The following piece by the distinguished Psychologist Chris Brand (ex
Edinburgh LUniversity) is reproduced without comment.
I have not yet checked the jrnl Science for the original.
(I would be interested in comments from members who have, and will pass them
along to one or two elite NewsGroups where there has been some discussion,
unless you indicate otherwise).
Best wishes from Alan Truelove,  No. Va. & Ashford, Kent.
- - - - - 
American Renaissance  Dec 2005
Amren.com
Race Realism takes a Step Forward
More Strong evidence for the genetics of intelligence
By Chris Brand
The  moment the anti-racists and egalitarians have dreaded has now arrived.
In Sept, Univ of Chi geneticists published data in the prestigious journal
Science that links 2 sets of genetic variation (alleles) to brain size, race
and spurts in human evolution. In particular, these genetic variations
–arguable responsible for grater intelligence-were relatively common in
Europe and Asia, but markedly less common in sub-Saharan Africa. Previously
the same researchers had shown these variations to be much more frequent in
man than in other mammals, tho’ our closest relatives, the chimps, showed
levels that suggest some evolution in the direction of humans.
This excellent new Chicago work has been carried out under the direction of
a young Chinese Dr Bruce Lahn. His team had studied the prevalence of
variants of the 2 genes that are disabled or damaged in human cases of sever
microcephaly in which the brain develops to only 30% normal size.  The fact
they are damaged .. suggests they are necess. For normal brain growth.
Dr Lahn’s researchers examined the DNA of 1,184 people around the world –
tho’ not in racially mixed areas like N America, Russia, Australia. They
estimated that 1 undamaged variation microcephalin haplogroup D (“V1”) first
appeared around 10,000 BC and has since spread to some 70 % of humans. It is
more common in Europe, Asia, South America and Latin America than in black
Africa.  At three % it is especially infrequent in Congo pygmies, whom black
Africans commonly regarded as inferior.
A 2nd variant of the gene, abnormal spindle-like microcephaly-associated
haplogroup D (“V2”) arrived more recently, around 6000 BC, & has since
spread to 30% pf humans. It is most common in Europe & the Middle East, some
less  common in Asia, & distinctly rare in black Africa,
Dr Lahn & his colleagues noted that the arrival of V1 coincided roughly with
the first signs of human habitation & agriculture; V2 appeared about the
time of the first cities and the development of written language. The Chi.
Team believes these new alleles gave rise to these important developments &
that their possessors reproduced quickly by occupying the new niches offered
by agriculture & the written language.
Geneticists can estimate the age of an allele by observing the number of
mutations found in it & calculating back to when the allele first appeared
in the most recent  common ancestor. Mutations arise at predictable rates, &
are considered to be a reasonably  accurate measure of relatively short
periods of evolution. It is by this method that scientists estimate it has
been five to six million years since humans and chimpanzees had a common
ancestor.
Needless to say, the CHI SCIENTISTS WENT TO GREAT PAINS NOT TO pose too
great a challenge to modern sensitivities about race and genes. At their
press conference they insisted there was “not necessarily” a connection
between these gene variations and brain size. They found that sub-Saharan
blacks were the most distinct of the racial groups they studied, in that
they had  a markedly lower freq. of both variants . This is consistent with
the distinct black African profile of smaller brains and lower IQ.
The Chi. Results are exactly what we would expect from the work of Prof Phil
Rushton of Univ of W Ontario who has used modern brain scanning methods to
establish  a correlation as high as .40  between brain size & IQ. Needless
to say, the Chi.. researchers could not mention Prof Rushton’s name for fear
of jeopardizing further funding. Some suspect they already have data in the
pipeline linking these genetic variations directly to IQ, & that when they
hold another press conference to announce these findings they want someone
to attend.
  Naturally the authors wrote only of “geographical” & not of racial
differences in the freq. of these alleles, but no one is fooled by this
piety. They assured the press that their V work does not mean black Africans
have a low IQ or any other disadvantage. At the same time, Dr Lahn implied
the opposite when he volunteered  that Africans could well turn out to be
blessed with still other variations, that might be shown one day to give
them advantages of their own. In other words, it may have been purely by
accident that the advantage in Europeans and Asians had come to light first.
The findings come hard on the heels of work in Brisbane by Prof Nick Martin
who has found sizeable IQ differences within families associated with
variations in DNA chromosomes 2 and 6. His work did not look for race
differences in the distribution of these variations , but that would be an
obvious area of Research. At the same time the Oct 24 issue of New York
Magazine devoted 8 pages to Gregory Cochran’ and Henry Herpending’s theory
that high rates of sphingolphid genetic diseases like Tay-Sachs in Ashkenazi
Jews may be associated with a substantial advantage in IQ (their work orig.
appeared in the June issue of the Brit. Jrnl. Of Biosocial Sci)
The media & even the scientists themselves can hedge & fudge all they like,
but their favorite “post-modern” pretense that there is no such thing as
race is looking sillier all the time. The Wests’s anti-racists have
succeeded in suppressing most references to the g (general intelligence)
factor & the London School that discovered and developed the concept but
they now face an assault from an unexpected quarter. Dr Bruce Lahn may be
more the diplomat than one normally finds in nature v nurture debates, but
he got his first taste of dissent as a student rebel in his home town of
Peking during the Tianenmen Sq demos. This suggests he has a strong dislike
for Communism’s tyrannical and useless environmentalism & that he may have
principles that will soon see him linked to his natural allies in the London
School.
(Chris Brand formerly of Edinburgh LUniversity is the author of “The g
factor” – dePublished by Wiley - reviewed in Whys and Wherefores of
Intelligence, in Amer. Renaissance July 1996)

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