When we think of Italy, images of awe-inspiring architecture and mouthwatering dishes readily come to mind. Yet the country’s cultural richness is more than just a matter of historical chance.
Congratulations! We should have a name for this use of aDNA to reconstruct human cognitive evolution.
Your findings are consistent with the ancient view that intelligence was higher at medium latitudes and lower in the "cold north" and the "hot south." This view was propounded by a number of classical and early medieval authors, including Aristotle, Sa’id al-Andalusi (1029–1070), Maimonides (1135–1204), and Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) (see Frost, 2019).
Initially, social complexity arose at medium latitudes, essentially a middle zone stretching from the Mediterranean through the Middle East and into South and East Asia. This was where cognitive demands were at their highest, so it is not surprising that cognitive evolution proceeded faster there.
This coevolution between culture and genes then shifted toward northwest Europe. Why? There were ecological reasons, notably desertification and salinization of farmland. The big reason, however, was that the market economy could not develop to its fullest in the middle zone. Economic activity thus remained primarily within the family and with close kin. Because northwest Europeans had a more individualistic mindset, and weaker kin relations, they were able to pursue this coevolution between the market economy and cognitive ability. It was above all the expansion of the market economy that stimulated not only economic growth but also the scientific revolution and a consequent increase in cognitive demands (Frost, 2020).
As Gregory Clark has shown, post-medieval economic growth was driven by the demographic expansion of the middle class, and this expansion shifted the gene pool toward higher cognitive ability, as well as toward lower time preference and reduced propensity toward violence.
One question: in your chart of edu pgs, medieval Romans have about the same mean cognitive ability as do late antiquity Romans. Your earlier paper (in OpenPsych), however, showed a rise in mean cognitive ability between late antiquity and the medieval period. Is this because the dataset is not the same?
Clark, G. (2009b). The domestication of Man: The social implications of Darwin. ArtefaCTos 2(1): 64-80. https://core.ac.uk/reader/9499470
Clark, G. (2007). A Farewell to Alms. A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Frost, P. (2019). The Original Industrial Revolution. Did Cold Winters Select for Cognitive Ability? Psych 1(1): 166-181. https://doi.org/10.3390/psych1010012
Frost, P. (2020). The large society problem in Northwest Europe and East Asia. Advances in Anthropology 10(3): 214-134. https://doi.org/10.4236/aa.2020.103012
Thanks for the comments. To answer your question, my OpenPsych paper shows the same level for Medieval and Late Antiquity Romans. The boxplot is kinda misleading because the horizontal line shows the median value, not the mean. In table 1 you can see that Medieval and Late Antiquity are the same.
If there is a significant difference between the mean and the median, you are using skewed data. In that kind of situation, you should be using the median, not the mean.
Evolution is an ongoing process. In Europe, mean cognitive ability rose to its highest levels among northwest Europeans in the late 19th century. Previously, in Renaissance times, those levels were probably highest in Italy. Since 1900, there has been regressive evolution from one generation to the next, so I'm no longer sure that mean cognitive ability follows a simple north-south gradient in Europe.
In Asia, mean cognitive ability is highest in the Confucian cultures of China, Korea, and Japan. It is significantly lower among the indigenous peoples of north Asia. Again, mean cognitive ability doesn't seem to follow a simple north-south gradient.
References
Frost, P. (2019). The Original Industrial Revolution. Did Cold Winters Select for Cognitive Ability? Psych 1(1): 166-181. https://doi.org/10.3390/psych1010012
Frost, P. (2022). The Great Decline. Peter Frost's Newsletter, December.
The idea that WEIRD societies shifts with protestantism, causing a change in culture, causing a change in selection is something I hadn't considered indepthly before. Gave me quite a startle thinking that humans may be selectively breeding wokely now rather than based on normal environmental pressures. I thought WEIRD evolved somewhat naturally, alongside reading, didn't consider that similar to intelligence in Scandinavian cold climates, that the cultural values imposed hypothetically from genetic variance may be selected for amongst other groups. That the changes in human culture we are experiencing may be bred for or not. Interesting piece.
As a fellow Italian, I can't help finding the article quite flattering, though maybe a little self-indulgent.
Yet I am obliged to clarify we didn't really invent pasta: it came to us from China and we spread it worldwide with our own tweaks to the recipe.
Much like Covid!
False: Chinese spaghetti and Italian ones (the only kind of "pasta" in common between Italy and China) are an example of multiple discovery.
The only polygenic score unique of Italy is this kind of self racism.
I know of two conflicting theories: one says it was first imported by Marco Polo and the other traces something like pasta back to the Etruscans.
I'm happy to be fact-checked, but relax. My comment was in no way meant to be self-deprecating. Just humorous. 😁
Congratulations! We should have a name for this use of aDNA to reconstruct human cognitive evolution.
Your findings are consistent with the ancient view that intelligence was higher at medium latitudes and lower in the "cold north" and the "hot south." This view was propounded by a number of classical and early medieval authors, including Aristotle, Sa’id al-Andalusi (1029–1070), Maimonides (1135–1204), and Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) (see Frost, 2019).
Initially, social complexity arose at medium latitudes, essentially a middle zone stretching from the Mediterranean through the Middle East and into South and East Asia. This was where cognitive demands were at their highest, so it is not surprising that cognitive evolution proceeded faster there.
This coevolution between culture and genes then shifted toward northwest Europe. Why? There were ecological reasons, notably desertification and salinization of farmland. The big reason, however, was that the market economy could not develop to its fullest in the middle zone. Economic activity thus remained primarily within the family and with close kin. Because northwest Europeans had a more individualistic mindset, and weaker kin relations, they were able to pursue this coevolution between the market economy and cognitive ability. It was above all the expansion of the market economy that stimulated not only economic growth but also the scientific revolution and a consequent increase in cognitive demands (Frost, 2020).
As Gregory Clark has shown, post-medieval economic growth was driven by the demographic expansion of the middle class, and this expansion shifted the gene pool toward higher cognitive ability, as well as toward lower time preference and reduced propensity toward violence.
One question: in your chart of edu pgs, medieval Romans have about the same mean cognitive ability as do late antiquity Romans. Your earlier paper (in OpenPsych), however, showed a rise in mean cognitive ability between late antiquity and the medieval period. Is this because the dataset is not the same?
References
Clark, G. (2009a). The indicted and the wealthy: surnames, reproductive success, genetic selection and social class in pre-industrial England. http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/Farewell%20to%20Alms/Clark%20-Surnames.pdf
Clark, G. (2009b). The domestication of Man: The social implications of Darwin. ArtefaCTos 2(1): 64-80. https://core.ac.uk/reader/9499470
Clark, G. (2007). A Farewell to Alms. A Brief Economic History of the World. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Frost, P. (2019). The Original Industrial Revolution. Did Cold Winters Select for Cognitive Ability? Psych 1(1): 166-181. https://doi.org/10.3390/psych1010012
Frost, P. (2020). The large society problem in Northwest Europe and East Asia. Advances in Anthropology 10(3): 214-134. https://doi.org/10.4236/aa.2020.103012
Thanks for the comments. To answer your question, my OpenPsych paper shows the same level for Medieval and Late Antiquity Romans. The boxplot is kinda misleading because the horizontal line shows the median value, not the mean. In table 1 you can see that Medieval and Late Antiquity are the same.
If there is a significant difference between the mean and the median, you are using skewed data. In that kind of situation, you should be using the median, not the mean.
Evolution is an ongoing process. In Europe, mean cognitive ability rose to its highest levels among northwest Europeans in the late 19th century. Previously, in Renaissance times, those levels were probably highest in Italy. Since 1900, there has been regressive evolution from one generation to the next, so I'm no longer sure that mean cognitive ability follows a simple north-south gradient in Europe.
In Asia, mean cognitive ability is highest in the Confucian cultures of China, Korea, and Japan. It is significantly lower among the indigenous peoples of north Asia. Again, mean cognitive ability doesn't seem to follow a simple north-south gradient.
References
Frost, P. (2019). The Original Industrial Revolution. Did Cold Winters Select for Cognitive Ability? Psych 1(1): 166-181. https://doi.org/10.3390/psych1010012
Frost, P. (2022). The Great Decline. Peter Frost's Newsletter, December.
https://peterfrost.substack.com/p/the-great-decline
The idea that WEIRD societies shifts with protestantism, causing a change in culture, causing a change in selection is something I hadn't considered indepthly before. Gave me quite a startle thinking that humans may be selectively breeding wokely now rather than based on normal environmental pressures. I thought WEIRD evolved somewhat naturally, alongside reading, didn't consider that similar to intelligence in Scandinavian cold climates, that the cultural values imposed hypothetically from genetic variance may be selected for amongst other groups. That the changes in human culture we are experiencing may be bred for or not. Interesting piece.