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Gregory Cochran

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Gregory Cochran
Born
Gregory M. Cochran

1953 (age 71–72)
CitizenshipAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Known forThe 10,000 Year Explosion
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics, Anthropology
InstitutionsUniversity of Utah

Gregory M. Cochran (born 1953) is an American physicist, author, and anthropologist. He is a research associate at the anthropology department at the University of Utah.[1] He is a proponent of human biodiversity[2], a contemporary branch of scientific racism[3] that argues that cultural innovation resulted in new and constantly shifting selection pressures for genetic change, thereby accelerating human evolution and divergence between human races. He is co-author of the book The 10,000 Year Explosion.

Human evolution

In opposition to what he sees as the 'conventional wisdom' that civilization has been a static environment which imposed stabilizing selection on humans, Cochran, along with like minded anthropologists such as John D. Hawks,[4] contends that haplotype and other data indicate the selection of genes has been strongest since the advent of farming and civilization.[5]

Ashkenazi intelligence

Main article: Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence

Cochran and co-authors Jason Hardy and Henry Harpending, who is considered a white supremacist by the Southern Poverty Law Center,[6] suggest that the alleged high-average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews may be attributed to natural selection for intelligence during the Middle Ages and a low rate of genetic inflow. Cochran et al. hypothesise that the occupational profile of the Jewish community in medieval Europe had resulted in selection pressure for mutations that increase intelligence, but can also result in hereditary neurological disorders.[7][8]

Homosexuality

Cochran believes an evolutionary perspective suggests that the proximal cause of homosexuality must be an infection.[9][10] Cochran does not suggest that an infectious agent that causes homosexuality is spread by homosexuals. The premise is that homosexuality reduces the number of offspring and would lead to the genes carried by a homosexual person to be progressively eliminated over generations. Cochran maintains that the observed level of prevalence of exclusive homosexuality (3 to 4 percent of men and 1 to 2 percent of women in the United States) means genes cannot be the cause of homosexuality. This argument is based on natural selection, the fitness cost of genes 'for' homosexuality being too great for its occurrence at a frequency above that of random mutation (~ 1 in 50,000). The argument assumes that evolution would have largely eliminated homosexuality related to non-infectious environmental causes, except novel ones.[11]

References

  1. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-08-17. Retrieved 2016-07-21. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. ^ "West Hunter". Retrieved 2018-03-11.
  3. ^ Hemmer, Nicole (March 28, 2017). "“Scientific racism” is on the rise on the right. But it’s been lurking there for years." Vox.
  4. ^ Phelan, Benjamin (October 2008). "How We Evolve". Seed Magazine. pp. 66–73. Retrieved September 12, 2015.
  5. ^ Gregory Cochran; Henry Harpending (2009). "Overview: Conventional Wisdom". The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution. Basic Books. pp. 1–25. ISBN 0-4650-0221-8.
  6. ^ "Henry Harpending". Retrieved 2018-03-11.
  7. ^ Kaplan, Karen (April 18, 2009). "Jewish legacy inscribed on genes?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 5, 2015.
  8. ^ Cochran, Gregory; Hardy, Jason; Harpending, Henry (2005). "Natural History Of Ashkenazi Intelligence" (PDF). Journal of Biosocial Science. 38 (05): 659–93. doi:10.1017/S0021932005027069. ISSN 0021-9320. PMID 16867211. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-09-11. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ Cochran, Gregory. "An Evolutionary Look at Human Homosexuality". Archived from the original on 11 October 2008. Retrieved September 12, 2015.
  10. ^ "Cause of Homosexuality: Gene or Virus?". 2005. Archived from the original on March 2, 2005. Retrieved September 12, 2015. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ Hopper, Judith (February 1998). "A New Germ Theory (Part Two)". The Atlantic Monthly. pp. 41–53. Retrieved September 12, 2015.
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