# The 10,000 Year Explosion - a book review **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 22, 2011, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355 "2011-04-22T14:17:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/121 "2011-04-24T23:17:50Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I take it that you did not read the thread: > > [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/crank\_science\_is\_as\_crank\_scie.php](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/crank_science_is_as_crank_scie.php) Yeah, I read that at the time. Cochran wrote on Gene Expression, in a discussion about the LA Times article, that they had in fact been interested in testing it. However, research groups like Robert Plomin’s weren’t interested. Apparently the words “unemployable pariah” were used in relation to what would happen to researchers who did something that controversial. You have already cited some comments showing how controversial it is & why there might be resistance to that type of research. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > if the best they can do is to report that it is tentative and could turn out to be mistaken, then it follows that it has been silly to expand it into a book. It’s one chapter in the [book](http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=IaflsA4MyFQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+10,000+year+explosion&source=bl&ots=uoUmcAdYA_&sig=15cpMMIPMP7LDstlJCegeElW-wQ&hl=en&ei=KbC0TfC5O8nkiALvqtivBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwADgK). ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2011, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/122 "2011-04-24T23:22:43Z")
> [@harpend](#): > > Brain Glutton said: > > “Primitive justice systems punish trivial crimes with death because their detection methods and organization are . . . primitive and they despair of catching every culprit, or even most; so they have to make an example of those they do. Which has little effect on the gene pool.” > > I have spent several years living with “primitive” people in Africa as well as in Appalachia where I grew up :). My own experience is precisely the opposite. Everyone knows everyone else, and their parents and their grandparents and their children. Culprits are well known. WRT the effect on the gene pool, it depends on whether or not sanctions, like executions, are accurately mapped to additive genetic variance of the trait. I can’t imagine there would be little effect on the gene pool unless punishment was completely random. > > Do you have literature to support your idea? **harpend** , welcome to the SDMB. There is a quote tag button above the textbox, as well as one below every post. As is, your post are easy to read, but it would be easier if you made use of these buttons. Also (as I, nor anyone else, has done so yet) welcome to the SDMB **gcochran**. I’m still very interested on your opinion in my last post. Due to your writings/book I’m sure that you are of the opinion that: 1. racial categories can be legitimately used as a proxy for genetic similarity 2. one can take a genetically deterministic approach towards (undefined and poorly understood) complex behavioural traits (like “cognitive ability”) 3. that “accelerated evolution” provides a way for humans to undergo recent genetic differentiation (largely along ethnic/racial lines -see point 1) 4. that this “accelerated evolution” provides a genetic framework for behavioural differences in Ashkenazi Jews. Using the assumptions found in your book, **NND** has merely changed point 4) to focus on “Blacks,” instead of Ashkenazi Jews (he also added other poorly understood behavioural traits like “tendency for violence,” etc). He, constantly, quotes directly from your book and uses it’s arguments in his preachings of Black mental inferiority (among other “black qualities”). I’d say that his arguments suffer from many of the same unfounded speculation and assertions as your book did but that just brings me back to the same question… So what do you think of the OP? Has he warped your ideas/assumptions? Is he on the right track? Have you read the OP? Do you have any opinion at all? You have our ears. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/123 "2011-04-25T00:04:08Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Yeah, I read that at the time. Cochran wrote on Gene Expression, in a discussion about the LA Times article, that they had in fact been interested in testing it. However, research groups like Robert Plomin’s weren’t interested. Apparently the words “unemployable pariah” were used in relation to what would happen to researchers who did something that controversial. > > You have already cited some comments showing how controversial it is & why there might be resistance to that type of research. As my experience with other fringe artists like creationists and global warming deniers has shown, it is more likely that the pariah status was earned. > [@Chen019](#): > > It’s one chapter in the [book](http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=IaflsA4MyFQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+10,000+year+explosion&source=bl&ots=uoUmcAdYA_&sig=15cpMMIPMP7LDstlJCegeElW-wQ&hl=en&ei=KbC0TfC5O8nkiALvqtivBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwADgK). And I already referred to that fact, pay attention. What I still see is good science mentioned together with bad in an attempt to make readers swallow the bad pill with the good info. I will let TVtropes explain what is happening in more mundane terms: > **[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BreadEggsMilkSquick)** > > When a mundane conversation goes bad. You're winding up a boring conversation, and throw in one last thing in there. And that one last thing was praise for the Ku Klux Klan, or a plan to kill the Mayor, or a swear word, when you had been talking … > [@](#): > > Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick > > When a mundane conversation goes bad. You’re winding up a boring conversation, and throw in one last thing in there. And that one last thing was praise for Adolf Hitler, or a plan to kill the Mayor, or an offhand comment that you pick your nose, when you had been talking about options for where to eat dinner or something. > > “So yeah, we’ll just run out for pizza, catch a movie, maybe go out for a couple drinks, and lynch that bastard. Sound good?” > > Bonus points for the listener asking with a horrified tone “What was that last one again?” and the last harmless option before the horrifying one being repeated instead. > > A common variation has one additional, harmless (but often comically inappropriate) item tacked on to the end of the list. This allows other characters to react in horror — to the wrong thing. : “So yeah, we’ll just run out for pizza, catch a movie, murder my next door neighbor, and, if we have time, go skydiving.” “Are you crazy? I’m afraid of airplanes.” ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/124 "2011-04-25T01:09:59Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > But as the human population sizes increased, particularly with the advent of agriculture, favorable mutations occurred more and more often. Sixty thousand years ago, before the expansion out of Africa, there were something like a quarter of a million modern humans. By the Bronze Age, 3,000 years ago, that number was roughly 60 million. Favorable mutations that had previously occurred every 100,000 years or so were now showing up every 400 years. > > - Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, from The 10,000 Year Explosion, Chapter 3, “Agriculture: the Big Change,” page 65 > [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Hint – the relevant [You Fail Statistics Forever](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouFailStatisticsForever) example is this one: On The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly argued that life expectancy was lower in the US than in Canada because the US has ten times as many people, and therefore has ten times the number of accidents. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouFailStatisticsForever](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouFailStatisticsForever) Steve MB, You obviously do not understand what you are talking about. Favorable mutations spread. Accidents do not. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/125 "2011-04-25T01:14:59Z")
> [@harpend](#): > > “Do you have a cite for a 100 fold decline in murder rate?” > > Eisner (2001). Modernization, self-control and lethal violence: The long-term dynamics of European homicide rates in theoretical perspective. Brit J Criminol (41): 618-38. > > Eisner (2003). Long-term historical trends in violent crime. Crime & Justice (30): 84-142. Would you care to share what Eisner says with the rest of the class? Or respond to the question assuming for the moment that it is accurate, you can’t find any models or mechanisms to explain this any better than genetics? ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/126 "2011-04-25T01:31:19Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I take it that you did not read the thread: > > [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/crank\_science\_is\_as\_crank\_scie.php](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/crank_science_is_as_crank_scie.php) Category: Evolution • Kooks • Skepticism Posted on: April 20, 2009 11:29 AM, by PZ Myers Gregory Cochran has always been drawn to puzzles. This one had been gnawing at him for several years: Why are European Jews prone to so many deadly genetic diseases? Tay-Sachs disease. Canavan disease. More than a dozen more. It offended Cochran’s sense of logic. Natural selection, the self-taught genetics buff knew, should flush dangerous DNA from the gene pool. Perhaps the mutations causing these diseases had some other, beneficial purpose. But what? … The “faulty” genes, Cochran concluded, make Jews smarter… Mr Cochran’s flaw is in his premise. There is no reason to assume that the frequency of every allele in a population must be the product of a selective advantage. * * * Jewish genetic diseases are passed down through the generations the way sickle cell anemia is among black populations threatened by malaria. This is thoroughly explained in The 10,000 Year Explosion. One gene is responsible for both the problem and the benefit. However, the gene is dominant for the benefit, and recessive for the problem. If you have one gene you get the benefit without the problem. If you have both genes, you get the benefit and the problem. Those with sickle cell anemia also are resistant to malaria. They die from sickle cell anemia, but they may have siblings who only have one of the genes. Those siblings do not have sickle cell anemia, and they are less likely to die from malaria. Jews with the genetic diseases are of superior intelligence. Their siblings may carry one of the genes. They will have the superior intelligence without the disease. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/127 "2011-04-25T01:41:07Z")
So after all that we are still stuck with “may”. That figures. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/128 "2011-04-25T01:50:39Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > So after all that we are still stuck with “may”. > > That figures. A good scientist is not dogmatic. Also, a good scientist understands probability. If two parents, each with one gene for Tay-Sachs disease have four children the odds are best that one of those children will get both genes, a higher IQ, and the disease. Two of the children will get one gene. They will not get the disease, but they will have a higher IQ. One child will get no genes, no disease, and no IQ benefit. On the other hand, all of them may get both genes, all of them may get one gene, and all of them may get none. It’s like flipping a coin four times. You may get four heads. You may get four tails. You may get a mixture. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/129 "2011-04-25T01:56:53Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > A good scientist is not dogmatic. Also, a good scientist understands probability. If two parents, each with one gene for Tay-Sachs disease have four children the odds are best that one of those children will get both genes, a higher IQ, and the disease. Two of the children will get one gene. They will not get the disease, but they will have a higher IQ. One child will get no genes, no disease, and no IQ benefit. On the other hand, all of them may get both genes, all of them may get one gene, and all of them may get none. > > It’s like flipping a coin four times. You may get four heads. You may get four tails. You may get a mixture. Yeah, so then proposing premature political solutions based on probabilities does not make sense until better research is made, no? Of course if the support for the conclusions is even more iffy among most scientists and politicians have to check what most of them recommend them, it is safe to say that a snow ball in hell has a better chance. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/130 "2011-04-25T02:08:22Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Yeah, so then proposing premature political solutions based on probabilities does not make sense until better research is made, no? In The 10,000 Year Explosion Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending present no political solutions. The book does have political implications, but those are for the reader to draw. One of the quotes in the book praising the book reads, “It is a work destined to launch a thousand careers.” Charles Darwin’s books had much the same effect. They launched the careers of physical and cultural anthropologists. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/131 "2011-04-25T02:08:34Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > A good scientist is not dogmatic. Also, a good scientist understands probability. If two parents, each with one gene for Tay-Sachs disease have four children the odds are best that one of those children will get both genes, a higher IQ, and the disease. Two of the children will get one gene. They will not get the disease, but they will have a higher IQ. One child will get no genes, no disease, and no IQ benefit. On the other hand, all of them may get both genes, all of them may get one gene, and all of them may get none. > > It’s like flipping a coin four times. You may get four heads. You may get four tails. You may get a mixture. Your opinion of scientific practice isn’t worth much. You think that people with different skin colors are as different from each other as breeds of dogs. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/132 "2011-04-25T02:16:24Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > In The 10,000 Year Explosion Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending present no political solutions. The book does have political implications, but those are for the reader to draw. > > One of the quotes in the book praising the book reads, “It is a work destined to launch a thousand careers.” Charles Darwin’s books had much the same effect. They launched the careers of physical and cultural anthropologists. I was not referring to them but to the OP, you are not fooling anyone. ---
**Author:** ![gcochran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7feea3/32.png) [@gcochran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gcochran)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/133 "2011-04-25T02:30:06Z")
Why would you reference an article in New York Magazine about the scientific merits of our Ashkenazi paper, when you could be quoting People or Tiger Beat? ``` The lady who wrote that article (Jennifer Senior) thought that it must not be a real scientific paper because we didn't use footnotes. I doubt if she had ever read a scientific paper in her life before covering ours. ``` We did have difficulty getting published. That is true. The process was interesting. For example, the editor vetting the paper at Quarterly Review of Biology thought that we had to be wrong when we said that very few Ashkenazi Jews had farmed during the Middle Ages - we (relying on histories and such) had said that they had mostly had white-collar jobs, with an increasing fraction of crafts and low-level retail in the last quarter of that period, due to an expanding population. I wondered where he had gotten the idea of medieval Jewish farmers - and guessed that he had developed his picture of Jewish history from watching Fiddler on the Roof. And he had: he confirmed it when I asked him. After I showed lots more documentation, he agreed that we were right on that point, and that the paper was reasonable - but of course they would never publish anything that controversial. Six months lost. Sometimes the process was more efficient: we asked an editor who ran a journal on human evolution if she would be interested. She was, but called us back later, crying: the Dean of her department has said that he’d kill her journal and hinted at firing her if she published it. That took only a few days. We convinced Takahata, at Genetics, that our genetic analysis made sense, and that the Ashkenazi genetic diseases were most likely a side-effect of selection rather than founder effect, particularly since they concentrated in a couple of enzyme paths. The most striking cluster of genetic diseases involved the build-up of sphingolipids that , when increased, cause more growth of dendrites, and longer axons with more branches… But he didn’t want us to talk about what we thought had driven that selection - what trait had changed - even though his old friend and co-author Klein had reviewed the paper favorably and asked him to ‘have the courage’ to publish it. He didn’t, so we went elsewhere. There have some people interested in testing it. One Israeli evolutionary biologist was quite excited: thought that they should throw the kitchen sink at the problem, bring a real team, with population geneticists and psychometricians and historians. Look at the mutation carriers in the Israeli army and check against cognitive tests. But that didn’t go anywhere: it turns out that hardly anyone in Israel wants to know this, although not for the reasons you might expect. You see, the explanation for increased intelligence only applies to the group that actually has it, the Ashkenazi Jews: it doesn’t predict a similar effect in non-Ashkenazi Jews, who make up about half of the Jewish population in Israel - and who score about a standard deviation lower on IQ tests, are about three times less likely to finish college, etc. This is not a subject that most Israelis wish investigated. A grad student at Harvard was also interested: he thought it would be easy to check for increased IQ in carriers among Harvard students, many of whom are Jewish. But his enthusiasm decreased when his adviser - not a bad guy by the way - explained that doing this would make the student an “unemployable pariah” and get the adviser in trouble as well. ``` BGI, in China, is a big genomics shop, full of young and mathematically talented people, along with tons of new equipment. They're looking for alleles that affect cognition. That means ones that are important in explaining variation over the normal range (which we don't know much about), not ones that cause retardation (where we know quite a lot). A friend, a member of my secret army of the night, suggested that they should check out some Ashkenazi Jewish samples. They do, after all, have the highest average IQ of any ethnic group, and there are fairly strong hints suggesting that mutations in some of the characteristic Ashkenazi genetic diseases - many of which are neurological - may boost IQ in carriers. For example, if you have the Ashkenazi version of torsion dystonia,- your neurologist will talk about the muscle-spasm problems, which range from awful to trivial, and then try to cheer you up by pointing out that "it makes you smart". But they didn't bite, for two reasons, First, largely because these guys don't know any theory and in fact know very little biology at all (as they freely admit), they didn't see why you might want to look at an outlier population like the Ashkenazi Jews, Second, the non math-geeks who run the place didn't want to do it, because they were afraid it would piss off the Jews. This in Beijing ! Parenthetically, it appears that IQ is highly heritable, especially in adulthood - at least in contemporary Western society. About as heritable as height. No single allele accounts for much of the variation in the populations studied so far (all European, as far as I know): instead variation between individuals, although strongly influenced by genes, is caused by hundreds or thousands of genes that each have a small effect. This in no way keeps a trait from being heritable. And since it is heritable, natural selection can cause changes in trait value. So could artificial selection. One suspicion is that rare deleterious mutations account for a significant fraction of the variation: this is looking more and more likely for things like schizophrenia and autism. Let me say it again: if a trait is heritable, natural or artificial selection can change it. We don't have to know the genetic details (although it _is_ nice). The genetic influences can be one gene, a few genes, or many genes. Selection is still possible. And what traits are heritable enough to be easily changed by selection? Virtually everything. Intelligence is highly heritable. Personality traits are moderately heritable, but still heritable enough that selection could easily change the distribution in a human over historic time. Strength, height, disease resistance, metabolism, etc etc.. all heritable. About the only trait that is hard to select for is sex ratio: it's very hard to get a ratio that is very different from 50:50. ``` ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/134 "2011-04-25T02:35:22Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Your opinion of scientific practice isn’t worth much. You think that people with different skin colors are as different from each other as breeds of dogs. They differ enormously in terms of average IQ, crime rates, and sexual behavior. This is what Professor J. Philippe Rushton writes in Race, Evolution, and Behavior, “For the past twenty years I have studied race differences in brain size, intelligence, sexuality, personality, growth rate, life span, crime, and family stability. On all of these traits, Orientals fall at one end of the spectrum, Blacks fall at the other end, and Whites fall in between.” > **[Race\_Evolution\_Behavior.pdf](https://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/wp-content/pdf/Race_Evolution_Behavior.pdf)** > > 1244.92 KB This is what Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpediing write about it, “The relative ease with which old agricultural civilizations (many of them, anyhow) have managed to adopt complex new technologies and forms of social organization, compared to populations that have had less experience with agriculture and dense hierarchical societies, suggests that gradual biological changes in cognition and personality played a key role in the birth of industrial and scientific revolutions.” The 10,000 Year Explosion explains the evolution of racial differences that everyone knows about. ---
**Author:** ![harpend](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/858c86/32.png) [@harpend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harpend)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/135 "2011-04-25T02:39:17Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > **harpend** , welcome to the SDMB. There is a quote tag button above the textbox, as well as one below every post. As is, your post are easy to read, but it would be easier if you made use of these buttons. > > Thanks, this is a try of your suggestion. And how does one enter URLs properly here? > > Also (as I, nor anyone else, has done so yet) welcome to the SDMB **gcochran**. I’m still very interested on your opinion in my last post. Due to your writings/book I’m sure that you are of the opinion that: > > 1. racial categories can be legitimately used as a proxy for genetic similarity > > Depends on what you mean by “legitimately.” If you are a physician with a pregnant US black patient with periodontal disease you damned well better notice race and get ready for prematurity, low birth weight, or worse. > > On the other hand there is a drug, Bidil, approved for black patients. The epidemiology certainly comes from US blacks, with much of their DNA from tropical Africa. If I were a Somali, for example, I would do my own research before I would let a doc give me Bidil just because of my black skin. The long-term ecological history of NE Africans is completely different from that of tropical Africans. > 2) one can take a genetically deterministic approach towards (undefined and poorly understood) complex behavioural traits (like “cognitive ability”) > > I am not sure that cognitive ability is any more poorly understood than “milk production” or “egg weight” or any other quantitative trait. If our ancestors had insisted on better understanding of, say, calorie production before doing any selection we would not have wheat, rice, millet, corn, chickens, cows, nor labrador retrievers today. > > I don’t know what is supposed to be “deterministic” about any of this. > 3) that “accelerated evolution” provides a way for humans to undergo recent genetic differentiation (largely along ethnic/racial lines -see point 1) > > Evolution does, again I don’t know what accelerated evolution has to do with it, nor with the question. > 4) that this “accelerated evolution” provides a genetic framework for behavioural differences in Ashkenazi Jews. > > Again I don’t know what the question is. Framework?? > Using the assumptions found in your book, **NND** has merely changed point 4) to focus on “Blacks,” instead of Ashkenazi Jews (he also added other poorly understood behavioural traits like “tendency for violence,” etc). He, constantly, quotes directly from your book and uses it’s arguments in his preachings of Black mental inferiority (among other “black qualities”). > > I don’t remember this, I suppose I have to go read his review again. It certainly is true that in many ways the sociology of the US black population is pretty grim. But what good does it do anyone to stand up and deny such things? Black kids killed by drive by shootings? Black women molested? > > So what do you think of the OP? Has he warped your ideas/assumptions? Is he on the right track? Have you read the OP? Do you have any opinion at all? You have our ears. I don’t have any idea what OP means. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/136 "2011-04-25T02:40:11Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I was not referring to them but to the OP, you are not fooling anyone. What am I trying to fool anyone about? I am quite open in expressing my opinions. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/137 "2011-04-25T02:40:16Z")
Meh, I’m not impressed at all **gcochran** , I have seen the same excuses from creationists and global warming deniers. BTW we are still waiting for your answer on what **orcenio** asked to you 2 times already. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/138 "2011-04-25T02:41:22Z")
> [@harpend](#): > > I don’t have any idea what OP means. The Original Post, or Original Poster. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/139 "2011-04-25T02:44:12Z")
> [@harpend](#): > > I don’t have any idea what OP means. OP Original Poster \*\*\*\*\*\* OP Original Poster (internet newsgroups and message boards) > **[OP - Definition by AcronymFinder](https://www.acronymfinder.com/OP.html)** > > 115 definitions of OP. Meaning of OP. What does OP stand for? OP abbreviation. Define OP at AcronymFinder.com In this thread, I am the OP. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355/140 "2011-04-25T02:48:51Z")
> [@harpend](#): > > I see a few folks here still sneering at The Bell Curve, but we all should notice that there has never been any serious academic criticism of that book. Actually, you can find quite a bit of it in [_The Bell Curve Wars_](http://www.amazon.com/Bell-Curve-Wars-Intelligence-Republic/dp/0465006930/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303699608&sr=1-1) and [_The Bell Curve Debate._](http://www.amazon.com/Bell-Curve-Debate-Russell-Jacoby/dp/0812925874/ref=pd_sim_b_3) Also, [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve#Criticisms) looks like serious academic criticism and you don’t need to go far to find it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-10-000-year-explosion-a-book-review/579355.md?page=8)