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TA in the nutshell.
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This is demonstrably false, and it reeks of pro-Catonian bias in historiography as so usual with Anglo-American academia.“The character of the Roman people changed during the late Republic and early Empire, becoming less disciplined and hard-working, less innovative and forward-thinking, increasingly averse to military service, and less attached to the institutions of the Republic. These changes were epigenetic in origin and were influenced by greater prosperity, declining respect for authority and religion, and less strict childrearing.
Julio-Claudian, Flavian and Nervo-Antonine Rome (what I suppose could be called 'early' Empire) had the highest participation of men in the legion, which allowed Rome to each areas that had hitherto never been even explored like Britannia, the ultra-Rhine Germania or Dacia but to name those off the top of my head. The Late Republic (which I suppose is what you'd call the period starting with the civil war between Marius and Sulla and ending with Augustus winning at Actium), instead had minimal expansion on its part once both Carthage and Macedonia were subdued as competing Mediterranean powers in the III Century BC and rather faced internal strife notably with Spartacus' rebellion.
Except for the Year of the Four Emperors, dynastic transitions were quick and there was no lingering decadent stage, even if they could be brutal like the assassinations of Caligula, Claudius, Nero or Domitian. On the contrary the Late Republic was characterised by the city of Rome having several legions break the Rubicon restriction and occupy the city directly, breaking the legal order, leading to internal strife and mass assassination. The status quo could change rapidly and familiar feuds could hinder the operations of the Senate at times. If you consider just the period following Caesar's death in the idus of May, and the turns and tumbles that Rome had with Anthony, Octavian and Brutus/Cassius shifting their alliances over the course of several years even, you can see how that contrasts with the verticality of the early Empire.
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The only genetic change that has been discovered in labs so far is the loss of genetic material over time, with the emergence of new material on account of mutation being only theoretical till this day. Devolution happens, evolution doesn't.
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Are you another Rethel?Originally Posted by Lessenech
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I've never spoken to Rethel beyond rebuking his identitarianism, so dunno.Are you another Rethel?
What you have here though is one of the most mediocre metanarratives of history I've ever seen, yet it fits all too well with the spirit of the times. Dating back to at least Vaucanson, Western academia has been for whatever reason obsessed with the idea of treating both humans and reality as large as a quasi-mechanicistic process where everything that happens is simply a repetition, and improvement, or a degradation in the ethereal and sempiternal clockwork that is the universe.
Having finished the article, the theory you are presenting of social history as a result of biological determinism already admits that:
1 - The motivation is entirely subjective from the part of the lead researcher, not because he saw a credible hint at it. Just nerding led him to think he could explain Western history with mimicked equations built over biology.
2 - Openly admits his theory goes against basic common sense, the root of all real human understanding.
3 - His evidence for it is... what exactly? Did he compare the genetic profile of Romans around the days of Zama, and Romans during Carrhae or Alesia to show how the late Republic had degenerated them? His entire empirical substrate is showing that rats in the absence of abundant food tend to develop increased social care, which means.... nothing. Since every prior theory of sociological understanding already accounted for the fact that wealth leads to higher individualism due to the decreased pressure on cooperation."It may go against the common sense, view but my research into biohistory shows..."
4 - His own argument doesn't even place the core reason behavioural changes at the hereditarian level (which would be the actual discovery) but even argues that the primary vector of cultural transition was environmental.
Discovery?"These changes pass from generation to generation, partly through direct inheritance but mainly through experiences in early life, causing changes in temperament which in turn have economic and political effects."
5 - His theory suggests that the peoples who migrated westwards during the Barbarian invasions were also affected by the epigenetical changes and thus had a degraded genetic profile, yet if that was the case, how did the same genetic pool manage to rebuild and outdo Imperial Roman civilization after generations?
Aren't they the descendants of the ruined population after all?
And if the changes are reversible and so descendants who face hardship are cleansed of the inferior genetic inheritance through starvation, couldn't genetics be said to be a symptom of social decline rather than the cause, which you know is the whole point of the 'biohistory' theory? Comfort breeding weakness, social causes leading to human repercussions, not genetic causes
And yes, since you quoted that part of my previous message
6) The appearance of new genetic material or increase in complexity of a genetic profile has yet to be shown to happen in any species. The only thing that has to my knowledge been discovered is that gene expression changes, leading to adaptations, as well as the loss of genetic material which on occasion ends up being useful to the species as they are afterwards lacking the required genetic material to say be affected by a virus or bacteria.
How do you empirically prove what's called 'macroevolution' if so?
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No it is not the point of this theory. The point of this theory is that culture influences gene expression and gene expression influences culture, so these are mutual influences - not just genetics and epigenetics influencing culture, but also the other way around. It is a two way street.
No, it has already been shown to happen. Your idea that there is no proof that new mutations emerge is wrong. It has been proven.
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Link me please?
Happy to be proven wrong if so.
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Too many links to post.
But things such as lactose tolerance or blue eyes - among thousands of other things - are relatively new mutations.
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Another confirmation of the gene-culture coevolution theory:
"Genetic and genomic analyses reveal pre-existing cultural differences leading to Neolithization":
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-03717-6
"Surprisingly, in all regions, food producers had larger effective population sizes (Ne) than foragers already 20 k years ago, well before the Neolithic revolution. As expected, this difference further increased ~12–10 k years ago, around or just before the onset of food production. Using paleoclimate reconstructions, we show that the early difference in Ne cannot be explained by food producers inhabiting more favorable regions. A number of mechanisms, including ancestral differences in census size, sedentism, exploitation of the natural resources, social stratification or connectivity between groups, might have led to the early differences in Ne detected in our analyses. Irrespective of the specific mechanisms involved, our results provide further evidence that long term cultural differences among populations of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers are likely to have played an important role in the later Neolithization process."
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This is important (as it contradicts what Jared Diamond claimed):
"Using paleoclimate reconstructions, we show that the early difference in Ne (effective population sizes) cannot be explained by food producers inhabiting more favorable regions."
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It depends, if you have right datation, becasue if all
people come from the Flood survivors, then your young
mutation is in the same age as all older
Simply, one poputalion got it, others don't, the
same as genes for hair colour or other racial traits.
And this means devolution - becasue final populations, have
smaller genetic diversity than their original population from
which they did splitted out. It is not gaining but losing info.
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