’d need to identify sub-groups with a similar level of genetic diversity before comparing them.

[Acsenray]

In other words, Finns:West Africans is something like shih-tzus:all dogs over 25 pounds in weight.

Africans are more different from each other genetically than they are different from non-Africans. The fact that Africans all look like one race (to some people) is based on superficial, culturally-emphasized factors that really doesn’t indicate the true spread of their genetic diversity. The fact is that you can’t tell simply by looking at humans what genetic groupings they should be divided into.

[CannyDan]

@Surreal

Wrong, that would actually be relatively simple to do. In fact, it’s even possible to distinguish Eastern Finns from Western Finns:

Genome-Wide Analysis of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Uncovers Population Structure in Northern Europe

Statistically.

Your cite says, “Small but statistically significant differences were observed…”.

Alka Seltzer said “It’s highly unlikely that someone could be identified as specifically Finnish by genetic profiling.” (emphasis mine)

I don’t think this position is disproved or contradicted by the statement above. If anything, it seems your cite suggests that a selected group of people could perhaps be resolved as Finnish or Non-Finnish (or even Eastern Finn / Western Finn) through statistical analysis, but not that any individual could be reliably assigned to either category.

[Colibri]

@John_Mace

I’m baffled as to why you continue to post on a subject that you clearly know nothing about.

This is a long-standing tradition among many posters here in threads about race.

[code_grey]

@John_Mace

Central and South America is not much different. Sure, there are some isolated areas where people are largely Native American, and some urban areas where Europeans have managed to stay apart from the indigenous populations, but those are not the norm. Brazil is the largest country in South America, and that population is notoriously mixed, although more skewed towards the European/African ancestries. Still, your “typical” Brazilian is tri-racial, with European, Africa and Native American ancestry (in that order).

I am baffled as to why you think that Argentina is not an absolute majority white nation. I am further baffled why you think that Brazil does not have half the population that is endogamous white descendants of recent immigrants. Or that let’s say Bolivia does not have that white region that had the conflict with the Amerindian region over who gets the gas money.

[Acsenray]

@code_grey

I am baffled as to why you think that Argentina is not an absolute majority white nation. I am further baffled why you think that Brazil does not have half the population that is endogamous white descendants of recent immigrants. Or that let’s say Bolivia does not have that white region that had the conflict with the Amerindian region over who gets the gas money.

Argentina is “an absolute majority white nation” under a social definition of “white,” not a genetic one. The same is true of the other groups you name.