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The Genetics: How Brits Went From Tribals to Industrialists
In this episode, we delve into a controversial yet intriguing theory, backed by a recent study, about the evolutionary dynamics that may have set the stage for Britain's Industrial Revolution. The theory suggests that higher survival rates among the wealthy during pre-industrial times led to a spread of 'middle-class values' such as discipline, literacy, and lower violence, both culturally and genetically. These traits, inherited by the lower classes through downward social mobility, eventually created a population more suited for industrial productivity. We'll explore the historical context, the supporting data, and the potential implications of this theory for understanding global income inequality and the future of human development.
[00:00:00]
Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here today. Today we are gonna be talking about a controversial theory that I hadn't heard before but recently was backed by a new study that came out. So the gist of the theory goes like this. In Britain. , As disease continually killed off the poorer members of society, their positions in society were taken over by the descendants of the wealthy. And that way, according to Colar, the less violent, more literate, and more hardworking behavior, middle class values were spread culturally and biologically throughout the population.
This process of quote unquote downward social mobility. Eventually enabled Britain to attain a rate of productivity that allowed it to break out of the Malthusian trap. So. Essentially what he argued was something unique about the environment of Britain during that period.
And in part, but to a lesser extent, the other countries where the Industrial Revolution caught on, created an evolutionary effect that [00:01:00] altered the populations within these environments at a genetic level, making them more capable of creating something like the industrial Revolution. More specifically, he said.
The, what normally happens in history is as a population advances in technology, it produces more food and then more people exist, and then those more people start to just starve and die. And so you don't really get the opportunity for this, this flourishing. But what was happening in Britain.
Was a unique situation in which the poor were dying at a much faster rate than the rich. And the rich were maintaining their wealth in a way that led their higher fertility rates. And note, he, he brings data to this in the original explanation, which we'll get into, okay. In such a way where their descendants.
Filtered down through the social ranks. So it was more like you had this wealthy class that was producing way more children and those children were [00:02:00] filtering down through the other classes, or is at the other end at like the bottom of the poor. There's like this giant cysts cutting off, cutting off, cutting off every iterative generation and the big new study that came out that was so cool on this.
Looked at the polygenic scores for educational attainment, which today is associated with high educational attainment, which is probably associated with a number of other positive. Things potentially. Yeah. In the British population, so looking at samples of dead bodies, basically from, you know, the year 1000 ad, 1,100, 1,200.
And what you see here is. Basically no change in the rate that this appears from 1000 to around 1700, and then you go from 1700 to the mid 18 hundreds and it jumps a ton. It jumps if you look at this graph.
Hmm.
And to, to get an idea of what this means, if you go to the 1000 population in England the, [00:03:00] the top score.
I don't know what this is. It might be like, like IQ tests here. Average IQ test. Okay. The table compares mean score and upper tail distribution for educational attainment. Okay. Not, not iq. This is the educational attainment scores.
Simone Collins: They're co
Published on 4 months, 3 weeks ago