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From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Subject: Re: RACE and IQ
Message-ID: <jqbCynun0.4rD@netcom.com>
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References: <vlsi_libCyB3KD.I2u@netcom.com> <CyL27G.ty@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> <395l76$mcb@portal.gmu.edu> <395s5l$i73@news.panix.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 22:04:12 GMT
Lines: 32

In article <395s5l$i73@news.panix.com>,
Clay Thurmond  <claytex@panix.com> wrote:
>Presumably, if only natural selection were operating properly, there
>would be no need to worry about this rising tide of the cognitively
>obsolete.

I suggest further reading in biology.  Natural selection always operates
"properly", even when we don't like the results.  Those traits that yield
greater transmission of the genes that produced them will survive.  This short
term "strategy" may fail in the long term; particularly aggressive traits may
result in a radical loss of food supplies or other environmental needs,
decimating the population; population pockets with less aggressive behavior
may survive.  Population growth and decline are cyclic (and often chaotic; it
was through population studies that the discovery of the Mandelbrot set and
chaos theory in general came about).  Propagation of intelligence traits that
allow production of nuclear weapons, pesticides, and other destruction of the
environment may lead to radical population destruction (see recent studies of
environmental estrogen resulting in greatly reduced fertility in many species,
not just human) and social breakdown, thereby reducing the prevalence of such
dangerous traits.  Lily-white flabby nerd and CEO genes degrade the health of
the population as a whole, and natural selection will tend to eliminate such
destructive influences.  If intelligence is actually a survival trait in the
long run (for which there is virtually no evidence), then it will exert itself
regardless of the puny racist rationalizations of those who worry about
"rising tides".  But the most successful species, e.g., viruses, insects,
jellyfish, show little intellectual capacity.  Complex systems, such as our
species, and complex traits, such as high intelligence and the ability to
create elaborate mental constructs such as racism, nationalism, narcissism,
tribalism, etc. arise over time, but that says nothing about their inherent
viability.
-- 
<J Q B>
