So I happen to have done a good bit of statistical work at the intersection of ethnicity and genetics, having developed some techniques that correct for issues related to ancestry in genetic association studies. It is true that in some ways, you can establish ancestry in great detail. But the field also has some notably overstated conclusions. It's hard to tell from the article just what method they used and how statistically sound it really is. The math is extremely complicated and often controversial.
However, it is also true that genetics and culture don't always co-evolve. For example, recent work has shown that the Clovis "culture" swept the entire length of the Americas in only 250 years. I am skeptical that this was an actual population replacement - more likely, it was a set of Really Good Ideas that transformed the cultures they touched.
Invasions might be mostly about power rather than population. I hear it was a bit of a surprise to many Sunni Iraqis to discover that they were a minority in their own country. Perhaps the various invading groups had similar illusions and wrote history accordingly.
Just wait until someone tackles Japan and Korea. That's going to be a little touchy...
Is it possible that the impact of genetics on culture is minimal? In Thomas Cahill's book How The Irish Saved Civilization he differenciates between the Romanized world and their civil heirarchical and socialized structures and the Celtic world of wild creative, almost anarchic approaches to life. In recent Northern Irish history you can see these stereotypes played out. But perhaps DNA has little impact in formulating these diverse conditions. Perhaps--for example--climate was a greater determinant--the stability required by farmers in the South where the weather supported crops, versus the hunters in the cold islands off the European mainland where you needed to be nomadic with the wildlife to survive. Both lives would be enormously different irrespective of genetics and their political and social structures would be too.
I think it's quite possible that the impact of genetics on culture is zero.
When I say "co-evolve", what I refer to is the idea that culture is transmitted in parallel with ancestry, i.e. that your children inherit your culture as well as your genes. This is surely not the case with Clovis, and may not be the case in Ireland.
Inheritance can generally account for about half the variance observed in personality traits like aggression or intelligence. And if these qualities are present to some greater or lesser degree in different cultures, which itself is controversial, this could be due to the population's genetic makeup, but there's a big leap between plausibility and likelihood, one which tends to get made without any evidence whatsoever.
In a related realm, it's obvious that different breeds of dogs have different characteristic personalities, so one could have similar differences between cultures, but as far as I know there has never been a good demonstration that the kind of selective pressure necessary for that to come to pass in a human population has ever existed.
The Bell Curve is actually on my reading list... a brief glance does show it makes some good points, but it's a very unpopular question that is mired in a lot of ugly politics. On both sides!
So I happen to have done a good bit of statistical work at the intersection of ethnicity and genetics, having developed some techniques that correct for issues related to ancestry in genetic association studies. It is true that in some ways, you can establish ancestry in great detail. But the field also has some notably overstated conclusions. It's hard to tell from the article just what method they used and how statistically sound it really is. The math is extremely complicated and often controversial.
However, it is also true that genetics and culture don't always co-evolve. For example, recent work has shown that the Clovis "culture" swept the entire length of the Americas in only 250 years. I am skeptical that this was an actual population replacement - more likely, it was a set of Really Good Ideas that transformed the cultures they touched.
Invasions might be mostly about power rather than population. I hear it was a bit of a surprise to many Sunni Iraqis to discover that they were a minority in their own country. Perhaps the various invading groups had similar illusions and wrote history accordingly.
Just wait until someone tackles Japan and Korea. That's going to be a little touchy...
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When I say "co-evolve", what I refer to is the idea that culture is transmitted in parallel with ancestry, i.e. that your children inherit your culture as well as your genes. This is surely not the case with Clovis, and may not be the case in Ireland.
Inheritance can generally account for about half the variance observed in personality traits like aggression or intelligence. And if these qualities are present to some greater or lesser degree in different cultures, which itself is controversial, this could be due to the population's genetic makeup, but there's a big leap between plausibility and likelihood, one which tends to get made without any evidence whatsoever.
In a related realm, it's obvious that different breeds of dogs have different characteristic personalities, so one could have similar differences between cultures, but as far as I know there has never been a good demonstration that the kind of selective pressure necessary for that to come to pass in a human population has ever existed.
The Bell Curve is actually on my reading list... a brief glance does show it makes some good points, but it's a very unpopular question that is mired in a lot of ugly politics. On both sides!
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