Race is often easily discernible by sight alone. It is clearly discernible on a genetic level, and companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com make a business out of detecting genetic ancestry – hence race – in their customers.

(Above from Racial Reality: Global Admixture Analysis at K=6)

One aspect of race that gives people trouble is that race is an inherently fuzzy concept. There are no defined boundaries from one race to the next, and they often smoothly transition from one to the other. This means there’s a great degree of overlap, especially at the edges, as the above charts should make clear.

Certain individuals – such as my son and I (who both have sub-Saharan African, European, East Asian, and South Asian ancestries) – make attempts to fit everyone into clear and crisply delineated racial boxes difficult to impossible. But I think it’s quite clear that the existence of people like us do not invalidate the broad categories. If they did, companies like 23andMe and Ancestry.com would be defrauding their customers.

Race is as real as (and very much akin to) dog breeds.

And, contrary to what you’re often told, the differences between human races are not just skin deep. These differences but extend down through blood (see sickle-cell anemia), bone…

…viscera (as can be seen from the global distribution of lactose tolerance)…

…and of course, brain, most obviously in (but by no means limited to) global variation in average brain size (derived from Beals, Smith, and Dodd 1984, image source here):

This a map of the average brain size of indigenous (pre-European diaspora) peoples across the globe.

EDIT, 7/23/15: [Indeed, a new paper, Fan et al 2015, that the details of cortical surface structure of the brain is highly predictive of genetic ancestry. Indeed, as Fan et al put it:

Here, we demonstrate that the three-dimensional geometry of cortical surface is highly predictive of individuals’ genetic ancestry in West Africa, Europe, East Asia, and America, even though their genetic background has been shaped by multiple waves of migratory and admixture events. The geometry of the cortical surface contains richer information about ancestry than the areal variability of the cortical surface, independent of total brain volumes. Besides explaining more ancestry variance than other brain imaging measurements, the 3D geometry of the cortical surface further characterizes distinct regional patterns in the folding and gyrification.

Indeed, an earlier paper from this team (Bakken, Dale, and Schork, 2011) found that this works within racial groups as well, as the case with Europeans (see also the section Intraracial Group Variation below):

In our group’s previous study, we found that area measures of cortical surface and total
brain volumes of individuals of European descent in the United States correlate significantly with their ancestral geographic locations in Europe

See also Brain Topography | West Hunter and Psychological comments: Racial brain differences ***End Edit***]
Average brain size correlates with latitude, and also correlates (partially) with average IQ (derived primarily from Lynn & Vanhanen, 2012) :

This was all covered in my “F.A.Q.” (JayMan’s Race, Inheritance, and IQ F.A.Q. (F.R.B.)) as well as my HBD Fundamentals page, section On the reality of race.

The biological reality of race means that it is impossible for one to change to a race different from the one he or she was born, and no amount of surgery, hair treatments, or skin whiteners (or darkeners) can do the trick. After all, one cannot change one’s ancestry. Rachel Dolezal has been derided on this point (correctly so), but the very same people have defended the possibility of changing one’s sex, as in the case of Bruce/”Caitlyn” Jenner (see here and here). In so doing, despite the obvious logical inconsistency this presents…

A real dilemma pic.twitter.com/uHvuAQsZxA

— JayMan (@JayMan471) June 12, 2015

…a number of the usual falsehoods have been repeated, particularly the “social construct” nonsense that I can only hope I’ve clearly trounced here. The bottom line on this one is as I said:

If you accept that "transgender" people can exist, you *must* also accept that transracial people can too. Can't have one without the other.

— JayMan (@JayMan471) June 15, 2015

I admit, I was actually surprised by the blatant hypocrisy on this matter. I didn’t expect so many people to attempt to make a principled argument on how one of these is possible but not the other. Indeed, since race is fuzzy, one would imagine the idea of changing one’s race to be more “possible” than changing one’s sex (sex being a far more discrete category than race – though not completely so). (After all, was Michael Jackson not White, at least in part?) Yet mainstream sources clamored to claim the very opposite. Both of course are impossible, but this demonstrates how far mainstream discourse has diverged from reality.

3. Guns, violence, and the Dylann Roof rampage

However, quickly overshadowing both Bruce Jenner and Rachel Dolezal was the heinous shooting by Dylann Roof. Now make no mistake, Roof is an evil creature who I think deserves to fry for what he did. He’s symptomatic of a strain of thought that is disturbingly all too common in the people who follow this very topic (at least the ones that make themselves known via comments to various human biodiversity and related blogs and other publications). These people do indeed have to face some important qualities about themselves – a point to which I’ll return shortly.

The murders committed by Roof have shocked the nation and have revived many tired old arguments. One of the most egregious in this case is the matter of “gun control” and gun violence; arguments which rear their head after every highly publicized rampage shooting. Symptomatic of this interminable discussion is this deceptively dishonest datum:

I used this slide in my debates on gun control. More guns=more crime not less (assuming killing someone by gun=crime) pic.twitter.com/VGJgNLpbpZ

— Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) June 22, 2015

People with more guns tend to kill more people. With guns. http://t.co/M3PPwZensG pic.twitter.com/WbYv4X7YC6

— Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) June 21, 2015

Of course, the “gun deaths” here are mostly suicides (with a fair amount of police shootings as well), which presumably isn’t what people are thinking about when see this graphic. The relationship between gun ownership rates and gun homicides is quite different.

The key here is that certain individuals are trying to create the illusion that the presence of guns causes violence. These people like to attribute variations in human behavior to “environmental” factors, so naturally, they expect that gun violence must be caused by the presence of guns (ignoring the fact that prevalence of gun ownership is itself a behavioral variation that would also be in need of explanation). After a previous bout of mass shootings, I wrote Guns & Violence, Again…, in which I thoroughly debunked the “guns cause violence” argument with a few simple pieces of data. For one, the relationship between the prevalence of gun ownership and homicide is negative in North America:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a scatterplot for the U.S.:

@DrRobertKing @hbdchick @JayMan471 That's DC in the top left corner. I'm not arguing that the causal effect is neg.. pic.twitter.com/c8AvM55lq8

— Random C. Analysis (@RCAFDM) June 23, 2015

Indeed, the correlation is weak to negative globally:

Now, you would think that if one were going to make a case for “guns cause violence,” one would at least have to have a correlation. But no, these posers don’t even have that. Rather pathetic.

So what is the cause of this violence then, including the rampage shootings for which the U.S. is known? As I said before:

It is not the guns; it is who has them. #DNA #humanbiodiversity

— JayMan (@JayMan471) June 9, 2014

4. The American Nations

The ultimate source of violence and regional variation in such was fleshed out in my post Guns & Violence, Again…, where I noted the American Nations model:

The United States (and for that matter, Canada) is not one monolithic culture but consists of a hodgepodge of regional cultures that cluster approximately as shown above. Many of my previous 100 posts focused on this matter, heavily based on the book American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard (itself partly based on Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer). For an overview, see my page:

American Nations Series

In short, local sociocultural and economic differences across both countries are driven by local demographic differences across each. On the broadest scale, (continental) race is a major factor:

Areas with higher Black proportions have higher rates of violence (the same is true to a lesser extent for Hispanics and Native Americans):

@JayMan471 Other plots you won't see from them any time soon…. pic.twitter.com/9FrTGRGlU4

— Random C. Analysis (@RCAFDM) June 23, 2015

EDIT: [See also these scatterplots of homicide rates by U.S. county race of victim against fraction of specified race of total population. The fraction of the county which is Black has a strong positive relationship, while the fraction which is White has a weak negative relationship. From: County level homicide rates by race/ethnicity of victim | Random Critical Analysis

***End Edit***]

Gun crime in NYC first 8 months of 2013. pic.twitter.com/QnAIkJZz9W

— Amazing Maps (@amazinmaps) May 4, 2015

These broad racial differences are key factors driving variation in violence across the country. But beyond continental race, differences within the White population are also responsible for many social/cultural/economic differences across the country.

The American Nations model is based on the settling of the Americas by Europeans. The U.S. and Canada received settlers from different parts of the British Isles – each settling in a different part of the continent. This was in addition to other Europeans, notably Germans, French, and Dutch (and of course, Spaniards in the Spanish colonies).

 

 

 

The settlers to nations of the American South were the English Cavaliers (to the Tidewater and the Deep South) and the Borderlander Scots (to Greater Appalachia). Both groups possessed a more aggressive, martial culture than those that came to the nations of the North. This culture lives on in their descendants that populate the South today, and can be seen in the gun-centric, capital punishment embracing nature of their societies. Additionally, the Far West received a share of Appalachians and other groups that were selected for life in a harsh, isolated, frontier environment, and hence are individualistic and also quite attached to guns.

The Nations of the South have not received much by way of immigrants since their founding. Later waves of immigrants – mostly more Germans, Catholic Irish, Scandinavians, Southern Italians, and Eastern Europeans flooded to the northern nations Yankeedom and the Midlands, further widening the split between these nations and those of the South.

Ultimately, this is the source of the interminable conflict between different regions of America, represented now in the debate over the Confederate flag:

This conflict is friction between distinct ethnocultural areas of the country, each with its own regional identity (some stronger than others, perhaps being strongest in the more ethnically homogenous nations of Greater Appalachia and the Deep South). This is why theses tensions keep popping up. (Although as of late, it is probably more the Deep South vs. everyone else than a replay of the battle between the Deep South/Tidewater and Yankeedom that was the Civil War, as the present residents of the latter nation have less biological continuity with their region’s combatants during the war.)

5. Heredity and behavioral genetics

So far I have talked a lot about “biology” and “heredity” being behind all these patterns we see. But how do I know, you may ask? Well, the single biggest most important clue to this is the fact that all human behavioral traits are heritable. This includes intelligence, personality, political views, religiosity, even how much you enjoy watching television or surfing the internet.

We know this from twin, adoption, and half-sibling studies (as well as modern genomic studies). These special family combinations allow us to pick apart the effect of genetic inheritance from any effects of the “environment.” Decades of studies have shown that genes account for at least half of the variation in all human traits (and usually much greater, especially when measurement error is taken into account). The tables below provide summaries of these findings:

Equally important, the effect of the shared environment appears to be zero for these traits. Children growing up in the same home (and sharing all the environmental influences such children encounter) do not resemble one another in any discernible way (especially when measured as adults, and when the effect of assortative mating in addressed). Adopted children aren’t any more similar to their adoptive families than random strangers. Rather, they resemble their biological families. Twins reared apart are highly similar to each other in virtually every way, but they are no more similar to each other than twins raised together.

This means that the effect of growing up with one set of parents is no different from any other set of parents. Nothing in the environment children share seems to have any impact on how they turn out. This has huge implications for putative “environmental” forces, which the prevailing model in Western society holds to be of paramount importance. As Greg Cochran put it:

1. The early intervention studies with the most striking results all involve quite small samples. Why would that be so?
2. All such studies need to carefully disentangle genetic effects. These studies have done such a good job that you can hardly even find the word ‘genetic’ in their text: twice in the first review, zero in the last two. Since twin studies clearly show that genetic influences on behavior are strong (except for homosexuality, of course) while non-genetic influences are something other than the ones that most professionals in the field JUST KNOW have to matter (zero influence from shared family environment strongly implies that face time with liberal arts majors also has zero influence), studies that ignore genetics are wrong. Studies that looked for effects from factors that would show up as shared family environment – like which school you go to, let alone whether you attend pre-K, are surely wrong.
   

In addition to the above linked posts, see my posts:

Environmental Hereditarianism
The Son Becomes The Father
More Behavioral Genetic Facts

Health and body weight follow similar patterns (high heritability, zero shared environment). See my page Obesity Facts for more, or my post IQ and Death.

Indeed, these very studies show that gun ownership is considerably heritable (Barnes, Boutwell, and Beaver, 2014). This patterns shows no shared environment component, despite being studied in a nationally representative sample. This indicates that regional variation can’t be reduces to local “culture”. Genetic differences drive cultural differences, and not the other way around.

6. Intraracial group variation and HBD Chick’s theory

Why do differences between different White groups matter so much? Why does precise ethnic origin matter? Differences between human groups are fined-grained because evolution acts locally. One of the key differences among different European groups is a factor HBD Chick calls clannishness. See this map of perceived corruption around the world (from Transparency International):

There are considerable differences across the European continent:

Northwestern Europeans and their descendants stand out in particular – in many ways, distinct from all other peoples across the world…

…being lower on corruption, being more individualistic (as opposed to communal), having weaker family ties vis-a-vis the rest of the world…

Percentage of young adults living with parents in Europe http://t.co/tAWbwbPJox pic.twitter.com/XsZu1oOIDi

— Beautiful Maps (@BeautifulMaps) June 24, 2015

…having stronger civic institutions, having a greater attachment to/belief in democracy, and so much more.

Based on #WVS data: Welzel-Inglehart Cultural Map 2015. pic.twitter.com/EUQafiYnlX

— World Values Survey (@ValuesStudies) January 26, 2015

HBD Chick thinks that these unique traits arose in good part because NW Europeans have a long history of avoiding cousin marriage, unlike virtually all other peoples around the world. This led to lower average relatedness within families, thereby weakening the strength of selection for kin altruism relative to selection for reciprocal altruism. See these posts/pages from HBD Chick:

start here | hbd chick
clannishness defined | hbd chick
big summary post on the hajnal line | hbd chick
medieval manorialism’s selection pressures | hbd chick
time enough | hbd chick

As well as my own post:

Predictions on the Worldwide Distribution of Personality

This led Northwestern Europe to diverge from the rest of the world early on (see my earlier post “Racial Reality” Provides My 150th Post)

These data show the importance of biological differences within a race, indeed, differences that can exist even within the same island, as is the case with Great Britain and the distinct American Nations it spawned.

Taken all together, the above sections show that global disparities in wealth, human development, freedom, and social welfare stem largely from the innate traits of the people who inhabit each country. These include IQ, future time orientation, and the aforementioned clannishness (or more precisely, the lack there of):

To understand human biodiversity is to understand the world, and why it is the way it is.

HBD also explains why people like Dylann Roof exist. As aforementioned, the traits of people who have made up the old Confederacy and others who harbor hatred of other groups are inherited traits, quite likely the result of evolved adaptations. The existence of the American Nations and the distinct political and social views each holds are because of each’s genetic inheritance. This explains why we constantly hear that “the South will rise again” and why they hold on to the Confederate flag. It is am emblem of the values that appeals to their temperament – what comes naturally to them. This also speaks to why attempting to ban the flag – symbol of racism and oppression it is – may not be as successful as some hope it will be. You cannot change who they are. It is likely these issues will not go away. But, tension between the various American Nations goes back a long way.

Collected on this blog is a repository of research and information that supports this. In addition to the aforementioned pages (JayMan’s Race, Inheritance, and IQ F.A.Q. (F.R.B.) and HBD Fundamentals) my About Me page contains a list of key blog posts and topics that are helpful as an introduction to the matter.

7. The Deep South and the Confederate legacy

Returning to the U.S., in particular the American South, Dylann Roof is perhaps the worst expression of a nasty element that exists in our society and frequently voices itself on these blogs. One of the key points spurred by the Roof shooting is about the Confederate flag, which is perhaps the quintessential symbol of the Deep South and what it stands for and has stood for. In my earlier post The Cavaliers, I talked a good bit about what this was. This was exploitation and oppression, not just most infamously of Black slaves (and later freed Blacks forced to live under Jim Crow), but of their own people. The Deep South (and to a lesser extent the Tidewater, as well as parts of Greater Appalachia) was built as a quasi-feudal plantation society where wealthy plantation lords ruled over all: Black, White, and all in between. The system of top-down exploitation persisted well after the Civil War and into modern times. As “Misdreavus” put it (collected on my page Misdreavus Stream):

Which just makes the neo-Confederate faction of Nrx that much more perplexing. That's the civilization you admire?

— misdreavus (@SuperMisdreavus) March 3, 2015

The vast majority of whites living a wretched, hand-to-mouth existence, living in fear of the "black terror" rising up to swallow them

— misdreavus (@SuperMisdreavus) March 3, 2015

The list goes on and on. The fact that a large segment of #Nrx idolizes this civilization speaks volumes about their sanity

— misdreavus (@SuperMisdreavus) March 14, 2015

Rich Southern planters cared about their profits first and foremost — the rest of the white race could starve to death, for all they cared.

— misdreavus (@SuperMisdreavus) March 14, 2015

It's a pattern that repeats itself throughout American history. Mass immigration from S. and E. Europe, amnesty for illegals, H1B visas, etc

— misdreavus (@SuperMisdreavus) March 14, 2015

Just don't forget the other side that has an immense financial interest in promoting "diversity". They do not give a damn about you.

— misdreavus (@SuperMisdreavus) March 14, 2015

Stop whining, all of you. And yes, the Confederate flag has everything to do with slavery. Why must this be repeated so often?

— misdreavus (@SuperMisdreavus) June 19, 2015

Dylann Roof’s manifesto demonstrated that he had knowledge of inherited biological group differences (though superficial and pretty inaccurate knowledge). What I read in Roof’s manifesto is not too much unlike some things I’ve seen in comments to various HBD and related blogs, and it sickens me. Here’s a key fact about knowledge of HBD: merely having an understanding of biological inherited group differences doesn’t automatically translate into hate for other groups or feeling some need for racial solidarity. A is a very different item from B. I don’t particularly harbor any animosity towards any group.

However, common among people who have a superficial and/or selective understanding of heritable group differences is belief in conveniently inaccurate claims. One of these erroneous ideas that White nationalists in particular have latched on to is the belief in “ethnic genetic interests” – that is, that kin selection has led individuals to favor people of their own race/ethnic group over others. This of course is bunk . Natural selection doesn’t work that way, since individuals within an ethnic group aren’t closely related enough for this to work. This has been explained repeatedly, lately by Misdreavus:

It is impossible for such a thing as a “race altruist gene” to evolve, because sacrificing yourself on behalf of strangers does nothing to increase the frequency of the gene under any set of circumstances. It doesn’t matter if the frequency of a such a gene “magically” originated with a frequency of 4 in 10 Chinese people. The Chinese who don’t have the gene, on average, would have a higher fitness, resulting in the frequency decreasing monotonically over time.

He continues to argue there, which is worth a read for anyone seriously interested in the matter.

Although it’s important to note that the “other side” harbors a good bit of blame here. This tweet encapsulates the problem:

I shouldn't even have to say this: you can contradict the falsities peddled by certain groups and not harbor any ill-will for these groups.

— JayMan (@JayMan471) June 17, 2015

Unfortunately, many people don’t feel that way. They interpret contradiction of cherished (and false) dogma commonly held by/about certain groups to be an attack on that group. This is how someone like me can be accused of being “transphobic” for merely pointing out that Bruce Jenner is not a woman. This is how merely addressing apparently unflattering qualities of a group – or espousing that these differences have inherited roots – can be considered tantamount to hating said group. It’s hateful to believe in things which are true (or, in worst case, have a reasonable possibility of being true). That sort of accusative attitude can only breed animosity in return.

Of course, these people are not wrong in the assumption that some people who espouse belief in biological roots to behavior do indeed harbor hateful feelings towards other groups, as we see with Roof and his ilk.

HBD Chick tackled this in her post you and me and hbd

See also my post The Problem with HBD, the Dark Enlightenment, Neoreaction, Alt-Rightism, and All That Jazz

8. The Taboo Future

Alas, it is not enough to point out any of the above for many, because making the claims I have made here – as true as they are – and despite the abundant evidence for them – is taken as evidence of hatefulness, as per the above.

If heredity is so important to social outcomes, and most “environmental” influences appear not to be, then you may be wondering why do so few people know this in Western society? Well, unfortunately, there is an active effort by some to discount or suppress this knowledge. See:

The End of Science | West Hunter
It Must Be Said | West Hunter
Unknown Phenotypes | West Hunter

“Environmental” explanations reign in modern research and mainstream discourse, leaving a handful of thoughtful researchers to investigate this matter properly. In the height of irony, this is explained by human biodiversity itself. Certain populations (e.g., Ashkenazi Jews, and to a lesser extent various Northwestern Europeans) are more averse to genetic explanations for human behavior and outcomes and are more receptive of environmental ones than other groups, on average. Because of this fact, getting across the facts on the matter faces incredible resistance, both within the academic world and without. HBD explains the resistance to HBD.

This resistance leads to a suppression of the science. Far too many researchers proceed under the “standard social science model”:

.@AmirSariaslan "the standard social science method (SSSM) assumes genetic influences do not confound the association between X and Y"

— JayMan (@JayMan471) October 6, 2014

This leads to all sorts of bad research in the human sciences, from behavioral science to economics to medical science. Despite all that is discussed on the internet and in certain scientific journals, there’s quite a lot we don’t know.

One of the biggest unexplored avenues to understanding health and behavior is the role of pathogens. The most startling example is collected in my post:

Greg Cochran’s “Gay Germ” Hypothesis – An Exercise in the Power of Germs

Homosexuality – a behavioral trait that, quite unlike most others, has low heritability – likely has a pathogenic source. Pathogens may be behind all manner of behavioral traits and health conditions and may be a major contributor to the mysterious so-called “nonshared environment” (the difference between identical twins) – especially since it has been discovered that identical twins have very different pathogenic histories, as gauged by their immunological profiles (Brodin et al, 2015). These microorganisms – likely most of which are unknown (75% – 99% being unknown in stool samples) – may exert huge impact on human behavior. Indeed, we are learning that gut flora may play a considerable role in health, obesity, and behavior.

However, this area of research remains underdeveloped, because while there are some people looking, microorganisms aren’t not recognized for the potentially fruitful avenue of research that it is.

We also don’t really know – at least, not concretely – why variation within groups exists in the first place. Natural selection tends to minimize variation, with adaptive alleles thriving and maladaptive alleles fading to extinction over time. This should serve to homogenize populations, but, as we know, human groups exhibit a great wide range of individual variation. Some people are tall, others short. Some people are outgoing, others reserved. Some people are beautiful, others homely. Why? There are a few ideas on this, some discussed in detail by Penke, Denissen, and Miller (2007).

One suspected driver of individual variation is genetic load, that is, the burden of deleterious mutations we all carry. Mutations constantly appear and are more likely to be harmful than beneficial. Mildly deleterious mutations are only slowly purged by selection – often after many generations –and hence build up in the gene pool. Some individuals possess a greater burden of these mutations than others, and suffer poorer quality traits because of it, including lower IQ and poorer health (which themselves are linked, see my post IQ and Death). However, finding conclusive evidence of the role of genetic load in normal range variation has been difficult. Compounding this difficulty – and adding to the mystery – is that IQ and physical attractiveness turn out to be uncorrelated (see Mitchem et al, 2015). Each of these are driven primarily by additive heritability – which suggests genetic load is involved in each, but there is no overlap with the other. For this to be case, these traits must share no genetic factors, which is quite possible. Further research is needed.

As well, we have a poor understanding of the correlation between various phenotypes in general. Some evidence suggests that physical appearance and behavioral traits are correlated, but we have precious few large, well-measured, genetically informative (i.e., using twins or other relatives) samples to examine these. These correlations, especially when established on a genetic level, might shed light into how these may have evolved.

We also don’t know what the origin of female homo-/bisexuality is. Some speculation was seen in my previous post (Female Same-Sex Attraction Revisited).

And, most ironically, the true nature of “environmental” influences, particularly those that cause cohort effects (such as the rise in average height, obesity, IQ scores, and irreligiosity over the past century) remains poorly understood. This is primarily because these are difficult to study well; better research designs are needed to disentangle the various confounding factors.

We could also stand to investigate HBD Chick’s theory, that is, that differing rates of cousin marriage affected the evolution of behavioral traits. Sequencing DNA from Medieval skeletons might serve to shed some light here. But it doesn’t seem like many are interested in this research.

And of course, we have a great deal to learn about how the genetic code itself works, though we are making some progress there (Information Processing: More GWAS hits on cognitive ability: ESHG 2015).

@kenanmalik Way off on 'missing heritability'. Larger studies consistently finding more genes. http://t.co/CwWxjY6axo pic.twitter.com/ONrTQcmPTP

— Stuart Ritchie (@StuartJRitchie) June 6, 2015

These and other avenues remain blocked or poorly explored. Part of this results from a deliberate effort to suppress investigation into biological causes of behavior and human outcomes. However, is this fear justified?

I have previously argued that widespread knowledge of HBD might come with serious consequences (see hbd fallout | hbd chick):

“Back when groups differences weren’t so taboo in Western society, and one could talk about them openly [see Those Who Can See: Being a Progressive, Yesterday: Race], society was *also* more racist (this was pre-Civil Rights here in America). It is possible that in order for society to be aware of the reality of HBD, it must be actually be *racist*.

“Think of all the simmering resentment in Whites that are the victims of these crimes (as a Black man, I wouldn’t talk to this soldier’s family about now). And on top of that, imagine all the Whites that are not necessarily so politically correct about race. How would they react? … Sane, moderate thinkers seem to avoid this stuff like the plague. (Of course, this could just be the disaffected voices speaking loudest, but that is the appearance anyway.)

The hope is that Dylann Roof is not at all representative of the type of reactions people will have should these facts become more commonly known.

Certain individuals in places to affect popular discourse (in the media and in academia) make a conscious effort to suppress this knowledge. Indeed, see Cofnas (2015):

Some prominent scientists and philosophers have stated openly that moral and political considerations should influence whether we accept or promulgate scientific theories. This widespread view has significantly influenced the development, and public perception, of intelligence research. Theories related to group differences in intelligence are often rejected a priori on explicitly moral grounds.

…

Daniel Dennett—also a philosopher, but one who has made substantive contributions to cognitive/evolutionary science—says that the standard of evidence required to accept “dangerous”
scientific hypotheses should not be raised. Rather, we should never accept them regardless of the evidence (Dennett 2003, 2006b). He is fairly open about his principled opposition to “dangerous” theories, and this leads him to apply jarring double standards to scientific hypotheses with different alleged social consequences. In Freedom Evolves, Dennett (2003) says regarding critics of hereditarianism:

I don’t challenge the critics’ motives or even their tactics; if I encountered people conveying a message I thought was so dangerous that I could not risk giving it a fair hearing, I would be at least strongly tempted to misrepresent it, to caricature it for the public good. I’d want to make up some good epithets, such as genetic determinist or reductionist or Darwinian Fundamentalist, and then flail those straw men as hard as I could. As the saying goes, it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.4 (pp. 19–20)

So what are we to make of his statement on page 160 of the same book, where he calls the theory that intelligence differences between races are hereditary an “awful racist hypothesis”? This can mean one of two things: he considers hereditarianism about race differences in intelligence to be either scientifically wrong or socially “dangerous.”

Is this (in part) because they fear how people would react were facts about heritable human differences to become commonly known? I think so.

(Although it does seem people are quite a bit more aware of heritable group differences than many mainstream voices realize:

Who else is enjoying post-racial America? pic.twitter.com/AUPWHVSYbJ

— Sean McElwee (@SeanMcElwee) June 23, 2015

Nonetheless, as noted above, reaction to this knowledge depends on inherited individual and group differences. While the overwhelming bulk of people may have this knowledge and behave just fine, there are likely many more Dylann Roofs among them. Have the people who seek to suppress this knowledge correctly calculated that it’s better to do so to keep the peace?

Well, there is a problem with that strategy: even if the view behind it is correct, what’s true remains true. People will continue to discover and rediscover these truths despite every attempt to bury them, simply because they are so. Sooner or later, a critical mass will become aware, and we will have to face it one way or another.

Make no mistake, widespread acceptance of the reality of heritable individual and group differences will likely have significant consequences for our society. Our institutions are presently set up with the assumption that the SSSM is true (see currently accepted social doctrine in America), even if common people often believe differently. Much will change if society were to accept these facts officially.

But, this all comes back to the fact that they are still true. Debates about the merits of allowing it to be commonly known are ultimately about timing – debating the when, not if. Being that this is the case, I think that what we need are more competent, responsible, and thoughtful individuals in positions of power to better manage the issues we are bound to face no matter what we do. (I will say that nobody in the present crop of presidential hopefuls fits the bill.)

In the mean time, I will continue to discuss HBD here, both for the purpose of my own curiosity and with the hope that maybe some good is to be done. Let’s see what happens by post #300!

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Here is the theme for this post, which I think is highly fitting on many levels:

While there is some missing data here, it is reasonably filled in when one looks at state-level gun homicide rates:

It is clear that there is a huge disconnect between where guns are more common in America and where there is actually the most gun violence.

Now let’s compare these maps to Colin Woodard‘s American Nations map:

Gun ownership appears concentrated in Yankeedom, the northern parts of the Far West, and in Greater Appalachia – with a somewhat smaller concentration in the Deep South. The last three of those “nations” clustering together is hardly unusual, because they are often clustered in many aspects, as I’ve previously discussed. But Yankeedom, which is often diametrically opposed to the Deep South, also seems to have plenty of guns. However, here in Yankeedom they are primarily used for hunting. The presence of guns and the existence of gun violence seems to coincide across Greater Appalachia and parts of the Deep South.

The places with high levels of gun violence in America relates to another map:

Gun violence in America is primarily concentrated in areas with large numbers of Blacks and Hispanics. Indeed, the continually ignored fact in these debates about American gun violence is that the reason for the outsized rates of violence of the United States, compared with the other Northwestern European and NW Euro derived countries, is the large Black and Hispanic populations in this country.

The disconnect between the availability of guns and violence also extends to our northern neighbor (from the RCMP):

(2007 murder rate, U.S. and Canada, from here). In Canada, there is no strong association between gun availability and murder – indeed, there appears to be a slight negative association, if anything (this appears to be also true in the U.S. to an extent). Indeed, just next door to me in New Brunswick, there is a fairly high rate of gun ownership, but little violence (the Moncton shooter notwithstanding), as is the case here in Maine as well. The high rate of violence in Nunavut can be traced to its predominantly Inuit population.

But taken together, rates of gun violence across Canada and the U.S. cannot be explained solely by certain racial minorities. Indeed, gun violence appears higher in some White areas as well, primarily Greater Appalachia.

This brings me to another topic thrown about in this whole discussion. That is the issue of “gun culture.” Even excepting certain non-European populations in the U.S., the country does have a considerably high rate of gun ownership. And indeed, guns are an integral feature of “American” culture. (While Canada has a fairly high rate of gun ownership internationally, it is comparable to rates in much of the rest of the NW Euro & derived world.) But, as Woodard would tell you, and as you’d know from following this blog, there is no one “American” culture, and there never was. Support for permissive gun laws and a heavily gun-centric focus are hallmarks of some of the American nations, particularly the Deep South, Greater Appalachia, and the Far West:

As discussed previously (see my posts A Tentative Ranking of the Clannishness of the “Founding Fathers” and Flags of the American Nations), the ancestors of the people that live in these areas came from certain, more aggressive peripheral areas of the British Isles. In the case of the settlers of the Tidewater and the Deep South, the Cavaliers, their ancestors hailed from southwest England. The founders of Greater Appalachia were the descendents the aggressive Border Reivers of the rugged English-Scottish border area.

The martial traditions of these groups live on in the nations of American South. Individuals from these nations, especially those from Greater Appalachia, also went on to found the Far West, as process which itself involved a strong degree of sorting for even tougher, more free-spirited people, as described in my earlier post.

This highlights an important fallacy on the matter of guns and the discussion of “culture” in general in most mainstream circles. People fail to consider where culture comes from. “Culture” is not some intangible, otherworldly agent. Culture is produced by people. More specifically, the traits of a society are the collective behavior of individuals which comprise it – the vector sum of individual temperaments, as John Derbyshire put it, referencing me (see about time 15:00).

This is why commenters look on in puzzlement over the disconnect between the Dixie peoples’ embrace of Christianity and the actual tenets as taught by Christian tradition. These commenters are looking at it the wrong way. Christian teachings aren’t what motivates Southerners’ behavior and is not what shapes their views; they selectively embrace the parts of the religious traditions that “come naturally” to their way of thinking. In other words, religion is an effect, not a cause of behavior (see also The Atheist Narrative). This true of any cultural feature, of which religious behavior and belief are just examples.

This also, by the way, illustrates the futility of looking at one or another specific aspect of a nation’s – indeed even a local region’s – society and assuming that that aspect is the determining variable (in this case, gun availability). This violates one of hbd* chick’s cardinal commandments: “different peoples is different.” Even comparing White Americans in different parts of the country is essentially comparing apples to oranges (or, at least, apples to pears). Even if we found a strong relationship between gun violence and gun availability, the question would then become: why does gun availability vary from society to society (when it’s clearly not technological or economic factors in the way)?

Edit, 4/11/15: [Indeed, see this paper on the heritability of gun ownership in a national sample across the U.S.:

Genetic and Nonshared Environmental Factors Predict Handgun Ownership in Early Adulthood

There are strong genetic factors involved, and, more importantly, zero shared environment. This finding in a national sample rules out local cultural effects as being involved.

***End Edit***]

Looking at the inherited natures of different human populations makes the poor relationship between guns and violence less mysterious. The Swiss can have their guns without much incident. My own people, Jamaicans, not so much. As I said on Twitter:

It is not the guns; it is who has them. #DNA #humanbiodiversity

— JayMan (@JayMan471) June 9, 2014

We do indeed have a lot of work to do to identify what environmental factors (to whatever extent those are relevant) contribute to individual outbursts of gun violence, and indeed, all violence. We certainly aren’t going to get there very quickly if we keep scrambling around recycling the same tired old inadequate explanations every time there’s some attention-grabbing incident.

See also:

JayMan’s Race, Inheritance, and IQ F.A.Q. (F.R.B.)

My previous posts on the American nations:

A Tentative Ranking of the Clannishness of the “Founding Fathers”
Flags of the American Nations
Maps of the American Nations
More Maps of the American Nations

Also:

Predictions on the Worldwide Distribution of Personality

 

*I struggle with a name for this collection of people. None of the popular labels, such as “HBD,” “Dark Enlightenment,” “Alt-Right,” etc fit because none of those labels fits every member – nor should it.

Football (favorite NFL team, from here):

For football, an older map from CommonCensus Sports Map Project produced a map of each region’s favorite NFL team based on internet votes, which it claims is “highly inaccurate”, yet, interestingly, conforms quite well to the American nations’ borders:

In addition to sports preferences, the American nations make themselves evident in another, much more serious way: attitudes towards crime and punishment. Particularly, the implementation of the death penalty shows a profound regional variation (from Pew):

Consistent with the more aggressive attitudes of the clannish Borderlanders of Greater Appalachia & the Far West and the Cavaliers of the Tidewater & the Deep South, the bulk of the country’s executions are concentrated in these nations. A look at the execution rate per capita equalizes the seeming rarity of capital punishment in the (sparsely populated) Far West (from here):

Indeed, as this makes clear, capital punishment is effectively banned in the Yankee states. The high number of executions across some parts of the Tidewater and the Deep South does reflect a somewhat higher crime rate, but that’s not the whole story:

Some states, such as Tidewater/Appalachian Virginia and Texas, while having higher than average crime rates, also have much higher execution rates. These states clearly have a greater willingness to resort to the death penalty, indicative of their decidedly martial heritage.

Edit, 6/10/14:

[**To compliment the above maps, I've tracked down some interesting maps on guns in America:

First, gun ownership rates by state (from here):

I so far haven't been able to track down ownerships per county, but I have found a rough proxy, number of gun shops and dealers per capita by county (from patchwork nation):

The Far West, with its vast emptiness and independent spirit, shows prominently. Greater Appalachia, and to a lesser extent, the Deep South and Tidewater, also come in strong. The northern areas of Yankeedom also are prominent. Here in Maine, for example, there are plenty of guns. However, they are primarily used for hunting, which is quite popular here (I frequently hear gun shots from my home). The embrace of gun varies quite a bit across the nations, but the reasons for having them vary considerably more. In Yankeedom, they are primarily for hunting. Across the Deep South, they are kept primarily for protection.

In keeping with the different attitudes of the different American nations towards punishment, we see that this is reflected in the legality and utilization of school corporal punishment:

 

 

 

As seen previously in my post Another Map of the American Nations: School Corporal Punishment. (Red = allowed. Blue = not allowed). The red state alliance of Greater Appalachia, the Deep South, and the Far West are where this is practiced. However, as seen on the map, the states with the highest Black populations have the highest rates of physical discipline. But, as Audacious Epigone has established, Blacks are the most supportive of corporal punishment of all American racial/ethnic groups.

As well as punishment, the American nations differ fundamentally in their attitudes towards sharing and taking care of one another. As per HBD Chick's theory, and fitting the clannishness of the respective founding groups (see A Tentative Ranking of the Clannishness of the “Founding Fathers”), the various American nations are predictably divided about Obama's health care law:

As seen in my previous post, Healthcare and the American Nations, the various nations have responded to aspects of the law depending on their clannish characteristics. The more universalist Puritans and Quakers – along with their Scandinavian and German co-settlers of Yankeedom and the Midlands – have generally trended toward acceptance. By contrast, the clannish Scots-Irish and Cavaliers of Dixie alliance (as well as the clannish Mexicans of El Norte) have responded in a more self-interested manner. None of these nations are terribly interested in contributing to the system, but El Norte and Greater Appalachia correctly see themselves as being net recipients, so are happy to accept the policies that allow themselves to benefit. The Tidewater and the Deep South, on the other hand, with their large Black populations (seen by the Cavalier Whites as being "the other"), want no part of the policy.

In addition, the attitude towards social issues is decided split across the American nations, as seen here (from Wikipedia) in attitudes towards same-sex marriage (itself reflective of the general attitude towards homosexuality and non-"traditional" sexuality in general – Edit, 6/10/14: updated map to one current as of this date):

As seen previously in my post Gay Germ Fallout?, Yankeedom, the Left Coast, New Netherland, and to a lesser extent, the Midlands and El Norte have embraced same-sex marriage, while the other nations ardently reject it.

Edit, 6/10/14: [**Indeed, I managed to find a decent metric of support for gay marriage by county, as derived from data from Facebook:

This is the fraction of Facebook users in each county that changed their profile image to the red equal sign in support of same-sex marriage, with the American nations borders overlain. Judging from this, support is strongest across Yankeedom, the Left Coast, and the Midlands (the German settled areas of Greater Appalachia straddling the Midlands are evident here, as well). On the opposing side, the Dixie nations, the Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, and the Deep South stand ardently against. The Far West appears a bit mixed; the more liberal areas, like those in Colorado, appear more supportive.**]

Other social issues follow this pattern, such as attitude towards that perennial hot-button issue: abortion (from here).

In short, the “Culture Wars” are just the latest round in the ongoing cold civil war between the states, which is really a struggle between the various nations.

 

 

 

 

 

Edit, 6/10/14:

[**I've managed to track down a map that shows more local data on attitudes towards abortion, an "isarithmic" map, based on ZIP code level data of a survey 30,000 Americans, from here. This gives results similar to county-level data, however, this map is also a function of population density (that is, the white vs. black shows population density, and the teal vs. purple, the local attitude over abortion), smoothed across the region. I have laid the American nations borders over top:

It is apparent support for abortion is strong in "New Netherland," The Left Coast, Yankeedom (especially in the east), and the eastern section of the Midlands. El Norte is also supportive. Opposition is fierce across Greater Appalachia, the Tidewater, and the Deep South. Interestingly, the Far West is surprisingly supportive. This may be reflective of the strong tradition of equality between the sexes that has existed there, which I discuss below.**]

And of course, the “American” nations are hardly confined to the United States, but continue on, generally quite uninterrupted, into our neighbor to the north, Canada:

…as seen previously in my post Nations of Canada. Indeed, perhaps Woodard’s book should have been titled North American Nations. These national divisions color Canadian politics much as they do in the U.S., but perhaps less bitterly so (from Wikipedia):

In both Canada and the U.S., while the founding groups laid the foundation for the character of each nation, it is wrong to think that the genetic stock of these populations are the dominant force underlying today’s socio-political-cultural divisions. To give the most poignant example of this, Dutch genes are not the driving force behind the modern character of “New Netherland” (i.e., the Greater New York City metro area) – indeed, the Dutch weren’t a numerical majority in the colony to begin with. Rather, other genetic stock, from the subsequent migrants, continues to drive these divisions.

This is illustrated by this now fairly well-known map:

 

 

Immigration to the country, especially during the industrial boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and since 1965 has served to transform the country. In many of these areas, especially across the north of the country, the immigrants have overwhelmed the colonial stock and have, as such, transformed the country. I will return to this point when I discuss assimilation, however, I first wanted to take a look at a matter that has complicated interpretation of this map.

A key problem with this map is that it was based on self-reported ancestry, and that entailed a certain degree of untrustworthiness, as Greg Cochran once discussed:

When responding to the Census, more than five million Americans claim to be of Dutch descent. And they mostly are, at least a little. Now you might wonder how they compare with the Dutch back in the Netherlands: you might wonder about the relative academic or economic success of these two groups, which presumably have a common ancestry. But you would be wrong to do so. You would be comparing apples and House of Orangemen.

…

Why, if there was any justice, Henry Harpending would own a fine farm on Manhattan Island right now. Of course, Henry isn’t all that Dutch. His surname is. He comes from an area of New York State that really did have some Dutch settlement. The thing is, white Protestants in this country have been intermarrying rather freely for several hundred years: it is rare to find someone in that category whose ancestors all come from one ethnicity.

…

Most of the people who self-identify as Dutch-Americans are mostly something else. Why? Sometimes a family tradition, or a surname, but more than anything else, fashion.

Fashions change. For example, the fraction of Americans who report English ancestry has dropped drastically since 1980 – so much that so that you would have to wonder about secret death camps if you took it seriously. But it’s fashion. I looked at the census numbers for my home county, and then looked at the phone book: Census result was 20% English ancestry, real number was more like 80%. Of course this means that people in the US claiming a particular ethnicity can not only have limited ancestry from that group, but be oddly unrepresentative as well.

This complicates the process of inferring the ethnic composition of the country. It seems that only genetic evidence could establish the reality. Fortunately, now we have some.

Ancestry.com has used DNA from their customers (N > 250,000) to estimate the national ancestry of Americans. They have produced a series of interactive maps on their site (white paper on their methodology here). Here I will display these maps side-by-side with maps of self-reported ancestry as gathered from the U.S. Census (from Wikipedia):

 

The genetic results for Scandinavian ancestry appears to line up very well with self-reported results, apparently even capturing the Danish converts in Mormon country.

Genetic results also confirm Italian and Greek self-reported ancestry, finding both being primarily confined to the Northeast.

Reported Eastern European ancestry (primarily Polish) also appears to be about right.

“Irish” ancestry is where we see our first disconnect between self-reported ancestry and the genetic data. We see a strong pulse in eastern New England. But the rest of the country lines up less well with the genetic data. Over at race/history/evolution notes, through surname analysis, “n/a” has found that self-reported Irish ancestry across the U.S. is likely inflated, although it’s probably accurate in Massachusetts and nearby.

And here is British ancestry. This is includes ancestry from England, Scotland, and Wales. Naturally, as per David Hackett Fischers Albion’s Seed, people from Great Britain are a major constituent in all 50 states. As Cochran noted, however, this is also the most “under-acknowledged” ancestry, perhaps considered too “plain” to even report by many. Indeed, across Greater Appalachia and much of the Tidewater and Deep South, this is relegated instead to a concocted “American” ancestry. However, the descendants of the Puritans – and their western offshoots, the Mormons – are apparently most apt to acknowledge their English heritage, as we see two pulses of British ancestry in the genetic data in northern New England proper and again in the Far West, centered on Mormon country. No doubt, especially in New England, the British component also includes Scottish Highlander ancestry hailing from the Canadian Maritimes.

A distinct relative “hole” in British ancestry is apparent in northern/western Yankeedom is evident however, as the other groups who have established themselves there have formed more of an ethnic majority over the Puritan settlers from eastern New England.

 

The areas of high reported Finnish ancestry appear to be confirmed genetically.

And here we have genetic data from “Europe West”, which primarily captures ancestry from Germany and France. The genetic data would seem to support the heavy German component in the country, especially along the Midlands and western Yankeedom. Some of the most heavily German states, such as Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas are heavily evident here.

As well, the French pulse across New England is also evident. This French pulse also brings me to another interesting point when we look at ancestry and the American nations.

As we’ve seen previously in my post, HBD is Life and Death, the health outcomes of many American regions can be correlated to ethnic ancestry. Most poignant among these were the many pathologies that plague the Scots-Irish, evident by how Greater Appalachia (and often the Far West, and sometimes the Left Coast) tended to stick out in many of these maps:

As well, there are these maps. First, of suicide rates (age-adjusted, by 100,000 population, 2000-2006, from the CDC), where Greater Appalachia and the Far West pop out:

Edit, 6/10/14: [**Thanks to the CDC's interactive system, I have managed to compile maps of suicide rates by race:

The Far West especially jumps out with an exceptionally high suicide rate. Greater Appalachia also stands out, and the Tidewater and Deep South are evident as well. However, an interesting modification emerges with you separate firearm from non-firearm suicides:

When non-firearm suicides are considered, suddenly Yankeedom, the Midlands, and the Left Coast become more strongly represented. The Far West, however, features a high rate in both cases. When firearm suicides are examined, Greater Appalachia, the Tidewater, and the Deep South become more visible. Apparently the strong culture of guns in these nations boosts the success of those seeking to take their own lives. **]

Prescription drug overdoses (in good part opiates, from here):

Here again, the areas with high Scots-Irish ancestry – Greater Appalachia itself, the Far West, and often the Left Coast – pop out.

Edit, 6/10/14: [** Also, see this rather interesting map of traffic fatalities per county (all races; non-Hispanic White alone is little different):

Greater Appalachia, the Tidewater, the Deep South, and the Far West pop out, again. Perhaps this speaks to a preponderance of wreckless drivers in these nations. Note the interesting bubble in Mormon country, however. **]

As well, this map of poverty across America (largely a function of average IQ, from Wikipedia):

As per the racial distribution map, the counties with lower average IQ populations (i.e., Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans) are evident. However, in addition to these groups, here again, we see that largely White Greater Appalachia is comparatively impoverished.

However, interestingly, also joining the Scots-Irish in poorer outcomes are the French Canadians, particularly those found in the northern areas of Yankeedom. Maine, which is heavily New French in descent, consistently does poorly compared to the other Yankee states. Indeed, economic historian Gregory Clark in his surname analysis (see my earlier post The Son Becomes The Father) found that the French Canadians in the United States exhibited unusually low upward mobility and were underrepresented among elite professions, quite like Blacks and Native Americans.

I found this quite interesting. The average IQ of France is essentially identical to that of Britain, so that’s not the issue. And even better, according to the PISA test results (from 2000-2012), Quebec does as well as the rest of Canada, typically scoring close to the national average. So the problem isn’t an initial deficit among the colonial New French. Indeed, as Peter Frost noted, some of the French Canadians may have underwent a period of intense selection for intelligence. That their descendants in the United States would then have a lower average IQ than other White groups would seem strange. I decided to take a look at French Canadian migration to the U.S.

As it turns out, during the heyday of Euro immigration to the U.S. (the industrial boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries), over 900,000 French Canadians came to the United States. In good part, this was largely demographic spillover, as the French Canadian population underwent explosive growth and New France was beginning to fill. Many of these excess New French ventured to the factories jobs in the U.S., most across northern Yankeedom. Indeed, during the 100 years from 1840-1940, Quebec sent an average of 7% of its population per decade to the United States.

And, quite unlike other Euro immigrants to the States, the New French could in effect skip right across the border to reach their new homes. Most every migration event involves some sort of sorting process, and it appears in this migration the sorting process was pretty intense. Indeed, not only was access to travel comparatively easier compared to venturing across the Atlantic, the opportunities that awaited them in the New England factories “frequently required no formal skills or education and often would employ children and women.” The bulk of the emigrants to the U.S. were poor rural dwellers, (although a few middle class types did go to make a living offering their services to the migrants who left before them). The New French elite characterized the migrants thusly:

The clerical elite frequently misidentified the reasons for emigration laying the blame on the laziness of the emigrant or the extravagant desire for luxury of his wife. They were portrayed as weak people, incapable of effort or sacrifice, self-centred and inconsiderate of others.

While this source portrays this as propaganda meant to downplay and/or discourage the exodus, there may have been some element of truth to it. Perhaps the New French emigration to the U.S. was overly composed of the bottom rungs of Quebec and Acadian society.

In addition, overall goal among the emigrants was to eventually return to Canada, and a considerable fraction did so, albeit often only temporarily. It would appear likely, then, that the migration process involved two selective elements for the less able: those least successful in Canada in the first place were most likely to leave, and those unable to quickly make something of themselves in their new home were the least likely to be able to permanently return. Contrast this with other migrations events from greater distances, which tended to select for those quite above the bottom in both the initial migration and eventual retention in the States.

The “cultural” impact of the migrants, and by that, I mean the genetic impact, is strong and continues to be felt to this day. For example, see these of the impact of the beer-loving German migrants (from here) Edit, 6/10/14, updated the map with one showing frequencies:

Note correspondence to the German distribution above.

Indeed, Steve Sailer recently commented on the decided more German character of the U.S. vis-a-vis Britain:

I had lunch yesterday with a donor who is an Englishman who has lived all over the world. He brought up the topic of how a lot of aspects of American life strike him as more German than English, such as American newspapers, which have traditionally aspired to be serious, informative, and responsible, while British newspapers like being outrageous and fun.

He then went off to meet with some German friends and writes:

Good brainstorm over a beer with my buddies on the Germanness of America, some of which I already mentioned:

1. TV advertising (slapstick, not subtle)

2. The Army (are there more German generals than German politicians in the US — which states does army recruit from?)

Pershing, Eisenhower, Schwartzkopf

3. Attitude to self improvement

The German poet Rilke’s mantra “You must change your life” caught on a lot faster in America, especially California, than Britain. For example, my Swiss German paternal grandfather was a health food nut who moved to Southern California 85 years ago to grow his own food in his yard.

4. Easy to scare (see Hollywood), lack of natural scepticism

5. Taking things serious (the brit needs to be seen not to be trying)

6. Lack of irony

7. American English — tendency to use longer words eg. Transportation rather than Transport, tendency to use “The” ie. “The Congress” rather than just “Congress”

8. Law abidingness eg. attitude to jaywalking

9. Food

A lot of quintessentially American food items, such as the hot dog (which FDR famously served to the King of England in 1939), were popularized at the quite German 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.

Of course, many of these expanded from the Midlands and the German sections of Yankeedom.

This pointed example of cultural legacy shows the impact that new populations bring to the lands they settle. We can see the legacy of these in the distribution of personality across the country:

These are from Rentfrow et al (2013). Drawn from internet personality tests with a combined N of nearly 1.6 million (84% White), they were able to devise the distribution of personality across the country. Now, there are all sorts of problems with personality data, especially for making cross-cultural comparisons. See Staffan’s discussion of the matter. One American nation is conspicuously apparent in these data, and that is the Left Coast. It fits well with the “Relaxed & Creative” cluster. I will discuss this region again shortly. The other two clusters appear to correlate more with specific eithnicities; the German and Scandinavian areas correlate well the “Friendly & Conventional” cluster. As well, the heavily Irish and Italian Northeast fits the “Temperamental & Uninhibited” cluster.

As I discussed previously in my post Predictions on the Worldwide Distribution of Personality, historic selective forces can be correlated to personality traits. For example, openness to experience, neuroticism, agreeableness, etc all reflect the effects of genetic pacification and especially the degree of clannishness. High neuroticism, as the Northeast is notorious for, (at least as it’s measured by the Big Five system) is a hallmark of cla Certain clannish populations (e.g., Irish, Southern Italian) reside in the Northeast, and may be ultimately responsible for these results.

The Friendly & Conventional cluster seems to simply represent an otherwise pretty average population except for low levels of openness to experience. A closer look at the distribution of each individual personality dimension, however (from Rentfrow, Gosling, and Potter, 2008) helps to clear things up:

The “Friendly & Conventional” Germano-Scandinavian area is high on agreeableness, only modest on conscientiousness, which is more in line with expectations. Curiously, the area is depleted in openness to experience and enriched in extraversion. Considering that much of this area descends from pretty liberal and highly open stocks (e.g., Scandinavians), this represents sorting, either through initial immigration or (more likely) “boiling off,” likely losing the more “open” individuals to the Left Coast.

And it is this that brings me to the next important factor is the forging of the behavioral character of each region. The “second generation” nations – the Left Coast and the Far West – unlike the other nations – are defined more by sorting effects than ethnic composition. This is plainly evident on the Left Coast, which is notoriously introverted and known for being unconventional (being high on openness to experience). As the settlers here (initially Yankees from New England augmented by various waves of Scots-Irish) were putting the most distance between themselves and any ties back East, one would imagine that this would select for a certain type of individual. The reputation that the Left Coast developed would have further served to attract a certain type of individual, as it continues to do today.

Sorting played an important role in the rise of the Far West, the last of the American nations to take shape. The eastern edge of the Far West (and the western reaches of the Midlands and Greater Appalachia) straddles the vast Great Plains:

Politically, this area, even the Midlands section, is staunchly conservative. Indeed, it is this area where conscientiousness appears to peak. Much of this area, especially the Midlands section, does appear to be heavily German. Yet it is thoroughly red. Indeed, as we saw in my earlier post Rural White Liberals – a Key to Understanding the Political Divide, I noted that the Plains are the area where Steve Sailer’s “affordable family formation” theory appears to work best: the effective cost of living is low and political conservatism is high. I believe two sorting events might explain this.

First, the area seems to be a region where there was a distinct religious element to settlement. Several religious movements seem to have progressed through here (as seen previously in my post Religions of the American Nations), particularly the Methodists and the Restoration Movement Christians:

These movements may have followed settlement along the Santa Fe Trail, (as pointed out to me by an observant commenter), perhaps populating the area with staunch religious/conservative types. This, coupled with a pocket of devout Lutheranism farther north in the Scandinavian zone combine to leave the Great Plains one of the most religious areas of the country (maps from Valpo):

However, this is only one factor explaining the deep political red of the Great Plains. The personality data point to another factor, which reflects a key event the area’s history: the flight from the area during the Dust Bowl. Since 1920, the area lost a third of its population, and the population continues to decline to this day. However, the Plains has some of the highest White fertility rates in the country. Perhaps this process represents a “boiling off” type scenario that Cochran & Harpending have described for the Amish. The more “open” folks left and continue to do so, heading west and east to places more suited to their proclivities. This would have served to concentrate the religious and conservative character of the region.

Edit, 6/10/14: [**Indeed, I have tracked down a map that shows when each county in the nation ceased growing in population (from here):

As we can see, the vast area of the Great Plains, as well as areas to the east in Greater Appalachia and the Midlands, have been losing people since the beginning of the 20th century. Many of these people went west to the Far West and the Left Coast. If we imagine that this represented a sustained loss of people with a certain cognitive profile – as seen from the fact that this area is depleted in individuals open to experience and introverted – then the conservative bent of the area makes more sense. Indeed, even the more eastern section of the Midlands may be more conservative than it once was thanks to this sustained out-migration. **]

Sorting has been key to the genesis of the Far West. The obligatorily pastoral living favored the Scots-Irish from Greater Appalachia to settle the region, and the distance, isolation, and harsh climate (and hostile Native Americans trying to resist the conquest of their territory) selected for an individualistic, tough-minded type of person. There was a reason the West was Wild. This has left a special mark of the personality of the area, as Staffan once discussed:

This is a map of the distribution of “entrepreneurial” personality type (from Obschonka et al, 2013). As we see, it clearly peaks in the Far West (as does entrepreneurial activity). This is interesting evident on the ABC show Shark Tank, a reality show were budding entrepreneurs seek investment from a panel of venture capitalists. The Far West, despite being the least populated of the American nations, seems to produce more than its fair share of entrepreneurs on the show.

Despite its relative conservatism, women have long held a high place in Far Western society. The harsh environment favored wives that were competent full partners to their husbands. That is, when men could find wives. Women were often in short supply, and subsequently become highly valued. Indeed, the lack of women created a huge demand for prostitution, and this allowed prospecting women to capitalize on this as brothel madams, many managing to become quite wealthy. These madams were actually key to building important parts of Far Western society (and it is a Far Western state, Nevada, where prostitution remains legal today). Indeed, the Far West was where women first gain the right to vote, something that was resisted in the Tidewater and the Deep South to the end (from here):

These data and historical events serve to underscore the importance of the character of the people to leading to the character of a nation. Each and every population is unique, and, as the Far West (including the Great Plains), the Left Coast, the French Canadians demonstrate, what begins as one population and one people can produce several quite distinct daughter populations, if they are subjected to strong and ongoing assortment. The character of a nation can be altered permanently if new people move into it, as happened to the many of the northern American nations.

Indeed, this brings me back to the whole topic of “assimilation.” It is largely considered a given in today’s society that immigrants eventually “assimilate” into their new home societies and even adopt the customs of their new lands. This is a canard. As I said, assimilation generally doesn’t happen. Rather, people have mistaken the adoption of things like language (which, as Judith Rich Harris demonstrated, is heavily dependent on childhood peer groups) to be evidence that immigrants adopt the behaviors of their hosts group in everything else. A little closer inspection can show that that plainly does not happen. Indeed, is the New England of today the same as the New England of the Civil War era before the Irish, Italians, French, and Portuguese came? M.G. gave a detailed answer to that question. She noted the higher crime rates and higher levels of endemic corruption among the Catholic Irish, Italians, and other immigrant groups. Some of this likely abated over time as the least successful individuals returned home. However, today, we see in areas across the North where these clannish groups have settled, corruption remains a serious problem (map of political corruption conviction rates per 100,000 population – which likely woefully underestimates the true incidence of corruption because it doesn’t catch “legal” corruption nor offenders who don’t get caught, from here):

The general non-existence of assimilation is further elucidated when one looks at the performance of certain long-resident groups. Here, we can look at the core of the oldest American nation, El Norte. The core of this nation, New Mexico, is one place that is still home to a large fraction of nortenos, including descendants of White Spaniard colonists. There are 7th generation “Hispanics” here. And, as Greg Cochran (here and here) and Chuck have analyzed, these Hisapnics have not converged with the broader White American mean. As Cochran put it:

in a fair-sized data set (1576 people) collected in 1965 … The original respondents and their adult children were interviewed. It shows quite clearly that although second-generation Mexican-Americans averaged more education and higher SES than the first generation, presumably because they knew English, there was no further improvement in the third and fourth generations. The gap remained substantial: the fourth generation had a college completion rate of 6%, compared to a rate of 35% for whites of that same era.

Which is pretty much what you see in New Mexico too, except that here we’re often talking about the fifth, sixth, and seventh generation living in the US

T. Greer once commented on the matter of assimilation for long-time Asian immigrants (not as much as you think – From Foreigners to Countrymen: How Many Generations Until Immigrants Think Like the Rest of Us?). (There is some discussion about possible IQ & educational convergence of 3rd+ generation Asian Americans, but it’s far from clear that a such finding is reliable).

As another example, the case of the Finnish-Americans of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula:

Tourists to the remote towns of the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan may be puzzled by the many Finnish flags adorning local businesses and homes. Evidence of Finnish culture and ancestral pride is ubiquitous in Michigan, which is less surprising when taking into account that Michigan is home to more Finnish Americans than any other state

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Most of these Finnish settlers arrived on American soil during the “Great Finnish Immigration.” Between 1870 and 1929 an estimated 350,000 Finnish immigrants arrived in the United States, many of them settling in an area that would be come to known as the “Sauna Belt”….

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The geography of Finland and Michigan, especially the Upper Peninsula, are uncannily similar.

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With such a high proportion of Finnish Americans in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it is no wonder that even today Finnish culture is so intricately intertwined with the UP.

The word “Yooper” means several things to the people of Michigan. For one, a Yooper is a colloquial name for someone the Upper Peninsula (derived the acronym “UP”). Yooper is also a linguistic dialect found in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that is heavily influenced by Finnish due to the masses of Finnish immigrants who settled in Copper Country.

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Generations later many of their descendants remain in this peninsula that looks eerily like their motherland; Finnish culture is still a very strong influence in the UP.

Today these Finnish-Americans appear to be generally more Left-leaning, much like their cousins across the Atlantic.

Staffan gives us perhaps the most biting example of the general non-existence of assimilation (emphasis added):

My favorite example of assimilation is southern Sweden, called Scania. It was taken from Denmark 1658, and they still behave as Danes, more ballsy and politically incorrect, more into visual and performing arts etc. Many even want to belong to Denmark and have a referendum about it. And that’s after living in Sweden for 356 years. That’s between two similar countries who have no special ethnic or religious conflicts, disputes over natural resources or anything of that sort.

As I said, many processes can give the false appearance of assimilation over time. Language acquisition and the attainment of skills and education in subsequent generations can give the impression that the newcomers are completely leaving their homeland behind. As well, we have seen the importance of sorting. Immigration is a heavily selective process. At the very least, it selects for a desire (or at least a willingness) to leave home and enter a foreign land. Over and beyond this, it may select for ability, either positively (usually, as we see with modern African immigrants) or negatively, as we see with the New French. Since many immigrants often ultimately return home, retention imposes another selective sieve. And finally, personal taste is a factor. This aspect was involved in the genesis of the Left Coast. Indeed, self-assortment maintains the character of each of American nations, as people born in one nation more suited to the ways of another often find themselves there. This process is just as important for immigrants from overseas as well. To give you an example, I will use myself. I live in Maine – but I am not a Yankee. Though I have ancestry from the British Isles, none of it (as far as I know) is Puritan. Yet here I am. Indeed, before this, I lived for many years in rural eastern Connecticut. While I enjoy visiting New York, I have long since found the New England way of life more to my liking. Many others have similar experiences.

As we’ve seen previously in my post The Son Becomes the Father, twin and adoption studies have established that the heritability of political attitudes, religiosity, and personality are all very high……and are not measurably impacted by the environment – including the things one things should matter like one’s surroundings. Indeed, the heritability of political orientation approaches 100% when one accounts for measurement error. Political beliefs respond to local circumstances, each person’s behavior adjusting to the landscape of the day. This explains rapid secular trends, as detailed in my post Why HBD. But the fundamental make-up of people doesn’t change – they just respond accordingly to the shifting reality of the day.

As attitudes and views are so heritable, and verifiable environmental impacts have been hard to turn up, it is clear that the differences we see between all these groups – between groups originating from the same country – have genetic underpinnings. No two human populations are genetically identical, and indeed, the “four British folkways” of David Hackett Fischer are evident in the genetic data (via Razib Khan):

Each human population is unique (indeed, each is composed of unique individuals). While each population exhibits great similarity to related groups (similarity broadly mediated by the degree of relatedness), small but highly significant differences can make all the difference in the world depending on the situation. This was the case with the enduring struggle between two English groups: the Puritans and the Cavaliers. This struggle lives on in Britain’s daughter country, the United States, each side now joined and energized by allies – settlers that have come from across Europe and the world.

This is hardly unique; indeed, the current turmoil in Ukraine should make that unquestionably obvious:

 

 

Eastern Ukraine was settled by Russians – immigrants – who have maintained their identity despite being in the area in since the 16th century in some cases. Today, these two highly related populations, Ukrainians and Russians (both East Slavs) maintain distinct differences, differences that fuel the current turmoil.

But we see similar divisions within countries elsewhere: between England and Scotland; within Spain; within Germany (see my post Germania’s Seed?); and within Italy.

The American nations will outlive us all.

These genetic rifts, within races, even within ethnic groups serve to counter an oft-cited nonsense charge leveled with the release of Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance: that human group differences can’t have any genetic basis because we see differences within groups – as if that fact weakens the case. Indeed, if anything, it serves to show the power of heredity, and absolute insanity of most of these critical claims. To be sure, I will resume addressing this nonsense shortly, but I sure hope this post serves as a potent illustration of human group differences.

Please, if you haven’t seen it, and are new to this topic, see my page:

JayMan’s Race, Inheritance, and IQ F.A.Q. (F.R.B.)

For the theme for the post, I once again use the French song “La Terre Tremblante” from the film In the Electric Mist (see my earlier post Acadie), about the plight of the Acadian-derived Cajuns of Louisiana. This is the version of the song used in the film. The American country influence makes this a fitting theme for this post: