The 10,000 Year Explosion:

I have a question with regards to the IQ of Ashkennazi Jews. Your books presents the case that their increased intelligence is a result of a genetic change that also makes them more susceptible to certain degenerative diseases such as Tay Sachs and the like. Is this suggestive of an upper limit to IQ in biology? If so, this suggests that the transhumanist fantasies of arbitrarily increasing human IQ to, say, 250 are nothing but, well, fantasies.

What is your thoughts on this?

The Cultural Diversity page in Deleted Scenes is exceptional, I hope what's in the book is as good.

Although politically incorrect the explanation for historical trends in this book, when combined with the explanation in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" seems most compelling.

An explanation that explains past history and present events should not be ignored, although I am afraid it will be.

Instead of 'Cortes led 600 men to beat 60,000 Aztecs'?

Try, 'Cortes' 30 horsemen served as couriers and general staff to coordinate 500 Spanish crossbowmen and 10,000 local foot archers to beat disconnected Aztec forces totallying 60,000. '

Seems like less of a stretch. Doesn't it?

My 2 cents. Based on reading Bartholomew Diaz twenty years ago, so if you guys did your homework and found different, okay.

Re. Cad-domestic males :-

The analogy with helpers-at-the-nest among birds is obvious.

As you describe them such men will, in most cases not really try to father children, and rarely do so. Helpers at the nest alter strategy in time to pursue their own reproductive success I think. Is there is a meaningful parallel?

did you consider the next information previous to the edition of your book? If not what would be the meaning on your thesis and hypothesys as a whole?

A Complete Neandertal Mitochondrial Genome Sequence Determined by High-Throughput Sequencing

8 August 2008
Summary

A complete mitochondrial (mt) genome sequence was reconstructed from a 38,000 year-old Neandertal individual with 8341 mtDNA sequences identified among 4.8 Gb of DNA generated from 0.3 g of bone. Analysis of the assembled sequence unequivocally establishes that the Neandertal mtDNA falls outside the variation of extant human mtDNAs, and allows an estimate of the divergence date between the two mtDNA lineages of 660,000 140,000 years. Of the 13 proteins encoded in the mtDNA, subunit 2of cytochrome c oxidase of the mitochondrial electron transport chain has experienced the largest number of amino acid substitutions in human ancestors since the separation from Neandertals. There is evidence that purifying selection in the Neandertal mtDNA was reduced compared with other primate lineages, suggesting that the effective population size of Neandertals was small

and this is the link
http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(08)00773-3

Jared Diamond's brilliant book, "Guns Germs and Steel" brings us to the conclusion that human culture developed along the lines of agriculture and trade routes, leaving some cultures and peole isolated -- and therefore culturally backword. He adamanatly makes a point of arguing that all humans are the same despite his own evidence to the contrary. Clearly this is not the case, and I finished his book wondering what the effect of concentrating people of higher intelect would have on the population. As human population grew larger and social complexity developed, societies stratified so that higher social castes (higher intellegence) only mated within their caste. I believe that this trend has been radically accelerated by the trend in the last century to concentrate the brightest people in elite universities, where they find mates. I think The 10,000Year Explosion fills in the gaps that Guns, Germs and Steel tried to ignore.

Excellent interview with Greg Cochran here.

http://newbooksinhistory.com/?p=574

Credulous Apes

Humans were not thrown out of Eden; they walked upright out of it. The last 10,000 years have been a story of the descent from freedom to slavery.

What makes you think that humans are intelligent? Could it be creativity? --

Religion
Murder
Warfare
Tyranny
Slavery
Torture
Child prostitution
Poverty
State Capitalism

Humans have paid a very high price for living in so-called advanced cultures for the last 6,000 years. Many were long-lived "hydraulic" despotisms -- see Karl Wittfogel and Marvin Harris. Most inhabitants have been ill-fed, ignorant peasants and slaves ruled by rich elite, priest, and god-king.

You overestimate the value of intelligence. In humans it is diseased.

the anti_supernaturalist

The authors have been as thorough in 'The 10,000 Year Explosion' as a common and garden audience might allow, making it eminently readable for most of us. I live in East Africa and am fascinated, after reading these hypotheses, about the evolution of the African people in general and the Bantu in particular after the exodus from Africa by the 'Modern' homo sapiens 40,000 years or so ago.
As proposed by the authors, evolution carries on and is accelerating to this day. Have the African regions benefited from their own form of evolutionary acceleration, especially after the tumultuous admixtures of the various tribes over the past 3 or 400 years? This may be grist for another mill - an African sequel perhaps?