There seems little dispute that evolution has occurred in human times. Thus, corn and other grains have been bred by humans and evolved so that they are now considerably different from their ancestors. But the official line on mankind is that there has been no significant evolution since homo sapiens emerged. Wade challenges that orthodoxy.
Political expediency explains why human exceptionalism enjoys the status of scientific orthodoxy: one cannot allow that humans evolved significantly after groups left Africa, and maintain the ban on the taboo subject of racial differences. The politically correct (p.c.) who run the academedia complex assert dogmatically that races do not exist. Race is a social construct, they say; no important differences between or among large gene pools (one of the euphemisms for "race") can be detected. If any differences are found, they are judged inconsequential. According to the orthodoxy, human groups are interchangeable. Any significant group differences are solely due to culture, not genetics.
Wade's argument is that evolution did not stop when humans left Africa to roam and populate the planet. Human evolution continued both in Africa and beyond as tribes of humans had to adjust to changing conditions. The politically correct (p.c.) view is that all of these adaptations over thousands of years were cultural - the humans who departed Africa (perhaps 50,000 years ago) are the same as those who remained and the same as the drifters who moved to other continents. Wade disputes this. One example he gives is that of Tibetans who have evolved to breathe easily at high altitudes. Wade is silent about Bolivians, but if their genes have been similarly modified to the life in the Andes, then that would be an even more recent example of human evolution.
Wade contends that the 3 main races evolved to adapt to the different conditions which each encountered. (Wade includes Middle Easterners and Indians among the Caucasians). In northern climes, the lack of strong sunlight for much of the year led to the genetic mutation that resulted in lighter skins for most Caucasians. The same need led to genetic mutations that resulted in lighter skins for Northern Asians, but with them the process involved a different set of genes and nearby fields (alleles), and these resulted in changes beyond skin color. Because these changes in the population were found advantageous, those who had them were more likely to reproduce so the original beneficial mutation spread to most of the population in that group.
One experiment absent from Wade's book is one I saw on a television science program. Daniel G. Freedman and his Chinese wife observed new-borns in hospital cribs. When placed in position, Black babies would stir, move about, try to turn. They were obviously upset when someone, using a cloth, sought to close the nostrils to make them breathe through their mouths. White babies, by contrast, were less active, but they too fought against the cloth on the nose. Asian babies, when placed in the crib, generally just lay there. When the cloth obstructed air to the nostrils, they were slightly annoyed, but quickly adjusted to breathing through their mouths. All of these were babies 1 or 2 days old, so the differences are most likely the result of nature, not nurture; genetics, not culture. There were other tests, like holding the baby to have it walk in the crib. The African babies could even high-step; the Asian ones did not walk, their feet dragging along the sheets; and the whites were in between, neither dragging nor high stepping, but walking. This experimental evidence reinforces the hypothesis that races exist and have traits that express genetics, not simply culture.
As America slides into an anti-scientific, politically correct, orthodoxy, there are surprising examples of good scientific work that was conducted even in a more oppressive, egalitarian tyranny. In Stalin's Soviet Union, the Communists decided and declared that Mendelian genetics was false, and all scientists were required to accept the view of Lysenko that characteristics acquired in a lifetime could be passed onto the next generation. Lysenko's experiments in agriculture suggested higher crop yields for the Soviets, so only an enemy of socialism and the state would challenge such a promising approach. At least one scientist who did was executed. The egalitarian Soviets also banned IQ tests. For several decades, Lysekoism was the politically correct approach to inheritance in the USSR.
In Novasibirsk, Siberia, Dimitri Belyaev accepted Mendelian genetics, but suggested experiments that did not appear to overtly challenge the Communist scientific orthodoxy. He took silver wolves and used one trait to divide the group - aggressiveness. The most aggressive males mated with the most aggressive females; the least, with the least. Within only 6 generations, the gentle wolves were becoming less wolf-like, more dog-like. Though they were bred only on one attribute, on the aggressiveness axis, other changes also appeared - physical changes. This collateral "damage" or "advantage" was inherited too, in a cluster of changes. The skulls and heads of the gentle wolves became rounder, their coats lighter with some white fur. Ears drooped on some and the tails of others curled or shortened. So by looking at the physique of the animals, one could see a visible sign of a changed temperament. One group would enjoy being around humans. The snarling, threatening other group was unfriendly.
Is this true of people? While in the US, the p.c. "scientists" who dominate the social sciences proclaim that race does not exist, and that it is merely a "social construct," Wade and others contend that human races do exist, and that there may be considerable and significant differences among them.
Belyaev, in addition to experimenting in breeding wolves, also bred generations of Siberian gray rats. Again, he divided them into 2 groups on the aggressiveness axis. After several generations, some of the rats would place their snouts out their cages so humans could pet them. The other group would jump at the cages trying to attack people who entered the compound. All had the same genes, but the areas between those genes, the clusters of alleles were now different.
Wade notes that a gene in humans is associated with aggression. It may appear in almost all, but some have many controllers of the MAO-A gene to restrain its effects. Humans with only 2 controllers are much more likely to be involved in violent crime. Males with only 2 inhibitors are 0.1% of the white population, but 5.0% among Afro-Americans. Thus, Afro-Americans are 50 times more likely to lack sufficient inhibitors of this gene than whites. Though Wade does not explore this startling statistic, it might go a long way to explain the high violent crime rate among Black males, far more than the usual p.c. explanations that invoke "racism," poverty, and unemployment.
Wade contrasts humans with chimps, who he states are the closest primate relative to humans. Chimps are territorial, selfish, warlike, and the females have as many sexual encounters as possible. Humans in the hunter/gatherer stage were also territorial and warlike, but they tended to have one mate and knew (and presumably trusted) their relatives. Society was egalitarian. Wade says there were no priests, but I question this. I suspect even such a primitive society required a shaman, who knew a bit of medicine, the story of the group, how to forecast weather, etc.). With the development of agriculture, settlement followed, and with it hierarchy, inequality, a priesthood, trade, and the necessity to obey the boss and the military commander. Because early governments are weak, the tribe remains important for meting out justice, and Wade maintains it is the default human institution, continuing into the modern state with nepotism.
Stronger states had to overcome the exploitative nepotism of tribal traditions. In China, this was accomplished through examinations, a necessary requirement to be inducted into the bureaucracy. For over a millennium these examinations emphasized memorization, intelligence, and conformity.
Later Islamic society achieved a strong state by creating bureaucratic slavery. Because their religion forbade them enslaving fellow Muslims, they took teenaged boys from Christian families in provinces like Greece and Serbia, rode them off to be enslaved, converted and trained to work for the Islamic state. They were not allowed to marry, but could rise in the military and bureaucracy on their own merits. Having no families, they were less likely to be corrupt, and their loyalty was to their master, the head of state. Wade is weaker in describing how the Muslim Mughal Empire in India handled the problem of overcoming tribalism. He does make the well-known point of how tribalism among the Mongols prevented their march to the Atlantic Ocean through Europe, when the Mongol emperor died and had to be replaced.
Wade also fails to describe a Western bureaucracy that could serve the state and other institutions instead of their families. Catholic priests and nuns clearly provided civil services to European leaders at least from the time of Charlemagne. Nepotism was reduced. The churchmen did extract a price for this service that Wade does discuss, a price some might deem too high: namely that the ruler was to submit to Christian law. Not even an emperor was above the law in Christian Europe (at least in theory). Wade does emphasize that this is one feature that made Europe unique and aided its advance over other civilizations. Another group that also provided civil services in some parts of Europe was the Jews. In some places, they collected the taxes for the kings. Everywhere, they were money lenders, bankers, doctors. Unlike the vast majority of Europeans, most Jews could read. Because of their professions, they had to learn math, even before the 0 was imported into Europe.
Wade also contends that over the generations, the Chinese became both more intelligent and more conformist. Those who passed the national examinations rose in rank, esteem, and wealth, and thus, had more children who would inherit their characteristics. Over the centuries, the attributes for success in that culture became more widespread through inheritance. Their success in commerce was evident throughout Southeast Asia, when many of the natives of Indonesia, Philippines, etc., became ever jealous of the Chinese success.
Yet, the Chinese prescription for success in one area may have become a liability in another. From about 1400 to 1435 the Chinese Emperors sent out large naval expeditions. The best known was that of Admiral Zheng He, and it was enormous - some 30,000 men on 250 ships. They traveled down SE Asia over to India, and then across to the Arabian Peninsula, the Red Sea, and East Africa. They returned to China with giraffes, ostriches, and other exotic items. Massive as Zheng He's venture was, he basically followed well-known trade routes. Although some speculate he may have sent smaller expeditions far beyond, nothing became of them. Then, a new emperor came to the throne in China who was uninterested in such ventures. He ordered the destruction of the fleet and of all ocean-going vessels. Chinese exploration ceased. By 1800, the Chinese empire stagnated.
Around 1500 Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain for India. His 3 ships were small and the crews totaled only 90 men. Magellan's fleet of 5 ships and 260 men would circle the globe, but only 1 ship and 18 men would make it back to Spain. And it would be 80 years before Sir Francis Drake would accomplish the deed a 2nd time. While it is now commonplace in the West for students to sneer that Columbus did NOT discover America, they are to be pitied for they illustrate the results of anti-Western, multicultural education. Of course, others made it to the New World before Columbus. But what the relatively tiny expeditions of Columbus and Magellan and the other European explorers accomplished - they united the world as never before! They were the first globalists. Henceforth, Old World and New would be part of the mental maps of sailors; they would be known, and better known in time. What became of Zheng He's massive expeditions? Basically, nothing. And many scholars in China at the time, sought to erase all history of his expeditions from the documents. Forbid further exploration, burn the fleets, destroy the documents. China did not require new knowledge. By contrast, the explorations of the Europeans would unite the world in maps, and change the world in countless ways.
One of the weakest examples Wade presents to bolster his argument for on-going human evolution is occurs on page 3. Between 1799 and 1940 on an island near Quebec the age of reproduction of young women fell from 26 to 22 years. I remain unconvinced that that proves genetic change, and suspect changes in the culture probably better explain the statistics (e.g., were there more nuns in the community in the earlier period? How would they affect the average age? What were the society's views on sex, illegitimacy, etc.?) I think Wade weakens a strong case with a weak example.
Instead, Wade should have included the racial differences revealed in the crib studies of babies a few days old conducted by Dan Freedman and his Chinese wife. Or he might have noted the racial disparity in twins - among Asians 4 per 1,000; among whites, 8; among Africans, 16. Such evolution may not have been as recent as the Quebec studies, but it does indicate change after the 3 major races diverged (I prefer not to give a specific date for when this group left Africa, or when whites and North Asians split, because I think such dates are speculative and may well change with new discoveries. The main point is that the 3 main races were separate enough to evolve with different characteristics, including rates of twins.)
Wade assures his readers that races are so real that "By taking just a few measurements, physical anthropologists can tell police departments the race of a skull's former owner with better than 80% accuracy."(70) "How could they identify a skull's race so accurately if race doesn't exist?"(70) In July 1996 in the western US state of Washington, two men attending a hydroplane race stumbled upon human remains. They informed the authorities, and the sheriff viewing some of the bones thought a white man had been killed perhaps a century ago. Was it a case of murder? The victim had been shot in the leg - but with an arrow. The local authorities were perplexed, and asked university scholars for advice. When the bones were tested for age, they were "one of the most complete ancient skeletons ever found; bone tests have shown it to date from 7300 to 7600 B.C." as en.wikipedia described it. Soon a political and legal battle erupted, with the local Amerindian tribes claiming the bones as those of their ancestors and seeking to rebury them. This occurred during the Democratic Administration of Pres. Bill Clinton, and if there is a conflict between science and political correctness, Democrats trash science. Clinton had the Federal Government bury the site where the bones were found to prevent any other finds that might offend the so called Native Americans.
By chance, CBS TV's Evening News of 7 October 2014 with Scott Pelley included a segment on Kennewick Man. Note the omissions. The "... skull was found in 1996, along the banks of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington. Doug Owsley is the Smithsonian's top anthropologist. Eighteen years ago he and a group of scientists sued the federal government and local Indian tribes for the right to study a 9,000 year old skeleton - known as `Kennewick Man.'.... Sculptors took months to build a likeness based on the shape of his skull and archival photos from Asian coastal people. `Kennewick Man's' bones have been locked away by the federal government, but Owsley says there's still so much to learn - including what finally killed him."
Pelley never mentioned that the first impression was that the skull was that of a white man. When sculptors sought to create a likeness of the dead man, they did not think European, but instead considered someone who trod the Bering Sea route. Were they doing this because the skull appeared Asian, or because the orthodoxy is that all in the New World are derived from the Asian route? How much time did the scientists have to examine the skeleton? And the bones are now "locked away by the federal government." I ask, are they locked beside the "lost" emails of Lois Lerner and the autopsy files of JFK?
If whites were in the New World before the Asians, and killed and were exterminated by them, there would be less "white guilt" and consequently less support for preferences for Amerindians. Law suits, courts, and years of contention followed this most remarkable discovery. Some scientists finally concluded that the victim was an Ainu, whom some say is related to whites and/or Polynesians. But the scientists were allowed only short periods to study the remains. Bill Clinton's view of science is similar to Stalin's - the political trumps the scientific. But if Kennewick man was just a regular white of European origin, as originally thought, how then explain that one of the earliest skeletons in North America, near the West Coast, is white? Perhaps the population of the New World did not simply come from Siberia via the Bering Sea area. Wade accepts the common view of the Bering crossings and includes genetic similarities between North Asians and Amerindians - hair and teeth - to support his view. He also asserts: "Another two continents fell into the position of the pale-skinned northerners...for people living in Siberia...to Alaska they migrated southward to colonize...North and South America."(81) Are the Amerindians really the pale skins?
Moreover, some of the early Olmec statues have Negroid features. Were there seafarers from Africa who made it to the New World before Columbus? And we now know that the Viking forays into North America were not merely myths. Moreover, there are art objects in the New World where the faces appear Caucasian. Perhaps there were more "pale faces" before Columbus than Wade is willing to recognize.
Wade informs readers, "There are almost certainly genes that predispose people to regard incest as abhorrent,..."(250-251, and he makes a similar point on 237) Although there is some dispute as to just what it entailed and how wide-spread it was, brother-sister marriage may well have been prevalent in Egypt for the thousands of years of its independence, down to the last Pharaohs when Cleopatra married her younger brother Ptolemy. If this was the case, were the consequences so awful for a civilization that lasted and flourished for nearly 4,000 years?
Wade describes the simple test of delayed gratification developed by Walter Mischel: a child is offered a marshmallow now, or 2 marshmallows if he waits 15 minutes.(157) Those who could wait, restraining their immediate impulses, tended to be more successful in later life. Strangely, Wade omits mention of the racial differences in this experiment. Generally, East Indians delayed, Blacks did not.
Wade includes a terrific example of the contrasts among civilizations with his discussion of the telescope, invented in 1608 by the Dutchman, Hans Lippershey. Within a few years, this invention was shown to leaders of the Ottoman, Mughal, and Chinese empires. While the 2 Muslim empires grew ever more hostile to science, even banning the printing press in the case of the Ottomans, it was only the Europeans who used the new telescope invention to revise their view of the universe, and only the Europeans who improved the invention so it could be used not only to study the movement of the stars, but those of oncoming ships and the location of enemy troops.
While little came from Zheng He's massive naval expeditions, those of Columbus, Magellan, and the other Europeans changed the world. Was the difference in the genes? Was the failure of China due to inherited conformity, or cultural complacency? The Chinese invented the printing press, and Muslims banned it under pain of death. The Europeans embraced it. Soon there were hundreds of presses in numerous European countries, encouraging literacy among the populace. Who read the books printed in China? In Europe, with its alphabets of about 30 letters, it was much easier to learn to read (and print) than in China, with its thousands of characters. Literacy became a more democratic aspect of Western culture.
Wade writes that the "theme of human history is that each race has developed the institutions appropriate to secure survival in its particular environment."(136) Is this true? Wade devotes an entire chapter to the Jews, whose specialization in certain professions for more than a millennium, Wade contends, altered their genetic inheritance. Unlike most others, Wade declares that it was not simply laws that banned Jews from farming and owning land and other occupations, but that money lending was quite profitable, which led many Jews to a profession forbidden to Christians (and Muslims) for centuries. Over time, Wade contends, Ashkenazi Jews developed, bred for, and passed on higher IQs (along with collateral damage of diseases that afflict mainly Jews). Because of Jewish ability to assess people (their creditworthiness) and manipulate numbers (even before the symbol of 0 was imported into Europe to simplify calculations), they thrived as capitalism developed. Although only 0.2% of the world's population in the first half of the 20th century, they won 14% of the Nobel Prizes; 29% during the second half, and 32% of those prizes from 2000 to 2007. (198) Jewish success could be seen in numbers, too. From a population of 1 million in 1500, they grew to 16.5 million in 1939.
However, if Jews were genetically successful for adaptation to capitalism, this adaptation brought them to near extinction in Europe by 1945. They seemed to have a harder time adapting to socialism. When Europe was dominated by National Socialists, Jews were hounded for discrimination and later extermination. The defeat of Hitler seemed to end that threat. Although Jews thrived at first under Soviet socialism (see, Yuri Slezkine's Jewish Century), the Soviet one-party dictatorship had second thoughts about Jews after WWII and the establishment of the state of Israel. Some contend that Stalin was preparing a major round-up of Jews to be sent to camps within the USSR. Only Stalin's death aborted his plan to destroy the Jews under the Soviet version of socialism. So, the Jewish genetic adaptation of intelligence, cleverness, and entrepreneurship was suddenly a burden, a badge of oppression when nations turned to socialism. Thus, in 1934 Dr. Goebbels could proclaim that the age of over-refined Jewish intellectualism was at an end. It was nearly the end of everything and everyone Jewish in Europe. Genetic adaptation for one environment, might become deadly when that environment changes. And for social animals like humans, society IS environment too. Jews, well-adapted for capitalism, were nearly exterminated under socialisms. However, their adaptation to capitalism led to another charge: was there anything to the claim that Jews used their "privileged" position in Germany - wealth, intelligence, culture, Nobel Prizes - to oppress the gentile population of the nation?
Wade discusses the rise of the West and how its changed genetic composition contributed to this process - as Europe became less violent, more trusting, more literate, more work-oriented, more willing to delay gratification. Wade contends there was almost a necessary genetic change before the Industrial Revolution could begin. There was a dialectic between the genetic makeup of society leading to changes, which produces more wealth, and more children inheriting the newly correct genes, that could then continue to alter the general society. Wade contrasts the necessity of a wider circle of trust of strangers for a modern state, to the narrow range of trust found in tribal societies. And this is one reason the institutions of modern states cannot easily be replicated in tribal societies like Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Middle-Eastern areas. Tribal kingdoms tend to restrict trust within "the family."
"Western societies are well adapted to present economic conditions, which they have in large measure created." (248) Although in the same paragraph Wade notes possible changes in culture, he avoids the big question raised by his book. In 1950 the US was 90% white, 10% African-American. In less than a century the US white population will become a minority. Hate-the-West, hate-whitey Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama cheer this prospect. However, will there continue to be Western values in a Third World America? Will the intelligence level be the same? The work ethic? The creative spark? The language? The crime rate? Already sociologists (presumably, reliably left-leaning) note that in multicultural neighborhoods, there is a remarkable decline in trust, in community, and a rise in isolation, anomie. And what is true of America is true of the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, England, and what is left of the "West." As non-Western genes begin to dominate Western nations, will the future of America and the West be Detroit? And who opened the American borders so an invasion of millions could change the composition, and color, of the nation? What privileged elite was able to use the values of the West - the greater trust of strangers - to import the Trojan horses of massive 3rd World invasion? If the West is to survive as the West, it may have to shed some of these "genetic" values - and soon.
I am less concerned about the rise of China, Japan, India, Brazil, or Nigeria, than I am by the decline of the West. This decline is obvious in the demographics. One value that helped build the West, a greater capacity to trust strangers, has been turned against us. Our social immune system is now attacking our healthy cells, oblivious to the foreign elements. How did this happen? How can it be reversed?
Wade is aware of some of the horrors that resulted from racism. Several times he discusses the cost of such policies. But he never raises the issue of the cost of anti-racism and egalitarianism. What has been the cost of the equality ideology? To abolish inequality and oppression, Cambodia, a land of about 8 million, killed off 2 million. Under Mao in China, millions of Chinese were starved so socialism could be built. Same under Stalin. Same under Lenin. Egalitarianism has cost the lives of up to 100 million people in the 20th century. In America, the egalitarian, and excusiological approach to crime has undoubtedly encourage more crime, especially Black on white crime, murder, rape, etc. Since 1960, how many innocent whites have been murdered by Blacks? (The left may excuse or even deny that these are crimes, alleging that whites are by definition privileged and deserving of what punishment they receive from the Blacks, and Franz Fanon and his followers stressed the necessity of violence against the "oppressor").
Implementing egalitarian ideology has also extracted an enormous economic cost. Massive aid to Africa has done little to raise the standards of living of its people, despite large deposits of natural resources. Similarly, in much of the Middle East, the oil revenue has not brought wealth to many of the people living there. In America welfare has waxed but the main result is more single mothers raising more children without fathers, without discipline, filled with resentment, on the track to pursue a life of crime. More graduate from high school and even college, but many of them are barely literate. Where instead should the money have been spent?
Some may read this review as an attack on Black people. I have great respect for Blacks like Thomas Sowell, W. E. B. Du Bois, John Hope Franklin, Jackie Robinson, and yes, I admire the moral strength of Martin Luther King, Jr. So what if King was given the name Michael; so what if he plagiarized some of his dissertation (if we perused all the dissertations in numerous subjects, I suspect considerable plagiarism would be revealed; so what if he engaged in some sexual romps while married; the point is that under enormous pressure and attempted blackmail from the US Federal Government {and undoubtedly local ones too}, King refused to yield, refused to cave, and kept fighting for what he believed right). I admire many more Blacks, too, but this is not the place for such a list. Surely some Blacks have enormous intelligence. And creativity? Just think of music? Blacks may be as kind and friendly as any other. They may well be stronger and faster. If Black on white crime is high in the US, Black on Black crime is even higher.
If Blacks are much more likely to inherit the MAO-A gene with few inhibitors, it does not necessarily mean they will become violent criminals. And if all races inherit genes adapted to help them survive in changing environments, then will the MAO-A gene help Blacks survive in our changed environment? As America and the West become ever more multicultural and multiracial, and as multicultural neighborhoods result in less trust, more distrust, more isolation, more anomie, as the cities of the West become more chaotic and crime-ridden, perhaps the MAO-A gene and its propensity to violence may be the best survival strategy in the new anarchical social environment. Due to length, for full review, see my blog.
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