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Karen's avatar

Very interesting. I think there is a biological basis to the variation in personality traits among the races. I think the historical inventiveness and interest in exploration of the European people arises from personality characteristics like independence and individuality, which are more common in that group. It's unfortunate that it is so verboten to study the biological basis for racial behavioral differences, but that could be changing.

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Vahid Baugher's avatar

Got any data for that or is it just your theory

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Zero Contradictions's avatar

Fascinating.

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Realist's avatar

Interesting article. Thanks

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Betsy's avatar

This was very interesting. Subscribed so I can read more! Thank you.

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Michael Curl's avatar

Very interesting, would like to see how it pans out.

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Razib Khan's avatar

the han are a pretty clear cluster with a lot of shared ancestry (underwent demographic expansion obv). BUT, there is variation in cold weather vs. warm/temp weather deep ancestry. if the siberian is the key variable, luckily it varies within the han

look at some of the figures in this paper, and that's where i'd start https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7993749/

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Paperdoll49's avatar

Razib - looking forward to seeing the author on your podcast to discuss

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Eric Johnson's avatar

So fascinating how geography shapes cultures.

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Razib Khan's avatar

" Another successful prediction is that in Singapore, East Asians have significantly lower rates of claustrophobia than South and Southeast Asians, when accounting for national culture and farming ancestry."

most singapore chinese are from fujian. so they have a lot less siberian ancestry than your manchu forebears

"A local trait like lactose tolerance in Indo-Europeans, the genes for which make up an unnoticeable fraction of human genetic variation, has arguably altered the course of history by logistically enabling the Yamnaya expansion."

lactose tolerance post dates the yamnaya expansion by thousands of years

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David Sun's avatar

Yes but Fujianese/Southern Han have about 2-3x+ more ANEA admixture than ethnic Malays and Indians, which is what the study compared them to https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2010105817695819

Lactose tolerance was initially low among IE but it's frequency increase coincided with the steppe expansions, suggesting it was advantageous and selected for during the expansions.

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Razib Khan's avatar

no, you are wrong on the lactose tolerance. we have ancient DNA. in continental europe most of the selection happened 2,000 years ago or later (roman to early medieval!). please update https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-europeans-farmed-dairy-couldn-t-digest-milk

if it's siberian ancestry, you should see variation among han. do you? i'll post the links to the latest breakdowns later

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Aporia's avatar

We tweaked the sentence.

—NC

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David Sun's avatar

I did not see these recent updates on lactase persistence, however for this nonformal magazine post the broad point still stands- that a mutation for lactase persistence can have strong impact on the history of societies. That appears to be that those who were lactose tolerant survived famines and sickness more often than those who weren’t. (Also doesn’t exclude some lower level of positive selection of it in pastoralists?)

By Siberian it means ANEA with cold adapted genes, so including yellow river farmers. Yes it’s like 70-80% in northern Han and 40-50% in southern Han. Malays are like 20% max and South Indians less than that, making it a valid comparison to test for effects of ANEA.

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Razib Khan's avatar

south indians don't have any ANEA. so set that to zero

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Alan Perlo's avatar

Razib is right here, the area of MAJOR lactose tolerance is Ireland, Britain and Scandinavia(95-100%), and it's the result of quite late adaptation to the foggy climate there that limits agricultural yields. Eastern Europeans and North Caucasians with high steppe ancestry have lower levels of lactose tolerance (20-50%).

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Razib Khan's avatar

it started earlier in britain (late bronze age). about 1,000 years later on the continent

so NW -> SE gradient

it's not the steppe expansion but something later

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Jan D's avatar

Forgive me if my comment appears demeaning. It is intended as an affirmation of variations in behavior (among other things) that have a genetic basis in all living things. Man's oldest companion, the dog, also varies in adaptive biology, social structure, aggression, control, and sometimes opposing behaviors. Tropical and desert plants have different needs and behaviors, though of course not as adaptive as mammals. Why this obviously common sense observation should be attacked by some current academics is revealing.

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ReadingRainbow's avatar

Would be curious to see a picture of the violent South African researcher…

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Johannes Mathijs Koenraadt's avatar

This is made up. China needs to claim rights to the Arctic for geopolitical reasons. Next they will "find" ancient Chinese buried in the ice.

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Press F's avatar

What you have said is idiotic and jingoist, and I doubt you have an ounce of investigative instinct.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing-assisted_incline_running

Contemplate this^

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