The agricultural revolution that wasn't | Hacker News Reader

The agricultural revolution that wasn't

evoandproud.blogspot.com

22 pointsascertain10 comments

And...three posts down on the author's homepage we get to race and IQ, then a little further down a cross-post deal with Unz Review. HBD-curious at best. I take his musings on Austronesians with a consequent grain of salt.

I think the key is here:

"The Austronesian advantage seems to have been threefold: (1) a more flexible and innovative approach; (2) a less present-oriented time orientation that extended further into the past and the future; and (3) a less individualistic approach to life that made collective goods and goals more possible."

First of all, these three traits are even less in evidence from the archaeological record than the alleged farming practices he is criticizing. Flexible and innovative is basically meaningless. The second one ("present-oriented") in particular is a staple of Austrian-economics-type diatribes against the poor (especially black poor), so it is likely to be a back-projection of present day arguments rather than a genuine window on the past.

But anyway, none of the three points are given any significant support - just a short handwaving paragraph each.

"Couldn't have been agriculture" - I can go along with that - "must have been racial superiority of this particular type" EDIT: those are my paraphrases, not direct quotes - that is a step too far. It's too far not so much because arguing racial superiority is wrong (although it is) but because the evidence adduced is flimsy and does not support it.

That is very insightful. Why have you been downvoted? 'Time-orientation' as an 'evolutionary trait' is pretty much a new dress over eurocentrism.

"must have been racial superiority of this particular type"

The article does not contain that phrase. Please don't use quotation marks on HN to make it look like you're quoting something when you are not.

It's particularly bad to put words in someone else's mouth when the words are so inflammatory.

I think it's pretty clear from context that it was a paraphrase, especially since the phrase "must have been X of this particular type" is clearly a template phrase. It's a fairly common English construction; "oh won't someone please think of the children" in quotes as a response to an article doesn't imply that the article linked actually contains that phrase.

However at least the comments here are no stupider than the HN norm, when it comes to non-programming scientific topics. The frontpage right now contains two pseudoscientific bullshit stories: something from The Atlantic about "Toxins That Threaten Our Brains" (that's a verbatim quote), and this run-of-the-mill evo-psych bullshit.

I think it's a legit point. If I had to do it again I would have used italics.

I agree although I wish there were paraphrase quotes, or some way to make paraphrasing clear, because it's very useful.

Why do you reject the person's website out of hand because you found one thing that does not agree with your worldview? The goal of science is to challenge our worldview and assumptions (whether we like it or not).

A quick google scholar search shows that the person has a quite strong publication record:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Peter+Frost&btnG=&...

I won't dismiss a person who wrote articles/books with citation counts of 500+ out of hand.

The author may have written good articles, but I would rather have one of those submitted than the linked blog post, which is not a piece of well-supported scientific writing.

I take a person's website with a big grain of salt out of hand if they link to a lot of HBD blogs like hbdchick and Steve Sailer. "Take with a grain of salt" is not the same thing as "reject...out of hand".

I later reject his argument after examining it cursorily and directing some half-ass arguments of my own at it. Not out of hand though

They specifically mention "time orientation" as a "culturally sanctioned desire" that was "ideologically driven". At no point in this post is there an attribution of this behavior to genetics. In fact at no point in this post is there any mention of genetics.

Unless you are personally of the opinion that all characteristics of a group are genetically driven?

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