Jive Book Review: The Final Pagan Generation

The Genetic Impact of Christianity on Ethnocentrism

A new paper (LINK) has caused quite a stir! Schulz et al 2019 relies on the observation that Europeans are more trusting of outsiders and less nepotistic. I recall a study on the reactions of diverse babies left in the care of people that were markedly different genetically from the baby, with the result that most babies got very upset. The baby that was least upset by this was one from Saxony. Despite the evidence, any study that asserts that Europeans are distinguishable from any other population is likely to raise eyebrows and hair among those in the Humanities (especially a study like this that implies the differences are actually culturally advantageous or superior).

The study attributes this European tendency to the Western Church:

"they focus on how the Church broke down extended kin-based institutions and encouraged a nuclear family structure. To do this, the authors developed measures of historical Church exposure and kin-based institutions across populations."

It argues that the rise of agriculture in the Neolithic favoured kinship based societies in which forms of cousin marriage (not just 1st cousins which would be genetically problematic, but also 3rd and 4th cousins which pose no genetic threat), but that "The Church’s family policies meant that by 1500 CE, and likely centuries earlier in some regions, Europe lacked strong kin-based institutions and was instead dominated by relatively independent and isolated nuclear or stem families."

This church-led social change is thus, they argue, the reason for higher rates of openness to strangers, individualism and independence among Europeans. I have no doubt there is some truth to this but I can see a major flaw, which I will get to later. First let's see how other people reacted. The left wing historians threw their toys out of the pram, of course. Here'e one guy who has blocked me even though I don't know who he is:

this is very, very bad scholarship. @sciencemagazine should be absolutely ashamed for publishing this. #medievaltwitter #twitterstorians https://t.co/ayQ61ju1I2

— Mashed Potato Gabriele (@prof_gabriele) November 8, 2019

He says the scientists should have consulted historians (they obviously did though).

holy shit am I angry

— Mashed Potato Gabriele (@prof_gabriele) November 8, 2019

Geneticists seem somewhat bewildered by the reaction of historians...

i'm moderately skeptical of the paper in question because it aims to answer an audacious observation re: western europe's special path. we should always be cautious.

but the historians expressing rage/"I can't even" ... smh https://t.co/V87Kt90Xgt

— Razib🥥 Khan (@razibkhan) November 9, 2019

However, I must say this historian below makes some good points in her counter argument against the geneticists. She throws up numerous obfuscations, which, although a frustrating left wing technique for clouding an argument, actually includes some valid points in this case.

I see the paper as fundamentally misunderstanding causality. Seeing a pattern: European societies gradually became less structured around kinship groups at around the same time the church focuses on consanguinity. Ok. How do we know these two things are connected?

— Georgia Henley (@georgiahenley) November 9, 2019

My area is the conversion of the Germanic peoples and I can give the example of how the church banned, as incestuous, the custom among the Norse whereby sons would inherit their step-mothers. That shows a concern with breaking up kinship ties, but it isn't at all related to biological incest. In fact the prohibition against incest was not introduced to the Germanics by the church at all. Although incest occurs in mythological contexts, such as the gods Freya and Frey, or the incestuous relationships among the Volsung clan which were intended to create a supernatural semi-divine being by distilling the blood of Odin through incest. In both cases, the incest is quite a shocking and unusual element and associated with taboos that even gods aren't supposed to break (Loki shames the divine twins Frey and Freya for the alleged incest).

I do not recall any discussion of consanguineous sexual relationships in any of the papers on Viking or Anglo-Saxon DNA I have read. This could easily be determined from existing samples. I doubt incest was at all common even before Christianity arrived. One Germanic region where people have been marrying third or fourth cousins for centuries is Iceland - this occurred out of necessity due to isolation and a small population. 

Icelandic researchers reporting in a 2008 issue of Science, found that marriages between third or fourth cousins in Iceland tended to produce more children and grandchildren than those between completely unrelated individuals. The researchers suggested that marrying third and fourth cousins may be optimal for reproduction because this degree of genetic similarity may produce the best gene pool. Really close relations like siblings and first-cousins would have detrimental inbreeding mutations, whereas couples genetically far-removed from each other could have genetic incompatibilities. Third- and fourth-cousin couples, though, are the goldilocks middle ground genetically, tending to be more genetically compatible while having no serious inbreeding problems.

Iceland not only produces more published authors per capita than anywhere else, but also more of the world's strongest men! Their breeding practices have certainly not hurt them, in fact they seem to have been beneficial and if these marriages result in more children, then those who favour them will outcompete those who don't in terms of number of children. That suggests selective pressure FOR consanguineous marriages, at least in Iceland...and the church did not break them up.

I am sure some right wing pagans would like to use this study as evidence for how the church destroys ethnic identities and prepares the world for globalism but I am not sure that this has been proven. I believe these prohibitions against close inbreeding were always there in many places in Northern Europe, that third cousin marriages still occurred long after conversion and that kinship networks were not maintained by third cousin marriages anyway, but by complicated rituals of gift exchange, and feasting.

It may surprise the reader to learn I dislike Western chauvinism, particularly arguments for the uniqueness of Western civilisation based on our supposedly more progressive outlook. But if we accept this premise, we must also conclude that the aforementioned tendencies of openness, individualism and independence, are higher in the North than the South of Europe, despite the North being the last place to receive the Christian doctrine. Clearly the argument falls flat. I personally consider such traits to be socially disadvantageous (in the current environment) mutations that actually emerged long before Christianity arrived in Europe, and which are more likely adaptations for small populations distributed over large areas in harsh regions of Northern Europe, where there was a selective pressure favouring those willing to cooperate with whoever they came across and also for more independent and individualistic people who would find long periods of isolation more tolerable.