Update added 02/16/06.
I've worked on this book for so many years and have always been amazed that no one else had already written it. Sure it's a bit complicated, but it is obvious in so many ways. Well, I found out the explanation of why that is so. It was written by CD Darlington, the British Geneticist that I borrow a lot from in the book. It explains a lot and puts this book in context. It also defines a critical requirement I have to fulfill in this book. It has to do with what he referred to as the Three Great Lies of Science.
The great Britich Geneticist C. D. Darlington said that there were three great lies in science. These three topics were taboo and would get you driven from science if you discussed them. He said that perpetuating these lies distorted all of science and the human beliefs that come from them. Since these lies are about humans, this has placed a limit on what humans can understand and distorts our values, including values critical to survival. The consequences and dangers of this distortion cannot be underestimated.
The first lie was about humans being animals, something that Darwin and Huxley finally brought out. The second lie was about human sexuality. This held sway until at least the 1930's before it could be examined in academia without punishment. The third lie is about human heredity. For many reasons, but mostly accommodation, the peoples and nations have decided to ignore the differences between races, tribes, peoples, even men and women. This distorts the views of humanity that we are able to make. It is a huge limitation upon us, but in hindsight, perhaps this is good. Racial interactions appear to be a rather rough sort of Darwinian win-lose proposition. The gain of one comes from the loss of another's. So we are locked in this struggle of denial, even as the genetic researchers find, one after another, genes that influence behavior. As the book is to explain, there are circumstances that can make this a very appealing win-win situation. Not only can we admit to the differences, but we must to survive. Understanding this makes racism mostly meaningless. This must be understood, because it is largely the consequences of race that has made this a forbidden topic.
The answers to this question relate to human survival and so are more than intellectual discussions. They are emotional and moral as well. So the explanations here must be described both in terms of reason and emotion. This cannot be a science in a moral vacuum.
I did not know about those taboos so I studied human nature and genetic differences. I understood how the genes fit in to what we are and what that means. I studied this in the context of trying to figure out how humans could create a stable ecology. This is not about saving the environment, though that will likely be an important part of it. This is about creating a stable human ecology that humans can survive in. We mostly have not had one in thousands of years and by definition, that is a dangerous place for any specie to be. We have to find a new way we can survive.
The answers here then must be mode of logic and reason in the form of science. At the same time they must be offered in terms of survival and morality that we understand with reason and emotional. Finally, the differences between people and peoples must be described to show that jingoistic racism will serve no one.
Note that the arguments for Social Darwinism and jingoistic racism are not illogical, inherently false or even unnatural. It is factors a bit more complicated, that change the situation. Those old arguments get superseded and their results would waste incredible opportunities, let alone perhaps preclude long term human survival. These new factors have to do with issues of disease and genetics, but are described in terms of morality and survival.
Now this is speculation, but I think quite reasonable. This extreme distortion of truth has caused extreme distortions in society. There are two places I think this importantly arises. The first relates to children and the second relates to religion. In both cases, the denial of the importance and uniqueness of different human genetic groupings has lowered the value of the individual. I think this has lowered the perceived value of children and has contributed to the decline in child raising and its value in Western culture that has been educated with these false premises. The second result of the reduction in individual worth has been the relative increase in the perceived worth of religion, which does more represent the survival of groups than the individual. We have not ascribed individuality and individual worth in terms of genetics, so we seem only aware of a sort of mystical nature and worth.
That is besides all the stupid social, educational, political, etc. policies and philosophical views created based on this faulty information.
Then once this is understood, when we have a more realistic understanding of humans, perhaps we can approach the 'Fourth Forbidden Topic In Science'.
Rough draft...Needs re-write badly.
What is this actually about? In more than 33 years of intense research, what did I learn
that is worth knowing? Well, I learned about invisibility. It's like the invisibility of
the atom. You just can't see them, but study enough and you come to the conclusion that
things are made of atoms and you can learn a lot about atoms. If you study humans enough,
you can see something of what they are made of that is invisible if you look directly at
them. I learned some useful ideas.
This is a set of tools based on those ideas. It is tools of survival and understanding.
Also, like science, it offers an explanation. In this case, useful explanations. It offers
potentials answers to questions about what humans are, can be and what to avoid. It
describes human past, present and something of the future in terms of nature and
survival.
In some ways, this is a Moral Philosophy (As A Moral Philosophy). It answers questions
about truth and right and wrong and how to judge. It tells one what to look for when you
look at yourself and others. It answers a lot of big whys. Still, at a point, I had to ask
if a new moral system would be needed to get humans to their next ecology or is there one
already existing that could do it? Since I concluded that there is one already existing,
then I am not offering a new Moral Philosophy. I am offering an improved explanation of
one that does exist. I found that it coincided with the genetic patterns I was studying.
The genetic information allowed me to understand human requirements in terms of moral
systems. I then could see how this existing Moral Philosophy served humans and held truths
that are written in human genes.
I started this study in terms of ecology to learn the basis of life. Studying human
ecology and genetics showed me patterns that are not obvious. Actually, it is easy to
see that human ecology is changing. We don't survive how or where we used to. We must
find a new ecology to live in. That was my goal. To reach that goal took many lessons.
It all started with disease and then genetics. It seems that day by day, we find out more
and more about the importance and consequence of genes. Yet they are imperfect.
Our gentics deteriorate naturally and this deterioration is offset by natural selection,
especially by the effect of disease. Humans have done a lot to remove natural
selective effects. That has been a mark of human progress. Well, it's going to lead to a
disaster as the general human genetic wealth deteriorates. The current equation of a human
is simple. All our survival strategies are based on a high investment in the development cost
of children. In a technological society, that expense goes up dramatically. To make it short,
to survive we will have no choice but to use artificial selection or natural selection is going
to lay us to waste. If the goal of artificial selection
is healthy children and healthy families, most potential moral dangers of it can be avoided.
This may sound quite radical, but truly there is no choice. It is just how we are designed.
There are corollaries and variations,
but we will still definitely have to use artificial selection. This is described in extreme
detail in the body of the book, including possible variations on the equation, but it is still
so. Looking at it from that view shows some amazing potentials for humans that are not obvious.
We can solve most of our problems that way. (That took the first 25 years of study)
From what I know of biology, it is a general rule that any specie that develops
technology will have the same problem and must use the same solution. Those that do, have made
the Transition to a new ecology.
The genetics are the basis of this study and the conclusion is that we will have no choice but
to husband and control our genetics in order to survive. A lot of people are going to have trouble
believing that and in ways it goes directly against some common moral precepts. Again, I say it
is moral not just because we must do it in order to survive, but also because it is about healthy
individuals and families. That may satisfy judgment by a persons moral intellect, but the
beginning of the book is a detailed, science and reason based description of why this is so.
If you are going to change human nature any, you must carefully look at the survival strategies
we use to live. They are what are most important to humans. Our bodies are not designed for
specialization. They are tools of our minds. Our minds and strategies are what make us human.
We survive based on the use of learned survival strategies instead of instincts. That is the
mark of a human. Have you ever heard of a learned survival strategy? They are called moralities.
Often morality is confused with religion
and while religions teach and husband moralities, they were created by morality, not the other
way around. These strategies are what is so
invisible about humans. The basis of our best strategies is cooperation.
Using the genetic knowledge, especially what I learned from C. D. Darlington, one can see these
strategies from the outside. The concept of memes can be used to help see what they are.
That allows for an examination, comparison and evaluation of different moralities. To see
that is to see some interesting things that are normally invisible from within a culture and often
from without.
This is to offer the reason and understanding that we must achieve to have a usable moral system.
The conclusion of the book says how we can use the potentials of our genes and moral systems
to survive. So much of it is based on understanding. We have more than just the potential to
survive.
As I conclude this, I see that though the genetic study is universal and true for all humans
that want to survive into a future with technology, the morality I most study is what is called
Western Culture. Here I am saying that the essence of Western Culture is not technology, movies
or pop culture. It is the moral system based on the cooperative potentials of love. This is what
was the original appeal of Christianity and is its appeal today. In this
current time of cultural conflict, that is what we must rely on for our survival and as our path
of cultural competition. The usefulness and potential of that strategy must be understood both
rationally and in terms of faith for our own culture's survival and the survival of other
peoples. That is what is made visible by analysis, starting with the genes that are so
important to what we are.
You can start here..