[ExI] The Catholic Impact (was Re: Origin of ethics and morals)

[Kelly Anderson]

2011/12/12 John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>:
> I hope Keith Henson weighs in on this discussion.  My responses are below...
>
>
> Kelly Anderson wrote:
>>
>> 1) Heretics, Muslims and Jews were occasionally slaughtered, though
>> probably not in great enough numbers to have a huge genetic effect.
>
> I think that the ban on Christians charging interest for loans, may have
> caused change in the Jewish gene pool, in terms of the selection for
> the type of intelligence that excels at finance.  But then the Jews had a
> strong merchant class dating back to the Babylonians and the Romans.  I
> think if any people have been molded for success by powerful selective
> pressures from within and without, it is the Jews.  I find it painfully
> ironic that Hitler and the Nazi's considered themselves a "master race," and
> persecuted the Jews, when the Jews are a prime example of several millennia
> of intense cultural eugenics at work, with the end result being a people who
> have achieved so much for humanity.

This is a really great point.

> When it came to heretics, most people just did not have the moral courage to
> open their mouth when they knew death would be the end result.  But the wars
> of the reformation (for both religious and economic reasons) helped heretics
> fight back and yet have a chance of surviving and thriving.

Agreed.

>> 2) Religious orders (monks, priests and nuns) tended to attract those
>> who were interested in an intellectual life. Obviously, their
>> reproduction was sharply curtailed being in these religious orders.
>> Would that imply that Catholicism decreased intellectualism in those
>> areas where it was practiced for many centuries?
>
> This is a fascinating question!

Thank you... I thought it was at least interesting.

> Yep, the Catholics should have been more
> like Mormons or Jews, and had their smarter folks have lots of kids! lol
> I've read that Spain was Catholic down to the core of their being, and their
> modern lack of great scientific productivity might be influenced from this
> matter.  But then again, the Irish have excelled in areas such as literature
> and the I.T. field.

And again, how much of this is memetic vs. genetic... it's an open question.

>> 3) Catholic beliefs about food (fish Friday, wine, dirty water) might
>> have had some impact, as did their support of kings and the political
>> orders under kings.
>
> Dirty water?  Wine was known as a safe option for drinking (as compared to
> water) many centuries before Jesus was even born.

I guess I was thinking more about the aversion to bathing than
drinking issues... sorry I didn't write what I was thinking.

> 4) Catholicism and feudalism meant very limited travel for most
> people. This could have led to prejudice, insofar as that is genetic,
> but probably more importantly, it created islands where specific genes
> that would otherwise have been bred out of a larger population became
> more prevalent. This may be more especially the case for recessives.
>
> Times have sure changed...  But poverty stricken rural areas in the third
> world may still be somewhat like your description...

Yes. Even so, the increased incidence of certain genes locally may
have residual effects... not sure exactly what they would be though.

>> 5) Might there have been a breeding advantage to those who truly
>> believed leading to more true believers? Might there have been other
>> breeding advantages related to Catholic beliefs?
>
> They did not use birth control and so they had many more offspring, who then
> also had offspring! lol  And modern psychology has recognized the bulwark
> against stress and adversity that religious faith can create in a person's
> life.

How much effective birth control was even available 500 years ago?? I
know there were primitive condoms back in Roman times. Were the
Catholics as highly opposed to birth control back then? I don't know.

>> 6) Did feudal beliefs about bathing increase the capacity of the
>> overall immune system of those who survived? Same with the black
>> death...
>
> Did medieval beliefs about cats being evil and needing to be exterminated,
> increase the odds of the Black Death killing lots of people? lol

Probably... Glad we can laugh about the black death after all these years...

ring around the rosies
pocket full of posies
ashes, ashes
we all fall down.

>> 7) Could there have been effects on rates of promiscuity in the gene
>> pool from Catholic punishments of adultery and fornication, as well as
>> the negative effects of being a bastard?
>
> I believe people tended to be pretty human and have socially unapproved sex
> back then at fairly high levels, but they simply had alot more guilt and
> anxiety attached to it, and the risks were far greater.  The person who had
> to deal with the negative effects of being a bastard more than anyone else,
> was the poor person who actually bore that label!

And that poor bastard would carry the genes of his mother and
father... and thus potentially to the detriment of their gene pool
success... though they did reproduce successfully... it cuts both
ways, I suppose.

> Well, the mother would
> often bear a great deal of social disapproval for having an illegitimate
> child.  But I think among the peasants the stigma was not so gigantic, while
> the higher you went up the social ladder, the more scandalous it would be
> for you.  Landowning males wanted to be certain of the paternity of their
> children.

You are likely correct. And any genetic effect, to be pervasive, would
have to be an effect that affected the serf level of society, since
that's where most of the genes were pooled.

>> 8) Insofar as ethics are genetic, there may be other impacts of our
>> brush with the papacy.
>
> The papacy is a real mixed bag when it comes to ethics.  There were some
> good popes and then some really not so good ones...

Yup. Just like everybody else.

> Anyway, I hope you get an insightful collection of replies.

Me too. Thanks for playing this dangerous game with me... :-)

-Kelly