Race and Genetic Intelligence

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Date Line October 18, 2007

Once again the debate has been entered – Is intelligence genetic and does it vary based upon geographically based physical characteristics (race)?

Nobel Prize winner James Watson (DNA) has broached the subject with dual statements – the first a prediction the genes responsible for intelligence will be discovered within the next decade; and the second, an assertion that Africans are, based upon the evolution of that gene, less intelligent that Westerners (Europeans).

Of course he has been denounced as espousing racist concepts. The interesting element is that testing has shown this difference, and that both Asians and Jews tend to score the highest on those same tests.

By extrapolating Watson’s assertions to application within the totality of the broader spectrum of humanity, it follows that there would be a hierarchy of intelligence related to genetic separation.

Thus we have Africans and Native Americans at the bottom; Europeans next, then non-Judaic Middle Easterners, who are finally lead by Judaic, Indian and Oriental populations. Tartars, and related North Asian or Mongolian groups, might well fall towards the lower end of the spectrum.

There would be some additional studies required for the placement of the various Chinese populations – while they claim a similar cultural identity, Northern and Souther Han are clearly distinct populations on the level of their gender chromosomes.

However, based upon their levels of violence and genocide, Africans would clearly be in a competitive run for last place against Europeans.

Genocide is, on its face, evidence of low intelligence, and the inability to find intelligent, rational, solutions to demographic problems – hence the consistent challenges to the intelligence of George W Bush and those in his Administration.

In a book due to be published in November, Watson writes: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

Basically, there is no political correct approach which can overcome the evolutionary imperative of allele mutation being individual specific and thus spread through direct contact. In the absence of contact, mutations cannot propagate.

To the extent that a mutation might be environmentally favored, or generated, there might be grounds for an exception; but even here it is necessary for the gene to be at the proper stage in its own evolution so as to duplicate the mutation which occurred elsewhere.

The elements of intelligence which Western Society recognizes, and under whose definitions Europeans have been found inferior to Judaic and Asian populations, only began to be evident with the agricultural revolution eleven thousand years ago – manifesting in changes dated to ten thousand years ago.

African and non-African populations were geographically separated approximately eighty-five thousand years ago; thus the evolutionary forces have had at least that long to alter any genes associated with intelligence – longer if alterations were causal to the out migration.

There is, of course, one rational flaw in Watson’s argument. Watson assumes, implicitly, that all the environmental destruction created by western society is an act of intelligence.

As Asians are engaged in similar levels of destruction – in some cases greater destructive levels – it is self-evident that environmental destruction as evidence of a lack of intelligence would invert our scale and place African populations at the pinnacle of intelligence.

Thus, regardless of the logical necessity for the existence of genes which are directly associated with intelligence, and hence consistent with brain development differences between creatures, it is the ability to define intelligent behavior which will determine who is the most intelligent; hence, who has the most evolved genetics.

This logical necessity then causes us to observe those who scream racism in the face of scientific observation, reality and necessity– how intelligent can they be, and what racial group do they belong to? Are they European, or African; and if African are they African-American and hence, do to hundreds of years of admix genetically, fifty-percent European?

The argument for western intelligence is therefore not racist, but rather one of determining if global climate change, extermination of species, and universal depletion, or pollution, of the water resources is an act of ignorance or intelligence. Once that is determined, interpretation of the predicted genetic findings will be a snap.

Phrased another way. Is the hallmark of intelligence really suicidal behavior on a global scale? If so, Westerners are clearly the most intelligent.
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Does it really matter what you do?

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Date Line October 11, 2007

Life is curious. Every thing is linear. No matter how curved, bent, or crooked, all things travel in a straight line from point A to point B.

There is the element of chance in everything, yet it generally changes nothing. At least, it changes nothing in the larger scheme of things.

Does it really matter what you do? Does it matter how you vote? Do any of your actions have real meaning? Have your actions, desires or wants in any way altered the course of the universe?

Hunter-gatherer populations work sixteen hours a week to meet all their basic survival needs. They have two or three children per family. And they party a lot. They sing, dance, tell communal stories – spin tales of magic and mystery in a way that allows belief without detracting from the social objective.

What do you do? You work sixty hours a week, or you work less – maybe you work only 35 five hours, but travel to and from work for another fifteen. Maybe you travel the fifteen and also work the sixty.

Is your life filled with community sharing? Do you have time for those two kids? Do you even have those kids?

If you are, as the expression goes, a “person of faith” – do you actually believe in anything? Do you have a doctrine to follow or a way to behave which can be shared and followed by others?

Or do you assert what you know to be false and mask it in the idea that you are a “sinner”, but then add that we are all “sinners’ and so imply that it doesn’t really matter. You recognize the “faith’ to be stupidity and meaningless – but it sounds good.

And anyway ... everyone knows the joke.

You travel from point A to point B by the most indirect of routes. You have no compass, no straight edge, no means of ensuring your linear journey is by the most efficient and expeditious route. The beauty of it – you are the same as everyone else.

You live in a perfect world; but fail to recognize it is perfectly imperfect. You don’t understand that, no matter how you play it, you will get from point A to point B – birth to death.

The objective, the human, the life, imperative is to have life continue on its journey from its point A to its point B. You failed to grasp that the importance of life is life.

On the simplest level, the most direct route is the medical creed – to do no harm. It really does not matter what else you do. If you do no harm you have followed the direct route.

If you create no life, you cannot harm that life – but you harm the ability of life to continue.

If you create life and keep it safe – you continue life by that small amount. But life is imperfect, and chance will strive to change things – maybe for better, maybe for worse, but change things it shall.

The universe travels from its point A to its point B and doesn’t care a bit if you come along for the ride. You can see you are onboard; but that is just for a bit. You, like everything else, are transient.

The importance of your being is the here and now. All that Fame, Fortune, and prestige stuff has very little significance. It is a small imperfection on a the universal line from point A to point B – a blip.

Can you move the universe? Can you shape it? Can you mold it to fit your design? If so, do so. If not, stop claiming that you can.

Oh sure. You can throw a party. You can destroy the room and leave the mess for someone else to clean. The universe expects to clean up after your mess. It expects to do it and will take, on its timescale, only a second or less – no matter how bid the mess is relative to your size.

But why make the mess? Why destroy your life? Why exit a journey before you reach what could be your destination? Is it because you are so evil, so inconsiderate, so whatever, that you would work top stop others from enjoying their journey from their point A to their point B?

Maybe it does it really matter what you do and how you vote?
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FOOTNOTE: There was a minor stink about Rush Limbaugh saying there were “phoney soldiers” denouncing the war. In another example of a stopped clock being more accurate than a working one – based on the number of times a day it gets the time exact – and as much of an idiot serving idiots as Limbaugh tends to be – he got this right.

More important, Liberal groups like Moveon.org have gone overboard in their efforts to out lie, out distort, and generally be more dishonest than the Right-wing conservatives and fundamentalists.

When we talk about making a mess, or about doing no harm, those big-mouths on both sides are clear examples of what not to do. A liar is a liar, those who do not examine, or refuse to honestly report upon, the issues which threaten all of use with destruction are deemed to be equally culpable for the results.

In 2008, the GOP will doubtless blow the presidential election – it almost doesn’t matter who the Democrats nominate. That it will be either a woman or a black will only allow us to obtain a clear count of the sexist racists among us. It will not yield a president who represents the interests of America and the well-being of its people.

Americans want the end of America – they want the grand experiment to fail. They want to suppress and torture and otherwise demean, humiliate, or destroy life on this planet – we see that in the reality of the American diet, and wasteful lifestyle. That they want to take humanity with them is a given proven by the lairs and the fact that team of Bush-Cheney have not been impeached and imprisoned.

It will be proved when Bush-Cheney receive their multi-million dollar golden parachutes – as the rest of their team has. It will be prove when the supply-side Right-wing passes the debits to those now entering the work force; debits to be paid by those who will see their jobs exported to former communist, or dictatorship, powers.

We have moved from point A to point B – from birth to death.
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