Rich and Strange Aeons

Don't know that I'm convinced naturalism reduces fitness, or that it predicts that it does. There's also fitness in some general sense vs. fitness for humans; fictional AIs tend to be naturalist, I think. Naturalistic... damnit, no free related words to naturalism. Though yes, it's never swept human populations; Epicureanism did decently but wasn't dominant, and then Theodosius stomped on everything.

As for Sailer, I don't know. Yeah, I'm open to the possibility that there's a strong genetic influence on IQ and various personality traits -- if I trust Pinker, this is in fact known. That some populations (I'll try to avoid 'race') might have correlations here, selected for in a strange loop between genes and culture, doesn't seem impossible either, especially given lactose tolerance and immune system genes and Ashkenazi health problems; we know gene frequencies can shift in a few millennia, even centuries. As for actual conclusions, I just don't know; I don't know if good enough data is even out there and if there is I obviously haven't reviewed it myself. Sailer made some persuasive cases, has I think attracted persuasive refutations in some things, and also appears like a wingnut in other cases -- his posts on Marginal Revolution were increasingly turning me off, though I won't be able to go into detail. Also I'm suspicious in general of anything which treats Africans as a coherent population, because they're supposed to be the most genetically diverse population, which is what evolutionary theory would predict. (This is a problem I had with William Calvin's model, which has human brain development being driven by projectile hunting below the glaciers, and filtering back into the rest of the human population. Though it might not be a killer problem for him, and Calvin doesn't emit the racist vibes Sailer does.)

I don't know what Anne meant. Maybe just that he seems really racist, talking about black superiority in movement and verbal skills and not seeming to pay attention to cultural factors. And you went through the gale archives? Wow, and ow.