by Brett Stevens on February 1, 2017

An article in Evolutionary Psychological Science signals that mainstream science is accepting Human Biological Diversity (HBD) including the ever-controversial subset of that field which recognizes that psychology is shaped by genetics like any other physical trait:

Humans migrated out of Africa at least 50,000 years ago and occupied many different ecological and climatological niches. Because of this, they evolved slightly different anatomical and physiological traits. For example, Tibetans evolved various traits that help them cope with the rigors of altitude; similarly, the Inuit evolved various traits that help them cope with the challenges of a very cold environment. It is likely that humans also evolved slightly different psychological traits as a response to different selection pressures in different environments and niches. One possible example is the high intelligence of the Ashkenazi Jewish people.

This is nothing short of revolutionary: a respected publication and mainstream writers are endorsing what HBD writers have said for years. HBD was only controversial because it violates the idea of equality, or that all people are basically the same and that they make choices not based on genetics but instead because of their all-powerful intent and “free will.”

Instead we are now back to recognizing the basics of Darwinism: that genetic coding positively defines our traits, or abilities that we can develop, where environmental influences mostly negatively define traits, such as fetal alcohol syndrome making people slow and slightly crazy. This rejects every thought derived from The Enlightenment,™ including that people are “equal” on some level other than “roughly the same size.”

Naturally, there is fear of the big un-democratic bad guys being imported into science as a result of this — eugenics, nationalism and caste systems — so the researchers make some disclaimers about ethics:

Frank discussions of such differences among human groups have provoked strong ethical concerns in the past. We understand those ethical concerns and believe that it is important to address them. However, we also believe that the benefits of discussing possible human population differences outweigh the costs.

These are not nonsense however. Medicine has reached a brick wall because the “average” patient, especially in a multi-ethnic caste-mixed democracy, does not exist. Instead, targeted medicine is the future, and this requires being genetically literate about who the patient is, including about the risks that patient faces.

However, there are also political implications. When our ideology requires us to consider people as “equal” in fact as well as in political access, then certain ideas become taboo. Even the possibility of genetic differences — between class, which is most taboo, and sex, and race — constitutes a threat to the ideological narrative of the ruling order, and must be punished. The last 20 years have shown us that idea in full flower.

With a recognition of biological differences, Leftists fear that people will desire freedom of association again. This means roughly that “birds of a feather [can] flock together” and they are not required to subsidize each other. With this, the diversity empire fragments.

The problem for Leftists is that nature is racist because tribalism is more efficient than trying to vet every other organism one encounters. Nature is rife with predators and worse, parasites, and so the organism that is able to recognize its own is able to save massively on its energy budget for self-defense.

As science moves toward recognizing the possibility of human biodiversity, it is also inching toward recognition of an important update to Darwinism: the organisms that thrive are those which conserve energy to dedicate toward improvement of offspring, improving quality instead of quantity, and these are by nature tribal to avoid wasting energy on potential threats.

Tags: human biological diversity, nationalism, tribalism

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.