[extropy-chat] Why Progress Might Slow Down

[CurtAdams at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/4/2003 7:07:58 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
mlorrey at yahoo.com writes:

>Especially since the claim is wrong. Historically, rural America, which
>was most of America prior to the 20th century, was heavily homogenous
>and inbred. Social instruments prevented ethnic, religious, and caste
>cross breeding

You need a *lot* of inbreeding for the effects the authors are talking about.
For an inbred village, you'd need centuries.  And somehow, in spite of all
these impediments, the average american "black" is 1/3 European genetically
(with a LOT of variance on that).  Seems we did a pretty good job of 
x-breeding.

It takes very little x-breeding to obliterate genetic differences.  Over 
time, literally
one lone event per generation for the entire population pretty much does the 
trick.