|
|
Re: Intelligence on the X chromosome
catherine yronwode (yronwode@sonic.net)
Sun, 18 Aug 1996 17:08:35 -0800
Matt Beckwith wrote:
>
> So, if I understand correctly, the fact that women have twice as many
> alleles would tend to increase the probability of their distribution
> being a normal one. Yeah, that makes sense. So a woman is less likely
> to have all high-intelligence genes or all low-intelligence genes.
>
> This pretty well implies that these genes are not recessive, but
> co-dominant.
>
> I wonder what the evolutionary advantage is in having these genes on the
> X chromosome.
I believe it would only be of advantage to a matrilinear culture that
was patriarchal. In such a set-up, if a son "married out," his offspring
would be discarded by the tribe, thus losing some intelligent but
non-ruling females, but also removing from the tribe's gene pool all
potentially-ruling males of unknown intelliegence. If a daughter
"married out," her children would be accepted into the tribe and all the
potentially-ruling men would be of a known intelligence level while the
daughters would be of unknown intelligence but would have no rulership
potential. There is only one culture quite like this that i know of at
the present time, and that is traditional, matrilinear, patriarchal
Judaism. I am unwilling to discuss the relative intelligence of Jews vis
a vis other cultures, merely noting that this is the only culture that
(unconsciously, no doubt) conforms to what i see as the one breeding
plan that would maximize intelligence over the long haul if there were
multiple alleles for intelligence and if they only occured on the X
chromosome.
cat "a boy's best friend is his mother" yronwode
catherine yronwode ------------------------- mailto:yronwode@sonic.net
news:alt.lucky.w - discussion of folkloric amulets, charms, & talismans
LUCKY W AMULET ARCHIVE ------ http://www.sonic.net/yronwode/LuckyW.html
mailto:space@intuition.org --- sacred sites, geometry, archaeoastronomy
THE SACRED LANDSCAPE ---- http://www.sonic.net/yronwode/sacredland.html
|