Dennett’s Literary (platonic) Explanation of Consciousness Is a Pseudoscientific Interpretation https://propertarianism.com/2020/05/25/dennetts-literary-platonic-explanation-of-consciousness-is-a-pseudoscientific-interpretation/
Source date (UTC): 2020-05-25 15:54:13 UTC
Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1264947892424519681
Jan 30, 2020, 4:12 PM
—“I think Daniel Dennet regards consciousness as purely illusory which I have not in the past found comprehensible.”– A Friend
I think Dennett’s literary (platonic) explanation of consciousness is a pseudoscientific interpretation of the information we have at our disposal, but that I can interpret what he’s saying as simply primitive or romantic, or platonic narration of what is better explained in engineering terms. To say consciousness illusory makes no sense if Dennett means false. I don’t know what he means unless he is using a definition or standard that is nonsensical – and I think that’s the case. The experience we refer to as consciousness exists as experience that we can recall. But, instead of reforming philosophy and defining the term scientifically, he’s not reforming the term as it’s used in philosophy and therefor saying it’s illusory. I do the opposite and reform the term in philosophy as an error, and define it operationally (scientifically). In P what we do is reform all terms in all disciplines so that they are universally commensurable across all disciplines – or falsified. Operationally, predictions of fragments compete for attention and those that persist (aren’t falsified) cohere (survive) into what we consider experience. As far as I know we know the physical structure of the brain, how information is processed across, how coherence is produced by it, how memories are formed by it, and how attention is directed to control it, and what motivates(causes) our attention – at least at sufficiently to explain it in terms that are understandable as a mechanical process. the only difficult concept to explain is how our experience is coalesced into a stream of experience and momentary recursive comparison of changes in that memory – really, really, fast in real time. It’s so wonderful that it works that it’s terrifying. I think one of the aspects of mental existence we have no name for yet that we need to is the degree to which we grant precedence to sense(intuition), imagination(self), empathy (others, social), or reason (the analytic) – and whether we can even switch between them. Or put another way – the degree to which people are able to distinguish between an imaginary and non-correspondent perception of existence, and a predictive and correspondent perception of existence, and the priority we give to the sensory-emotional, physical, social, operational, or empirical experience of the world. It is very hard for me to imagine the world of hindus and muslims and not at all difficult the chinese or africans – even africans who still believe in magic. The degree of illusion created by mythologies somewhat amazes me and the addiction to these mythologies is something I have finally come to understand – it’s a very high cost to correct them. this is why theological abrahamism must never take root.
Jan 30, 2020, 4:12 PM
—“I think Daniel Dennet regards consciousness as purely illusory which I have not in the past found comprehensible.”– A Friend
I think Dennett’s literary (platonic) explanation of consciousness is a pseudoscientific interpretation of the information we have at our disposal, but that I can interpret what he’s saying as simply primitive or romantic, or platonic narration of what is better explained in engineering terms. To say consciousness illusory makes no sense if Dennett means false. I don’t know what he means unless he is using a definition or standard that is nonsensical – and I think that’s the case. The experience we refer to as consciousness exists as experience that we can recall. But, instead of reforming philosophy and defining the term scientifically, he’s not reforming the term as it’s used in philosophy and therefor saying it’s illusory. I do the opposite and reform the term in philosophy as an error, and define it operationally (scientifically). In P what we do is reform all terms in all disciplines so that they are universally commensurable across all disciplines – or falsified. Operationally, predictions of fragments compete for attention and those that persist (aren’t falsified) cohere (survive) into what we consider experience. As far as I know we know the physical structure of the brain, how information is processed across, how coherence is produced by it, how memories are formed by it, and how attention is directed to control it, and what motivates(causes) our attention – at least at sufficiently to explain it in terms that are understandable as a mechanical process. the only difficult concept to explain is how our experience is coalesced into a stream of experience and momentary recursive comparison of changes in that memory – really, really, fast in real time. It’s so wonderful that it works that it’s terrifying. I think one of the aspects of mental existence we have no name for yet that we need to is the degree to which we grant precedence to sense(intuition), imagination(self), empathy (others, social), or reason (the analytic) – and whether we can even switch between them. Or put another way – the degree to which people are able to distinguish between an imaginary and non-correspondent perception of existence, and a predictive and correspondent perception of existence, and the priority we give to the sensory-emotional, physical, social, operational, or empirical experience of the world. It is very hard for me to imagine the world of hindus and muslims and not at all difficult the chinese or africans – even africans who still believe in magic. The degree of illusion created by mythologies somewhat amazes me and the addiction to these mythologies is something I have finally come to understand – it’s a very high cost to correct them. this is why theological abrahamism must never take root.
( See also “Lewontin’s Fallacy” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genetic_Diversity:_Lewontin%27s_Fallacy ) A common argument against the taxonomic validity of race is that there is more genetic variation within than between races and so races must not be genetically different enough to be subspecies. This argument comes from a 1972 paper by the Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin (Lewontin 1972). As will be shown, Lewotin’s argument fails because the metric of genetic differences he used has no obvious relevance to subspecies and because human races are equally or more genetically differentiated than recognized subspecies from other species are. To understand Lewontin’s argument you have to have a conceptual grasp of a metric used in population genetics called an Fst value. Say we take two random animals from the species and look at what variant they have for some specific gene. There will be some probability, called the species’s total heterozygosity, that these gene variants will not be the same. Now say we do the same thing, but this time the two people are picked from the same sub-population within the species. This time the probability that their genes variants will not be the same will be called the sub-population heterozygosity. To calculate an Fst value you subtract a the sub-population heterozygosity from the total heterozygosity and then divide by the total heterozygosity: Fst = (Ht-Hs)/Ht In other words, an Fst value tells us how much the probability of picking different gene variants increases is the gene variants are picked at random from the entire species instead of the same sub-population. When calculating an Fst value, geneticists run this analysis for many genes and then find the average increase in heterozygosity. When an Fst value is calculated for a species with multiple proposed sub-populations the values are averaged. So, for instance, if we conducted a study and found that two people having different gene variants was 10% less likely if they were both picked randomly from the Asian population instead of humanity at large, 8% less likely if they were both from the European population instead of humanity at large, and 6% less likely if they were picked from the African population rather than humanity at large, we might assign humanity an Fst value of (10%+8%+6%)/3% = 8% under this 3 race model. And this is what we would mean if we said something like “Only 8% of human genetic variation is between races while 92% is within them”. (The proportion of variation within groups is just 1 – the Fst value.) In 1972, Richard Lewontin became the first person to empirically measure the human Fst value and found it to be 6.3%. Based on this finding, Lewontin declared that categorizing humans racially has no “genetic or taxonomic significance”. Unfortunately, Lewontin never explained why an Fst value of 6.3% should mean races have no taxonomic or genetic significance. And it isn’t obvious that it should. In fact, Sewall Wright, a founder of population genetics and the man who invented Fst values, thought that they had nothing to do measuring taxonomic significance and continued to believe in Human races long after Lewontin’s famous article (Wright 1984). That Lewontin’s idea never took hold in the world of biology can be seen by looking at a 2006 report be the U.S Geological Survey which reviewed more than a century of popular proposed criteria for when a population counts as a sub-species. It never mentioned Fst values let alone Lewontin’s paper (Haig et al. 2006). Since Lewontin’s paper, research has suggested that the Human Fst value is actually about twice as large, 12%, as what Lewontin suggested (Elhaik 2012). This has not altered the stance of Lewontin on races. Indeed, it isn’t obvious that his stance is open to changing because he has never said how high an Fst value would need to be in-order for a population to be of taxonomic signficance. Instead, he has just said that the human Fst value is too low. Furthermore, Lewontin has never addressed the fact that there are many species with recognized subspecies which have Fst values lower than Humans. As can be seen below, I was easily able to find 8 other species with recognized subspecies which have Fst values no higher than humans. In fact, it isn’t hard to find researchers in the nonhuman literature taking any Fst value greater than zero as evidence that a population is a subspecies. See, for instance, Lorenzen et al. 2007 and Williams, Homan, Johnston, and Linz, 2004. Given this, it is clear that most biologists do not use Lewontin’s criteria, whatever exactly that is, for subspecies. And given that he has never made any argument for using it, neither should we. Instead, many biologists use a criteria of subspecies based, in part, on the idea that a population can only be a subspecies if you can analyze the traits of an organism in that species and accurately predict whether or not it is a member of a proposed subspecies. Based on this traditional understanding of subspecies taxonomy, multiple geneticists have pointed out that an Fst value of 6% is just the average increased probability of a single gene being different and that, by combining data from multiple genes at once into our analysis, we can very accurately predict whether or not someone will be a member of a given race (Mitton 1977). To get a conceptual understanding of what this means, imagine that you were told to guess whether a person was a male or a female based on whether they were taller or shorter than average, or hairier or less hairy than average, or whether their voice was higher or lower pitched than average, etc. If only one of these facts were told to you, you could make an educated guess but there would be a decent chance that you would be wrong. But if you combined data on, say, 20 such sex differences, your chances of correctly guessing the person’s sex would become quite high. By the same principle, a singe gene might not be a very good predictor of someone’s race, but that doesn’t mean that the combined data of many genes wont be. It was on this basis that the famed population genetic A. W. F. Edwards dubbed this argument against race “Lewontin’s Fallacy” (Edwards 2002). Further more, an Fst value is not even a good measure of genetic differentiation. Consider the work done in Long and Kittles 2003, which provided a powerful demonstration of just how ridiculous an Fst subspecies criteria really is. Long and Kittles calculated the Fst value of the global human population at 11%, which is pretty typical of modern studies. They then calculated the Fst value of the global human population plus a population of chimpanzees to be 16%. Thus, the inclusion of Chimpanzees into the calculation only raised the Fst value by 5%, and most Fst based subspecies criteria would therefore conclude that a population of humans and chimps has no significantly different sub populations within it! This work is not only amusing, but illustrative of the primary problem with Fst values as a measure of genetic differentiation. Recall that an Fst value tells us how much more likely it is two gene variants will be different if they are picked out of the entire species instead of from member of the same race. Well, what if the probability that they will be different is really high even when the genes are picked from the same race. Say, 85%, for instance. Well, in that case the most that the probability of picking different genes could increase would be by 15%, which is only an Fst value of .15. More generally, the table below makes two points. First, for simple mathematical reasons, an Fst value can never be larger than one minus the sub-population heterozygosity. Second, because an Fst value is a measure of how much heterozygosity increases when gene variants are picked from the entire population rather than the same population, expressed as a percentage of the total heterozygosity, the same absolute difference between total and sub-population heterozygosity can lead to radically different Fst values depending on what the absolute values of these variables are: To connect this back to humans, our sub-population heterozygsity levels range from .70-.76 (Jorde et al. 1997). Thus, no matter how different the races were, our Fst value could never be greater than roughly 25%. Each race could literally be as different, genetically speaking, as dogs are from cats. It wouldn’t matter. Our Fst value would never seem intuitively high. and most of our genetic variation would still be contained “within races”. For these and other reasons, geneticists are increasingly recognizing that Fst values cannot be meaningfully compared across species, which have different total heterozygosities, and so, beyond testing that an Fst value is greater than zero, it cannot possibly be the foundation for criteria of sub-species (Jost 2008). Appendix 1: Alan Templeton and Fst > .25 A highly cited 1999 paper by the geneticist Alan Templeton claimed that requiring that a subspecies have an Fst value of at least 25%-30% is “standard in the nonhuman literature” (Templeton 1999). Templeton, who uses this claim to argue against the existence of human races, cites the 1997 paper “Subspecies and Classification” by Smith, Chiszar, and Montanucci, to substantiate that this Fst standard is common place in biology (Smith, Chiszar, and Montanucci, 1997.). But Smith et al. 1997 never even mentions Fst values! It appears that Templeton assumed that this is what Smith et al 1997 meant when they wrote that subspecies cannot “overlap in variation of their differentiae” by more than 25%-30%. This is almost surely not a reference to Fst values. Instead, this paper was referencing the so called “75% rule”, which is criteria of subspecies which stated that a population would count as a sub-speices if you could analyze the traits of organisms in the species and, on this basis, predict whether or not they were a member of the proposed subspecies with an error rate of 25% or less. There are several reasons for thinking that Smith et al. 1997 were referring to the 75% rule and not an Fst based criteria for subspecies: They referred to “differentia” implying that multiple traits can be used to differentiate subspecies. This is consistent with the 75% rule, several observable traits were the norm, and not an Fst value criterion. Smith et al. 1997 goes on to state “A subspecies name draws attention to a geographic segment of a species that in some way is recognizably different”. This appeal to recognizable differences clearly implies that subspecies are differentiated based on observable traits, as in the 75% rule, and not a molecular genetic analysis. As demonstrated by Haig et al. 2006, large teams of researchers reviewing the subspecies literature have never heard of Templeton’s Fst criteria. Haig et al do, however, spend several paragraphs talking about the 75% rule. As is evidenced above, an Fst criteria is not, in fact, commonly used. But the 75% rule was. Given that Smith is an expert in subspecies taxonomy who has been writing on the topic for decades, it is therefore far more likely that he was talking about the 75% rule than Templeton’s contrived criteria which can’t be found anywhere else in the literature. Thus, Templeton’s paper is based on an extremely misleading reading of Smith et al 1997 and fails to establish any Fst criteria for subspecies. Appendix 2: Joseph Graves and Sewall Wright Joseph Graves is a biologist who has written several books and countless articles arguing against the biological existence of races. In his writings he often says something such as this about Sewall Wright, the inventor of Fst values: “Wright felt the latter, measured by Fst was equivalent to the subspecies used by taxonomists (also called biological or geographical race.) Population subdivision can be calculated at individual genetic loci or for numerous genetic loci simultaneously. Wright’s statistic can range between 0 and 1.00. He arbitrarily suggested that the minimal threshold for the existence of great variation was Fst = 0.250 and moderate variation Fst = 0.15 to 0.250. He examined individual loci derived from protein electrophoresis from a variety of species, finding a range of differentiation from 0.023 to 0.501 (average Fst= 0.168). Subsequent studies of multiple loci, including whole genome analyses, have generally shown human Fst at much less than Wright’s critical value.” –Graves 2006 As we have already seen, Sewall Wright did not think that Fst values should be a criteria for sub-species. He literally dedicates an entire chapter two the fourth volume of his X to race and never mentions Fst values, not does he anywhere else state that they should be used as a criteria for subspecies. In fact, on page 85 Wright cautions readers against using Fst values as a straight forward measure of genetic differentiation: We will take F = 0.25 as an arbitrary value above which there is very great differentiation, the range of 0.15 to 0.25 as indicating moderately great differentiation. Differentiation is, however, by no means negligible if F is as small as 0.05 or even less” – Wright 1984 Thus, Graves is misleading readers by separating these two sentences, only showing his readers the first, and thus stripping it of its proper context. Wright’s views do not, in fact, lend credence to the idea that human races do no exist. source: https://thealternativehypothesis.org/index.php/2016/04/15/variation-within-and-between-races
( See also “Lewontin’s Fallacy” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genetic_Diversity:_Lewontin%27s_Fallacy ) A common argument against the taxonomic validity of race is that there is more genetic variation within than between races and so races must not be genetically different enough to be subspecies. This argument comes from a 1972 paper by the Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin (Lewontin 1972). As will be shown, Lewotin’s argument fails because the metric of genetic differences he used has no obvious relevance to subspecies and because human races are equally or more genetically differentiated than recognized subspecies from other species are. To understand Lewontin’s argument you have to have a conceptual grasp of a metric used in population genetics called an Fst value. Say we take two random animals from the species and look at what variant they have for some specific gene. There will be some probability, called the species’s total heterozygosity, that these gene variants will not be the same. Now say we do the same thing, but this time the two people are picked from the same sub-population within the species. This time the probability that their genes variants will not be the same will be called the sub-population heterozygosity. To calculate an Fst value you subtract a the sub-population heterozygosity from the total heterozygosity and then divide by the total heterozygosity: Fst = (Ht-Hs)/Ht In other words, an Fst value tells us how much the probability of picking different gene variants increases is the gene variants are picked at random from the entire species instead of the same sub-population. When calculating an Fst value, geneticists run this analysis for many genes and then find the average increase in heterozygosity. When an Fst value is calculated for a species with multiple proposed sub-populations the values are averaged. So, for instance, if we conducted a study and found that two people having different gene variants was 10% less likely if they were both picked randomly from the Asian population instead of humanity at large, 8% less likely if they were both from the European population instead of humanity at large, and 6% less likely if they were picked from the African population rather than humanity at large, we might assign humanity an Fst value of (10%+8%+6%)/3% = 8% under this 3 race model. And this is what we would mean if we said something like “Only 8% of human genetic variation is between races while 92% is within them”. (The proportion of variation within groups is just 1 – the Fst value.) In 1972, Richard Lewontin became the first person to empirically measure the human Fst value and found it to be 6.3%. Based on this finding, Lewontin declared that categorizing humans racially has no “genetic or taxonomic significance”. Unfortunately, Lewontin never explained why an Fst value of 6.3% should mean races have no taxonomic or genetic significance. And it isn’t obvious that it should. In fact, Sewall Wright, a founder of population genetics and the man who invented Fst values, thought that they had nothing to do measuring taxonomic significance and continued to believe in Human races long after Lewontin’s famous article (Wright 1984). That Lewontin’s idea never took hold in the world of biology can be seen by looking at a 2006 report be the U.S Geological Survey which reviewed more than a century of popular proposed criteria for when a population counts as a sub-species. It never mentioned Fst values let alone Lewontin’s paper (Haig et al. 2006). Since Lewontin’s paper, research has suggested that the Human Fst value is actually about twice as large, 12%, as what Lewontin suggested (Elhaik 2012). This has not altered the stance of Lewontin on races. Indeed, it isn’t obvious that his stance is open to changing because he has never said how high an Fst value would need to be in-order for a population to be of taxonomic signficance. Instead, he has just said that the human Fst value is too low. Furthermore, Lewontin has never addressed the fact that there are many species with recognized subspecies which have Fst values lower than Humans. As can be seen below, I was easily able to find 8 other species with recognized subspecies which have Fst values no higher than humans. In fact, it isn’t hard to find researchers in the nonhuman literature taking any Fst value greater than zero as evidence that a population is a subspecies. See, for instance, Lorenzen et al. 2007 and Williams, Homan, Johnston, and Linz, 2004. Given this, it is clear that most biologists do not use Lewontin’s criteria, whatever exactly that is, for subspecies. And given that he has never made any argument for using it, neither should we. Instead, many biologists use a criteria of subspecies based, in part, on the idea that a population can only be a subspecies if you can analyze the traits of an organism in that species and accurately predict whether or not it is a member of a proposed subspecies. Based on this traditional understanding of subspecies taxonomy, multiple geneticists have pointed out that an Fst value of 6% is just the average increased probability of a single gene being different and that, by combining data from multiple genes at once into our analysis, we can very accurately predict whether or not someone will be a member of a given race (Mitton 1977). To get a conceptual understanding of what this means, imagine that you were told to guess whether a person was a male or a female based on whether they were taller or shorter than average, or hairier or less hairy than average, or whether their voice was higher or lower pitched than average, etc. If only one of these facts were told to you, you could make an educated guess but there would be a decent chance that you would be wrong. But if you combined data on, say, 20 such sex differences, your chances of correctly guessing the person’s sex would become quite high. By the same principle, a singe gene might not be a very good predictor of someone’s race, but that doesn’t mean that the combined data of many genes wont be. It was on this basis that the famed population genetic A. W. F. Edwards dubbed this argument against race “Lewontin’s Fallacy” (Edwards 2002). Further more, an Fst value is not even a good measure of genetic differentiation. Consider the work done in Long and Kittles 2003, which provided a powerful demonstration of just how ridiculous an Fst subspecies criteria really is. Long and Kittles calculated the Fst value of the global human population at 11%, which is pretty typical of modern studies. They then calculated the Fst value of the global human population plus a population of chimpanzees to be 16%. Thus, the inclusion of Chimpanzees into the calculation only raised the Fst value by 5%, and most Fst based subspecies criteria would therefore conclude that a population of humans and chimps has no significantly different sub populations within it! This work is not only amusing, but illustrative of the primary problem with Fst values as a measure of genetic differentiation. Recall that an Fst value tells us how much more likely it is two gene variants will be different if they are picked out of the entire species instead of from member of the same race. Well, what if the probability that they will be different is really high even when the genes are picked from the same race. Say, 85%, for instance. Well, in that case the most that the probability of picking different genes could increase would be by 15%, which is only an Fst value of .15. More generally, the table below makes two points. First, for simple mathematical reasons, an Fst value can never be larger than one minus the sub-population heterozygosity. Second, because an Fst value is a measure of how much heterozygosity increases when gene variants are picked from the entire population rather than the same population, expressed as a percentage of the total heterozygosity, the same absolute difference between total and sub-population heterozygosity can lead to radically different Fst values depending on what the absolute values of these variables are: To connect this back to humans, our sub-population heterozygsity levels range from .70-.76 (Jorde et al. 1997). Thus, no matter how different the races were, our Fst value could never be greater than roughly 25%. Each race could literally be as different, genetically speaking, as dogs are from cats. It wouldn’t matter. Our Fst value would never seem intuitively high. and most of our genetic variation would still be contained “within races”. For these and other reasons, geneticists are increasingly recognizing that Fst values cannot be meaningfully compared across species, which have different total heterozygosities, and so, beyond testing that an Fst value is greater than zero, it cannot possibly be the foundation for criteria of sub-species (Jost 2008). Appendix 1: Alan Templeton and Fst > .25 A highly cited 1999 paper by the geneticist Alan Templeton claimed that requiring that a subspecies have an Fst value of at least 25%-30% is “standard in the nonhuman literature” (Templeton 1999). Templeton, who uses this claim to argue against the existence of human races, cites the 1997 paper “Subspecies and Classification” by Smith, Chiszar, and Montanucci, to substantiate that this Fst standard is common place in biology (Smith, Chiszar, and Montanucci, 1997.). But Smith et al. 1997 never even mentions Fst values! It appears that Templeton assumed that this is what Smith et al 1997 meant when they wrote that subspecies cannot “overlap in variation of their differentiae” by more than 25%-30%. This is almost surely not a reference to Fst values. Instead, this paper was referencing the so called “75% rule”, which is criteria of subspecies which stated that a population would count as a sub-speices if you could analyze the traits of organisms in the species and, on this basis, predict whether or not they were a member of the proposed subspecies with an error rate of 25% or less. There are several reasons for thinking that Smith et al. 1997 were referring to the 75% rule and not an Fst based criteria for subspecies: They referred to “differentia” implying that multiple traits can be used to differentiate subspecies. This is consistent with the 75% rule, several observable traits were the norm, and not an Fst value criterion. Smith et al. 1997 goes on to state “A subspecies name draws attention to a geographic segment of a species that in some way is recognizably different”. This appeal to recognizable differences clearly implies that subspecies are differentiated based on observable traits, as in the 75% rule, and not a molecular genetic analysis. As demonstrated by Haig et al. 2006, large teams of researchers reviewing the subspecies literature have never heard of Templeton’s Fst criteria. Haig et al do, however, spend several paragraphs talking about the 75% rule. As is evidenced above, an Fst criteria is not, in fact, commonly used. But the 75% rule was. Given that Smith is an expert in subspecies taxonomy who has been writing on the topic for decades, it is therefore far more likely that he was talking about the 75% rule than Templeton’s contrived criteria which can’t be found anywhere else in the literature. Thus, Templeton’s paper is based on an extremely misleading reading of Smith et al 1997 and fails to establish any Fst criteria for subspecies. Appendix 2: Joseph Graves and Sewall Wright Joseph Graves is a biologist who has written several books and countless articles arguing against the biological existence of races. In his writings he often says something such as this about Sewall Wright, the inventor of Fst values: “Wright felt the latter, measured by Fst was equivalent to the subspecies used by taxonomists (also called biological or geographical race.) Population subdivision can be calculated at individual genetic loci or for numerous genetic loci simultaneously. Wright’s statistic can range between 0 and 1.00. He arbitrarily suggested that the minimal threshold for the existence of great variation was Fst = 0.250 and moderate variation Fst = 0.15 to 0.250. He examined individual loci derived from protein electrophoresis from a variety of species, finding a range of differentiation from 0.023 to 0.501 (average Fst= 0.168). Subsequent studies of multiple loci, including whole genome analyses, have generally shown human Fst at much less than Wright’s critical value.” –Graves 2006 As we have already seen, Sewall Wright did not think that Fst values should be a criteria for sub-species. He literally dedicates an entire chapter two the fourth volume of his X to race and never mentions Fst values, not does he anywhere else state that they should be used as a criteria for subspecies. In fact, on page 85 Wright cautions readers against using Fst values as a straight forward measure of genetic differentiation: We will take F = 0.25 as an arbitrary value above which there is very great differentiation, the range of 0.15 to 0.25 as indicating moderately great differentiation. Differentiation is, however, by no means negligible if F is as small as 0.05 or even less” – Wright 1984 Thus, Graves is misleading readers by separating these two sentences, only showing his readers the first, and thus stripping it of its proper context. Wright’s views do not, in fact, lend credence to the idea that human races do no exist. source: https://thealternativehypothesis.org/index.php/2016/04/15/variation-within-and-between-races
Göran Dahl Simon Ström So is the data settled now? 1) The European-aryan branch spread west and down into and across Europe. 2) The Hitite-aryan branch spread south either thru the caucuses or by water on the coastal route (black sea). 3) the iranian-aryan branch spread north above the caucuses, above the aral sea, then back down into present day iran. 4) The Indian peoples were a mix of west eurasians from present day Iran and earlier local (afro-asiatic?) hunter gatherers. The indo-aryan branch spread into the weak(drought) Indus river peoples and either caused or completed their fall. For all intents and purpose they outbred and are now extinct? 5) The (which branch) that spread east to the yellow-river of china is now extinct? 6) Every group appears to spread by male outbreeding? by Goran Dahl 1) If by Aryan you’re referring to Indo-Iranians, they came from the West originally. More specifically, the Eastern border of the Corded Ware culture, from which they are derived, i.e. Russo-Ukraine. 2) The proto-Hittites most likely spread West from the Sredny Stog culture, and then went South via the Balkans. Sredny Stog -> Usatovo -> Ezero into Anatolia, in a crescent-like pattern following the outline of the western coastline of the Black Sea. 3) The Indo-Iranians go from Eastern Europe–their point of origin–to Central Asia, and from there on to Northeast Asia and down to the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex in Afghanistan. From the BMAC, they go down into Iran and India. 4) The Indian peoples are a mix of Indo-Iranians (Steppe_MLBA), IVC people who were closely related to Iranian farmers (Iran_Neolithic) but were nevertheless a separate line, and people who were similar to the Andamanese (hence the dark skin and Australoid features). The Indo-Iranians outbred, as always. 5) Two branches reached the periphery of China: the Tocharian branch derived from the Afanasievo culture, and the Indo-Iranians (Tarim Basin mummies, Yuezhi). The Mongols of Genghis Khan’s period had significant Indo-Iranian or general North European-like admixture, and Tocharian-derived R1b clades were more widespread in their gene pool based on the samples we have available. Nowadays, local East Asian haplogroups dominate the lineages of modern Mongols to a larger extent. So it seems as though Mongols have admixture from both Indo-Iranians and the ever mysterious, elusive Tocharians. Indo-Iranians seem to have occupied all of Central Asia along with certain Chinese regions. 6) Yeah, basically. by Simon Ström Nothing of consequence has changed in this regard during the past couple of years, AFAIK. A boiling point of technological innovations was reached ~6kya causing a deluge of human mobility emanating from the Pontic-Caspian steppe. Hittites descend from the first group to split from the coherent PIE language community, that we can trace linguistically. We conjecture that they traveled via the Balkan coast becoming lords of the collapsing Old European sedentary civilization in the process, which was among the richest and most developed parts of the world at the time (imagine them like the Aztecs). The PIEs projected in several directions and waves; proto-Tocharians were likely harbored by the Afanasievo culture in Siberia–essentially a twin culture of Yamnaya–that needs separate mention because they seem to have have expanded into a demographic void in Siberia, branching off just before the next key development. A period of chaos, disease and dramatic shifts on the “western front” of early PIE movements eventually brought a new political and social order upon Europe, also transcending Yamnaya and related prior cultures. A brief period of remarkable cultural homogeneity across Eurosiberia with evidence of large-scale interconnectedness in terms of movement and kinship (Corded Ware culture et al; Late PIE) coincided with an equilibration of formerly distinct “east” and “west” European gene pools (both of which were originally derived from variants of primordial h-gs and Near Eastern farmer-pastoralists having pushed north). This marks the ethnogenesis of modern white people in terms of autosomal DNA and uniparental markers in broad strokes, as the resultant genetic structure is largely intact in northern and central Europe. Then, mobility seems to have decreased again and uniformity necessarily faded. Various lineages began to differentiate into distinct cultures harboring the remaining known Indo-European languages (Nordic Bronze Age/Germanic, bronze age Brits speaking an undocumented language, Celts in central Europe and their Italic cousins and proto-Greek tribes moving south, and a “satem” group splitting into Balto-Slavs and early Indo-Iranians somewhere in eastern Europe ~4.5kya, officially ending what we define as the Proto-Indo-European language period. Göran explained well what happened with the Indo-Iranians as they expanded from south of the Urals. They were essentially very successful but drowned genetically as they inherited the prior Indus valley and Iranian plateau civilizations–however markers of their paternal ancestry are dominant to this day. In central Asia, a lot of mixing and displacement subsequently occurred with the rise of Turco-Mongols beginning in the Iron/Late Bronze Age.
Göran Dahl Simon Ström So is the data settled now? 1) The European-aryan branch spread west and down into and across Europe. 2) The Hitite-aryan branch spread south either thru the caucuses or by water on the coastal route (black sea). 3) the iranian-aryan branch spread north above the caucuses, above the aral sea, then back down into present day iran. 4) The Indian peoples were a mix of west eurasians from present day Iran and earlier local (afro-asiatic?) hunter gatherers. The indo-aryan branch spread into the weak(drought) Indus river peoples and either caused or completed their fall. For all intents and purpose they outbred and are now extinct? 5) The (which branch) that spread east to the yellow-river of china is now extinct? 6) Every group appears to spread by male outbreeding? by Goran Dahl 1) If by Aryan you’re referring to Indo-Iranians, they came from the West originally. More specifically, the Eastern border of the Corded Ware culture, from which they are derived, i.e. Russo-Ukraine. 2) The proto-Hittites most likely spread West from the Sredny Stog culture, and then went South via the Balkans. Sredny Stog -> Usatovo -> Ezero into Anatolia, in a crescent-like pattern following the outline of the western coastline of the Black Sea. 3) The Indo-Iranians go from Eastern Europe–their point of origin–to Central Asia, and from there on to Northeast Asia and down to the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex in Afghanistan. From the BMAC, they go down into Iran and India. 4) The Indian peoples are a mix of Indo-Iranians (Steppe_MLBA), IVC people who were closely related to Iranian farmers (Iran_Neolithic) but were nevertheless a separate line, and people who were similar to the Andamanese (hence the dark skin and Australoid features). The Indo-Iranians outbred, as always. 5) Two branches reached the periphery of China: the Tocharian branch derived from the Afanasievo culture, and the Indo-Iranians (Tarim Basin mummies, Yuezhi). The Mongols of Genghis Khan’s period had significant Indo-Iranian or general North European-like admixture, and Tocharian-derived R1b clades were more widespread in their gene pool based on the samples we have available. Nowadays, local East Asian haplogroups dominate the lineages of modern Mongols to a larger extent. So it seems as though Mongols have admixture from both Indo-Iranians and the ever mysterious, elusive Tocharians. Indo-Iranians seem to have occupied all of Central Asia along with certain Chinese regions. 6) Yeah, basically. by Simon Ström Nothing of consequence has changed in this regard during the past couple of years, AFAIK. A boiling point of technological innovations was reached ~6kya causing a deluge of human mobility emanating from the Pontic-Caspian steppe. Hittites descend from the first group to split from the coherent PIE language community, that we can trace linguistically. We conjecture that they traveled via the Balkan coast becoming lords of the collapsing Old European sedentary civilization in the process, which was among the richest and most developed parts of the world at the time (imagine them like the Aztecs). The PIEs projected in several directions and waves; proto-Tocharians were likely harbored by the Afanasievo culture in Siberia–essentially a twin culture of Yamnaya–that needs separate mention because they seem to have have expanded into a demographic void in Siberia, branching off just before the next key development. A period of chaos, disease and dramatic shifts on the “western front” of early PIE movements eventually brought a new political and social order upon Europe, also transcending Yamnaya and related prior cultures. A brief period of remarkable cultural homogeneity across Eurosiberia with evidence of large-scale interconnectedness in terms of movement and kinship (Corded Ware culture et al; Late PIE) coincided with an equilibration of formerly distinct “east” and “west” European gene pools (both of which were originally derived from variants of primordial h-gs and Near Eastern farmer-pastoralists having pushed north). This marks the ethnogenesis of modern white people in terms of autosomal DNA and uniparental markers in broad strokes, as the resultant genetic structure is largely intact in northern and central Europe. Then, mobility seems to have decreased again and uniformity necessarily faded. Various lineages began to differentiate into distinct cultures harboring the remaining known Indo-European languages (Nordic Bronze Age/Germanic, bronze age Brits speaking an undocumented language, Celts in central Europe and their Italic cousins and proto-Greek tribes moving south, and a “satem” group splitting into Balto-Slavs and early Indo-Iranians somewhere in eastern Europe ~4.5kya, officially ending what we define as the Proto-Indo-European language period. Göran explained well what happened with the Indo-Iranians as they expanded from south of the Urals. They were essentially very successful but drowned genetically as they inherited the prior Indus valley and Iranian plateau civilizations–however markers of their paternal ancestry are dominant to this day. In central Asia, a lot of mixing and displacement subsequently occurred with the rise of Turco-Mongols beginning in the Iron/Late Bronze Age.
Feb 1, 2020, 9:42 AM Each is another ridiculous pseudoscience – it’s just christian biased pseudoscience vs jewish biased pseudoscience(marx, freud, cantor, boas, bohr, derrida, friedan, etc). Every culture has tried some version of pseudoscience or sophistry to persist it’s traditional model of the universe. But, no pseudoscience pls. We know the laws of the universe. We have at least one problem left and I am pretty sure we will have to solve it by computational trial and error like protein folding. We may or may not ever know how many universes there are, and how they emerge, but within this universe we are going to know relatively shortly as much about the physical and biological as we do about the atomic and chemical. The only thing I put forward is that these same laws apply to man’s behavior, and that memory provides an accounting system that allows us to cooperate by trade of debts and credits in time. If there are gods, they have written their laws in the universe for all of us to see. The rest of history is full of men who lied or told half truths about those laws. And there appears to be no means by which for any god to influence us, other than as stories in the minds of others. This is where science leads. This is why some people need faith. Because they cannot bear the truth. And we must not deprive people of their means of sedation. On the other hand we may not permit them to influence the material world with their sedatives.
Feb 1, 2020, 9:42 AM Each is another ridiculous pseudoscience – it’s just christian biased pseudoscience vs jewish biased pseudoscience(marx, freud, cantor, boas, bohr, derrida, friedan, etc). Every culture has tried some version of pseudoscience or sophistry to persist it’s traditional model of the universe. But, no pseudoscience pls. We know the laws of the universe. We have at least one problem left and I am pretty sure we will have to solve it by computational trial and error like protein folding. We may or may not ever know how many universes there are, and how they emerge, but within this universe we are going to know relatively shortly as much about the physical and biological as we do about the atomic and chemical. The only thing I put forward is that these same laws apply to man’s behavior, and that memory provides an accounting system that allows us to cooperate by trade of debts and credits in time. If there are gods, they have written their laws in the universe for all of us to see. The rest of history is full of men who lied or told half truths about those laws. And there appears to be no means by which for any god to influence us, other than as stories in the minds of others. This is where science leads. This is why some people need faith. Because they cannot bear the truth. And we must not deprive people of their means of sedation. On the other hand we may not permit them to influence the material world with their sedatives.
Feb 1, 2020, 11:35 AM (compiled) According to the World Health Organization (WHO), flu globally attacks 5%–10% adults and 20%–30% children annually. According to the CDC, during the year when the influenza A (H3N2) viruses are prominent, death rates are typically more than double as compared to seasons when the influenza A (H1N1) or influenza B viruses dominate. This is because the influenza A (H3N2) virus is far more potent and contagious than the H1N1 influenza virus. Hospitalizations and flu season deaths occur mainly among the high-risk groups such as young children below the age of 5 years, the elderly above the age of 65 years, and those with chronic medical illnesses. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), experts say the flu season is in full swing with an estimated 4.6 million flu illnesses, 39,000 hospitalizations and 2,100 deaths from flu so far this season. The rate of outpatient visits for influenza-like illnesses (ILI) spiked in the week ending on Dec 21, from 3.9% to 5.1% — a trend typically seen during winter holidays. Rates of ILI have been above the national baseline of 2.4% for 7 weeks. Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and New York City reported high levels of ILI. Flu activity was described as widespread in 39 states. The CDC said hospitalization rates rose to 6.6 per 100,000 population, up from 5.5 per 100,000 population during the second week of December. The highest rate of hospitalization was among adults aged older than 65 (14.4 per 100,000 population), followed by children ages 0 to 4 (12.5 per 100,000 population) and adults ages 50 to 64 (7.0 per 100,000 population). All age groups have seen a significant increase in the last week. The CDC said hospitalization rates mirror previous seasons. Influenza A has been detected in 52.9% of hospitalized cases, and 46.4% were associated with influenza B. In testing at public health labs, influenza B accounts for 58.8% of positive flu samples collected from across the country, 98.7% of which are Victoria lineage. Influenza A was detected in 41.2% of specimens, with most of those (94.8%) subtyped as the H1N1 strain first seen in 2009. “Activity is being caused mostly by influenza B/Victoria viruses, which is unusual for this time of year. A(H1N1) viruses are the next most common and are increasing in proportion relative to other influenza viruses in some regions,” the CDC said. Three pediatric deaths were also recorded in the last week, raising the season’s total to 22. All three recent deaths were associated with influenza B viruses; only six deaths in total this season have been associated with influenza A. In the 2018-2019 flu season, the CDC confirmed 143 pediatric deaths. The CDC encouraged all who have not yet done so to receive a seasonal influenza vaccine, as the season is set to last for several more weeks. DEATHS DUE DO EPIDEMICS The world has seen five pandemics during the last century, which took a large number of lives. Here are the figures of deaths that occurred in the United States and Worldwide during those years.
1889 Russian Flu Pandemic – about 1 million flu deaths
“Spanish flu” A of 1918-19 caused the highest number of influenza-related deaths: approximately 500,000 deaths occurred in the U.S. and 20 million worldwide. That figure is more than the total number of deaths caused by the World War one — 16 million. As a matter of fact, during that year, the flu had killed more people than any other illness in recorded history.
“Asian flu” A of 1957-58 caused 70,000 deaths in the United States and about one million to two million deaths worldwide
“Hong-Kong flu” A of 1968-69 resulted in 34,000 deaths in the United States and an estimated one million to three million people died worldwide.
2009 H1N1 Flu Pandemic – about 18,300 deaths in the United States and up to 203,000 deaths worldwide