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TimS comments on Equality and natalism - Less Wrong Discussion

10 [deleted] 24 October 2012 03:53PM

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Comment author: TimS 24 October 2012 05:46:54PM *  0 points [-]

A strong case has been made by some experts that humans have been self-domesticating for the better part of the last 10 000 years. You would actually need better knowledge of genetics to craft policies that don't mess with the gene pool than to craft policies that mess with it in likely desirable ways.

The argument that human personality traits have been adapted to local conditions by evolution runs into the difficulty that local conditions don't tend to stay the same for very long. I'm aware of the Ashkenazi intelligence hypothesis but I suspect the results are a combination of random noise and our difficulty in figuring out and testing for the difference between intelligence and competence-in-a-particular-society.

Your point about animal husbandry is well taken. But how long did fixation of those traits take? Other than sheep dogs (and some types of horses?), were behavior traits or physical traits what breeders selected for? There are lots of examples of animal husbandry selecting for some other physical characteristic (e.g. larger chicken breasts).