..the descendants of past elites - except in Norfolk, presumably?

The societies where, most conspicuously, rich men breed and poor men don't are presumably polygamous societies. So why didn't the industrial revolution happen in the Ottoman Empire? The oil of Iraq would be quite a good substitute for British coal.

Can you briefly tell us why "Survival of the Richest" would be more true of Britain than anywhere else?

The genetic explanation seems highly dubious to me. One might just as well assume that in premodern societies, with their low social mobility, selection for intelligence was relaxed among the rich, while it was very fierce among the poor. I don’t know about britain, but certainly today’s descendants of the ex-nobility in germany and austria are not renowned for their intelligence (nor was the last kaiser).
what happened before the industrial revolution in germany (and a number of important inventions and discoveries there) is that in the late eighteenth century, highly gifted male individuals from the lower classes had the chance to enter the scientific community in significant numbers for the first time because of a more universal and improved educational system that was equipped to recognize their talents (at least if they were outstanding) and sent them on to higher education. The mathematician gauss, for example, came from a very poor family.
To me, a far more plausible hypothesis for the acceleration of technical progress during industrialization would be that a large pool of hitherto unrecognized talent in the lower classes was opened up. That process, by the way, went on in the early nineteenth century and continued essentially up into the nineteenfifties in Germany. At that time my father, a highly gifted individual, was singled out by his teachers for higher education and a scholarship despite his working-class background. his grandmother was also highly intelligent, which in her case (a backward, transsylvanian rural community, late 19th century) had the effect that the teacher decided that she had had enough schooling when she was ten (because she already knew everything the teacher knew). she went on to become a maid. The man she married, my great-grandfather, could converse in seven languages without formal training, yet was an extremely poor artisan’s assistant whem she met him. they went on to have seven children who all survived into adulthood, while upper class people at that time seldom had more than two or three children – the effect of the “demographic transition” (reducing the elite’s fertility) which must have strongly worked against any genetic ascendancy the upper classes might have had at that time.
The book must be based on some sound statistics at least for the earlier centuries, but I’d like to see them. in germany, even in the city states, 17th-century elites were very small and I would suspect too small to make that much of an impact upon the gene pool (apart from the highly dubious question whether they really were more intelligent at a time of low social mobility). fertility must have been higher among the elites (earlier marriage age of women being one factor, better nourishment another), but the effect surely wasn’t all that large. At least in the German city states the elites had horrid child mortality rates just like everyone else. Eg, the elite family of Caspar Goethe in Frankfurt lost four of their six children before puberty (one of the survivers being writer jw goethe, of whose i think five children in turn only one survived). the other famous frankfurter of that time, jc senckenberg, had no children survive into puberty (despite the fact that he had three wives).
If you need a causal-narrative “explanation” for the industrial revolution, more universal education in the wake of protestantism would be my best bet.

Britain has produced a lot of genius over the centuries. Right up there with the Jews I would say.

Britain has produced a lot of genius over the centuries. Right up there with the Jews I would say.

This is somewhat true, but the fields are highly circumscribed, and they're the same ones that Jews excel in: philosophy, literature, and science. Both are also-rans in music and visual art / design. The major difference is in mathematics -- Jews are heavily represented (at least after barriers were removed), while the English are far below what you'd expect based on how well they've done in the sciences.

Some obvious questions. How is Britain different from other European countries in this regard? Why did so much scientific achievement come out of Renaissance Italy and then slow down? How do France and Germany (also big 19th/20th Century innovators) come into play? Wouldn't the practice of sending younger sons of the elites and/or the intellectually gifted into the largely sterile priesthood have had a disgenic effect?

Perhaps the combination of Protestantism, with the geography of an island - particularly after the Union of Crowns and then of Parliaments - helped provide a rare combination of liberty with security of property.

Lack of British genius in pure maths may have something to do with the pragmatic, empirical temper of their culture. In literature they exceed the Jews, but that may be unfair since the Jews are spread across so many languages, usually as outsiders.

It would be interesting to know if there was a trend in the 17th and 18th centuries for intelligent women to be recognized and sought after by intelligent men. If intelligent men continued to mate with dumb bimbos then it would be hard to see how a highly intelligent group would emerge in Britain.

I would agree that the rise of intellectualism in Britain had something to do with the rise of protestantism, especially the dissenter sects (Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers and Puritans--who later morphed into Congregationalists and Unitarians).Kevin Phillips in The Cousins Wars emphasizes the high intellectual fervor of the dissenter sects and contrasts the Puritans of East Anglia who valued individualism and self governance with the more monarchist and medieval Anglicans. He outlines how the same basic conflict of the English Civil war eventually led to the American Revolutionary War and American Civil War. He also contrasts the shrewed, energetic and highly merchantile Presbyterian Scots of the cities and ports with the more backward and feudal Catholic Highlanders of the hinterlands. I have not read the book Albion's Seed but I suspect that it contains a similar thesis.

Most of the great British scientists and many of the merchants and industrialists were from the dissenter religions.

This is ridiculous. The scientific principles behind the industrial revolution (essentially, thermodynamics) were discovered almost equally by English, French and German people. The industrial revolution happened in England because of political conditions (in short, laissez-faire economics, mostly due to the insight of a Scot improving on obsolete French theories).

What next? The Renaissance occurred mostly in Italy, so clearly the Italians must have had some "artistic genes" (that have somehow mysteriously disappeared) - quick, let's find some "Darwinian explanation" ! Same thing for the overwhelming dominance of French culture mathematics in the 18th and 20th centuries: let's find the Gallic "culture gene" ! And don't get me started about the Greeks.

This blog sounds more and more like a refuge for the worst type of pseudoscience that plagued evolution research in the early 20th century. Holy Madison Grant, pray for us!

"Catholic Highlanders of the hinterlands": the gross error that most of the Highlanders in, say, the 1700s were Catholics seems common. Why?

"Industrial revolution why did it begin in my country",said the 10th century Chinese person.

"Industrial revolution,why did it begin in my country" ,said the Indus valley person.

"Industrial revolution,why did it begin in my country",said the Sumerian.

>>were discovered almost equally by English, French and German people.

No doubt after reading Greek, Arab,Indian and Chinese texts.

so clearly the Italians must have had some "artistic genes" (that have somehow mysteriously disappeared)

Pop quiz: which countries tend to produce top-level painters, sculpters, architects, interior designers, furniture designers, fashion designers, graphic artists, visual filmmakers / directors, and so on?

Answer: pretty much the same ones that dominated the visual arts in the past 500 years, Italy being a central example. England has never come close to matching France or Italy in this respect, not now or 500 years ago. This is despite the fact that the English are not boors who simply did not value visual art, or did not attempt to produce good visual art.

It has something to do with culture, but there's clearly a genetic basis too, or else transplants wouldn't stand out in such stark contrast to their host populations. Italians still perform very well in the US in visual art & design, Ashkenazi Jews still dominate in math and science, and sub-Saharan Africans have pioneered a myriad of musical styles both high and popular despite being destitute and discriminated against for much of the early 20th C and before.

Almost any trait of interest is moderately heritable, including intelligence and personality. All you need to do is switch on the magnet of selection pressures, and the individual filings will be pulled in that direction. No one said there was just one gene involved (we all know that many are), so you'd better watch your lying and misrepresentation of our views -- next time you'll be banned.

I agree with everything agnostic is saying. Now back to the British Jewish comparison for world genius (in terms of impact):

Top five British:

Shakespeare, Newton, Darwin, Adam Smith (in the field of moral science), Benjamin Franklin (greatest polymath -- pure g loaded all around genius).

Jews:

Einstein
Marx
?
?
?

Luke Lea: Personally I would complete the Jewish top 5 with Freud, Spinoza and Mainmonides.

Agnostic:

Pop quiz: which countries tend to produce top-level painters, sculpters, architects, interior designers, furniture designers, fashion designers, graphic artists, visual filmmakers / directors, and so on?

Over the last half century or so? The USA, by far. Now my turn: cite one widely known Italian or Dutch/Flemish painter or sculptor born after 1900. Compare with the Renaissance.

Unless you can provide decent peer reviewed sources, I will reiterate: the idea that variance in cultural dynamics among Western Europeans (Western Europeans, for Christ's sake! Not even Blacks-Whites-Asian, Western Europeans!) has a genetic source has already been put forward in the early 20th century (cf. Madison Grant for the supposed aptitudes of the Alpine-Nordic-Mediterranean "races") and is now universally considered pseudo-science. I will gladly retract this statement and apologise profusely if you can cite peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate the contrary.

Neat challenge, Toto. Let's see what we can do with it.

jewish genius:

Grothendieck
von Neumann
Wittgenstein
Friedman...

Toto,

I generally agree with you here, but some friendly advice - didn't your parents ever tell you it's not what you say, but how you say it?

Wittgenstein was only half Jewish. Unfortunately his other half wasn't English.

Lack of British genius in pure maths may have something to do with the pragmatic, empirical temper of their culture.

I don't really think there is a lack here, as you say, but it's not a cultural issue. You can't stop a maths genius no matter what you do. All they need is to be exposed to it. One of the most naturally gifted mathematicians to ever study in England is a great example of this - Ramanujan.

It could explain a lack of mediocre mathematicians, but that's not what you are arguing.

The English and Jews and Jewish English have all contributed greatly to the world. Why can't you just leave it at that?

I know there are other regular contributers on this site who are far more qualified than I to address Toto's challenge. So let's not let him win by default guys!


In the mean time I will take a very clumsy stab (imagine an old geezer on America's Funniest Home Videos):

Assuming for purposes of argument that each of the various identifiable areas of cultural achievement -- maths, science, art, liteature, etc. -- is effected by an identifiable (at least in principle!) set or suite of allels, only some of which are a matter of g, the question becomes whether each of these suites is more or less homogenous (in terms of composition and frequency) throughout the various Western European ethnic, linguistic, and cultural groups.

I would be surprised, on purely theoretical grounds, if this happens to be true. But I am also sketchy as to whether many or even any candidate allels have been identified for various kinds of achievement, apart from the several proposed candidates related to g.

In which case the question is undecidable for now, unless there is some other, more indirect way to get at the matter.

BTW, if there are racial differences in these suites of gene frequencies, does that imply that there will also, probably, be sub-racial ones as well? To what extent is this a logical vs. an empirical question in the field of population genetics?

Of course other things are also important -- variations in history, culture, institutions -- which no one denies. Please be careful to keep that in mind Toto.

"Wittgenstein was only half Jewish. Unfortunately his other half wasn't English."

Per wikipedia, Wittgenstein was 3/4 Jewish by ancestry. Both of his paternal grandparents and one of his maternal grandparents was Jewish.

Thanks.

"His concern with moral perfection led Wittgenstein at one point to insist on confessing to several people various sins, including that of allowing others to underestimate the extent of his 'Jewishness'."

http://www.iep.utm.edu/w/wittgens.htm

Over the last half century or so? The USA, by far.

What are you, a moron? OK smartass, I clearly meant which ethnic groups. It's a piece of cake to list the Italian and French filmmakers / directors from the past 50 years or so, and the Germans and Spanish round most of the rest out -- including Americans or whoever of Italian, etc., descent (Scorsese, Coppola, Tarantino, etc.). Furniture designers -- now it's a slaughter, although at least the Scandinavians now show up. Fashion designers -- more so.

I don't have to name them all; you can look them all up since it's easy. I'll provide a rough picture, though: Fellini, Armani, and for furniture it's more of an enterprise than individuals -- Cappellini, for example. And that's just Italians.

As for painters and sculptors, the 20th C was largely a wasteland, the only time when Anglos showed up at all. Italian Futurists, German Expressionists, Spanish Surrealists, and French in a bunch of things. Same goes for "art" film, furniture, fashion, bla bla bla.

The reason I'm not listing every single person is because I don't have that much time, it's easy for you to figure out, and the fact that you don't know who dominates the art and design world -- or rather who *doesn't* -- just shows how ignorant you are, and thus how long it would take to get you to understand. I don't like giving free lessons to hostile students.

Just read any history on 20th Century fashion design, architecture, furniture & interior design, film, and so on. All available at your local library.

England has never dominated in music either, fyi. Classical, jazz, whatever.

As a quick reference on architects, see how many Anglo surnames you see in the winners of the Pritzker Prize:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pri.../ Pritzker_Prize

Toto et al: Freud, Spinoza, Maimonidese, Wittgenstein? Who are you guys kidding? These are not giants. Freud turns out to be a fraud and a fad. Wittgenstein is a man who thought he was a genius and then woke up one morning and discovered that he was ordinary. Didn't stop his disciples from making a cult out of him. Spinoza and Maimonidese, whatever their virtues, are hardly figures without which the world just wouldn't be the same. The list is short. I would put Euler and Gauss in mathematics, Beethoven in music, Lincoln in statesmanship, and about a twenty-way tie for first place in art. After Shakespeare, literature is even more debatable. Indeed, except for the fact that English is the Latin of the modern world, Shakespeare wouldn't be on it necessarily. There aren't any philosophers or historians who are heads and shoulders above the rest as far as I can see, though of course we all have our favorites. The best is yet to come I guess.

now universally considered pseudo-science. I will gladly retract this statement and apologise profusely if you can cite peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate the contrary.

Not really fair. Surely you know that politics precluded most research.

Forgot to mention that I enjoyed your comment, Ruth.

As you are probably aware, one difference between England and Germany is that England has a history of actual ethnic difference between nobles and commoners, due to invasions by Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Normans, etc.

To my knowledge there has been conflicting evidence as to how these invasions changed the population.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/scien...ure/ 3514756.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/scien...ure/ 5192634.stm

"England has never dominated in music either, fyi"

...
the beatles

the beatles

By referring to Classical and Jazz, it's pretty clear I'm talking about "art music," not popular. get a clue. Most of rock n' roll is due to Africans and Scotch and Irish, not English, in any event.

Genetically based explanations are getting as crudely reductionistic as cultural determinism used to be.

I suppose you could have a role for founder effects, though.

the beatles

By referring to Classical and Jazz, it's pretty clear I'm talking about "art music," not popular. get a clue. Most of rock n' roll is due to Africans and Scotch and Irish, not English, in any event.

We're not talking about your aesthetic preferences. Any objective measure has the Beatles as one of the most influential musical influences of the past century. Yes, I think they qualify as geniuses.

I'm not sure of the exact ethnic background of each Beatle, but Ringo Star (aka Richard Starkey) is the only fully English one - the other 3 being at least partly Irish?!

Most of rock n' roll is due to Africans and Scotch and Irish, not English, in any event.

And to the musical interaction of Africans and Scotch and Irish in the melting (more correctly stew) pot of the United States. It wouldn't of happened as it did without the contribution of people of other nationalities; Lester Polfuss comes to mind.

Hey, I missed that one!

agnostic: What are you, a moron? OK smartass, I clearly meant which ethnic groups.

Man, that's the whole point. The question, let me remind you, is whether the differences in cultural dynamics between Western Europeans have a genetic basis (I can't believe I'm actually writing this, but, so be it). The USA provide a life-size experiment into what happens when you take an ethnic group and replace most (not all: most) of its cultural baggage with another one (the mostly Anglo-Germanic environment of white US culture).

The result of this experiment is that South European ethnic groups (essentially Italians) simply do not dominate American arts, in proportion to their numbers. This does includes film-making, despite your nice example of confirmation bias ("Hey, look, three famous US directors with an Italian name!"). Consult any list of significant American directors (say, Academy Award nominees for directing) for hard evidence. Notice the rather ordinary proportion of Italian names among US-born directors (i.e. excluding actual Italians).

Despite your assertions to the contrary, there is no evidence of a sustained, significant inferiority of the English in arts. The English have maintained a line of top-class artists in several arts (especially music and literature) from the Renaissance onwards. The best argument that you can muster is that they have never been the very best at any art, contrarily to the Italians who have dominated most graphic arts (though curiously not after the 17th century !), or the Germanic record of excellence in music (which, strangely enough, essentially begins with Bach and ends with Wagner), or the French dominance in literature (OK, this one has pretty much always been there - except that you'd be hard pressed to find a common genetic background to "the French").

However, it turns out that the English have arguably been the very best in at least two forms of arts at two different periods. The first is Elizabethan drama - Corneille and Racine are immensely important, but do not match the lyricism of Johnson and Shakespeare. The second, despite your incomprehensible assertions to the contrary, is European popular music in the late 20th century. This does include (but is not limited to) rock'n'roll, which the English have literally owned since the early 60's and up to the present day.

And if you think popular music doesn't count, explain why you feel the need to include furniture design (please !) and clothing (which overlooks the high regard in which British tailoring is traditionally held all over Europe, as well as the wealth of prominent modern British designers).

Of course, I could point out that we are trying to fit genetic trends within a period of 500 freaking years, as opposed to the aeons for which Western European arts in general (and Italian arts in particular) have been either primitive or knock-offs of the Hellenistic culture. Oh, by the way, in your gene-centred universe, whatever happened to the Greeks? Please don't tell me that the Turks replaced them wholesale after 1453...

Summary: Cultural variance is, well, cultural. It hinges on history, tradition, circumstances, and just plain luck. Again, feel free to humiliate me with your published, peer-reviewed evidence to the contrary if you wish to.

I don't like giving free lessons to hostile students.

No worries - just refrain from giving any lessons at all about evolution. Also, avoid lecturing Southern Europeans on Southern European culture. I've been to school long enough, thank you very much.

The question, let me remind you, is whether the differences in cultural dynamics between Western Europeans have a genetic basis

Again, feel free to humiliate me with your published, peer-reviewed evidence to the contrary if you wish to.

Asking for the moon! If you know this, you are insincere. If you don't, you are ignorant. In either case, it does not help your argument.

Another reason the whole argument is beyond complicated is that the national populations themselves have not necessarily remained static over time. For instance:

"Researchers have found that the shape of the human skull has changed significantly over the past 650 years.

Modern people possess less prominent features but higher foreheads than our medieval ancestors."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/scien...ure/ 4643312.stm

"Our medieval ancestors" if you're English, that is. This research is certainly in line with Clark's theories.

I also found an interesting comment elsewhere relating to this research. It's hardly evidence, but interesting nonetheless.

The difference between the skull shapes seen in Greek and Roman statuary and the modern man appears to me to be insignificant.

However, the difference in the skull shapes seen in paintings in the 13th through 17th century of common folk and modern Europeans is obvious, and is similar to the data cited in the BBC article. I could post many, many examples from paintings. I always was puzzled about this.

Note I said: common folk. Faces and head shapes in paintings of aristocracy in the same time period looks rather like modern Europeans, with no significant differences as far as I ever noticed.

Of course nutrition can play a part, although it's not clear to me at least how a lack of nutrition would cause more prominent features.

I have not yet read Clark's book (A Fairwell to Alms)... but in browsing the book's official web site and reading the New York Times introduction ("In Dusty Archives...", Tuesday, Aug. 7th) I have serious doubt that his thesis can hold water. His argument that human biological evolution substantially influenced the prosperity correlated with the industrial evolution raises some serious flags when looked at with even the most simple notions of population genetics. It is relatively easy to calculate the number of generations necessary (even under theoretically perfect conditions) that would be necessary for a genetic trait to spread in any significant numbers through a population. The timeframe, population size, and geographic area under consideration (pre-industrial western europe and the Britons) when taken together, pretty much kill Clark's argument before it is even begun. It is simply not possible for a population of this size to express genetic drift at a scale necessary under the timeframe constraints of this short historical period (several centuries). Because of this simple math, it just doesn't matter how much data Clark has collected or how well it is presented. Clark's main thesis is fatally flawed. Period. End of discussion. Are the social sciences so removed from the demands of physical law and peer review that fallacies of this magnitude can find their way to the book stand? I am saddened by this discrepancy of reason and rigor.

Randall