Understanding Putin. Or not.

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Subscriber Joanne, whom I have known for about 30 years, sent me this wonderful article by Razib Khan entitled Getting a Sense of the Russian Soul. Whereas Ukrainians are genetically homogeneous and very European, the Russians are more diverse – and on average not quite so European.

Luigi Cavalli Sforza of Sanford started the analysis of genetic differences among peoples four decades or more ago. Genetic analysis not being available, he initially used blood types. His work with crude tools has been validated by genetics. The technique of factor analysis allows a statistician to extract principal components to describe the differences among different sets of data. These are used as factors in linear equations. The first component explains the greatest amount of difference, the second the second greatest, and so on. Two-dimensional graphs are useful for depicting these first two principle components.

In Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class, Charles Murray used Cavalli Sforza and others' analysis to produce this diagram of the genetic differences among the peoples of the world:

Note that the orientation Murray chose tracks human migration out of Africa – first north through the Mideast and Europe, then East through Asia and on to Oceania and across the Bering Straits to the Americas.

This depiction gives visual confirmation to the commonsense notions of human races. Africans, Europeans and East Asian populations cluster. Individuals within these populations are similar to each other, and the measured average differences between the populations are sufficiently great to validate the evidence of our eyes.

Khan's point is that there is a great deal of diversity within the Russian population. Superimposing his diagram, below, on Murray's diagram you would see that the Russian population spreads genetically from a concentration in Europe towards both East and South Asia.

84% of our genome is dedicated to the brain. That's what separates us from the lower animals. While our bodies are similar, our brains are 3 ½ times the size of those of chimpanzees. Temperament, of course, is a function of the brain. Humanity has long known (though the woke would have us forget) that different populations tend to think differently.

Turning back to Russians, the Russians have always had hierarchical government structures.  Thirty years ago Geert Hofstede thoroughly and accurately describe the differences in his "Cultures and Organizations – Software of the Mind."  Though he ascribed it to culture, it now appears that some differences may be hard wired – we evolved to think the way we do.

Winston Churchill said that "Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."  Very hard to understand. It may be that our brains don't work the same as theirs. At any rate, I thank Joanne and highly recommend Khan's article to you. This is a propitious time to figure out how a certain Russian mind actually works.

The sounds of war seem to continue diminishing, though there is an occasional missile in the distance. The neighborhood stores are still closed. Though I am looking for an excuse to bicycle into town to see what is going on, I have not yet come up with one that satisfies Oksana. This morning I took the girls for a 2 mile walk. It was a little bit too much for Marianna. She cried for about 10 minutes, then fell asleep on my shoulders. I sent Zoriana ahead to alert Oksana, who was able to get her undressed and in bed without waking her up.

That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong men are content to wait this out, the good-looking woman is increasingly relaxed, and the children really, really want to get on with life.

Graham