Biosocial interactions in modernization 8. Racial variation and racism ‘Racial’ variation and racism Race? Racism? = provocative title Biosocial aspects of all forms of inter-population variability racism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia The ‘race’ concept: Ø Definition: a population that distinguishes itself statistically significantly in its allele frequencies from other populations Ø Racial classifications: an arbitrary matter Ø A subspecies or variety? Ø standard threshold in animal species: F[st] = 0.25-0.30 Ø Human races: F[st] = 0.156 Ø Races = historical reproductive communities Ø Race = in principle a population concept Ø although most individuals can correctly be classified into nonoverlapping population genetic entities, especially when a large number of biological characteristics or genetic markers are used Ø Between-population biological differences: Ø Genetic Ø Environmental Race, ethnic group, nation Ø Race = biological concept Ø Ethnic group = cultural entity ØLinguistic groups ØReligious groups Ø State/Nation = political entity ‘Race’: abolish concept? Ø Abolish: Ø Scientifically: race is a flawed, imprecise concept that should not be used in research or medicine; Ø Confused or assimilated with cultural, linguistic, religious or even political characteristics. Ø Abused in ingroup-outgroup relations Ø Retain: Ø useful proxies for ancestry; Ø using racial categories will improve research quality or decrease cost by reducing irrelevant background variability between cases and controls; Ø Abolish: ostrich policy attitude; inter-population genetic differences and relations constitute one of the important social issues and ethically and politically sensitive population problems. The ‘race’ concept: historical developments Ø Older anthropology: Ø characterized by its descriptive approach; Ø Post-WWII: Ø Genocides and other group related crimes, biological anthropology concentrated on showing that genetic factors are not at the basis of the sociological majority-minority relations; Ø Analytic and dynamic approach: application of evolutionary theory; Ø Second Darwinian revolution in the 1960s and 1970s: Ø broadening of the evolutionary-biological interest in inter-group differentiation to a broader range of socio-biological in-group/out-group relations; Ø Recently: Ø Human (diversity) genome project Ø Upsurges or intensification of ethnic or racial tensions in many parts of the world. Ø Conclusion: between-population genetic variation Species and subspecies 8. Racial variation and racism Ø8.1. Evolutionary background of inter- population variation Ø8.2. In-group/out-group relations in modern society The evolutionary origin of between-population variation Ø Splitting of populations, resulting in genetic isolation and involving ‘genetic drift’; Ø Fusion or interbreeding of populations, as a consequence of migration or neighbouring contacts; Ø Adaptation of populations, as a consequence of the occurrence of mutation and selection in different environmental living conditions. Splitting of populations Anthropometric dendrograms ancestry and adaptation Population genetic dendrograms phylogenetic history Largely identical results except for features which are clearly adaptations to similarities of environments Genetic dendrogram for major human population divisions Major genetic subdivisions of mankind Genetic-linguistic relations Correspondence between the genetic affinities of human populations and the linguistic affinities: – not due to genetic causal relationship with particular languages; – but result of historic-demographic processes Genetic-linguistic relations Fusion Ø The merging of separate and genetically partially different populations: Ø new gene pools that are different from the original parental populations. Ø establishment of heterozygous genotypes Ø new hybrid reproductive units Ø increase of the genetic variability within the population *Effects: Ø mythology of presumed unfavourable consequences of hybridization; Ø Social exclusion (with unfavourable phenotypic effects) Ø heterosis or hybrid vigour Dynamics of racial admixture Long-term evolution after racial admixture Adaptation Ø Forms of adaptation: Ø Physiologically and/or behaviourally adaptation ( = acclimatization); Ø Genetic adaptation (mutation and selection) Ø Major environmental causes: Ø Climate (e.g. skin colour, body build) Ø Disease (e.g. Sickle cell anemia) Ø Nutrition (e.g. lactose tolerance) Skin colour adaptation to climate (Gloger’s rule) Body build and climate (Bergmann’s and Allen’s rules) BIOLOGICAL BETWEEN-POPULATION DIFFERENCES Ø Between-population biological differences show a strong overlapping; Ø Genetic gradients = gradually increasing genetic differences with geographical distance; Ø Between-population genetic variation is only a small fraction of the total population genetic variation (= people of different racial groups probably have about 99.9% identical DNA). Lewontin’s dogma “It is clear that our perception of relatively large differences between human races and subgroups, as compared to the variation within these groups, is indeed a biased perception and that, based on randomly chosen genetic differences, human races and populations are remarkably similar to each other, with the largest part by far of human variation being accounted for by the differences between individuals” BEHAVIOURAL-GENETIC BETWEEN-POPULATION DIFFERENCES Ø Between-population differences in cognitive ability, emotional personality, sexual behaviour, etc. ? Ø Sensitive and controversial matter! Ø important role in various domains of social life; Ø inter-ethnic relations often suffer from historical and even present-day inequalities and inequities; Ø use and abuse of scientific knowledge about possible genetic differences to justify socially conservative or even politically exploitative policies; Ø SSSM hypothesis of environmental determinism of individual and group behaviour. Theoretical probability of behavioural-genetic between-population differences Ø Theoretically possible to have behavioural genetic differences, provided long term separation, and adaptation to different environments Ø Even small differences in selective advantages between populations for characteristics such as cognitive ability may result in substantial different gene frequencies if the selective differential prevails over a sufficiently long period of time. Between-population differences in measured intelligence Ø Quite substantive phenotypic differences (m = 100; SD = 15) on so-called culture-fair intelligence tests have repeatedly been observed between populations of different racial/ethnic origin, e.g.: Ø Ashkenazi Jews (107-115); Ø Mongoloid (East-Asian) populations (103-113); Ø Populations of European origin (100-102); Ø American Hispanics (88-96); Ø American Indians (± 90); Ø African Americans (± 85); Ø Sub-Saharan Africans (?) Ø Considerable overlap of the frequency distributions; Ø Individual differences within groups make a far more important contribution to total variance: race: 14 %; social class: 8 %, interaction of race and class: 8%; and individual differences: 70 % Intelligence frequency distribution among ‘Blacks’ and ‘Whites’ in the US How to explain the between-population differences in measured intelligence? In the present scientific literature roughly two major explanations are found: – A mixed genetic-environmental (~ 50% genetic causation) theory (e.g. Jensen, 1969; 1998; Eysenck (1971; 1998); Rushton (1995), Brand (1996), Levin (1997), Lynn, 2006; Lynn and Vanhanen (2006). – A culture-only (0% genetic causation) theory (e.g. Flynn, 1980; Fish, 2002; Gould, 1981; Lewontin et al., 1984; Sternberg et al., 2005; Jencks and Phillips, 1998; Montagu, 1999). The ‘Jensen 1969’ controversy • Jensen, A.R. (1969), How Much Can We Boost I.Q. and Scholastic Achievement? Harvard Educational Review, 39: 1‑123. • “So all we are left with are various lines of evidence, no one of which is definitive alone, but which, viewed all together, make it a not unreasonable hypothesis that genetic factors are strongly implicated in the average Negro-white intelligence difference. The preponderance of the evidence is, in my opinion, less consistent with a strictly environmental hypothesis than with a genetic hypothesis, which, of course, does not exclude the influence of environment or its interaction with genetic factors.” Arguments for the mixed genetic-environmental theory Ø Within and between population heritability; Ø Regression toward the mean in different populations; Ø Absence of between-population bias in intelligence tests; Ø The relation between between-population differences and g-loadings of the tests; Ø Shared and non-shared environmental effects in between-population differences; Ø Population-genetic admixture; Ø Cross-population adoption; Ø Between population differences in brain functioning; Arguments of the culture-only theory Ø The basic concepts such as race, heritability, the g factor in cognitive ability, the measurement of intelligence, on which the hypothesis of partial genetic influences of between-group population differences in measured intelligence are based, are contested; Ø The differences in measured intelligence between population groups can be explained by the accumulation of differences in educational, cultural, social, political, psychological and biological living conditions. Specific arguments of the ‘culture-only’ theory Ø Race = has no biological basis, but is a social construct; Ø Heritability within groups is uninformative for heritability differences between groups; Ø Intelligence: there is no g; intelligence tests don’t measure innate cognitive ability but reflect culturally acquired skills and behaviours; intelligence is not inherited; Ø Flynn-Lynn effect. Ø Environmental process variables (e.g., parental attitudes, parent–child interaction patterns) account for a substantial proportion of the variance in intellectual performance and academic achievement; Ø Minority status, not race causes low IQ test scores; Ø Stereotype threats depress the standardized test performances; Ø Lower IQ test results are also partly the consequence of resistance to the majority culture; Ø Exposure to information, rather than intellectual ability, may account for racial differences in IQ; Ø Differences in measured IQ between African Americans and European Americans has decreased in recent decades What to conclude about the genetic-environmental controversy on between-group differences in intelligence? Ø The scientific community remains clearly divided; Ø Advocates of a partial genetic hypothesis may undervalue the cumulative impact of unfavourable living circumstances and life experiences on the performances of minority groups; Ø Contributions aiming to refute the mixed genetic-environmental theory are often weak and socially or politically even counterproductive; Ø The conclusions of Jensen in his early publications on between-population differences in cognitive ability (Jensen, 1969; 1971; 1973) or in his recent classic on the g-factor (Jensen, 1998) have, neither then nor now, been convincingly refuted. Ø In conclusion, the hypothesis of a partial genetic explanation of between-group differences in cognitive ability can as yet not be excluded. Implications of possible genetic population differences in intelligence Ø Social policies should be developed independently of the group identification; Ø Heritability IQ = 0.50 : There is ample room for social engineering! Ø Importance of biological environmental factors Ø Impact of dysgenic reproductive patterns and socially non-adaptive behavioural patterns in modern culture; *Responsibility of ‘minority’ elite: Ø should carefully consider all available knowledge about the causes of the minority conditions; Ø develop policies and actions aimed at changing in-group behaviours perpetuating the unfavourable in-group conditions (e.g. dysgenic reproductive patterns, irresponsible sexual and family behaviour, absence in school, drug use, criminal behaviour). 8. Racial variation and racism Ø8.1. Evolutionary background of inter- population variation Ø8.2. In-group/out-group relations in modern society IN-GROUP/OUT-GROUP TYPOLOGY • In-group: – the couple; – the nuclear or extended family; – the circle of friends, the sports club; – the clan, the tribe; – the social class, the religious/philosophical group; – the linguistic group, the cultural community, the nation, the race, the species. • Out-group: – the ‘others’, the strangers Between-population behavioural patterns Ø RACISM: beliefs that genetic differences between human populations, determining particular socially or culturally relevant biological and psychological qualities, form a justification and legitimate basis for a discriminating distinction between and treatment of people belonging to or descending from those populations. Ø ETHNOCENTRISM: feelings of loyalty towards the own cultural community, usually coupled to negative attitudes towards other, different communities. Ø XENOPHOBIA: feelings of fear or aversion of, if not hatred for foreigners. History of ethnocentrism and racism • Ethnocentrism: – universal nature? – humans ‘οί βάρβάροί’ • Racism: – relatively new phenomenon ? (linked to encounter of populations over a larger distance during the last 500 years) – pseudo-scientific racialist theories that developed in the wake of the emerging biological sciences and in particular of Darwinism • count de Boulainvilliers argued already in 1727 that the French aristocracy descended from a superior race of dolichocephalic nordic Franks, • de Gobineau (1853-1855 ): ‘Sur l'inégalité des races humaines‘ • other European countries and in America: Chamberlain, 1911; Stoddard, 1920; Grant, 1921; Günther, 1922;) • NAZISM (Hitler, 1933; Rosenberg, 1934) Dogma’s of racist theories • Races can be ranked hierarchically, i.e. superior and inferior races can be distinguished; • There is a strong belief in genetic determinism; • All signs of cultural sort, also customs and mores, are considered to be genetically determined; • Racial admixture results in biological degeneration; • Sociological majority/minority relations are the result of genetic superiority/inferiority and/or racial purity/admixture. Sociological majority/minority relations in pluri-racial or pluri-ethnic societies • Differences in social status; • Differences in opportunities to social mobility; • Differences in economic prosperity; • Differences in political power; • Differences in rights and privileges; • Presence of a superiority, respectively inferiority complex. Emancipatory strategies of sociological minority groups • The assimilationistic strategy: the minority group desires to merge into the majority group; • The pluralistic strategy: the minority group wishes, on equal basis with other groups, to be integrated into a pluralistic and tolerant society; • The secessionistic strategy: the minority group strives for cultural and political independence; • The militant strategy: the minority group evolves from a egalitarian towards a dominant strategy. Explanations for sociological majority-minority relations • Racialist theoreticians: – the presence of sociological majority/minority relations are the consequence of genetic differences (gene differences, hybridization) • Scientific theories: – selective effects of climate on human intelligence for the cultural development of particular population genetic variants; – temporal combination of favourable or unfavourable political, cultural, economic, and possibly also ecological conditions that forced a particular genetic, ethnic, social or sexual group in a position of underdevelopment, neglect, and/or of exploitation. Inferior and superior populations? • Belief in the innate superiority of own group: ancient and tenacious! • Evolutionary theory: – inferiority/superiority: degree of adaptation to the environment; – Adaptedness of biological characteristics: relative! • Dark complexion in sun-rich environment; • Linear body build in polar climate; • Sickle cell anemia in malaria-endemic environment; • High intelligence in modern technological society • Genetic explanations for presence of particular diseases: bottle-necks and inbreeding in isolates. Evolutionary explanations for the in-group/out-group syndrome • Kin selection theory • Reciprocity theory • Similarity theory • Selfish gene theory as basis for in-group/out-group antagonisms • Balance of power theory Kin selection theory Kin selection Inclusive fitness Nepotism ethnic groups = extended kin groups extended kin nepotism ethnocentrism Reciprocity theory Inclusive fitness Altruistic behaviour towards non-kin Close genetic relationship TIT-FOR-TAT Reinforcement of ethnic and racial sentiments as extensions of kin and nepotistic sentiments Similarity theory Genetic similarity Genetic self Familial dispositions Mutually supporting environments as friendship, marriage, social relationships, ethnocentrism Selfish gene theory Kin selection Reciprocity Similarity Intergenerational transmission of the individual’s own genes Groups of people sharing markers of biological, social or cultural identity Balance of power theory Cultural evolution of humankind Gathering/hunting stage Agrarian stage Increase in group size Industrial stage » Protection against external threats (raiding and predation of other human groups) » Instrument in the conquest of new territories and resources » Reinforcement of power of in-group elites » More intensive cooperation within the groups Adaptedness of the In-group/Out-group Syndrome • Successful strategy in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) and even in agrarian culture: • survival and reproductive advantages • defensive or offensive actions against competing out-groups • increasing inclusive fitness • Maladapted to the Novel Environment of modern culture: • too dangerous (technological means of mass destruction) • globalisation of commerce, culture and politics • individual talents and abilities more important than markers of group identity Modernization and in-group/out-group syndrome Modernization – strongly increased geographical mobility over large distances, both of individuals and groups – increased genetic and cultural heterogeneity • Increased cultural diversity/enrichment • increased risks of new in-group/out-group conflicts – emergence or strengthening of emancipatory movements among ethnic groups in pluri-ethnic societies How to resolve the societal problems related to the in-group/out-group relations ? • MULTI-CULTURALISM? • CULTURAL AUTONOMISM? • INTEGRATIONALISM? Multiculturalism: fact or fiction? • Basic principles of multi-culturalism: – right of ethnic minority groups to collective expression of language, values and norms in the institutional setting – equal treatment and equal access to law, employment, education, social services, and political representation • Self-proclaimed multicultural societies (e.g. USA, Canada, Australia): – national language is the only official and public instrument of communications, all of the constitutional and other legal rights and obligations have absolute precedence over ethnic-specific norms, and autonomy does not encompass political components; – Immigrants are expected to integrate and adapt to the national language, legislation and customs – Equal treatment (particularly of original indigenous populations) has still a long way to go Cultural autonomy/independence Three major groups of countries in Europe: Ø Some historical multi-ethnic countries have constitutionally organized the ‘multi-cultural’ relations between their ethnic components (e.g. Switzerland, Belgium) Ø Several former multi-ethnic countries in Europe that had a federal organisation of their major ethnic constituants – Tsechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet-Union – have disintegrated largely or completely on the basis of their former ethnic composition. Ø Some other countries such as Spain, France and UK, with historical ethnic minorities that have no or not yet full constitutional rights or autonomy, but are in the process of multi-cultural institutionalization or are struggling with minority empancipatory movements Integrationalism • Historical small ethnic minorities: – numbers, local fragmentation or dispersion in border areas form an obstacle to the development of structurally underpinned multicultural systems; – They rarely have fully equal linguistic or cultural rights, or complete cultural or political autonomy. • New immigrant populations: – are expected to adapt and integrate in their host society – Have equal rights to profess their faith (within the boundaries of the law) as the nationals Integration of immigrants • Immigrants: – need to adapt to the host country, to learn the language and to get used to customs and rules of the host country, to obey the laws and to all societal regulations and customs which deal with the major aspects of social life; – Multi-culturally variable behaviour: restricted to issues belonging to the private domain: leisure, worship, dress (?), private use of language. • Social integration: – full integration in the host society is the only path towards prosperity and social mobility; – in-group isolation and residential and social segregation and enduring endogamy entail risk of: • ghetto formation, social exclusion; • social stratification based on ethnicity/race. • Sociobiological integration: interbreeding with members of out-groups • transformation of endogamy to exogamy; • Sharing of gene pools between ethnic groups. Multiculturalism: fiction! • Multiculturalism = vague, multi-meaning concept; • Scientific and political community strongly divided: • diverging views of ‘multi-culturalists’ and ‘integrationalists’ are often more of a theoretical and philosophical nature than of pragmatic consequence • Ideological/political use and abuse of the concept: • Mask for hidden political agendas; • Means for acquiring political power; • Instrument for ideological proliferation. • Full or true multiculturalism: • Either impossible to fully implement; • Or results in societal strive and, in the end, splitting up; • Risk of cultural regression (return to values and norms that emerged in pre-modern and pre-democratic societal regimes). Multiculturalism, autonomism, integrationalism: rearguard actions? Ø Modernization: conquering the world Ø NB. Ambiguity of fundamentalist ideologies and countries: Ø Want all the advantages of modern technology; Ø Want to preserve pre-modern values and norms. Ø Internationalization and globalization require: Ø Acceptance of biological and cultural diversity; Ø Acceptance of modern, democratic, humanistic values and norms; Ø Decrease of internal and international differentials in wealth and opportunities for development and emancipation; Ø Acquisition and use of a universally practiced language, in addition to national and neigbouring languages.