Steve Sailer (guest) meinte am 15. Aug, 04:20:
My question about Clark's book
Clark appears to have documented, from early modern English probate records, a eugenic trend in births and survival favoring the children of the successful. I haven't read the book yet, but I'm wondering how he gets from there to saying that this explains England's economic takeoff. At a minimum, he'd have to show the same eugenic process wasn't as operative in, say, France or Italy or Holland.
Eric Falkenstein antwortete am 15. Aug, 05:35:
Yeah, it would be hard to believe that England had a much different gene pool than, say, the Netherlands, France, etc. in 1750. And then there's the fact that Italy, Holland, England, then Germany, were all trading places as the hub of the Industrial Revolution.
ziel (guest) antwortete am 16. Aug, 02:33:
Why England?
I read the "Genetically Capitalist" chapter, and I don't think he argues that England was unique in the demographics (the income/descendants correlation). He doesn't come out and say it but my impression was that the remarkable civic stability of England over the 1200 - 1800 period enabled the industrial revolution to take place there, given the presumed change in temperament driven by the relationship of fitness to income.
