20 karma · joined July 24, 2011
Two other points though:
-Italian immigration wasn't anywhere near the scale of present day immigration to Europe. In other words the percentages in the example above aren't close to the real ones, however, the projection says that the percentages of European v.s. non-European genes would be as low as that or lower.
-French and Italians cluster genetically right next to each other compared to current immigrating populations. Now why this makes a difference for some people, read this other comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2808602
One might argue that it's a bad thing at the DNA level for your DNA, not for you as a person. If you make the distinction between you as a person and your genetic makeup, then there is nothing bad, since whose genes live on Earth in a thousand years is irrelevant, it could be elephants and you would be as happy.
If you go down to the DNA level, one might say that it's a bad thing, because DNA's objective is to survive and spread. Just like life itself. If the genetic makeup that makes you European disappears or is less prevalent than it was, then you could say that the DNA you carry did not reach its objective or was less successful in doing so than other groups. Even if the difference between your DNA and that of the group that succeeds is just 0.5%, your European DNA branch split from the other tens of thousands of years ago.
You could say now that whatever mutations were acquired during those years failed. Those tens of thousands of years wasted, your most recent ancestors that went through: famines, wars, disease, ice ages, etc.. might just as well have committed suicide and saved themselves the trouble (assuming you're nothing but a thing that carries DNA).
Sex is there to help the offspring of two organisms survive. If they replace themselves with 2 children, then that's 50% and 50%, even and fair. What the projection says though is that the DNA of Europeans won't be 50% European in Europe and 50% in immigrant's original countries. It would be much less than that in Europe with current trends and nowhere near in the immigrant's original countries. So you wouldn't be getting that fair share.
There is not just one ethnic European group, there are many.[1]
I didn't mention the word "race" in any of the comments above. However, scientists show us that different groups of people on Earth cluster together genetically closer than they do to other groups of people. [2] This is what one expects if the ancestors of these groups parted ways millennia ago. What you mention about Turks and Greeks is not unexpected, Greece and Turkey being practically next to each other, I don't know why you bring this up.
You are entirely correct about pre-modern European tribes and nation states. If the comment above implies something different from this although I believe it doesn't, then I made a mistake.
We moved to the concept of "race" about which you are absolutely correct. It's a sociopolitical construct and the meaning of this word has not been consistent throughout history. Remember though that I didn't use this word.
Back to the genetic argument, why doesn't the projection matter? (argument b) which grand-parent was justifying)
It was my understanding that the projection comes simply from extrapolating the figures from the past few decades, apart form looking at the age pyramid of Europe and seeing how much immigration will be needed to pay for pensions, health care and so on. I haven't done the math myself so I can't tell you whether it is true. If this is a collaborative effort, then I think it would be wise for someone with the background to dismiss those projections mathematically.
However to show that such a demographic change is not such a statistical impossibility, look at US demographics. Ethnic Europeans were around 80% of the US population in the 80s, they are around 60% now and it is projected by the US government itself that in the next few decades they will be below 50%. You can bump that last percentage a little bit to account for those counted as Hispanic whites who are actually predominantly indigenous Europeans. I know US demographics are completely unrelated and have nothing to do with the OP which relates to Europe. This was simply to show how such demographic changes are not impossible. Nevertheless, there could be other variables which I'm not aware of, that make what we've seen in the US possible but impossible in Europe.
You used the UK as an example, however, Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans were ethnic Europeans and these genetic groups didn't split from indigenous people in the British isles tens of thousands of years ago but more recently. The projection (not fact) above mentions that: "in a few decades the genetic makeup of most Europeans will be more similar to that of NON-European ethnic groups than to that of people who have lived in Europe for TENS OF THOUSANDS of years".
In any case if you were any of those groups, you would have opposed an invasion from a later group. Picts fought Roman "immigration". One might interpret this as Picts wanting their genetic makeup to be more representative in the overall population of the British isles.
I don't see how this justification might convince someone who is "an ethnic European and predominantly carries genes that split from the ethnic groups of immigrants tens of thousands of years ago" that the projection doesn't matter if they don't already believe so.
I wasn't aware that these extremists aren't concerned about genes. I haven't read the manifesto nor am I planning to. However, people can still have a go at debunking the genetic argument above if they wish.
Facts: Current birth rate among indigenous Europeans in most if not all European countries is and has been below replacement level for a few decades. Most population growth in Europe in the last few decades has been from immigration from outside Europe. The birth rate among non-indigenous Europeans in European countries is higher than indigenous birth rate.
Projections (not fact): This trend doesn't appear to be changing and it looks like it will continue for many more decades. If the trend continues, in a few decades the genetic makeup of most Europeans will be more similar to that of non-European ethnic groups than to that of people who have lived in Europe for tens of thousands of years.
Arguments (assuming projections are true):
a) the projections above are a bad thing if you are an ethnic European and you predominantly carry genes that split from the ethnic groups of immigrants tens of thousands of years ago.
b) the projections above don't matter
c) the projections above are a good thing
State why the projections are likely to be wrong, debunk argument a) or justify why arguments b/c are correct. Proceed.
I'm not arguing any position, just trying to understand without being very familiar with genetics or statistics. Maybe I've read the studies the way you presented it but my simple mind interpreted it that way. I'm guessing there is a huge flaw in what I drew but I don't see it, I can't picture in my mind what you meant.
There have been studies showing that individuals from two different races, for example Caucasian and West African, are usually more similar genetically to some members of the other race than to some of his own. What is meant by this? How is it possible considering that people of the same race share much more recent ancestry than people of different races? Then later you see graphs showing genetic clusters, how can there be clusters if people aren't more similar to one another for being of the same race? Did they use mixed race individuals for these studies? Are the parts of the genome that make two people look more similar to each other random parts or specific ones, what do these parts do? And finally in the global similarity section of 23andme, one can see the groups he's most related to, how is this possible?
Other places were able to get their own civilization thanks to one reason or the other, e.g. Eastern China.
All that has to do with achievements of different societies. Now at the individual level, how do we know whether groups with Caucasian genes would have been able to develop a civilization if they had lived in a place with the same geography and conditions as Sub-Saharan Africans? We can't know.
What we know though is that the conditions are there now for individuals with predominantly Sub-Saharan ancestry to show what they are capable of. Eventually they'll produce someone like Mozart, Newton, Confucius, Sun Tzu, Jabir ibn Hayyan or Abbas ibn Firnas. Or maybe they won't. Perhaps too early to tell.