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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: skinowski who wrote (219737)	9/14/2007 10:24:08 PM
From: alanrs	Respond to of 793883

>But once the Cossacks are sweeping through town, the kind of intelligence that leads to business success or rabbinical acumen is no help at all. On the contrary, the most successful people could easily have become the most likely to be killed, by virtue of being more visible and the targets of greater envy.< Biologically, killing the successful adult doesn't really select for anything as long as the genes have been passed on. If the more intelligent person is able to better provide for the children by getting them out of harms way by whatever means, or if the children are better able to avoid danger themselves by virtue of some intelligence related traits and subsequently reproduce, then there would be some evolutionary pressure in that direction. I have no idea how much. It would be my guess, worth exactly what I'm charging for it, that culturally valuing intelligence would be a stronger force. Certainly it would be a more consistent one, persecution being an intermittent phenomenon, although not intermittent enough for my tastes. ARS

To: skinowski who wrote (219737)	9/14/2007 10:40:47 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793883

Furthermore, other groups, such as the Gypsies, have been persecuted for centuries without developing elevated intelligence. Considered closely, the winnowing-by-persecution logic is not as compelling as it may first appear. Really? Aren't Gypsies known for cunning? The difference may be not so much the push that enhances quick-wittedness, but the direction that quick-wittedness takes. In a group that has limited education and doesn't greatly value book learning, quick-wittedness takes forms that others call "shrewdness," "cunning," "trickery" or "thieving." It seems to me that all these names get pretty regularly applied to both the Jews and the Gypsies. If the group does value learning and members routinely reach elite positions, then you can begin piling on the conspiracy theories. jmho