Theory of Dominant Genes-Filling a Hole in Darwin's Theory of Evolution-REPOST

People who subscribe to my feed using feedburner got another dated version of this post-this is the real one. Sorry about that..
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In the last few years I have come up with some ideas about evolution, and where Darwin might have left some space to be filled. I will call it The Theory of Dominant Genes.

In every group of individuals of the same species, there is a tendency of genetically similar individuals to group together. They will form sub-groups based on this similarity, and eventually this sub-group will split off (or drive away the other members of the parent group) and form another species. Until then, this group will be the dominant gene in the group-the others will have to obey the rules laid out by them.

An example. Let's see you see a bunch of dogs in an area. Large dogs will tend to hang out with large dogs, black dogs with black dogs, intelligent dogs with intelligent dogs, and form little sub groups of dogs. The dominant subgroup will rule-it will dominate the other dogs. It may even kill all other dogs or drive them away. That sub group will form the next group of dogs in that area, which will eventually lead to a new species.

This is how new species are formed. The dominant group is a precursor to new species.

An example with humans. You will see people of similar characteristics form groups. For example, tall people prefer to hang out with tall people, and marry tall people, and so on. This is a precursor to forming new species.

In case of conflicts, the dominant genes of let's say tall people will drive away all the rest to new places, or there will be war, and the others will be wiped out.

This also explains the formation of new towns, countries, and why we would form new languages (it is the way of speaking of the dominant group with others copy, and eventually leads to a new language).

It is easy to see this for individuals in species-a dominant individual will act the say way.

The theory will easy to apply for all animals, and plants. Darwin pointed out that the competition within individuals of a species is more severe than the competition between species (because they share the same food habits, same geographical area) and this theory explains how that competition really works, that some individuals or group begin to dominate, and eliminate the others.

Sanjay

Combining Adam Smith with Charles Darwin's ideas

Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) talks about how only wise and virtuous people can have lasting friends. Vice is capricious, says Smith-and by definition, good life long friendships are born on stability and trust, which can only be found amongst virtuous people. Thieves and dishonest people can't be friends of each other---they will always screw over the other party to destroy the friendship's investments.

My experiences in life with humans have confirmed this to a very high degree.

Enter Darwin. Darwin observed that our characteristics are inherited-that nurture can't do mucho. In his autobiography he pointed out to how different his siblings were to him and to each other, even though brought up in the same family. This I can confirm from my own family and observations of many other families around me.

I believe that this "virtue" which Smith talks about, this "honesty", is genetic. (Being genetic, it has a propensity (a probability, not a certainty) to be hereditary-but that's another topic). This is tied in to my earlier post about how I believe that people who are faithful to their partners are genetically designed to be so. They are all the same-genetically faithful, honest, virtuous, etc.

In reality, dishonest people may learn to be honest and fake it...but it needs a discerning eye and lots of experience to see this. I have been fooled many a time by both men and women, but seems like I am getting better at recognizing the genetically unfaithful (dishonest) people...:-)

If Smith were born after Darwin he would surely have incorporated Darwin's acute observations about humans and animals into his TMS-and I suppose it would have been along these lines.

Sanjay

Books/Authors I like-and why biology and economics are difficult

I live off three books/authors when it comes to biology and economics.

Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations"
Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species"
and Nassim Taleb in "The Black Swan" and "Fooled by Randomness".

What's the connection between biology and economics?

Both deal with life, living species.

That's why they are harder that physical sciences-Physics, Chemistry, Engineering.

As long as we deal with inanimate objects are have great laws of motion, of thermodynamics, of Quantum Mech and of Relativity-to make us really understand mother nature and use that knowledge to our advantage.

Biology is difficult-because it deals with life. But we are progressing. And economics deals with behavior of humans-living objects-making it much "harder" than Thermodynamics or Quantum Mechanics.

But with all these problems-Adam Smith and Darwin stand out. They have a lot of empirically provable stuff to say in The Wealth and The Origin.

Unfortunately most other authors I have read make lots of errors-especially in economics. They are not scientists.
That's where Taleb comes in. He tells you to not revere the suits and the ties, the high positions (the apprenticeships-in Smith's language). That most people don't understand much-that we tell elegant stories, but they are unscientific, unempirical, unprovable. They are very logical-but that is not enough (the earth is flat is a logical statement for all humans-but it is false).

Taleb gives us courage to stand up against the false knowledge in humans. He is often right-in questioning the validity of all this apparent knowledge around us.

Taleb's website is here.

The Wealth of Nations and The Origin of Species are 10 dollar books on Amazon.com. Taleb's are pretty cheap too. Pure knowledge is quite inexpensive!

Sanjay

Foreign Reserve Accumulation by China, Russia, Korea, etc. is a disservice to their countries

China leads the world in the total amount of foreign reserves. It also is the fastest accumulator of them. The biggest beneficiary of this is the US. The Chinese buy US Government backed bonds (treasuries and mortgage bonds issued by Fannie and Freddie) with those reserves.

What would Adam Smith say to this?

As we are all well aware-China has become the manufacturing hub of the world. China sells the world loads of finished goods-toys, machinery, auto parts, computer parts, digital cameras, home furnishings...well, just about all finished goods which we spend our money on. The complexity of these goods is increasing as well. There are Chinese made cars in Chile nowadays.

What China gets for selling all these goods? It accumulates US Government bonds. Smith clearly explained that capital at home is the best use for a nation-it employs the maximum number of they country's citizens. Capital is sent abroad by private individuals to increase returns-but a Government doing this is silly from a job generation perspective. Another way to look at this is that China effectively subsidizes all these finished goods it sells to the US. It exchanges the hard work and labor of it's own citizens for useless paper currency paying some small interest. It keeps Americans employed-giving a nice gift of manufactured items for free use.

All emerging market nations do this-they could generate far more employment at home if they didn't keep these massive piles of monies in the US, UK, European Union etc.

The emerging markets justify their FX holdings for defending their currency, and their high liquidity. They actually keep their own countries poorer.

What should they do? Market based currency rates are a first step-but capital already accumulated by these nations should move into buying things which their countries need. Raw materials or machinery to improve productivity of their citizens. They should buy iron-ore, coal, nuclear energy plants, etc. That is not the same as investing in resource stocks in Australia---that will again employ Australians. They should keep buying the commodities produced by Australian producers and bringing them home so the home market has no shortage of basic materials like coal, iron-ore, copper, etc. They should spend that money in buying more aircraft and other techologies which will make production smoother. Then the labor of China can work on those materials and generate the finished goods it is so capable of doing in even larger amounts.

Smith also mentioned about the uselessness of controlling the amount of money supply in the country by changing interest rates. The amount of money necessary to circulate goods in a country is an unimportant part of the country's economy. Imagine a world without paper dollars or yuans-will we not trade things-goods and services, anyway? Sure we would. It just wont be that convenient, but we still would trade goods.

Chinese finished goods should be traded for raw materials and other things which Chinese citizens need---not paper US dollars and Euros. That doesn't help China-it actually hurts it-because precious capital is kept outside, preventing better division of labor. The least they can do is to flood China with raw materials.

A small export based economy justifies some foreign reserve holdings to prevent excessive currency fluctuations-but nothing more than that.

Any Government which holds foreign reserves as "investments" does it at the expense of it's own country. Adam Smith would be amused if he saw how national Governments exchange the hard labor of their citizens for paper emitted by foreign governments, in the name of liquidity. Smith also explained how you never buy money for it's own sake-money (or Government bonds) has no use, but to be sold again for buying other goods--goods for consumption, goods for increasing productiving, raw materials. A paper wealth increase in China's foreign reserves because the US Government pays interest on them doesn't do squat for China-unless that interest and capital is spent to bring something useful back home.
Eventually these emerging market economies need to stop accumulating reserves so they can become developed countries faster.

Sanjay