EARTH — In a seemingly unstoppable cycle of carnage that has become tragically commonplace throughout the biosphere, sources confirmed this morning that natural selection has killed an estimated 38 quadrillion organisms in its bloodiest day yet. […] “What we’re seeing here is the work of a hardened, practiced killer,” said Yale University evolutionary biologist Richard Prum … “It is painfully clear this slaughter was perpetrated by a force that holds zero regard for the value of life” …

In what many are calling its most grotesque tactic, the killer appeared to single out the most vulnerable organisms — particularly the young and the physically weak — for its murderous rampage, slaughtering them without mercy as other members of their species fled in panic. Reports indicated those who escaped the carnage were left with no choice but to try to move on with their lives and survive even as the ruthless killer continued stalking them. […] Virtually no species was unaffected by yesterday’s killing spree, experts stated. […] “This is the work of a killer without empathy, without conscience,” said Jyotsna Ramjee, a University of Calcutta zoologist who confirmed that the day’s death toll was the largest on official records dating back to 1859, when the perpetrator was first identified.

What is the current understanding of animal behavior? Is animal behavior generally understood as a collection of phenotypes that emerge at least partially from their genes? All the work on animal domestication, in particular, seems to point toward that conclusion. But I could be wrong. What’s your sense of it? 

If behavior of animals — and I don’t just mean mammals, of course — is believed to have not much to do with genes, then clearly, I see no reason to connect the two in humans.

However, if there is an emerging consensus that animal behavior is at least partially genetic, then I see no reason to be so skeptical about Wade’s thesis. Otherwise, you’re doing the creationist thing and putting “humankind” in this special bubble that is untouched by the processes we see working elsewhere.

You yourself say that Wade’s discussion of races as “clusters” of gene assemblages more or less reflects the current understanding. Some of these clusters are packed closely into recognizable clades while others, existing at far ends of these clades, are quite far apart, as I understand, which is what Cavalli-Sforza argues in his landmark book.

So it seems at least possible that if certain physical phenotypes differ across these clusters then certain behavior phenotypes will also differ across these clusters. I mean, isn’t this just basic Darwinian theory?

That Wade hasn’t presented any evidence that this is in fact the case may be true — the book is on the way, I haven’t read it yet. But I imagine that the evidence he does present (from psychometrics or economics) is just too orthoganal to the thesis for you to accept. But I still don’t see why the thesis is being treated as pseudo-science.

Again, if physical phenotypes differ across the gene-assemblage clusters, why not behavioral phenotypes?

Strangely, an answer does not yet seem to be forthcoming.