Against the Wild Type of Man
by tdaxp ~ July 6th, 2007
From television’s John Locke to print’s John Norman, romantic philosophers yearn for a restoration of the Hunter as a model for all men. And recent scientific discoveries, outlined in Nicholas Wade’s Before the Dawn, indeed imply that before agriculture man was
- more intelligent (at least, had a larger brain size)
- more muscular (at least, more athletic)
- more aggressive (at least, less social)
However, the romantic miss the fact that the wild type of homo sapiens is in decline because it is less fit than the domestic typed. Humans have become domesticated, and domesticated animals, from modern dogs to modern men, share some features
- less intelligent
- less muscular
- less aggressive
- more social
- more communicative
Combine domestication with two other facts: that by “the wild” we essentially mean Africa and the Islamic States, and that [hat-tip to Sandwalk and gnxp]:
With a population of 6 billion individuals on the planet, there will be 120 x 6 x 109 = 7.2 x 10^11 new mutations in the population every generation. This means that every single nucleotide in our genome will be mutated in the human population every 20 years or so.
Evolution is a slow process that takes generations, but observable change can come about in 200 years or so. The longer the Gap exists, the longer the darwinian advantage of humanity’s “wild type” is prefered: The longer mass rapes exist, the more mass rapists will be favored, the longer mass murder exists, the longer mass murderers will be favored.
Domesticate humanity. Shrink the Gap.
July 7th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Hmm–I can see that as a corporate motto.
“OCP, working for a kinder gentler humanity…” (Ad image of little kids running around a playground with puppies–under the protection of ED-209s…)
July 6th, 2007 at 12:00 am
We will want a better term for it for public diplomacy types though!
July 6th, 2007 at 12:00 am
“A kinder, gentler humanity?”
July 8th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Isn't average IQ rising? how does that fit with domestication? Or is that more due to the movement from farms to cities?
January 15th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Jayson,
If you'd swap out the ED-209 [1] with whatever Cameron Philips [2] production run, I don't think you'd need much of a marketing campaign!
PurpleSlog,
You've certainly had recent effects from better diet (which also show up in better height) that improve the epigenome, etc. However, the “Flynn Effect” that shows massive improvement over the past few decades occurs when one of the measures of general intelligence decouple from the other — that is, this or that mental attribute is being exercised more often, with no fundamental improvement in general intelligence.
My guess is that modern farms probably have a lower pathogen load than cities, so rural areas should produce people of higher general intelligence (but lower education) than the cities.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ED-209
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Phillips
January 17th, 2008 at 12:00 am
What? You only saw this now?!!
January 18th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Jayson,
Haha! It must have slipped out of my mind, until my recent discussion with Robert Patterson [1,2] made me go back to this page…
[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/01/14/when-we-began.html
[2] http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_patersons_weblog/2008/01/evolution—tak.html