Commenter Melo writes:
An ad hoc assertion is essentially a hypothesis that has not been independently verified and is invoked to save a theory from falsification.
You’ve been doing that since I first started commenting here. To the point that the theory itself is just losing any real explanatory power it had. An example would be the statement that cold temperatures select for IQ but if the environment is too inhospitable, civilization will likely not emerge.
Actually it’s been independently verified over and over again and contradicted never. All six independent civilizations were created South of the Caspian sea by peoples who had spent tens of thousands of years outside the tropics. It’s one of the least ad hoc theories you’ve ever heard of because it has not a single exception.
So even though anatomically modern humans have been around for about 195,000 years, all six civilizations emerged 6000 to 3500 years ago. Coincidence? No. We didn’t evolve the cognitive ability to build civilization until we left the tropics and were exposed to the ice age, and even those who had evolved to the ice age could only build civilization if they ended up in bountiful land (i.e. South of the Caspian sea).
This perfectly explains both why civilization took so long, and why it was only created by certain peoples.
So because the IQ needed to build civilization evolved in high latitude (cold), but the lands amenable to civilization were low latitude (warm) it took our species 189,000 years before we had the right kind of humans on the right type of land during an interglacial period. These were humans who had migrated North but not too far North (i.e. Middle Easterners), or those who migrated as far North as the arctic circle, only to return to the tropics (i.e. the Mayans)
Pumpkin Person 
Do you not feel shame about making all this stuff up? The Maya emigrated to the artic circle and then came back? WTF
The mayans like all humans started in the tropics (Africa), they migrated to Siberia to Alaska all the way back to the tropics (Southern Americas)
Wasn’t Out of Africa rebutted?
https://www.academia.edu/1809315/Re-Examining_the_Out_of_Africa_Theory_and_the_Origin_of_Europeoids_Caucasoids_in_Light_of_DNA_Genealogy
https://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=42557
Not denying that Mayans came of Africa.
There’s always a few scientists who will dispute any theory, but OofA remains far and away the leading model
Is that Kylosov’s paper? He’s a hack.
See Winters, 2011 Advances in Anthropology, Vol.4 No.3(2014), Were the First Europeans Pale or Dark Skinned?
There were migrations out of Africa within past 100,000 years when gracile humans largely (but not entirely) replaced robust humans, but it’s doubtful humans as a species originated only in Africa. I deny the OOA hypothesis if it equates ‘anatomical modernity’ (gracilization) with a speciation event or treats AMH as a separate species. Rather I think AMH (gracile humans) were a different subspecies but part of one continuous lineage with robust humans (Neanderthals) who could interbreed with them.
indeed. another nail in the coffin of peepee’s retardation is a FACT she can’t dispute.
humans developed near the equator and the largest brained and smartest non-human primates live near the equator.
if the cold were so great at selecting for smarter people, why was tropical africa so great at selecting for the smartest terrestrial mammals?
parrots are also a tropical bird.
QED
flushto to flushton
dust to dust
if the cold were so great at selecting for smarter people, why was tropical africa so great at selecting for the smartest terrestrial mammals?
1) the tropics have more species period, so of course they have more smart species too, 2) cold climate can’t select for intelligence unless the population first has enough intelligence to build shelter, make clothes, build fire etc. Apes are nowhere near that level so they would all just die.
^^^AD HOC^^^
Yes cold winters is ad hoc at the species level, but it’s not ad hoc at the racial level
“cold climate can’t select for intelligence”
Still no independent evidence that “cold climate” can “select for intelligence.”
Why are you moderating everything I say about blacks? Are you the NYT now?
PP do you believe there will be selection pressures during immigration to the moon and Mars? Only a select few will colonize, high IQ?
Yes, but by then we’ll likely be altering our DNA to get smarter so the whole paradigm will shift
Does it happen to pass anyones notice that all 6 civilisations have two unifying conditions? That there was plenty water for agricultres to occur, rivers for example , where the civilisers didnt experience drought, and protection from invaders in the form of deserts or mountain ranges.
These are the reasons civilisation started where it did nd not in europe or africa, where those conditions were not met.
Also if 90% of land mass is the eurasian/american landmass and 90% of the human population live there surely this coincidence is 9 times more likely to occur among eurasians than africans.
its these sort of things that if you analysed would make your posts more refreshing to read Pump.
At yet civilization occurred repeatedly in the Americas despite the very small population there.
As for “plenty of water” and deserts or mountain ranges…I’m open to alternative theories but this one needs to be stated in more precise terms to have scientific value. How much water is “plenty”. How close do the desert or mountain ranges need to be?
Being close to a river is a civilizational hallmark. I’ve not read anything about “cold winters” being necessary and sufficient conditions for the creation of civilization, but then again they’re PC race-deniers so that’s to be expected, right?
Certain theories are simply off the table in academia no matter how correct they might be. How can you not know that?
Examples?
HBD
“At yet civilization occurred repeatedly in the Americas despite the very small population there.”
What is a “very small population”? The Maya, during the Golden Age, had 2-5 million people, having about 40 cities with populations between 5 and 50000. In 1500, the Aztec empire had about 5 million people, 200000 of which lived in Tenochtitlan, which was the same size as both Naples and Paris circa 1500 CE.
Once they created civilization their numbers increased, but that doesn’t explain why they created civilization in the first place. 7000 years ago what was the population of North America and South America compared to the population of sub-Saharan Africa?
Which is why I said “but then again they’re PC race-deniers so that’s to be expected, right?” But no matter who rebuts the storytelling, you can always fall back on that canard.
You’re absolutely right about water, dunno about the second part. I had learned about the importance of water to irrigate in its role as a developer of civilization, about the time when I entered middle school, in my 6th grade history class.
https://eginotes.wordpress.com/2020/03/19/update-to-strategic-planning/
The Chinese has done more to hurt civic nationalism and anti-racism then a white supremacist.
“Actually it’s been independently verified over and over again and contradicted never. All six independent civilizations were created South of the Caspian sea by peoples who had spent tens of thousands of years outside the tropics. It’s one of the least ad hoc theories you’ve ever heard of because it has not a single exception.”
All PP does is assert this. “X did U because they were at Z for Y years!” Completely unfalsifiable, untestable bullshit—an HBD hallmark.
If you’re asking “Why civilization occurred where it did”, it seems quite simplistic to reduce civilizational beginnings as being due to “cold winters”, when other variables are more important (and can be verified): rivers, population size, climate, governmental structure etc.
Your assertion is that cold winter evolution = complex civilizations. So, above and beyond the existence of these complex civilizations and above and beyond where the ancestors of the groups who created civilization independently evolved, what justifies the assertion?
it seems quite simplistic to reduce civilizational beginnings as being due to “cold winters”
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”This is one of the great quotes in science. Coming from Einstein, who simplified physics into general relativity, it is a great statement of how to conduct science. And given its popular cachet (cited over 1 million times on the web according to Google), it is a statement that many people believe holds truth for them. It was attributed to Albert Einstein by Roger Sessions in the New York times[1] in 1950.
One of the main reasons that Rushton’s r/K continuum gets pushed is because it’s a ‘simple model’ that so ‘parsimoniously’ explains racial differences. (e.g., cold winters supposedly take more intelligence to survive in and supposedly are an agent of K-selection.) But ecological systems are never simple; there are numerous interactions between the physical environment and the biological system which interact in complex ways.
Rushton’s use of this ‘simple model’—the r/K continuum—and its application to human races are wrong because 1) the three races described are not local populations; 2) the r/K continuum as described by Pianka (1970) is a poor representation of multidimensional ecological processes; and 3) cold weather is normally an agent of r-selection while endemic disease in Africa—as described by Rushton—is an agent of K-selection. Simple models are not always best—especially for organisms as complex as humans—so attempting to reduce complex biological and environmental interactions into a linear continuum is mistaken (Boyce, 1984). The simpler the ecological model, the more complex ecological sophistication is needed to understand and apply said model. So, although Rushton prefers simple models, in this context it is not apt, as complex biological systems interacting with their environments should not be reduced to a ‘simple model’.
https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2017/06/24/rk-selection-theory-a-response-to-rushton/
“but it would be ad hoc because it’s a theory created or done for a particular purpose of debunking the exception, not a general theory that explains the overall pattern”
Hypotheses/theories are ad hoc when they don’t generate independent evidence. You’re just storytelling.
“Your assertion is that cold winter evolution = complex civilizations. So, above and beyond the existence of these complex civilizations and above and beyond where the ancestors of the groups who created civilization independently evolved, what justifies the assertion?”
This theory is completely falsifiable. All you need to do is discover an independent civilization created by tropical peoples or prove that one of the 6 ones already discovered was created by tropical peoples. Some argue ancient Egypt was black for example. In fact Lynn had a similar theory about only cold adapted people being smart enough to invent agriculture and that was falsified when evidence of independent agriculture in Papua New Guinea was found.
“The theory is completely falsifiable.”
What exactly was it about “cold winters” that made “only” people who’s ancestors went through them that makes it so they are only able to independently create civilization?
Also, thought I’d let you know that the Incans aren’t an independent civilization—they didn’t invent Quipu, it was from previous Andean peoples but it wasn’t alphabetic, a series of knots were used to record many forms of information, according to the Spaniards.
Egpyr wasn’t black—though the Nubians did take over at one point and ruled Egypt.
Is there any point at which “cold winter” people who migrate to the tropics won’t “have the necessary IQ” to independently create civilization?
Of course, your proposal gets you exactly what you want, which “saves the theory.” Ad hoc bullshit.
What exactly was it about “cold winters” that made “only” people who’s ancestors went through them that makes it so they are only able to independently create civilization?
They’re very cognitively demanding. We know this because hunter/gatherers who live in the cold require more numerous and complex tools to survive.
Also, thought I’d let you know that the Incans aren’t an independent civilization—they didn’t invent Quipu, it was from previous Andean peoples but it wasn’t alphabetic, a series of knots were used to record many forms of information, according to the Spaniards.
Of course, we can’t be absolutely sure they arose completely independently of each other–people from the Andes could have traveled to Mesoamerica and influenced people there, or people from Mesopotamia could have been in contact with people from the Indus Valley or Egypt. But these civilizations are thought to have probably arisen fairly independently of each other, as mostly spontaneous responses to local conditions.
Is there any point at which “cold winter” people who migrate to the tropics won’t “have the necessary IQ” to independently create civilization?
They would create civilization before they lost the IQ to do so, and once civilization is created, new selection pressures that transcend climate might occur.
Of course, your proposal gets you exactly what you want, which “saves the theory.” Ad hoc bullshit.
It’s not ad hoc. Ad hoc would be if you discovered Egypt was created by blacks and I responded by saying “those blacks who crossed the desert to Egypt were uniquely selected for IQ”. Now that wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, but it would be ad hoc because it’s a theory created or done for a particular purpose of debunking the exception, not a general theory that explains the overall pattern. My theory requires no ad hoc because it has no exceptions.
Also, thought I’d let you know that the Incans aren’t an independent civilization
WTF? When did I say or imply they were?
It’s implied.
LOL! No it’s not. I explicitly said independent civilizations emerged from 3000 to 6500 years ago. The Inca civilization emerged only 800 years ago.
Hahaha
So they’re not the same as the others—which is the point (and, again, no independent writing system).
What’s not the same as the others? Who had no independent writing system?
Incans.
So? They’re not one of the big six.
Who are “the big six”?
“They’re very cognitively demanding.”
Vague.
“Of course, we can’t be absolutely sure they arose completely independently of each other–people from the Andes could have traveled to Mesoamerica and influenced people there, or people from Mesopotamia could have been in contact with people from the Indus Valley or Egypt. But these civilizations are thought to have probably arisen fairly independently of each other, as mostly spontaneous responses to local conditions.”
That’s a claim with no evidence. In stating the consensus—but I know “HBDers” hate that tern.
“They would create civilization before they lost the IQ to do so”
What’s the IQ to “create civilization”?
“It’s not ad hoc”
“Cold winters select for IQ.”
“Cold winters select for ability to create civilization.”
“These people are warm-temperature people, but they evolved in the cold first and then migrated to the warm. I can’t tell you specifics, since I’m just speculating (just storytelling).”
You can continue to read bloggers’ unevidenced assertions or you can read scholars that study Mesoamerica civilizations for information. The choice is yours.
I’m waiting on PP to tell me that the Olmec were the precursor to the Maya and that they had a proto-script and cities too. Of course, we can go the van Setrima route and claim the Olmec people were West African—Malian—by telling stories too, the same kind “HBDers” tell, and just ignore any and all contrary evidence (like van Sertima does). Ironic as all hell how right wing HBD and Afrocentrism are so similar.
yeah. you gotta say the chinese are retarded for having no alphabet…and no fork!
their excuse is the chinese language in all its dialects is mostly monosyllabic.
but that very fact suggest china people ar ‘tarded.
and notice korean and japanese and mongolian did NOT develop an alphabet before some ralph nader look alike invented it in phoenicia.
sad!
china people make me tired man.
Are the Chinese short sighted because of vitamin deficiency and illiteracy due to subsistence farming?
Do East Asians have higher spatial intelligence because their vision is shit?
It’s thought that myopia and high IQ share similar DNA. Ashkenazi Jews have high myopia rates too.
far all i know…
i agree with thiel that THE great technical innovation of the last 10 years is tight/shale oil and gas, and…
what’s happened to the INNOVATORS???
they’re all about to go bankrupt.
because crazy people in saudi and russia control so much oil and bat flu.
so all those faggots claiming civilization would collapse because the world is running out of oil…
oil is now cheaper in real terms than it’s been since…
maybe forever.
(but my gaydar is so bad i never suspected or imagined that thiel was gay until i was told by some commenter at lion’s a few years ago.)
What would you say to a black white supremacist, Pumpkin?
“Actually it’s been independently verified over and over again and contradicted never. ”
That’s not independent verification. You didn’t make any risky or novel predictions. It’s already well known that you can’t have agriculture and civilization in an inhospitable environment. It doesn’t prove the original assertion and only serves to “debunk the exception”.
“So even though anatomically modern humans have been around for about 195,000 years, all six civilizations emerged 6000 to 3500 years ago. Coincidence? No. We didn’t evolve the cognitive ability to build civilization until we left the tropics and were exposed to the ice age”
And here you show how logically inconsistent you’re being. So the lack of civilization 195,000 years ago is evidence that Anatomically Modern Humans did not have the cognitive abilities to produce it. Yet the fact that no known inuit population has produced any civilization isn’t because they lacked the cognitive ability to do so, it’s because their environment was too hospitable?
Sounds like you’re just making up ad hoc bullshit to keep your world view intact.
“cold climate can’t select for intelligence unless the population first has enough intelligence to build shelter, make clothes, build fire etc. Apes are nowhere near that level so they would all just die.”
If a population already had those abilities that were clearly selected for in their tropical environment then why would you need to posit cold winter selection for them????
““Everything should be made as simple as possible”
The problem with your theory is that it is too simple. It doesn’t have any explanatory power because by the time you’ve gone through all the exceptions and added a countless addendums it’s no longer “CWT”.
What is the mechanism for which cold winters select for intelligence? Resource allocation, and as we’ve gone through countless times before you can chalk up any and all traits of all species that went through NS as being a result of resource allocation.
Inhospitable.
“Actually it’s been independently verified over and over again and contradicted never. ”
That’s not independent verification.
Yes it is. All six independent civilizations are independent of each other. They’re literally called independent civilizations.
You didn’t make any risky or novel predictions.
1) I don’t have to. Finding an elegant theory that accommodates all the independent data points is achievement enough.
2) Historical hypotheses can not be expected to make novel predictions in the same way hypotheses in physics and chemistry can. We can’t rerun thousands of years of history holding different variables constant in the same way a chemist can repeat the same experiment using different chemicals. Holding historical narratives to the same standards as a lab experiment is a category mistake.
3) Having said all that, my theory does make novel risky predictions. It predicts no independent civilization will ever be found that wasn’t created by a population that spent thousands of years outside the tropics. This is a risky prediction because there’s been very little excavation in Africa and other tropical regions and they’re discovering new things all the time (agriculture in New Guinea was only found in 2003, several entire new species of homo have been found in the last decade). It also predicts high IQ DNA variants will show selective sweeps in populations as they migrated to colder and colder regions.
It’s already well known that you can’t have agriculture and civilization in an inhospitable environment.
So you agree with half the theory! Great!
“So even though anatomically modern humans have been around for about 195,000 years, all six civilizations emerged 6000 to 3500 years ago. Coincidence? No. We didn’t evolve the cognitive ability to build civilization until we left the tropics and were exposed to the ice age”
And here you show how logically inconsistent you’re being. So the lack of civilization 195,000 years ago is evidence that Anatomically Modern Humans did not have the cognitive abilities to produce it. Yet the fact that no known inuit population has produced any civilization isn’t because they lacked the cognitive ability to do so, it’s because their environment was too hospitable?
You just admitted yourself It’s already well known that you can’t have agriculture and civilization in an inhospitable environment so it’s no mystery why Inuit didn’t create civilization. It is a mystery why modern humans living in the hospitable tropics never created civilization independently, despite having had 13 times as much time as the Inuit to do so.
“cold climate can’t select for intelligence unless the population first has enough intelligence to build shelter, make clothes, build fire etc. Apes are nowhere near that level so they would all just die.”
If a population already had those abilities that were clearly selected for in their tropical environment then why would you need to posit cold winter selection for them????
The abilities exist on a continuum. There’s a huge difference in the quality of shelter, clothing, fire making, hunting, etc you need to survive in the tropics where you can literally spend your entire life buck naked, compared to Northern Eurasia where you can get frostbite in under 2 minutes if you’re not covered from head to toe with body hugging perfectly fit exquisitely sewed clothing.
The problem with your theory is that it is too simple. It doesn’t have any explanatory power because by the time you’ve gone through all the exceptions and added a countless addendums it’s no longer “CWT”.
Every evolutionary theory will have exceptions. For example Allen’s rule predicts Samoans should be tall and skinny given their warm climate but in fact they’re short and heavy. Once you control for whether a race made the Neolithic transition, there’s virtually a perfect correlation between a race’s ancestral climate and their current average IQ so CWT probably requires fewer exceptions and addendums than most major racial evolutionary theories.
What is the mechanism for which cold winters select for intelligence? Resource allocation, and as we’ve gone through countless times before you can chalk up any and all traits of all species that went through NS as being a result of resource allocation.
When humans left the tropics, those who lacked the IQ to build warm shelter, sew snug clothing, make fire quickly under cold conditions and hunt mammoth simply died, leaving people with higher IQ DNA as the survivors. Also those with bigger heads may have survived more simply because bigger heads generate more heat and this may have indirectly selected for IQ via the correlation between IQ and head size.
“Finding an elegant theory that accommodates all the independent data points is achievement enough.”
Yes you do have to. Is it rational to accept a theory in which data is accommodated and not predicted?
“Yes it is. All six independent civilizations are independent of each other. They’re literally called independent civilizations.”
Tha..what? You’re fucking joking right? Or are you that retarded?
1) You do. There was this whole period in Philosophy where everyone was circle jerking about it and realized accommodation over prediction is a fallacious method of science.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prediction-accommodation/
2) I’m not making a categorical mistake. You can in fact make risky and novel predictions when testing a selection hypothesis. It’s just easy not to because of the inherent nature of said hypotheses.
Click to access WintherRG2009PredictionSelectionistEvolTheory.pdf
3) That’s not risky or novel. You took well established knowledge, with years and years of evidence, used it as a bandaid for CWT and said “well it might turn out to be wrong 30 years from now!”
Do you actually understand the low probability that we’ll find an African civilization on par with the others?
“so it’s no mystery why Inuit didn’t create civilization. It is a mystery why modern humans living in the hospitable tropics never created civilization independently, despite having had 13 times as much time as the Inuit to do so.”
It really isn’t a mystery at all and the tropics aren’t “hospitable.” I’ve noticed each addendum on your theory is incredibly vague and not really quantitative. It just seems to follow that idiotic “goldilocks” pattern. I mean Africa isn’t really a “hospitable” place. That’s just a simple fact to people who are aware of the ecology there.
” There’s a huge difference in the quality of shelter, clothing, fire making, hunting,”
Like what? I could see clothing. But hunting wouldn’t really become more complex because of the environment, just different and in fact you don’t see that burst in technological complexity until near the end of the ice age. Though the Aurignacian is pretty impressive. Insulation for shelter has always been a thing and it wouldn’t be difficult to tranfer this over. I’m not sure if you could prove that their bone structures were more complex than wooden ones. A fire may be difficult to start but not to keep going.
“there’s virtually a perfect correlation between a race’s ancestral climate and their current average IQ so CWT probably requires fewer exceptions and addendums than most major racial evolutionary theories.”
That’s nice but when you actually look past the correlation at the actual mechanisms happening it’s clearly not causation. There are definitely more air tight hypotheses, especially ones that take a look at “more recent” history.
“Yes it is. All six independent civilizations are independent of each other. They’re literally called independent civilizations.”
Tha..what? You’re fucking joking right? Or are you that retarded?
Are you that retarded? The ability to explain independent data points is a major tenet of good science. Your own link describes it as explanatory unification. When just two variables (geographic location and ancestral climate of the people) can explain when and where all six independent civilizations had occurred, the parsimony is sky high.
2) I’m not making a categorical mistake. You can in fact make risky and novel predictions when testing a selection hypothesis. It’s just easy not to because of the inherent nature of said hypotheses.
But theories about why major prehistorical events (i.e. the emergence of civilization, the extinction of the dinosaurs) happened when and where they did do not lend themselves to novel predictions. For example scientists generally believe the K-T extinction was caused by an asteroid hitting the Earth, but what predictions does this theory make? In 1998 paleontologist James Powell tried to make predictions from the Alvarez hypothesis (we will find a crater of the right size and age) but admitted that the failure of this prediction would not falsify the theory. Since the Earth is 70% water, there was a good chance the meteorite struck ocean and the crater could have been subducted by active geology in the sea floor. As philosopher Carol E. Cleland noted, “most historical hypotheses are not rejected on the basis of failed predictions, but rather because another hypothesis does a better job of explaining the total body of evidence” (see page 6 of Rethinking the Fabric of Geology)
3) That’s not risky or novel. You took well established knowledge, with years and years of evidence, used it as a bandaid for CWT and said “well it might turn out to be wrong 30 years from now!”
Do you actually understand the low probability that we’ll find an African civilization on par with the others?
There’s no way to even quantify what the probability is. Lynn’s 1991 theory that agriculture was not possible until humans had been through the last Wurm glaciation was falsified when independent agriculture in New Guinea was supposedly discovered in 2003 so perhaps my revision of his theory (civilization not agriculture) will be debunked in 2032.
And while my civilization theory might be hard to falsify, Cold Winter Theory more broadly makes several testable predictions:
1) genomic variants causing IQ will be discovered and these will a) correlate with ancestral climate, b) show selective sweeps as humans left the tropics and sub-tropics
2) if there’s ever an experiment where tropical hunter-gatherers volunteer to camp in Northern Eurasia as it turns from Fall to Winter, those that are able to do it will average bigger MRI brains/higher culture reduced IQs than those who need to be sent home.
3) As James Thompson alluded, we could investigate the correlation between IQ and altitude. We already know IQ and latitude is correlated, but if IQ and altitude are likewise, it would provide independent evidence for CWT
4) After controlling for population density, homo erectus and Neanderthals found further from the equator will have more sophisticated tools and larger crania than those found closer (a prediction someone else alluded to).
If most of these predictions fail, CWT is falsified. Actually if just the first one fails, it’s falsified.
It really isn’t a mystery at all and the tropics aren’t “hospitable.” I’ve noticed each addendum on your theory is incredibly vague and not really quantitative.
Not vague at all. Civilization only independently emerges South of the Caspian sea by populations who spent tens of thousands of years outside the tropics. Two very precise quantifiable conditions.
It just seems to follow that idiotic “goldilocks” pattern. I mean Africa isn’t really a “hospitable” place. That’s just a simple fact to people who are aware of the ecology there.
It’s common sense that agriculture (and thus civilization) is easier in the tropics and sub-tropics than it is in areas where there’s snow and ice covering the ground much of the year.
” There’s a huge difference in the quality of shelter, clothing, fire making, hunting,”
Like what? I could see clothing. But hunting wouldn’t really become more complex because of the environment,
The amount of hunting is radically different. The contemporary hunter-gatherers who most resemble ancient Africans are probably the Bushmen and the Hadza. The Hadza get almost 70% of their calories from plants, and the Botswana Bushman diet is 60% to 80% vegetable. Far more hunting and fishing was required in ice age Eurasia where plants are covered in snow much of the year. The Inuit of Greenland for example ate nothing but meat because the landscape was too harsh for plants. As humans migrated North we had to become increasingly skilled at hunting and fishing and we had to complete these tasks much faster to avoid frost bite.
just different and in fact you don’t see that burst in technological complexity until near the end of the ice age. Though the Aurignacian is pretty impressive. Insulation for shelter has always been a thing and it wouldn’t be difficult to tranfer this over. I’m not sure if you could prove that their bone structures were more complex than wooden ones. A fire may be difficult to start but not to keep going.
shelter built by tropical hunter-gatherers:
shelter built by arctic hunter-gatherers:
Clearly the latter shows much more architectural sophistication and has to be done much faster to avoid frost bite. In the tropics if you can’t built durable shelter, hunt large game, fish, sew body hugging clothes and make fire quickly, it’s an inconvenience but if you couldn’t do those things in ice age Northern Eurasia, you’re dead so the selection pressures would have been much greater.
There are definitely more air tight hypotheses, especially ones that take a look at “more recent” history.
Such as?
Melo good cite for (1) but (2), even though they are novel predictions aren’t predictions of natural selection nor are they EP-type adaptationist explanations.
I’d say PP needs to read a philosophy of science text. Ladyman’s (2002) Understanding Philosophy of Science is solid.
How are they not predictions of natural selection?
Right. Cranial volume and shape correlate best to latitude. It’s about 60/40 between that and race.
“The ability to explain independent data points is a major tenet of good science.”
“Independent verification” refers to the prediction of a “novel fact” not used in the construction of a hypothesis.
Your theory is explanatory, is it not? Well, the mark of an explanatory theory is how successful it is at prediction.
I’ll keep this short and we can play a game.
State the explanandum (describe what is to be explained) and explanans (sentences which supports your explanandum).
PP: “Cold winters select for IQ (explanandum). Cold winter selects for IQ in virtue of its selection-for skull/brain size for heat (indirectly). Or cold climates require … extra intelligence to survive in (explanans).”
Is that correct?
“1) genomic variants causing IQ will be discovered and these will a) correlate with ancestral climate, b) show selective sweeps as humans left the tropics and sub-tropics”
“Actually if just the first one fails, it’s falsified.”
The CWT didn’t need this to be falsified, but: Kevin’s paper.
Re your diet claims: see Eaton (2006) who shows our ancestors around 50kya ate 35/35/30 fat/carb/pro. https://sci-hub.tw/10.1079/pns2005471
See also https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2018/09/22/what-is-the-human-diet/
What PP’s simplistic narrative about the Arctic fails to account for is that the exploitation of marine resources is also a key factor—never mentioned by PP that I can remember. https://sci-hub.tw/10.2307/4603249 Humans also decreased/increased their geographic range based on whether or not ice sheets were large or small https://sci-hub.tw/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/%28SICI%291520-6505%281999%298%3A6%3C208%3A%3AAID-EVAN2%3E3.0.CO%3B2-M
See also this related paper to the overall discussion re prediction https://www.pnas.org/content/112/46/14301
“How are they not predictions of natural selection?”
In the Fodorian sense.
The ability to explain independent data points is a major tenet of good science.”
“Independent verification” refers to the prediction of a “novel fact” not used in the construction of a hypothesis.
You’re deliberately missing the point.
Your theory is explanatory, is it not? Well, the mark of an explanatory theory is how successful it is at prediction.
False. Explanatory power and predictive power are two separate qualities.
I’ll keep this short and we can play a game.
State the explanandum (describe what is to be explained) and explanans (sentences which supports your explanandum).
Wow you learned some new words!
The CWT didn’t need this to be falsified, but: Kevin’s paper.
What peer reviewed journal was this paper published in?
Re your diet claims: see Eaton (2006) who shows our ancestors around 50kya ate 35/35/30 fat/carb/pro. https://sci-hub.tw/10.1079/pns2005471
You realize plants contain protein too right?
What PP’s simplistic narrative about the Arctic fails to account for is that the exploitation of marine resources is also a key factor
The whole point is to be simplistic. The fewer causes needed to explain the most effects, the more parsimonious the theory is. I mentioned fishing multiple times.
And there are definitely no selective sweeps so (a) is out; even if there is a correlation ‘with ancestral climate genomic variants that cause IQ’ (whatever that would mean), that would not justify the inference that IQ was selected-for by ‘cold winters’ so that wouldn’t prove (b). Doing a few correlations does not show causation.
genomic variants that cause IQ’ (whatever that would mean)
RR if you don’t believe DNA differences cause phenotypic differences, then you’re so outside mainstream evolutionary thinking that I have zero desire to discuss it with you. I might as well let a creationist spam this blog all day. It’s hard enough to discuss HBD with people who believe in adaptive evolution so discussing it with someone who rejects Darwinism is just a huge waste of time.
You’re deliberately missing the point.”
No, I’m using the concepts correctly.
“Explanatory power and predictive power are two separate qualities.”
Take hypotheses (1) and (2). (1) explains a phenomenon (say a trait) and only explains a phenomenon and (2) explains a phenomenon and which generates a successful prediction of a novel fact. Which of these would you accept as a valid hypothesis?
“Wow you learned some new words!”
Well?
“What peer reviewed journal was this paper published in?”
It’s not published yet – why did he find no signals of divergent polygenic selection and no evidence of divergent “natural selection” between Africans and Europeans using known education/IQ associated alleles?
“You realize plants contain protein too right?”
Really?
“The whole point is to be simplistic.”
Of course, because storytelling is as simplistic as you can get. You’re attempting to IBE your way out of this—notice how PP is attempting to explain unique events with no knowledge of the contrasting condition in which it supposedly evolved in then its just storytelling. That’s all the CWT is. Refuted logically, genomically, anthropolpgically.
“HBD” is nothing but abductive inference which makes it very very easy to just be a storyteller—as shown by Lynn (1990) and Rushton (1995).
By the way Ockham’s razor is false.
And it’s more than “fishing.”
The funny part is is conflating my position with “creationism.” Fifty-one years of Jensenism—still no evidence. Nevermind the fact that Neo-Darwinism is false (Fodor, Noble).
You’re deliberately missing the point.”
No, I’m using the concepts correctly.
No you’re failing to distinguish concepts.
“Explanatory power and predictive power are two separate qualities.”
Take hypotheses (1) and (2). (1) explains a phenomenon (say a trait) and only explains a phenomenon and (2) explains a phenomenon and which generates a successful prediction of a novel fact. Which of these would you accept as a valid hypothesis?
My theory does more than explain a phenomenon. My civilization theory explains both when and where 6 independent data points occurred and does make novel predictions, they’re just not “risky” enough (a totally arbitrary standard). If you have an alternative theory that explains the data more parsimoniously or makes more novel predictions, by all means share it. Until then, BUZZ OFF.
It’s not published yet – why did he find no signals of divergent polygenic selection and no evidence of divergent “natural selection” between Africans and Europeans using known education/IQ associated alleles?
So you claim adaptive evolution is pseudoscience but are using an adaptive evolutionist model to debunk HBD? Do you not see the contradiction there?
“You’re failing to distinguish the concepts.”
How?
“not “risky” enough”
A “risky” prediction would be one that could possibly falsify it.
If adaptive evolution isn’t pseudoscience, then refute Fodor.
Can you answer the questions?
“not “risky” enough”
A “risky” prediction would be one that could possibly falsify it.
Anything “could possibly” happen. That’s not a precise scientific condition.
If adaptive evolution isn’t pseudoscience, then refute Fodor.
Fodor’s objections can be debunked through experiments. For example if the heart was selected because it made a thumping noise and not because it pumped blood, all we need to do is find some loud thumping hearts that fail to pump blood and see if the animal survives as well: Testable prediction. If it doesn’t, his hypothesis fails. Of course the hypothesis is so absurd no one has bothered.
Can you answer the questions?
which ones?
“Anything” could possibly” happen.”
I see you’re not familiar with Popper or Lakatos. I’ve described Popper’s explanation of what a “risky prediction” is.
“Fodor’s objections can be debunked through experiments.”
Fodor’s argument is not about what we know—it is not epistemic.
Re Jensenism, let me quote a comment I left here the other day:
“One of Helms’ (1992) hypotheses in “Why is there no study of cultural equivalence in cognitive abilities testing?” was that “Acculturation and assimilation to White Euro-American culture should enhance [black] performance on … existing cognitive ability tests.” This was confirmed by Fagan and Holland (2002, “Equal opportunity and racial differences in IQ”; 2007, “Racial equality in intelligence: predictions from a theory of intelligence as processing”), and the decrease in the black-white gap (Smith, 2018; “Has the black-white IQ gap in the United States Narrowed? A literature review”).”
If Jensensim is the theory that one’s IQ is determined by genes then Jensenism is false since genes don’t determine traits.
“Are you that retarded?’
Clearly you are, because you’re missing the entire point. It’s not because your ad hoc hypothesis doesn’t make predictions, it’s that they’re not risky, they’re not novel, and there are many of them. This implies you’re not actually trying to conduct science but instead trying to propagate a pseudo-scientific ideology.
The problem is less with the logical consistency and more with the intentions behind the scientist.
“As philosopher Carol E. Cleland noted, “most historical hypotheses are not rejected on the basis of failed predictions, but rather because another hypothesis does a better job of explaining the total body of evidence”
You’re preaching to the quire. I’ve cited Cleland multiple times in my arguments against RR.
See this paper https://www.eui.eu/Documents/MWP/Conferences/Popper/ClelandCommonCauseExplanation.pdf
Where she explains the importance of Novel predictions in Historical science which she refers to as “smoking guns”. A hyptohesis does a better job at explaining than the alternatives if it makes predictions. A theory cant correctly explain if none of it’s predictions can falsify it.
2) That would be an objective experiment if the Hunter-Gatherers had thousands of years to slowly migrate into an arctic environment.
3) The correlation is what you’re trying to explain though. Its clearly not causal when you pay attention to the details.
4) Unless of course Population density is the actual selection force fueling the technological superiority of tropical Primates. Phil and I have also produced studies indicating that Social competition is a larger predictor of hominin intelligence than climatic variability or temperature.
“Not vague at all. Civilization only independently emerges South of the Caspian sea by populations who spent tens of thousands of years outside the tropics. Two very precise quantifiable conditions. It’s common sense that agriculture (and thus civilization) is easier in the tropics and sub-tropics than it is in areas where there’s snow and ice covering the ground much of the year.”
But again that’s not the point. Furthermore you’ve proven how vague your addenda really are. So now it’s not because the arctic isn’t inhospitable, I mean people do live and thrive there, it’s because the arctic doesn’t support as much plant life.
And there are many exceptions to CWT not just the agriculture bit, as ill go through below.
“The amount of hunting is radically different. The contemporary hunter-gatherers who most resemble ancient Africans are probably the Bushmen and the Hadza.”
First of all, That’s false. The Bushmen are remnants of more intelligent lineages of Homo sapiens. What the bushman do and what fossil records show our ancestors did are not identical. We did in fact hunt big game like elephants and giraffe. We would wipe out entire herds of prey and waste it because it was that easy for us to get. The true HG’s you see in history became us, because we were so intelligent we harnessed nature. What you see in the Bushman is just a mere shadow of our primitive” past.
But that’s besides the data in RR’s studies or even the fact that Buckner himself refuted that in the first paper you responded to.
The most specialized technology and art did not appear until the end of the ice age. You can’t hand wave that with pictures of shelters. I build shit for a fucking living and ill tell you stacking sticks is far more intellectually demanding that stacking blocks where you just crisscross them. I know 5’0 hispanics who can do that in their sleep. It’s even easier because of the fact that it’s ice and not concrete.
Here how about i just cherrypick an african structure
There suck a dick.
You really only have clothing and maybe fire making. Which are probably offset by the abundance of water and the fact that food can be stored for longer periods of time. I could also mention the many hardships that you could argue required cognitive abilities in the Tropics. And no, “nOveLTy” doesn’t fix that. That implies cognition is domain specific within humans and that’s simply not true. Especially if you call it “general intelligence”.
I mean do you want me to point out that the globurality of the brain happened everywhere not just Europe? Or how about the fact that Africa was also severely affected by the ice age? How many anddendums will you add?
One more question, though it is unrelated to the discussion. You claimed brain size was increasing? So what is the average European brain size?
“Such as?”
Urbanization and industrialization. These modern patterns were not historically consistent. Obviously.
Which is weird because Ill admit that I think CWT explains modern variance far better than prehistoric variance.
Look here’s another.
I was limiting my structures to people living as hunter-gatherers who are 10 to 15 IQ points below their civilized counterparts genomically.
But fine, if you want to cite structures built by civilized Africans, I’ll cite structures built by civilized ice age people:
Well that first statement doesn’t even make sense. And the pictures more or less prove how fallacious these comparisons are. I don’t consider the Somba people as really civilized and inuits aren’t pure hunter gatherers either. They have domesticated dogs and sometimes use rifles to hunt.
Even then you don’t have a case for the argument that Igloos are structurally more complex than African hunter gatherer shelters.
“And no, “nOveLTy” doesn’t fix that. That implies cognition is domain specific within humans and that’s simply not true. Especially if you call it “general intelligence”.
Melo have you seen Kanazawa’s paper on this? https://personal.lse.ac.uk/kanazawa/pdfs/AP2010.pdf
First person to have a geographic theory of growth was Montesquieu in a 1748 book. “The spirit of Law”; He thought that cold climates urge people (its a need theory) to work more and to want to have more say in their government so they build up better institutions.
The first to notice without a theory was Aristoteles : he said people from the North work more. People from Asia are more intelligent but lack industriousness and passion (he says heart) for knowledge. He thought the Greek had the best place to get a good quantity of both (in Politics, IVth century ac)
Its bizarre that the economist of growth study the hypothesis of Geography, Institutions and Culture (Acemoglu versus Sachs debate) and never natural selection and IQ (that I know of) among serious econmists discussions.
so i expect bailout discussions beyond loan guarantees may go like this…
we (the feds) will save your bidness but you must issue us the same number of shares you bought back in the last 10 years.
that is, punish companies who’ve leveraged themselves in order to buy back shares.
but there’s another reason for leverage. namely shareholders don’t like to be diluted. that is, the only way a public company can expand is by increasing its debt to equity ratio because in the US selling more shares is a taboo for non-financials.
so derrida’s talk about “not naturalizing what is not natural” may be expanded, radicalized, to…
…let’s land our hot air balloons…and if any resist…let’s pop them!
all they have is talk/rap…
they’re LOSERS.
…real men never rap.or take money from fat people and transsexuals…
rr is mafia.
Just a quick look at that map shows that these civilization hot spots (no pun intended) were not necessarily on “bountiful land” as you put it. Some of them (South Mediterranean) look to be on the edge of deserts. Now, I know that climates have changed, the Fertile Crescent (site of Sumer) isn’t fertile now, though it was 6000 years ago, but I wouldn’t have paid for this real estate. Even when they were in fertile river valleys like the Nile, seasonal flows had to be well-managed or the flooding might destroy crops or drown everyone. Come to think of it, perhaps this actually boosts your cold-winter theory–it took such people to manage rivers and build waterworks: most such people came from the North. The most extreme example would be the Mayans who originally came from as far North as possible (the Arctic) to found a civilization as far South as possible, near the equator. Though of course, then there were the Egyptians, who were at least partly derived from people even further south than the Nile valley.
This is being talked about during and shortly after the Ice Age and their corresponding descendants. That would include all Caucasoids and Mongoloids. Negroids and Astrloids would be disincluded simply on the premise they didn’t evolve in colder climates. It’s as simple as that.
Seriously.
RR Some hereditarians are waiting for Kevin’s study to be published so they can properly destroy him. Man Bird is a [redacted by pp, march 25, 2020]
BTW, I’m working on a response to his article on the Harmattan season and, in general, to his vision on the CW.
LONG LIVE SPAIN!
LONG LIVE FRANCO!
You’re like a caricature of the extreme hereditarian.
Afrosapiens wrote that Harmattan article.
I don’t know why hereditarians don’t abandon hereditarianism—it’s been shown to be bunk for literally decades.
RR you deny DNA causes phenotypes and you deny adaptive evolution.
So when you also deny heritability it carries very little weight.
What do you mean by “DNA causes phenotype”?
I mean that controlling for environment, someone with genotype x will be higher on trait A than someone with genotype y.
Is there a direct line from genotype to phenotype?
genotype is to phenotype as recipe is to meal quality. A good recipe causes a good meal, but a lot of other causal factors are involved too (cook quality, ingredient quality, kitchen quality etc)
So to lengthen the analogy, a “good genotype” causes “a good phenotype”? But “other causal factors are involved too”, which, in DST parlance would be gene-gene interactions, gene-environment interactions, cellular environment, etc etc. So you’re essentially saying X causes Y but there is Z as well—Z would be development here; and developmental processes show how ignorant the heritability assumption truly is.
The IQ debate is on causes in the normal range. Appealing to Downs cases is dishonest—in any case, that is not evidence for genomic causation.
There are multiple biological levels and each biological level interacts with each other, top-down and bottom-up. Due to these complex interactions, pointing to X as a cause of Y makes no sense.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3262309/
Actionable interventions can be found in gene-X interactions; genes “matter” but as a complex part of a multilevel biological system. Since Down syndrome is a genetic disorder, genes contribute to the phenotype—but it’s not reducible to genotype. But, and this is important, that’s are no psychological laws so genes don’t cause mental abilities. This is another place “HBD” crumbles.
The highest standard for proving causation is an experiment. Experiments where genes are inserted into different organisms prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are causal. The GFP gene for example has been inserted in flatworms, tadpoles and zebrafish and caused them to glow. If that’s not causation, nothing is.
Genes contain information?
Can you infer causation from heritability estimates?
Heritability is just a squared correlation and you can never 100% infer causation from mere correlation, though the odds of x causing y go way up if x always predates y and if the correlation is omnipresent (as Mug of Pee noted). For example any scientist will tell you that an extra chromosome causes severely impaired IQ because folks with Downs Syndrome have much lower IQ than their normal siblings in every country we’ve looked.
[redacted by pp, march 26, 2020] that’s the definition of “cause”. G can’t be measured. it’s just hypothetical. so heritability is a correlation not a square of a correlation. [redacted by pp, march 26, 2020]. it’s the correlation of MZTs from different mothers within a certain range of environments.
The phenotypic correlation between MZT reared apart is just a proxy for the squared phenotype-genotype correlation when environment is random. That’s why broad sense heritability is symbolized by H2
What about Bronfenbrenner’s reanalysis? Which twin heritability estimates do you have in mind? Which study? If the EEA is false then how can we logically commit to the claim that genes influence T? Are there epistemic reasons to accept genetic conclusions from twin studies?
but like i said, G = genotype can’t be measured. it’s totally theoretical.
both you and peepee still don’t grok.
within a narrow range of environments, genes are causal.
within a large range they aren’t.
in fact within a sufficiently large range IQ test scores are meaningless.
In what environment does Y chromosome not cause one to be taller post-puberty?
^^^EXACTLY^^^
that’s a VERY clear case of genotype CAUSING phenotype.
in fact men who have two Ys ARE tall…
it used to be thought they were also more criminal…
but this may not be true.
yes peepee…
i meant to say within a narrow range of environments, genes are causal FOR IQ…
I just wanted clarification because RR denies genotype is causal for ANYTHING. And I assume you mean NORMAL range IQ (in the past you’ve acknowledged that genotype is causal for Downs Syndrome IQ)
“In what environment does Y chromosome not cause one to be taller post-puberty?”
When will you embrace systems thinking? You have a very simple idea of “causation.”
discuss it with Mug of Pee. I have no interest in debating someone who makes less sense than a creationist.
Do you recall our discussion on PGS and causation? Same thing applies here.
Perhaps it wasn’t higher intelligence that created civilization but civilization which created higher intelligence?
The reason “civilization” is only a few thousand years old is that the world had been in an ice age. It was only ~10K years ago that those areas became warm enough for agriculture. Agriculture allows for a much larger population than hunting and gathering. Agriculture also requires fewer people to feed that population. A larger population with fewer people needed to feed it means more brains working in skilled trades, education, etc. That’s the beginning of civilization.
The reason civilization started near the equator first is that it was still too cold at the higher latitudes for several thousand more years. Of course, this also begs the question why civilization never took off in the warmer climes. I suspect it was due at least partially to disease. Malaria and other things take a terrible toll on the mind and body. There’s no mechanism for evolving higher intelligence if disease keeps it suppressed.
Perhaps it wasn’t higher intelligence that created civilization but civilization which created higher intelligence?
I believe it is both. Leaving the tropics increased genomic IQ from about 70 to about 80 or 90 (depending on how North folks went). Once a group’s genomic IQ exceeded 80 civilization was viable (if they were South of the Caspian sea) and civilization probably added another 10 to 15 points. How it did this, I’m not sure. Perhaps by creating novel selection pressures for literacy or numeracy, or more likely, by increasing the population enough for new high IQ mutations to emerge. This would explain why Northeast Asians appear to have genomic IQs about 15 points higher than hunter/gatherer Mongoloids (inuit) (105 vs 90) and why West Africans/East Africans are about 10 points higher than hunter-gatherer Negroids (Bushmen & Australian aboriginals) (80 vs 70). And yes I realize that most anthropologists would not consider Capoids and Australoids to be Negroid but the original 3 race model is useful in HBD.
The reason civilization started near the equator first is that it was still too cold at the higher latitudes for several thousand more years. Of course, this also begs the question why civilization never took off in the warmer climes. I suspect it was due at least partially to disease. Malaria and other things take a terrible toll on the mind and body. There’s no mechanism for evolving higher intelligence if disease keeps it suppressed.
But the tropics is where the human mind evolved in the first place. Brain size tripled in 4 million years of tropical evolution, so my guess is the tropics probably did select quite well for high IQ until we mastered it and needed novel problems to select for even more (hence the higher IQs in those who left)
“Leaving the tropics increased genomic IQ from about 70 to about 80 or 90”
Evidence? Is the evidence the observations from today?
“but the original 3 race model is useful in HBD.”
How? If there are 2 more races that get grouped in to two other races, then you’re just lumping when splitting is logical (Hardimon, Spencer).
The types of stories you’re telling to justify current IQ scores as “due to evolution through natural selection” are ridiculous—but that’s just my (non-PC) opinion.
The main problem you don’t seem to have touched upon is “civilisation” is problematic to define. John Baker for example in his book Race (1974) denied the Mayans ever qualified as a civilisation as they had no plumbing, sewers etc.
See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_water_supply_and_sanitation
Baker is probably wrong (through no fault of his own). There is evidence that the Maya at Palenque had knowledge of water pressure and that they did have some sort of plumbing system.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440309004531
OK, interesting. I don’t really know anything about Mayans / Aztecs / Incas but remember Baker made a list of certain features to pass as a civilisation and these didn’t pass because he thought they weren’t hygienic enough. Of course, his list of civilisation features is rather arbitrary.
Unless civilisation is defined as mere urbanisation (the only objective definition I can think of) it’s a problematic concept and someone can individually include/exclude Indus Valley, Roman, Egyptian, Sumerian etc as they don’t all have the exact same tick list.
Another problem is perhaps simplistically equating increased cognitive-ability to urbanisation. While the latter is associated with sociocultural complexity, urbanisation is one of the most destructive things to the environment i.e. pollution, deforestation, animal biodiversity loss etc.
“Humans did not qualify as a civilization, since they never discovered warp drive.” – Alien Scientist #258391938
High fat and meat diets. Expanded the brain.