From: Charles D Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Aug 13 2001 - 21:16:14 MDT
On Monday 13 August 2001 09:17 am, you (Loree Thomas
<loreetg@yahoo.com>) wrote:
> ...
> A statistical difference for any characteristic
> between races (or sex) means that some or all members
> of one race (or sex) place within the limits for
> another(e.g. IQ)... in other words, you could not look
> at a person's IQ and from that alone determine what
> race a given person came from.
>
> The difference is statistical ONLY.
>
> I hope that clears it up for you.
>
> Loree
Actually, it's a bit more than that. Identical twins raised
separately are, in some ways, more different than when raised
together. It's as if it's important to differentiate oneself from
one's environment. I presume that the same would be true of other
groupings. Perhaps one could find two close high schools, with
(initially) essentially identical student bodies, and see whether
or not they differentiated themselves.
I know I've seen it happen at least once, when a new high school
opened, and the student body of the old high school was,
essentially arbitrarily, assigned to one high school or the other.
One high school quickly became more achievement oriented than the
other, and from an originally homogeneous student body, two
distinct populations emerged. This nearly has to be developmental,
and it certainly isn't anything that anyone was consciously
intending.
One case isn't much evidence, and most of the rest is less
objective, but I have a hypothesis that much of the split in
development between human groups is each group moving into a less
occupied niche, and then developing to fit into that niche more
accurately. So we have some populations of people moving towards
the K strategy and others toward the R strategy. (I think that
stands for carnivor and ruminant, but I sure wouldn't swear to it.
Anyway, K strategists emphasise investment in a small number of
offspring and R strategists emphasise more nearly maximizing the
number of offspring, and a reduced investment in each of them.)
Different populations fit into different niches more successfully.
And no difference in the genetic composition of the populations
need be hypothesized (though one would certainly develop, given
enough generations).
This adaptation allows essentially identical genotypes to develop
in ways that take maximal advantage of a large number of divergent
niches. And given the rate of human cross-breeding between
populations, one would not expect any marked genetic divergence to
occur. (Climatic adaptations are less subject to this kind of
drift, as they are less malleable under developmental conditions.)
--
Charles Hixson
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