Liberals, Conservatives and Evolution

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

                                                                                                  --Charles Darwin

Liberals like to make fun of conservatives for not believing in evolution. I guess we all have our blinders. Actually, Western liberals, with their judeo-christian values (even though many proclaim to be atheists), also have their own blinders that are not dissimilar to the conservatives.

Liberals believe in evolution, until the spotlight of evolution is focused on Homo sapiens itself. Sure, liberals have no trouble believing that we came from a long line of mammals for which Lucy was a member, but did we continue to evolve a hundred thousand years ago? forty thousand years ago? How about five thousand years ago. Are we still evolving today?

We certainly have no trouble believing that other animals could still evolve today. With great fanfare, it was reported that a moth in England changed color in the blink of an eye due to pollution from the Industrial Revolution. It stands to reason that Homo sapiens likely continue to evolve to this very day. Since we as a specie have populated almost the entire globe, it stands to reason that different groups in different environments would be subjected to different evolutionary pressures and ended up with different adaptations to their respective environments. For a complex society such the United States, it also stand to reason that some sub-groups could go extinct while another can take over. All that it needs is that different sub-groups largely breed within the sub-group and have differential rates of surviving off-springs.

Some argue that since we have now gained control of our environment, we are no longer evolving, but that is faulty argument. Evolution does not care how the environment is created. As long as there is evolutionary pressure to change the make up of the underlying population, a man made environment has as much power to push the population in one direction or another.

That our ancestors evolved with different adaptation is plain for everyone to see. Blacks have darker skin and different facial features than Whites, who in turn are different from Asians. The shapes of our bodies are also different. Up to this point, liberals have no trouble with this premise, but they will tell you that the differences are only skin deep and underneath it all, we are all the same.

What about our abilities? If you bring a guy from the 19th century to the United States, he will have no trouble seeing that people of West African descent dominated the hundred meter dash, or East Africans dominate the marathon races. Ah, but the modern Western liberals have a different narrative. Under our society, everyone is equal and everyone starts with a blank slate. If you put your mind (and body) to it, everyone can do anything. If you did not succeed, it is because you did not work hard enough, or lack drive. The premise that different people could be born with different abilities goes against this narrative. The idea that members of different races have, on average, significantly differing abilities to do the hundred meter dash or marathon is down right dangerous. As a result, under the liberal dominated media, we are not suppose to notice these patterns. Basically, any attribute that has some value in society is supposed to be distributed equally, especially among the different races.

Evolution, of course, couldn't care less about our nice social narratives. Anyone who pays attention to the hundred meter dash will see that not only have people of West African descent dominated the races, they have been doing so for decades now. Further, this is corroborated by their huge over representation in other sports that require speed, basketball, football being the obvious examples.

Of course, if you were raised malnourished, you would not reach your genetic potential, but it does not take much to get pass that point. Our bodies, evolved in the Savanna where starvation was the norm, are not that particular. Jamaica, with GDP per capita of around $5000, hardly a world of plenty by our standards, have produced a prodigious number of sprinters of Olympic calibre. All that is required is a large population that descents from West Africa and enough food such that people are not starving. Kenya, with a GDP per capita of a few hundred dollars as late as the nineties, is even poorer by far, yet this does not prevent them from dominating the marathons. No need to have a Wholefoods or someone with a PhD in nutrition nearby. All the population, money, nutrition and training of the West could not match a smallish population handicapped with third world impoverishment, if that population has the genetic advantage on its side.

With modest environmental endowment, nature takes over. We like to brag about how we succeed by hard work and determination, In fact, genetics plays an oversize role in how we turn out. Genetics is destiny.