RE: Racist Rushton book

elson,

On the ability to resist malaria. The mosquito that carries plasmodium,
the genus of parasites responsible for malaria, thrives in standing water,
which was not a widespread problem until horticulture was developed. Land
cleared for agricultural product can very rapidly turn into malarial
areas, as malarial mosquitos will quickly overpopulate in these
conditions. There is an obvious selective advantage for the sickle-cell
allele in this milieu and the change in its frequency in regions in Africa
was probably fairly rapid by evolutionary standards. Evidence appears to
show the origin of the mutation in East Africa in the Sudan and then
following the spread of slash and burn horticulture. This means that the
hundreds of thousands of years estimate is probably wrong. The appearance
and spread of the sickle-cell allele is more likely to have begun 10-20
thousand years ago.

Andy Austin