The drawing makes no sense... there's a triple point in the blue boundary, so there are at least three regions, not two. But the article talks about "two sides".
> Recent research not only confirms the existence of substantial psychological variation around the globe but also highlights the peculiarity of populations that are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD). We propose that much of this variation arose as people psychologically adapted to differing kin-based institutions—the set of social norms governing descent, marriage, residence and related domains. We further propose that part of the variation in these institutions arose historically from the Catholic Church’s marriage and family policies, which contributed to the dissolution of Europe’s traditional kin-based institutions, leading eventually to the predominance of nuclear families and impersonal institutions. By combining data on 20 psychological outcomes with historical measures of both kinship and Church exposure, we find support for these ideas in a comprehensive array of analyses across countries, among European regions and between individuals with different cultural backgrounds.
the stretch of the line along the east baltic i see as a result of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_the_Teutonic_Order . The Teutonic Order east conquest set up a lot of history there that is still being played out almost 800 years later.
It would be interesting to know if footprints of past conquests/empires are the reason for the line not correlating with today's borders. At least the two pockets on the south Iberian Peninsula and as well the southern Apennine Peninsula correlate with former Islamic Caliphates.
I wonder though why Ireland, Austria and Venice would be outside. In some respects all of them played central roles in European history (Ireland in Christianization).
EDIT: Just figured out, the drawing is off. If drawn correctly it would include Vienna and Venice.
If you mean the Teutonic Order's crusade quickening the Christian baptism of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, I'm sceptical. Not that the region becoming part of the Christian Europe isn't important; it's just that it was inevitable anyway. The paper "The Origins of WEIRD Psychology" [0] linked by another comment proposes that this is likely to do with Catholicism. However, I speculate that the East Baltic's (the Baltic states') embrace of Catholicism is evident in the 20th century, not because of the ?-1410 crusade, but because in the 20th century, they experienced severe antagonisation from the atheist USSR, and went full-throttle in the other direction. A bit like how the US alcohol prohibition backfired. Aggressive suppression of religion led to it growing strong roots. Funnily enough, same thing was happening almost a thousand years ago, only reversed. Region resisting Catholicism peddled by Teutons and suppression of the pre-Christian religion. 20th century -- same region fighting to preserve a Catholic identity.
HBDchick is an advocate of Human BioDiversity theory, which, very simply, states that the distances between various populations of humans over time have lead to statistically relevant and measurable differences in both mind _and_ body (this is the crux of the issue). While this is intuitive within the whole of mammalian evolutionary biology, there are some very sensitive conclusions that any party could arrive at if one accepts that different groups of humans have evolved different traits that reflect both strengths and weaknesses in modern society. She is not alone in this assertion, but the status quo of politically motivated science has tacitly decided that exclusion and censorship are the best response to an admittedly uncomfortable possible interpretation of reality. There is a huge amount of reading on the topic, but i refuse to use throwaways and i do not want to be banned so feel free to DM me if you'd like to know more. IANAB.
Genetic variation by region is well known. That genetics affect mind and body is known. The fact that combining those facts is bannable is nuts. Although I suspect it is all guilt by association, with some prominent bigot parroting a half-correct interpretation. Can we get a comment from HN where the line is discussing these issues to put commenters at ease? It seems a tricky precipice to tread, online and off, yet an important one if equality is truly our goal.
To be clear, it is not HN that is the issue, it is the subject of HBD. There are many examples of this discussion drawing in folks whose main mission is astroturfing, gaslighting, FUD, and race hate. Looking at the link another poster added should show you just how easy it is to color perspective and change the nature of the discussion.
The sad part is that while HBD is a magnet for extremist internet warriors on any given side of any given issue, there is a very real issue concerning the capacity of the human mind. While very intelligent, economically well off people debate whether IQ is a fair way to measure, low capability people* are force fed a doctrine that says a college degree is the only path to happiness. While we talk about equity and fairness, people who would be better off as apprentices are accruing massive debt as bad students. And the worst, IMO: while we debate racial incarceration data, whole communities are being torn out in the middle by obtuse welfare programs, inscrutable methodology, and despicable political posturing.
As i said before, IANAB, but i cannot shake the feeling that a one-size-fits-all approach to intellectual acumen and cognitive capability is relegating huge portions of society to debt prison while simultaneously stunting scientific, technological, and sociological progress. It is more than a bit frustrating.
*low should be read as "short list of," and is in no way intended as a value judgement.
But i have absolutely no idea whether to trust RationalWiki or not. I tend to assume anything with "rational" in the name is anything but (unless it's about fractions).
I think she is tangential to some completely unobjectionable stuff as well as some (to me) objectionable stuff. The things she talks about the most which I find interesting are the internal-to-Europe differences in family patterns (family size, manorialism, adoption, etc.) and how those have changed population genetics within europe over time (culture impacting genetics; unclear the extent genetics impact culture). Also that in England and other NW Europe the most violent people were executed for crimes fairly aggressively, and only elites had large numbers of children, leading to a long-term improvement in genetics with time.
If this is true and significant then it does not imply a long-term improvement so much as a specialisation towards (a) not being caught for crimes and (b) being able to become an “elite,” potentially by violence, cruelty, manipulation, and other traits one likely would not consider desirable.
On crimes I disagree, because committing violent crimes and being caught for them tend to be fairly correlated; crime is rarely a one-time thing, and criminals get unlucky or are stupid too.
As for elites -> more children, since there were various routes into "elite" for smart/competent/etc. people (the church in various roles, not all of which precluded reproduction; skilled trades/guilds, etc.), it did have a positive effect in amplifying traits (intelligence, etc.) which I think people broadly support (I do). Similar to the assortative mating issues with colleges and elite workplaces today.
Foremost I'd like to excuse myself for my laziness as I'm more engaged by the presumption of words like "racist" being thrown at the innocent and less by reading up individual political leanings - but could you please name some examples that prove what "rationalWiki" says, that she's a racist. Quoting Charles Murray often shouldn't count. And I didn't found an "about" page, just this: https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2015/03/07/my-politics/
RationalWiki is a liberal alternative to Conservapedia. Liberal atheists will find there a lot of ammunition for fighting online battles. Other people may get the impression that the wiki comes with its own set of biases.
Generally, the wiki tries to promote science and oppose pseudoscience, and often does a good job. The problem is with politically charged topics, where politically correct ideas are automatically presented as science, and politically incorrect ideas as pseudoscience.
Unlike Wikipedia, the idea of impartiality is considered a joke at RationalWiki. As soon as you decide that an idea is pseudoscientific, you are allowed and actually encouraged to use the "snarky point of view", which provides an excuse for exaggerations or straw men, because if anyone objects, hey, I was just joking, don't you understand a joke? Of course the articles do not distinguish the factual and the snarky parts, so everyone is free to make their own guess.
Half the comments on this thread now have nothing to do with the story itself, but rather on this irrelevant political tangent you've introduced. As a fellow regular on this site, can I ask you to please not write comments like this?
She is probably the #1 person (in both volume and quality) talking about the Hajnal line over the past 5-10 years, and is how I originally heard about it, so it's not really irrelevant or political. It is a tangent, I guess.
Spiraling comment threads create an opportunity for an expansive discourse with multiple potential paths. Given that a rule violation wasn't cited as well as the fact that the whole chain has been flagged and dead'd, i have to wonder why someone of your renown saw fit to contribute to what you described as a tangential discussion. The political downvoting was enough to earmark the discussion as wrongthink. Please don't get me banned for questioning your motives; it is a dead chain anyways.
Can you clearly state:
1. why the comment was "irrelevant"?
2. how the poster could have known what other commenters would have posted in reaction to his comment?
The article links to the article on the Western European marriage pattern, which gives as a major explanation the marriage rules instituted by the Roman Catholic church. But weirdly enough, the areas in Western Europe where the pattern does not hold (southern Spain and Italy, Ireland) are deeply Roman Catholic. Does anyone have an explanation for that?
These marriage patterns changed sometime long before 1500, maybe circa 1000AD -- so if the church had a hand in it, it's the medieval church.
The places where this pattern was strongest went on to invent Protestant religion, and have now largely moved on from formal church. While the places the present-day Catholic church is strongest are outside this zone... or weren't christian at all in at the relevant time (like Spain, and Mexico).
I don't want to nitpick, but the drawing is a bit off:
The line as it is drawn excludes Venice and Vienna. Correcting that line to actually overlap with St. Petersburg and Trieste gets these epicenters of European culture back "inside".
40 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 84.7 ms ] threadhttps://psyarxiv.com/d6qhu/
The Origins of WEIRD Psychology
> Recent research not only confirms the existence of substantial psychological variation around the globe but also highlights the peculiarity of populations that are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD). We propose that much of this variation arose as people psychologically adapted to differing kin-based institutions—the set of social norms governing descent, marriage, residence and related domains. We further propose that part of the variation in these institutions arose historically from the Catholic Church’s marriage and family policies, which contributed to the dissolution of Europe’s traditional kin-based institutions, leading eventually to the predominance of nuclear families and impersonal institutions. By combining data on 20 psychological outcomes with historical measures of both kinship and Church exposure, we find support for these ideas in a comprehensive array of analyses across countries, among European regions and between individuals with different cultural backgrounds.
I wonder though why Ireland, Austria and Venice would be outside. In some respects all of them played central roles in European history (Ireland in Christianization).
EDIT: Just figured out, the drawing is off. If drawn correctly it would include Vienna and Venice.
If you mean the Teutonic Order's crusade quickening the Christian baptism of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, I'm sceptical. Not that the region becoming part of the Christian Europe isn't important; it's just that it was inevitable anyway. The paper "The Origins of WEIRD Psychology" [0] linked by another comment proposes that this is likely to do with Catholicism. However, I speculate that the East Baltic's (the Baltic states') embrace of Catholicism is evident in the 20th century, not because of the ?-1410 crusade, but because in the 20th century, they experienced severe antagonisation from the atheist USSR, and went full-throttle in the other direction. A bit like how the US alcohol prohibition backfired. Aggressive suppression of religion led to it growing strong roots. Funnily enough, same thing was happening almost a thousand years ago, only reversed. Region resisting Catholicism peddled by Teutons and suppression of the pre-Christian religion. 20th century -- same region fighting to preserve a Catholic identity.
[0] https://psyarxiv.com/d6qhu/
The sad part is that while HBD is a magnet for extremist internet warriors on any given side of any given issue, there is a very real issue concerning the capacity of the human mind. While very intelligent, economically well off people debate whether IQ is a fair way to measure, low capability people* are force fed a doctrine that says a college degree is the only path to happiness. While we talk about equity and fairness, people who would be better off as apprentices are accruing massive debt as bad students. And the worst, IMO: while we debate racial incarceration data, whole communities are being torn out in the middle by obtuse welfare programs, inscrutable methodology, and despicable political posturing.
As i said before, IANAB, but i cannot shake the feeling that a one-size-fits-all approach to intellectual acumen and cognitive capability is relegating huge portions of society to debt prison while simultaneously stunting scientific, technological, and sociological progress. It is more than a bit frustrating.
*low should be read as "short list of," and is in no way intended as a value judgement.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hbdchick
But i have absolutely no idea whether to trust RationalWiki or not. I tend to assume anything with "rational" in the name is anything but (unless it's about fractions).
As for elites -> more children, since there were various routes into "elite" for smart/competent/etc. people (the church in various roles, not all of which precluded reproduction; skilled trades/guilds, etc.), it did have a positive effect in amplifying traits (intelligence, etc.) which I think people broadly support (I do). Similar to the assortative mating issues with colleges and elite workplaces today.
Generally, the wiki tries to promote science and oppose pseudoscience, and often does a good job. The problem is with politically charged topics, where politically correct ideas are automatically presented as science, and politically incorrect ideas as pseudoscience.
Unlike Wikipedia, the idea of impartiality is considered a joke at RationalWiki. As soon as you decide that an idea is pseudoscientific, you are allowed and actually encouraged to use the "snarky point of view", which provides an excuse for exaggerations or straw men, because if anyone objects, hey, I was just joking, don't you understand a joke? Of course the articles do not distinguish the factual and the snarky parts, so everyone is free to make their own guess.
http://hooverhog.typepad.com/hognotes/2013/02/rebel-girl-an-...
But if Catholicism plays a role:
a) why is Ireland outside?
b) why is the Non-Catholic part inside?
These marriage patterns changed sometime long before 1500, maybe circa 1000AD -- so if the church had a hand in it, it's the medieval church.
The places where this pattern was strongest went on to invent Protestant religion, and have now largely moved on from formal church. While the places the present-day Catholic church is strongest are outside this zone... or weren't christian at all in at the relevant time (like Spain, and Mexico).
The line as it is drawn excludes Venice and Vienna. Correcting that line to actually overlap with St. Petersburg and Trieste gets these epicenters of European culture back "inside".
Also interesting the US seems to have a sort of fertility zone right down the middle https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/84g2n5/states_and_...