Religion vs. cuckoldry

From the press release:

The study analyzed genetic data on 1,706 father-son pairs in a traditional African population—the Dogon people of Mali, West Africa—in which Islam, two types of Christianity, and an indigenous, monotheistic religion are practiced in the same families and villages.

"We found that the indigenous religion allows males to achieve a significantly lower probability of cuckoldry—1.3 percent versus 2.9 percent," said Beverly Strassmann, lead author of the article and a biological anthropologist at the University of Michigan.

In the traditional religion, menstrual taboos are strictly enforced, with women exiled for five nights to uncomfortable menstrual huts. According to Strassmann, the religion uses the ideology of pollution to ensure that women honestly signal their fertility status to men in their husband's family.

"When a woman resumes going to the menstrual hut following her last birth, the husband's patrilineage is informed of the imminency of conception and cuckoldry risk," Strassmann said. "Precautions include postmenstrual copulation initiated by the husband and enhanced vigilance by his family."

Across all four of the religions practiced by the Dogon people, Strassmann and colleagues detected father-son Y DNA mismatches in only 1.8 percent of father-son pairs, a finding that contradicts the prevailing view that traditional populations have high rates of cuckoldry. A similar rate of cuckoldry has been found in several modern populations, but a key difference is that the Dogon do not use contraception.

The overall rate of 1.8% is close to a reported average of 1.7% (or 1.9%) in a set of different populations. One point of interest is that it may be the case that cuckoldry may often involve patrilineal relatives of a woman's husband (e.g., his brother) or even distant relatives who happen to possess Y chromosomes with shallow common ancestry in a patriarchal society. Such events may not be detectable with a simple Y-STR test, but they may be relatively common in patrilocal societies where brides become part of their husband's communities.

PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1110442109

Religion as a means to assure paternity

Beverly I. Strassmann et al.

The sacred texts of five world religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism) use similar belief systems to set limits on sexual behavior. We propose that this similarity is a shared cultural solution to a biological problem: namely male uncertainty over the paternity of offspring. Furthermore, we propose the hypothesis that religious practices that more strongly regulate female sexuality should be more successful at promoting paternity certainty. Using genetic data on 1,706 father–son pairs, we tested this hypothesis in a traditional African population in which multiple religions (Islam, Christianity, and indigenous) coexist in the same families and villages. We show that the indigenous religion enables males to achieve a significantly (P = 0.019) lower probability of cuckoldry (1.3% versus 2.9%) by enforcing the honest signaling of menstruation, but that all three religions share tenets aimed at the avoidance of extrapair copulation. Our findings provide evidence for high paternity certainty in a traditional African population, and they shed light on the reproductive agendas that underlie religious patriarchy.

Link

Should incestuous marriages be allowed?

German incest couple lose European Court case

A brother and sister from Germany who had an incestuous relationship, arguing they had the right to a family life, have lost their European court case.

Patrick Stuebing and Susan Karolewski had four children together, two of whom are described as disabled.

The European Court of Human Rights said Germany was entitled to ban incest.

Stuebing, who was convicted of incest and spent three years in prison, did not meet his natural sister until he tracked down his family as an adult.

He had been adopted as a child and only made contact with his natural relatives in his 20s.

The siblings grew close after their mother died.

Three of their four children are now looked after in care.

The couple insist that their love is no different to any other.

Of course, I applaud the decision of the ECHR, but I take a rather different view on the justification of it.

Regulation of marriage is central to the moral and legal codes of almost all human societies. Different societies limit marriage in diverse ways:

1. Age (young people are generally disallowed from marrying, and early marriage has become legally and socially more difficult in much of the world)
2. Sex (people of opposing sex may marry, although recently some societies have allowed same-sex marriage)
3. Number (some societies demand exclusivity, while others allow for husbands to marry multiple wives, or more commonly for women to take multiple husbands)
4. Relation (marriage between close relatives are often prohibited, (almost) universally for parent-offspring or sibling marriage; on the other hand cousin or uncle-niece marriage is prohibited in some societies, or encouraged in others)
5. Race (there were formerly legal prohibitions of inter-racial marriage, and there are societies in which such marriages are often frowned upon still)
6. Religion (some belief systems do not require that partners be of the same religion, while others do so)
7. Social status (marriage across class or caste lines was formerly prohibited either legally or socially, and is still often uncommon)
8. Former marriage status (divorce and re-marriage sometimes prohibited, provisions for widowhood, etc.)

It is clear that society has deemed the institution of marriage to be an important one, and this is why it has imposed so many legal and social rules upon it. In recent years, the trend has been one towards laissez-faire in the regulation of human affairs. This has been most evident in the case of same sex "marriage", whose advocates actively frame the question in terms of the "rights" of consenting persons.

If the matter is that of constitutional or other "rights", then the state oversteps its role in preventing two consenting persons from entering into the institution of marriage. Those who hold to this view, however, often promote the "right" to marriage of their own particular interest group (mostly of the homosexual community), but downplay similar claims to marriage of other groups (e.g., prohibition against polygamy, incest, young marriage, etc.)

There is a different line of thought, which frames the question of marriage in utilitarian terms. Marriage is seen as promoting child-rearing, family stability, engendering close social ties, and promoting the well-being and happiness of individuals. Again, those who hold to this view propose that their particular form of marriage is useful, while opposing certain forms of marriage for its adverse effects (e.g., the costs associated with invalids born of incestuous marriages, or increased expenditure when economic benefits are extended to new forms of marriage).

When the moral compass of a society atrophies, then its most fundamental institutions become the playing ground of lawyers and economists. Of course, this is a perfectly valid point of view -if one thinks that lawyers and economists, rather than ethicists and priests- make the better judges of what is to be allowed.

Proponents of the modern, secular, and democratic way of doing things will argue that it is an improvement for the rules to be made in the context of Constitutional Law, Democratic Choice, and Economic Expediency.

But, we must not forget that their chosen framework of accepted behavior is not as sure-footed as they may think, because what else is Democracy than the idea that the many are right over the few? What else is adherence to a Constitution than the faith in the idea that what men voted for generations ago should guide the behavior of the living? And, what else is Economics, other than the idea that human prosperity revolves around the maximization of some economic quantity?

To conclude: questions such as "should incestuous marriage be allowed?" force us all to think about who decides the "should."

Facial attractiveness and interracial marriage

The data:

From the paper:

The results of the experiment demonstrated that there are robust differences in the relative perceived attractiveness of different racial groups. Further, these differences are affected by the gender of the person being rated. Among males, Black faces were rated as the most attractive followed by White faces and then Asian faces. For the females, Asian faces were seen as the most attractive followed by White and then Black faces. The same pattern was found regardless of the ethnicity of the person doing the ratings.

Whatever the perceptions of attractiveness, it seems that people still tend to marry within their own races. For example, in the UK 0.24% of white females marry black males, and the corresponding percentage for the US is 0.56%. Since blacks make up roughly 1/10 of the population in the US, then if race was not an issue, we'd expect white females to marry black males about 10% of the time; the empirical figure is about ~20 times lower.

So, what this study shows is that while intra-racial marriage is still the norm, black males have an easier time overcoming the racial barrier compared to black females, and Asian females compared to Asian males.

The paper does not seem to present any facial attractiveness data, although it does present an analysis to discount an alternative hypothesis based on stature differences. According to that hypothesis, Asian females outmarry more easily than Asian males because Asians are shorter, and women tend to marry taller men than themselves.

PLoS ONE 7(2): e31703. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031703


A Facial Attractiveness Account of Gender Asymmetries in Interracial Marriage

Michael B. Lewis


Abstract 
Background
In the US and UK, more Black men are married to White women than vice versa and there are more White men married to Asian women than vice versa. Models of interracial marriage, based on the exchange of racial status for other capital, cannot explain these asymmetries. A new explanation is offered based on the relative perceived facial attractiveness of the different race-by-gender groups.

Method and Findings
This explanation was tested using a survey of perceived facial attractiveness. This found that Black males are perceived as more attractive than White or East Asian males whereas among females, it is the East Asians that are perceived as most attractive on average.

Conclusions
Incorporating these attractiveness patterns into the model of marriage decisions produces asymmetries in interracial marriage similar to those in the observed data in terms of direction and relative size. This model does not require differences in status between races nor different strategies based on gender. Predictions are also generated regarding the relative attractiveness of those engaging in interracial marriage.

Link

Marital residence in Indo-European and Austronesian societies

Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2010 Dec 12;365(1559):3913-22.

Your place or mine? A phylogenetic comparative analysis of marital residence in Indo-European and Austronesian societies.

Fortunato L, Jordan F.

Abstract

Accurate reconstruction of prehistoric social organization is important if we are to put together satisfactory multidisciplinary scenarios about, for example, the dispersal of human groups. Such considerations apply in the case of Indo-European and Austronesian, two large-scale language families that are thought to represent Neolithic expansions. Ancestral kinship patterns have mostly been inferred through reconstruction of kin terminologies in ancestral proto-languages using the linguistic comparative method, and through geographical or distributional arguments based on the comparative patterns of kin terms and ethnographic kinship 'facts'. While these approaches are detailed and valuable, the processes through which conclusions have been drawn from the data fail to provide explicit criteria for systematic testing of alternative hypotheses. Here, we use language trees derived using phylogenetic tree-building techniques on Indo-European and Austronesian vocabulary data. With these trees, ethnographic data and Bayesian phylogenetic comparative methods, we statistically reconstruct past marital residence and infer rates of cultural change between different residence forms, showing Proto-Indo-European to be virilocal and Proto-Malayo-Polynesian uxorilocal. The instability of uxorilocality and the rare loss of virilocality once gained emerge as common features of both families.

Link

Kinship, marriage, and the genetics of past human dispersals (Bentley et al. 2009)

Hum Biol. 2009 Apr;81(2-3):159-79

Kinship, marriage, and the genetics of past human dispersals.

Bentley RA, Layton RH, Tehrani J

Abstract The extent to which colonizing farmer populations have overwhelmed or "replaced" indigenous forager populations, as opposed to having intermarried with them, has been widely debated. Indigenous-colonist "admixture" is often represented in genetic models as a single parameter that, although parsimonious and simple, is incongruous with the sex-specific nature of mtDNA and Y-chromosome data. To help interpret genetic patterns, we can construct useful null hypotheses about the generalized migration history of females (mtDNA) as opposed to males (Y chromosome), which differ significantly in almost every ethnographically known society. We seek to integrate ethnographic knowledge into models that incorporate new social parameters for predicting geographic patterns in mtDNA and Y-chromosome distributions. We provide an example of a model simulation for the spread of agriculture in which this individual-scale evidence is used to refine the parameters.

Link

Spouse selection in Sardinia

American Journal of Physical Anthropology doi:10.1002/ajpa.21150

Spouse selection by health status and physical traits. Sardinia, 1856-1925

M. Manfredini et al.

Abstract

Military medical information and data from civil registers of death and marriage have been used to study the role of physical characteristics and health conditions in explaining access to marriage for the male population of Alghero, a small city located in Sardinia Island (Italy), at the turn of 19th century. Literature data about contemporary populations have already demonstrated the influence of somatic traits in the mate choice. The results presented here show that men with low height and poor health status at the age of 20 were negatively selected for marriage. This holds true also in a society where families often arranged marriages for their children. This pattern of male selection on marriage was found to be particularly marked among the richest and wealthiest SES groups. Our hypothesis is that this social group carefully selected for marriage those individuals who were apparently healthier and therefore more likely to guarantee good health status and better life conditions to offspring. In evolutionary terms, the mate choice component of sexual selection suggests that the height of prospective partners could be claimed as one of the determinants, along with other environmental causes, of the observed higher stature of men belonging to the wealthiest social strata of the Alghero population.

Link

Intermarriage and the risk of divorce in the Netherlands

Prompted by my recent post on Constantinus Porphyrogenitus and inter-ethnic marriage.

From the paper:

We therefore introduce two hypotheses. The first hypothesis is the main-effects hypothesis, which argues that the more traditional the value orientation of a religious or national origin group, the lower the risk of divorce.

...

Our second hypothesis concerns the effect of the spouses’ religion and national origin, and argues that when the religions or national origins of the two spouses are dissimilar, the risk of divorce is higher.We call this the heterogamy hypothesis. Assumingthat the main-effects hypothesis is valid, we need to decide what constitutes evidence for the heterogamy hypothesis. If the divorce risk of a mixed marriage (between, say, a member of group A and a member of group B) is higher than the divorce risk of AA marriages but lower than the divorce risk of BB marriages, we argue that adaptation is taking place. The behaviour of those couples is in between the two groups, and one can argue that this is simply the average of the two group effects and not a heterogamy effect (Jones 1996). To analyse real heterogamy effects, we employ both a strong and a weak form of the heterogamy hypothesis. According to the strong heterogamy hypothesis, AB marriages will have a divorce risk that is higher than the maximum divorce risk of AA and BB marriages. For example, we expect that a marriage between a Catholic and an unaffiliated person will have a divorce risk that is higher than the (already) high risk for unaffiliated couples. According to the weak heterogamy hypothesis, AB marriages will have a divorce risk that is higher than the average risk of AA and BB marriages. In our example, the risk of the mixed group will be higher than the average of the low risk for Catholics and the high risk for unaffiliated couples.

The data is supportive of the strong heterogamy hypothesis, according to which an AB has a higher chance of a divorce than the highest of AA and BB:

Are there effects of heterogamy on the risk of divorce? Table 8 shows that the answer is clear: most mixed combinations have a risk of divorce that is higher than the highest level of divorce in the two homogamous groups. The average ratio is 2.02, indicating that mixed marriages have a risk of divorce twice as high as that of the maximum level of divorce in the two corresponding groups. This effect is quite strong and clearly supports the strong heterogamy hypothesis.

...

We also find variations in the magnitude of the effects that are consistent with our hypothesis about value orientations. Combinations of Dutch and Turkish or Moroccan persons reveal a stronger heterogamy effect than combinations involving Dutch and Western European persons. The effects for combinations involving Southern Europeans are in between the combinations with Turks or Moroccans and the combinations with Western Europeans. When looking at combinations involving
minority men, the differences are quite strong. The ratio is 4.7 for combinations involving Turkish men, 2.4 for combinations involving Moroccan men, and 1.5 for combinations involving Western European men. Because European groups are more similar than Moroccan and Turkish groups to the Dutch in values and lifestyle, this finding is consistent with theoretical interpretations of the heterogamy effect
in terms of value similarity.

The paper has detailed tables on the various combinations of intermarriage between different Dutch religious denominations and national origins. What seems clear is that Constantinus' ideas about religious and ethnic homogamy as more conducive to harmonious cohabitation seem to be supported by the data.

Population Studies, Vol. 59, No. 1, 2005, pp. 71-85

Intermarriage and the risk of divorce in the Netherlands: The effects of differences in religion and in nationality, 1974-94

Matthijs Kalmijn et al.

A textbook hypothesis about divorce is that heterogamous marriages are more likely to end in divorce than homogamous marriages. We analyse vital statistics on the population of the Netherlands, which provide a unique and powerful opportunity to test this hypothesis. All marriages formed between 1974 and 1984 (nearly 1 million marriages) are traced in the divorce records and multivariate logistic regression models are used to analyse the effects on divorce of heterogamy in religion and national origin. Our analyses confirm the hypothesis for marriages that cross the Protestant-Catholic or the Jewish-Gentile boundary. Heterogamy effects are weaker for marriages involving Protestants or unaffiliated persons. Marriages between Dutch and other nationalities have a higher risk of divorce, the more so the greater the cultural differences between the two groups. Overall, the evidence supports the view that, in the Netherlands, new group boundaries are more difficult to cross than old group boundaries.

Link

Constantinus Porphyrogenitus on inter-ethnic marriage

Constantinus VII was a 10th c. Byzantine Emperor.

Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, Ch. 13

Because each nation has different customs and divergent laws and institutions, it must hold its own things, and perform the associations necessary for the continuation of life from the same nation. As every animal mixes with those of the same genus, so has it been established as a just thing for every nation to form marriage partnerships not with people of a different race and language, but of the same genus and speech. Because, herein grows sameness of mind, and intercourse, and friendly discourse, and cohabitation. But different customs and divergent laws give birth rather to dislikes and conflicts and hatreds and civil wars, which do not bring about friendship and intercourse, but enmity and dissent.

ἕκαστον γὰρ ἔθνος διάφορα ἔχον ἔθη καὶ διαλλάττοντας νόμους τε καὶ θεσμοὺς ὀφείλει τὰ οἰκεῖα κρατεῖν καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἔθνους τὰς πρὸς ἀνάκρισιν βίου κοινωνίας ποιεῖσθαι καὶ ἐνεργεῖν. ὥσπερ γὰρ ἕκαστον ζῷον μετὰ τῶν ὁμογενῶν τὰς μίξεις ἐργάζεται, οὕτω καὶ ἕκαστον ἔθνος οὐκ εξ ἀλλοφύλων καὶ ἀλλογλώσσων ἀλλ’ ἐκ τῶν ὁμογενῶν τε καὶ ὁμοφώνων τὰ συνοικέσια τῶν γάμων ποιεῖσθαι καθέστηκε δίκαιον. ἐντεῦθεν γὰρ καὶ ἡ πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὁμοφροσύνη καὶ συνομιλία καὶ προσφιλὴς συνδιατριβὴ και συμβίωσις περιγίνεσθαι πέφυκε· τὰ δε ἀλλότρια ἔθη καὶ διαλλάττοντα νόμιμα ἀπεχθείας μᾶλλον καὶ προσκρούσεις καὶ μίση καὶ στάσεις εἴωθεν ἀπογεννᾶν, ἅπερ οὐ φιλίας καὶ κοινωνίας ἀλλ’ ἔχθρας καὶ διαστάσεις φιλεῖ ἀπεργάζεσθαι.

MHC-dissimilar mating in Brazil

This seems to parallel previous findings on European Americans.

Opposites attract -- how genetics influences humans to choose their mates

Vienna, Austria: New light has been thrown on how humans choose their partners, a scientist will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today (Monday May 25). Professor Maria da Graça Bicalho, head of the Immunogenetics and Histocompatibility Laboratory at the University of Parana, Brazil, says that her research had shown that people with diverse major histocompatibility complexes (MHCs) were more likely to choose each other as mates than those whose MHCs were similar, and that this was likely to be an evolutionary strategy to ensure healthy reproduction.

Females' preference for MHC dissimilar mates has been shown in many vertebrate species, including humans, and it is also known that MHC influences mating selection by preferences for particular body odours. The Brazilian team has been working in this field since 1998, and decided to investigate mate selection in the Brazilian population, while trying to uncover the biological significance of MHC diversity.

The scientists studied MHC data from 90 married couples, and compared them with 152 randomly-generated control couples. They counted the number of MHC dissimilarities among those who were real couples, and compared them with those in the randomly-generated 'virtual couples'. "If MHC genes did not influence mate selection", says Professor Bicalho, "we would have expected to see similar results from both sets of couples. But we found that the real partners had significantly more MHC dissimilarities than we could have expected to find simply by chance."

Within MHC-dissimilar couples the partners will be genetically different, and such a pattern of mate choice decreases the danger of endogamy (mating among relatives) and increases the genetic variability of offspring. Genetic variability is known to be an advantage for offspring, and the MHC effect could be an evolutionary strategy underlying incest avoidance in humans and also improving the efficiency of the immune system, the scientists say.

The MHC is a large genetic region situated on chromosome 6, and found in most vertebrates. It plays an important role in the immune system and also in reproductive success. Apart from being a large region, it is also an extraordinarily diverse one.

"Although it may be tempting to think that humans choose their partners because of their similarities", says Professor Bicalho, "our research has shown clearly that it is differences that make for successful reproduction, and that the subconscious drive to have healthy children is important when choosing a mate."

The scientists believe that their findings will help understanding of conception, fertility, and gestational failures. Research has already shown that couples with similar MHC genes had longer intervals between births, which could imply early, unperceived miscarriages. "We intend to follow up this work by looking at social and cultural influences as well as biological ones in mate choice, and relating these to the genetic diversity of the extended MHC region", says Professor Bicalho.

"We expect to find that cultural aspects play an important role in mate choice, and certainly do not subscribe to the theory that if a person bears a particular genetic variant it will determine his or her behaviour. But we also think that the unconscious evolutionary aspect of partner choice should not be overlooked. We believe our research shows that this has an important role to play in ensuring healthy reproduction, by helping to ensure that children are born with a strong immune system better able to cope with infection."

I had previously posted some more abstracts from ESHG 2009. Here is the abstract from this study:

New evidences about MHC-based patterns of mate choice

M. Bicalho, J. da Silva, J. M. Magalhães, W. Silva;

Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) genes code for cell surface proteins, which plays an important role in immune recognition. In the late 1970s, Yamazaki observed that inbred mice were more likely to mate with partners having MHC dissimilar genes. Females’ preference for MHC dissimilar mates was also observed in other vertebrate species, including humans. It has been shown that MHC influences mating selection mediated by preferences based on body odor. What’s the functional significance of these findings, if some? It was assumed that through olfactory cues MHC-related evolved as a strategy to maximize the offspring MHC heterozygosity. Parents with dissimilar MHCs could provide their offspring with a better chance to ward infections off because their immune system genes are more diverse. MHC genotype might be used to signal relatedness and immune response genotypes through.

We investigated whether husband-wife couples (n=90) obtained from LIGH’s database were more MHC-similar/dissimilar in comparison to random couples generated from the same database (n=55 000) as to collect evidence of MHC influence in MHC-based patterns of mate choice.

The individuals HLA typing (Class I and Class II) was performed by PCR-SSP or PCR-rSSOP using a commercial kit ( One Lambda Inc., Canoga Park. CA, USA).

Our results and comparisons ( p= 0,014) suggest that couples seem to be formed by individuals with less HLA similarity, corroborating the hypothesis that HLA antigens, especially Class I, may influence mate selection and marriages in humans.

Inbreeding and the Spanish Hapsburgs

Since, presumably, the remains of these royals have been preserved, it would be interesting at some future date to carry out an ancient DNA study which would show exactly which deleterious alleles contributed to the morbidity of the Spanish Hapsburgs.

PLoS ONE doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005174

The Role of Inbreeding in the Extinction of a European Royal Dynasty

Gonzalo Alvarez et al.

Abstract

The kings of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty (1516–1700) frequently married close relatives in such a way that uncle-niece, first cousins and other consanguineous unions were prevalent in that dynasty. In the historical literature, it has been suggested that inbreeding was a major cause responsible for the extinction of the dynasty when the king Charles II, physically and mentally disabled, died in 1700 and no children were born from his two marriages, but this hypothesis has not been examined from a genetic perspective. In this article, this hypothesis is checked by computing the inbreeding coefficient (F) of the Spanish Habsburg kings from an extended pedigree up to 16 generations in depth and involving more than 3,000 individuals. The inbreeding coefficient of the Spanish Habsburg kings increased strongly along generations from 0.025 for king Philip I, the founder of the dynasty, to 0.254 for Charles II and several members of the dynasty had inbreeding coefficients higher than 0.20. In addition to inbreeding due to unions between close relatives, ancestral inbreeding from multiple remote ancestors makes a substantial contribution to the inbreeding coefficient of most kings. A statistically significant inbreeding depression for survival to 10 years is detected in the progenies of the Spanish Habsburg kings. The results indicate that inbreeding at the level of first cousin (F = 0.0625) exerted an adverse effect on survival of 17.8%±12.3. It is speculated that the simultaneous occurrence in Charles II (F = 0.254) of two different genetic disorders: combined pituitary hormone deficiency and distal renal tubular acidosis, determined by recessive alleles at two unlinked loci, could explain most of the complex clinical profile of this king, including his impotence/infertility which in last instance led to the extinction of the dynasty.

Link

Psychological well-being of multiracial individuals

This study demonstrates that multiracial individuals who identify with the different components of their ancestry have equal or better psychological well-being compared to those who identify with only one of them.

I had predicted as much back in 2003:

The offspring of mixed marriages often adopt two different types of coping strategy to deal with their own 'identity' problem, created both because they're not sure "what" they are, and also because society is not clear "what" they are.

Strategy #1, is to shut off one part of one's ancestry. [...] Strategy #2, is to identify with the common denominator of the two parts. [...] BTW there is of course Strategy #3 (which I think is the psychologically soundest one): to acknowledge one's hybridity rather than trying to pretend that the parts are the same (#2) or by turning a blind eye towards one of them (#1)

Journal of Social Issues Volume 65 Issue 1, Pages 35 - 49

The Interpretation of Multiracial Status and Its Relation to Social Engagement and Psychological Well-Being doi:

Kevin R. Binning et al.

Abstract

This research examines how multiracial individuals chose to identify themselves with respect to their racial identity and how this choice relates to their self-reported psychological well-being (e.g., self-esteem, positive affect) and level of social engagement (e.g., citizenship behaviors, group alienation). High school students who belong to multiple racial/ethnic groups (N = 182) were asked to indicate the group with which they primarily identify. Participants were then classified as identifying with a low-status group (i.e., Black or Latino), a high-status group (i.e., Asian or White), or multiple groups (e.g., Black and White, etc.). Results showed that, compared with multiracial individuals who identified primarily with a low- or high-status group, those who identified with multiple groups tended to report either equal or higher psychological well-being and social engagement. Potential explanations and implications for understanding multiracial identity are discussed.

Link

Common origin and differential admixture in Western Central African pygmies

The coverage of this at News at Nature is quite clear.

Current Biology doi:10.1016/j.cub.2008.12.049

Origins and Genetic Diversity of Pygmy Hunter-Gatherers from Western Central Africa

Paul Verdu et al.

Abstract

Central Africa is currently peopled by numerous sedentary agriculturalist populations neighboring the largest group of mobile hunter-gatherers, the Pygmies [1,2,3]. Although archeological remains attest to Homo sapiens' presence in the Congo Basin for at least 30,000 years, the demographic history of these groups, including divergence and admixture, remains widely unknown [4,5,6]. Moreover, it is still debated whether common history or convergent adaptation to a forest environment resulted in the short stature characterizing the pygmies [2,7]. We genotyped 604 individuals at 28 autosomal tetranucleotide microsatellite loci in 12 nonpygmy and 9 neighboring pygmy populations. We found a high level of genetic heterogeneity among Western Central African pygmies, as well as evidence of heterogeneous levels of asymmetrical gene flow from nonpygmies to pygmies, consistent with the variable sociocultural barriers against intermarriages. Using approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) methods [8], we compared several historical scenarios. The most likely points toward a unique ancestral pygmy population that diversified 2800 years ago, contemporarily with the Neolithic expansion of nonpygmy agriculturalists [9,10]. Our results show that recent isolation, genetic drift, and heterogeneous admixture enabled a rapid and substantial genetic differentiation among Western Central African pygmies. Such an admixture pattern is consistent with the various sociocultural behaviors related to intermariages between pygmies and nonpygmies.

Link

Inbreeding depression and IQ

Intelligence doi:10.1016/j.intell.2008.10.007

Inbreeding depression and IQ in a study of 72 countries

Michael A. Woodley

Abstract

In this ecological study, a robust negative correlation of r = − .62 (P less than .01) is reported between national IQs and consanguinity as measured by the log10 transformed percentage of consanguineous marriages for 72 countries. This correlation is reduced in magnitude, when IQ is controlled for GDP per capita (r = − .41, P less than .01); education index (r = − .40, P less than .01); and democracy index (r = − .42, P less than .01). Multiple regression analysis revealed that in the absence of the democracy index; percentage consanguineous marriages, education index and GDP per capita all exhibited stable final standardized β coefficients, however consanguinity had the least impact (β = 0, P greater than .05) whereas GDP per capita had the highest (β = .35, P greater than .01). This result is interpreted in light of cultural feedback theory, whereby it is suggested that consanguinity could subtly influence IQ at larger scales as a result of small IQ handicaps bought about through inbreeding being amplified into much larger differences through their effect on factors that maximize IQ such as access to education and adequate nutrition. Finally, consideration is given to future potential research directions.

Link

Article on Greek citizenship and naturalization

The Christian Science Monitor has an article titled Being born in Greece may not make you Greek.

Greece, like most European countries, does not give automatic citizenship to children born in the country. And becoming a naturalized citizen is a long, difficult process: Greece makes it harder than almost any other country in the European Union – only Austria is tougher. It’s also the only one of the original EU 15 that makes no special provisions for children born to immigrants in the country. Members of the Greek diaspora, in contrast, can get a passport easily.

While much can be done to improve the existing legal framework, I am fundamentally in agreement with the basic principle of jus sanguinis, citizenship by descent, rather than jus soli, citizenship by birthplace.

How should one become a Greek citizen? This is an elaboration and amendment of my earlier thoughts on this matter:

1. The offspring of a Greek citizen are Greek citizens.
2. Non-citizens may be naturalized by Law passed with increased Majority of 2/3 of the Parliament. (General provisions should be made for persons of Greek origin, although individual persons of non-Greek origin who rendered extraordinary service to the Nation should also be allowed to become citizens).
   
3. Spouses of Greek citizens become permanent residents, and may become Greek citizens after ten years of marriage and demonstrable knowledge of Greek language and culture. They cannot, however, confer their citizenship to offspring from non-Greek mates (as in #1)
   
4. Legal immigrants have renewable residence permits (for work, study, etc.) of specific time length.
   
5. Legal immigrants may obtain permanent residency (of unspecified time length) after 10 years of immigrant status and demonstrable knowledge of Greek language and culture.
6. Children found in Greece become Greek citizens; if they are claimed by their non-Greek parents before the age of 18, then the provisions of #7 apply to them.
   
7. Children educated in Greece are allowed in the country for the duration of their studies, and become permanent residents thereafter.
8. Illegal immigrants may not be legalized within the country; they may apply for legal immigrant status after departing from Greece.
   

I believe that such a system is flexible enough to facilitate honest legal immigrants in their everyday life. On the other hand, it also ensures that the Greek citizen body will always consist of ethnic Greeks and their descendants.

Balancing selection and homosexuality (revisited)

Genetic traits predisposing to homosexuality decrease their bearers' genetic fitness. Therefore, they should be weeded out of the gene pool. However, such traits could persist if their expression in homosexuals was balanced by a reproductive advantage when they are expressed in heterosexuals.

This paper looks at the heterosexual brothers of homosexuals (who share half their genes), to see if they have increased reproductive success -- and they don't.

This is consistent with my hypothesis that a factor contributing to homosexuality is an excess of feminine (or deficiency of masculine) traits expressed in the wrong (i.e. male) gender. According to this hypothesis, male homosexuality would be associated with greater reproductive success in female family members, who would possess an excess of feminine traits: what's bad for the males in the family would be good for the females. You can read more about this in Beautiful Wives and Gay Sons.

I think that an interesting aspect of the homosexual paradox stems from the common variant/common trait assumption, which states that a relatively common phenotype should be the result of a relatively common genotype. Thus the question: how is such a genotype maintained in the gene pool at a non-trivial frequency?

The idea of balancing selection is certainly a mechanism which may solve the paradox. But, on the other hand, it's also possible that the genetic basis of homosexuality is not a population-wide phenomenon, but rather multiple independent mutations arising all over the population in each generation, and quickly dying out after a few generations.

So, it is not a question of how the "gay gene" is maintained at a high-enough frequency in the gene pool despite its obvious reproductive shortcomings. Such common population-wide gene(s) probably do not exist.

In my opinion, homosexuality is maintained by several factors:

1. The expression of feminizing (or masculinizing) genes in men (or women).
2. Deleterious loss-of-function genes appearing de novo in each generation and quickly weeded out by selection
3. Social pressures to produce offspring which limit the effects of selection.

An interesting consequence of #3 is that as social tolerance for this behavior increases, its genetic basis will decrease, as men who would -in previous generations- be involved in sham marriages are now free to engage in their preferred behavior, removing their genetic contribution to the gene pool. Of course, factors 1-2 in addition to environmental influences will suffice to reproduce the phenomenon in society.

Here is a previous post on balancing selection and homosexuality.

Evolution and Human Behavior doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.08.004

Testing Miller's theory of alleles preventing androgenization as an evolutionary explanation for the genetic predisposition for male homosexuality

Pekka Santtila et al.

Abstract

The genetic background of male homosexuality presents an evolutionary paradox, since homosexuality could be considered a reproductive disadvantage. We tested E.M. Miller's (2000) balanced polymorphism explanation, which states that alleles partially preventing androgenization in male fetuses during pregnancy would be associated with a homosexual orientation. Having all the alleles produces homosexuality, while heterosexual carriers with only a few of these alleles instead have a reproductive advantage; that is, they have more traits, which, by controlling for excessive aggressiveness and psychopathy, make them more attractive mates. Pairs of brothers were used to test these assumptions. If homosexuality is due to having all the androgenization-preventing alleles, then heterosexual men with homosexual brothers are more likely to also have some of the these alleles compared to heterosexual men with heterosexual brothers. These two categories were compared on variables related both directly and indirectly to reproductive success, with heterosexual men with a homosexual brother hypothesized to have an advantage on the variables. However, no statistically significant findings in support of the theory were detected. The results were discussed together with alternative explanations.

Link

Immigration and intermarriage rate

This reminds me of my 2003 post on Group Bias in Mate Selection and Outmarriage. In that post I argued that -given a preference level of marrying members of one's own group- larger groups have lower outmarriage rates.

Immigration Correlates with Slowed Rate of Intermarriages in United States

The study suggests Hispanic and Asian immigrants are likely to marry among themselves. In addition, more native-born minorities are selecting marriage partners from the growing pool of immigrants.

The result is that the number of native-born Hispanic men in intermarriages with whites declined by nearly 4 percentage points between 1990 and 2000 – from 35.3 percent to 31.9 percent. The number of native-born Asian American men in intermarriages declined from 50.2 to 45.8 percent.

The expression "the number of" is probably unfortunate, since it is the percentage that is declining, but the percentage is out of a bigger minority population.

Y chromosomes of the Ruling Dynasty of the Nso' in Cameroon

From the paper:

The groups are (1) the won nto', descendants of a fon down to the third or fourth generation; (2) the duy, descendants of a fon who ruled more than three or four generations ago together with, according to Chem-Langhëë and Fanso (1997), some members of commoner lineages whose heads are descendants of princesses and members of associated patriclans or clan segments, allegedly founded by immigrant royals, that provide state counselors; (3) the nshiylav, subjects born or recruited2 into palace service (patrilineally inherited); and (4) the mtaar, commoners (patrilineally inherited). Although the majority of the Nso' are self-identifying Christians of the Roman Catholic denomination, the fon has, through the generations, maintained a polygynous household, which in 2005 numbered over 70 women.3

...

The most common NRY haplogroup in the won nto' was Y*(xBR,A3b2), with a frequency of 55.6% ( ; table 1). This haplogroup was also found at a frequency of 17.6% in the duy. Furthermore, all Y*(xBR,A3b2) chromosomes had the same microsatellite haplotype (14-12-20-11-14-14; ... For convenience only we refer to Y*(xBR,A3b2) and the associated microsatellite haplotype as the won nto' modal haplotype (WMH); it had ten representatives, while the next most frequent haplotype in the won nto' had only two. The modal NRY haplogroup in the non–won nto' social classes was E3a, with a diverse range of NRY types at the microsatellite haplotype level

...

A principal coordinates analysis plot (fig. 2) based on a pairwise FST distance matrix calculated using NRY haplogroup frequencies (see table F1 for genetic distances and associated P values) clearly distanced the won nto' from both the other Nso' social classes and other ethnic groups, demonstrating that high frequencies of Y*(xBR,A3b2) are not typical of Grassfields and Tikar Plain NRY profiles. Accordingly, because Y*(xBR,A3b2) is typical of a hunter-gatherer population and the WMH is the most likely candidate to be the NRY type of the father of the first Nso' fon, the NRY data favor the oral tradition that the princess married an indigenous Visale, from whom all subsequent fons descend.

Current Anthropology doi: 10.1086/590119

Sex-Specific Genetic Data Support One of Two Alternative Versions of the Foundation of the Ruling Dynasty of the Nso' in Cameroon

Krishna R. Veeramah et al.

Abstract

Sex-specific genetic data favor a specific variant of the oral history of the kingdom of Nso' (a Grassfields city-state in Cameroon) in which the royal family traces its descent from a founding ancestress who married into an autochthonous hunter-gatherer group. The distributions of Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA variation in the Nso' in general and in the ruling dynasty in particular are consistent with specific Nso' marriage practices, suggesting strict conservation of the royal social class along agnatic lines. This study demonstrates the efficacy of using genetics to augment other sources of information (e.g., oral histories, archaeology, and linguistics) when seeking to recover the histories of African peoples.

Link

Female attractiveness not linked to higher reproductive success in rural Poland

Coll Antropol. 2008 Jun;32(2):457-60.

Is female attractiveness related to final reproductive success?

Pawlowski B, Boothroyd LG, Perrett DI, Kluska S.

In order to test the assumption that female attractiveness relates to reproductive success, photographs of 47 rural Polish women taken in their youth were rated for attractiveness, and BMI at age 18 was recorded; these measures of attractiveness were then compared with their subsequent life histories. Facial attractiveness did not relate to number of children or grandchildren. It also did not relate to age of marriage or husband's education. It did relate to number of marriages and husband's height. BMI at age 18 did not relate significantly to any of the outcome variables. These results suggest that although more attractive women may have married higher quality (taller) husbands and may in ancestral population have achieved greater reproductive success this way, there is no evidence in a modern, European Catholic society for their having greater reproductive success.

Link

Criticism of Anglo-Saxon apartheid theory

See my entry on How the Anglo-Saxons outbred the British for details of the Anglo-Saxon apartheid theory. The New Scientist has details on the new study. Germanic invaders may not have ruled by apartheid:

Pattison reviewed existing archaeological and genetic evidence, and conducted a new analysis of British DNA. Then, starting in 2001 and working backwards to pre-Roman times, Pattison calculated for each generation the net population growth and the origins of immigrants.

He concludes that people with Germanic origins came to Britain well before and after the early Anglo-Saxon period, and this long period of immigration can explain a relatively strong Germanic genetic signal today.

He adds that about 60% of the current British population still has some native Briton DNA, arguing against the idea, put forward by Mark Thomas at University College London and colleagues that Saxon invaders ethnically purged the country.

The textual and archaeological evidence collected by Thomas's team is also controversial, says Pattison.

The home page of John Pattison.

Pattison, J.E., Is it Necessary to Assume an Apartheid-like Social Structure in Early Anglo-Saxon England; in press, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, April 2008.

UPDATE (Apr 23): The paper is now online. I like this kind of paper which tries to capture some of the complexity of human movements. Quite often in genetics one sees simplistic explanations of population origins. A prime example of this is the Paleolithic/Neolithic theory of European origins, that has been done to death, as if Europe and Asia weren't connected for tens of thousands of years before the emergence of agriculture and ten thousand years after it, allowing the movements of people both ways; all this complexity is shoved under the rug and origins are sought in a simple admixture event at the onset of the Neolithic.

In some cases, the nature of the migration makes a "repeat performance" unlikely, as in e.g., the arrival of the ancestors of Native Americans to the New World at a time when there was a land passage to it.

Quite often, the more dramatic events in a land's migration history tend to overshadow the more quiet and long-standing ones. The sudden arrival of a people in a short period of time, be them Anglo-Saxons in Great Britain, or European colonists in the New World, leaves a lasting impression, and is likely to be remembered well into the future, whereas the more limited and occasional movements of people from the same source areas but over longer periods of time do no attract attention: e.g., one tends to remember the Mayflower, the Puritans, etc. in the history of the colonization of North America, but the flow of British immigrants did not really cease for any substantial time ever since.

UPDATE 2:

Pattison's paper makes two unrelated arguments against the thesis of Thomas et al. (2006). The first one is that the disadvantages suffered by indigenous Britons were a kind of incentive for them to adopt a Germanic identity; the second, that pre- and post- Anglo-Saxon migration can account for the Germanic Y-DNA in England, so the effects of the social situation during the time of the Anglo-Saxon migration need not have been so dramatic or even at all present.

The first claim:

A similar strategy was employed by the Moorish Caliphate in Medieval Spain: Jews and Christians were subject to a special tax—the jizya, which Muslims did not pay—in an endeavour to encourage non-Muslims to convert to Islam. According to the Qur’an (1990), non-Muslims who refused to pay the tax, were required to either convert to Islam or face the death penalty. The ethnicities of the people involved were of no concern.

This does establish the essential difference between the regime of apartheid and the proposed situation in England at the time. In a South-African-style apartheid regime it was impossible for a member of the disadvantaged group (blacks) to become part of the advantaged one. In the Muslim case, it was possible for non-Muslims to become Muslims. Thus, in both cases there was discrimination, but in one case there were rigid boundaries between groups, while in the other there was not - at least not in the direction of Christian->Muslim conversion.

It should be noted, however, that while wherever Muslims and Christians co-existed, there was a steady discrimination against Christians, resulting in conversions, emigration, or massacres, all of which would have diminished the Christian element, at the same time, the Christians were a source of economic revenue for the regime, and the policy of the Muslim political authorities, e.g., the Sultan in the Ottoman Empire was not so much to eradicate the non-Muslim population, but rather to maintain it with enough freedom for it to be productive, but also with enough fear to be subservient to the dominant group.

The second issue is the real substance of the paper: was the social situation (whether one calls it apartheid or not) in early Anglo-Saxon England the cause of the significant Germanic element in modern Englishmen or not? That is an empirical question relying on the prevalence and arrival of Germanic elements in pre-Anglo-Saxon England and their subsequent arrival over the centuries. The paper does succeed in weakening the case for a substantial contribution of Anglo-Saxon/Briton social tensions in favor of the former's genetic success.

Is it necessary to assume an apartheid-like social structure in Early Anglo-Saxon England?

John E. Pattison

Abstract

It has recently been argued that there was an apartheid-like social structure operating in Early Anglo-Saxon England. This was proposed in order to explain the relatively high degree of similarity between Germanic-speaking areas of northwest Europe and England. Opinions vary as to whether there was a substantial Germanic invasion or only a relatively small number arrived in Britain during this period. Contrary to the assumption of limited intermarriage made in the apartheid simulation, there is evidence that significant mixing of the British and Germanic peoples occurred, and that the early law codes, such as that of King Ine of Wessex, could have deliberately encouraged such mixing. More importantly, the simulation did not take into account any northwest European immigration that arrived both before and after the Early Anglo-Saxon period. In view of the uncertainty of the places of origin of the various Germanic peoples, and their numbers and dates of arrival, the present study adopts an alternative approach to estimate the percentage of indigenous Britons in the current British population. It was found unnecessary to introduce any special social structure among the diverse Anglo-Saxon people in order to account for the estimates of northwest European intrusion into the British population.

Link

Who's a Jew?

Steve Sailer points me to this article in the New York Times regarding the strict criteria adopted by the Chief Rabbinate in Israel:

One day last fall, a young Israeli woman named Sharon went with her fiancé to the Tel Aviv Rabbinate to register to marry. They are not religious, but there is no civil marriage in Israel. The rabbinate, a government bureaucracy, has a monopoly on tying the knot between Jews. The last thing Sharon expected to be told that morning was that she would have to prove — before a rabbinic court, no less — that she was Jewish. It made as much sense as someone doubting she was Sharon, telling her that the name written in her blue government-issue ID card was irrelevant, asking her to prove that she was she.

...

In recent years, the state’s Chief Rabbinate and its branches in each Israeli city have adopted an institutional attitude of skepticism toward the Jewish identity of those who enter its doors. And the type of proof that the rabbinate prefers is peculiarly unsuited to Jewish life in the United States. The Israeli government seeks the political and financial support of American Jewry. It welcomes American Jewish immigrants. Yet the rabbinate, one arm of the state, increasingly treats American Jews as doubtful cases: not Jewish until proved so.

...

Seth Farber is an American-born Orthodox rabbi whose organization — Itim, the Jewish Life Information Center — helps Israelis navigate the rabbinic bureaucracy. He explained to me recently that the rabbinate’s standards of proof are now stricter than ever, and stricter than most American Jews realize. Referring to the Jewish federations, the central communal and philanthropic organizations of American Jewry, he said, “Eighty percent of federation leaders probably wouldn’t be able to reach the bar.” To assist people like Sharon, Farber has become a genealogical sleuth. He is the first to warn, though, that solving individual cases cannot solve a deeper crisis.

If you want to find out the end of Sharon's story, read the article. This story highlights the deep divide between those with a more subjectivistic idea of religious identity or ethnicity, emphasizing self-image, and those seeking a set of more objective criteria.