Thoughts about Ashraf and Galor (2012)

Via Steve Sailer.

The Out of Africa Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development

Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galor

Abstract
This research advances and empirically establishes the hypothesis that, in the course of the prehistoric exodus of Homo sapiens out of Africa, variation in migratory distance to various settlements across the globe affected genetic diversity and has had a long-lasting hump-shaped effect on comparative economic development, reáecting the trade-offs between the beneficial and the detrimental effects of diversity on productivity. While intermediate levels of genetic diversity prevalent among Asian and European populations have been conducive for development, the high diversity of African populations and the low diversity of Native American populations have been detrimental for the development of these regions.

A very interesting paper. As can be seen in the link, it receives the usual backlash of dumbness.

The interesting thing about this that wasnt explored – even if it screamed to be explored – is how it works together with Lynn’s world wide IQ data. Lynn’s theory of cold climate has difficulties explaining why the arctic people are not smarter than they are. They are by no means dumb like africans, but they shud be smarter than they are going by the latitude theory and climate theory. I suggested that this might be due to inbreeding due to small populations. Perhaps. Perhaps its due to less genetic variation. It shud be possible to run a multiple regression analysis, and see how these two together explain IQ and income per capita.

The theory behind this is: First humans were in Africa, then they migrated out to live in other places. These other places differed in environment by coldness among other things. Those that lived in colder places were under (stronger) selection pressure for intelligence. How fast this adaptation happens is controlled by population size and genetic variation in the populations.

Very strange that the paper does not even cite Lynn, or mentioned IQ anywhere. These seem obvious to explain differences in income per capita.

This Post Has One Comment

Leave a Reply