Wednesday 13 May 2015

Hairs on your chest: Androgens and intellect

 

 

image

Continuing the series on selected papers from the 2015 London Conference on Intelligence I am testing the power of an arresting image, as used by Ed Dutton in his presentation: Population Differences in Androgen levels: A test of the Differential K theory.

I should point out that the fine figure of a man above was neither a speaker nor a guest at the conference, but hair is an indicator of hormones, so examine the hairiness of the back of your middle finger before reading any more.

All species face a dilemma: is it better to have very many offspring, and hope that some will survive; or have a few and work hard to ensure that they survive? The first strategy involves lots of sex and not much parental involvement; the second less sex and much more parental investment. The Reproductive strategy leads to fast, “live for the moment” lives, the Konservative strategy slower, “live for tomorrow” lives.

Dutton argues that most of the data fits well with the r-k continuum, but points out anomalies regarding body hair, which against prediction is higher in European groups, possibly as an adaptation to mildly colder climates.

Read it all here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3c4TxciNeJZdmJ1MkwyNW1KNFk/view?usp=sharing

14 comments:

  1. "possibly as an adaptation to mildly colder climates": how hairy are the Esquimaux?

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    1. The speculation was that the adaptation was of no use in Arctic climates

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    2. Ahoy: circular argument off the port bow.

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    3. Hair body in europeans is a ''caucasian thing''. Nothing about ''climate adaptation''. Middle easterners, north africans and many indians have abundance of body hair. Central-asian pressure in slavic Europe seems have effect in the reduction of male body hair.

      Santoculto

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    4. Lion of the Judah-sphere18 May 2015 at 00:50

      Several of my good friends in elementary school started developing facial hair in the fifth grade. They were all Bengali/Indian.

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  2. Body/facial hair seems to be a feature of Caucasoid populations. This has nothing to do with climate.

    I'd like to see the populations used in their analysis.

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    1. Yes, that will follow in the actual publication. This was a brief introduction.

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  3. The "World Penis Size" data Dutton purports to have validated doesn't just contain a few "minor mistakes". Most of the data is simply made up.

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  4. Can you give further details, preferably about better data sets?

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  5. I wonder if anyone has ever looked at Clitoromegaly and ethnic or racial groups? One of the causes of an enlarged clitoris is Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia.

    Often females who have Clitoromegaly do experience increase in sexual desire: "Female bodybuilders and athletes who use androgens, primarily to enhance muscular growth, strength and appearance (see Use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport), may also experience clearly evident enlargement of the clitoris and increases in libido."

    Testicle size is correlated in species with Polygamous mating systems, which would only seem naturals. So people who think penis size is irrelevant in social behavior are deluding themselves, although in reality the differences in human races are smaller than between, say, gorillas and chimps. One mildly polygamous, the other racially so.

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  6. Body hair doesn't seem to be a cold weather adaptation. As others have remarked, southern Caucasoids are often hairier than northern Caucasoids.

    The primary human adaptations to colder climates seem to have been cultural adaptations, and by cultural I don't mean non-genetic. These adaptations are cultural artefacts such as fire and warm clothing, and they likely required genetic adaptations that produced the sort of behavioral dispositions necessary for making and maintaining these sorts of cultural artefacts.

    No human populations can survive exposure to even mild temperatures for extended periods without fire and clothing. Exposure to even a relatively high temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit will result in chillblains and physiological damage without fire and clothing. Body hair doesn't help.

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  7. Hello. Thanks for your comments on my presentation. Regarding body hair, this is merely a suggestion and I am open to alternative possibilities. But we would expect to be underpinned by testosterone and cold adaptation and a balance between the benefts of the two, so there is not necessarily a problem for the hypothesis if southern Europeans are hairier than northern Europeans. Do any of you have an alternative explanation? If so, I'd be most interested. As for the penis data, this is not essential to extending Rushton's model. We discussed it at the conference and found two cases of bogus references. Though this does not necessarily mean the whole site is a fraud, it does rather undermine confidence in the source and opens up the possibility that it may be an elaborate hoax. As such, I am personally inclined to disregard the penis data. Best wishes, Ed Dutton.

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  8. Tropical primate species that are closely related to humans all seem to have much more body hair than humans do.

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