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 correlated.

Malcolm Collins: Correlated, right? So the mean score in the 1000 CE population was 95.8.

In the 1850s population, it was 1 0 7 0.5. Whoa. So you see it completely jumped there. And, and you see a gradual rise across the population over time. If you go to the top 5%, you go from one 20 in the CE population, 1000 ce into the 1850s population. 132.2. And then if you look at the above 150 CE population, 5% score.

So this is what percent. Of the population is above the 5%. I like if you're looking at the top 5% in the 1850s. Right. [00:04:00] Okay. Okay. Score wise.

Simone Collins: Yeah. In

Malcolm Collins: the 1850s, obviously 5% is above the top 5%. All right. That makes sense to but the percent that was in the one thousands population was only 0.75%.

If, if, if you go, oh my,

Simone Collins: okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. If you go to the 1600, it's 3%. So, no. What's a, a a above the top 1%, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. So, the one top, above the top 1% for the 1850s is obviously 1%, but if you go to the 1000 CE population, it's 0.093%. And then the top 1%. So you would've had you know, 10 people in that range.

In the 1850s population for every one person born in that range, in the 1000 CE population of intelligence. Wow. Wow. Okay. This matters because, and, and note here, I'm [00:05:00] not saying this theory is true, but it's a very interesting theory because it looks at the development of a society without comparing different ethnic groups, which I always try to avoid doing when I can.

It just looks. Within one ethnic group. Mm-hmm. Which is really interesting. It is only comparing British people of one time period that didn't have an industrial revolution. Yeah. To British people of another time period, which did have an industrial revolution. Yeah. And I note here that the British people of this other time period, like you go to a South Sea or something like that, like, they did not seem capable.

These are my own ancestors I'm talking about here. So don't accuse me of racism, of creating large scale civilization. As I point out in my One Civilization video my ancestors, if you're like, oh, what did the ancient Brits build? And it's like, well, there is some really nice and detailed ruins in ancient Britain.

You know, you people are like, oh, great, where are they? And I'm like. It's the Roman Bath bath. The, the [00:06:00] Britains didn't make anything like that for about a thousand years after that. Yeah. Like they, they, they, they, it seemed incapable. They were basically idiot tribals in mud huts bringing poo at each other.

When Roman, it was a little, it was a

Simone Collins: little stark. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, we need to be honest, this is one of these things where I'm always like really annoyed when people are like, my people were colonized and then you're a white supremacist because you lauded Roman culture. And I'm like, well, Roman culture isn't my culture.

They colonized me, me lauding Roman culture is no different from. A black person Laing Roman culture or an Asian person lauding Roman culture. It was the descendant of the group that colonized my ancestor, at least my a your

Simone Collins: ancestral culture. Yeah. There's

Malcolm Collins: together, yeah. Like, we can all, all men can look back.

There's a great meme that's like, all the men of like different ethnic groups are looking back at like ancient Rome. The, the, how often do you think you got our, our [00:07:00] Roman. Helmet right there with the, with the Greek helmet in, in frame right here that I got for Father's Day.

Very Father's Day gift. But I found this to be a very interesting theory, and again, I wanna be clear. I'm not saying I support it, I'm saying it's i