Societies don't have to be secular to be modern

[CountDeMoney]

Highest prevalence of lactose tolerance in the world; some try to explain it by hypothesizing there was a separate evolution of lactose tolerance in Sweden

I'd like to see a separate evolution of Scandinavia by having it separate from the European continent and sinking into the ocean.

[Pat]

I don't think you mean that 

[CountDeMoney]

I don't think you mean that 

Well, maybe not Norway.  But Swedenistan and those goofy Finnish fucks, hell yeah.

[Pat]

What about Denmark?

[Pat]

Oh, I supposed they'd still be attached to Europe.

[CountDeMoney]

What about Denmark?

Overated German beachfront property, but not warranting drowning.

[Neil]

Lactose tolerance only came about quite recently (after agriculture and animal husbandry) and yet 95% of swedes are now lactose tolerant.

Mandible size has also decreased significantly in humans ever since cooking came in, especially in Europeans (where cooking came earlier and was more important).

[Pat]

Olof Rudbecks Atlantica, where he argues for Sweden being Atlantis.

[Neil]

What about Denmark?

Overated German beachfront property, but not warranting drowning.

Listen to C4 talk about spanking for five minutes and you'll change your mind.

[Neil]

Olof Rudbecks Atlantica, where he argues for Sweden being Atlantis.

Sweden wasn't even civilized during the ancient era.

[Pat]

According to Rudbeck, Sweden was cradle of civilization, and Swedish the language that Hebrew and Latin evolved from 

[grumbler]

I need look no further than my own country to say that your theory is wrong. Sweden, too, has a long history of credible government, and it certainly wasn't lack of credibility in government that caused a lack of faith in religion. In 1809 we made a product of the french revolution our king and instated a liberal constitution that wasn't replaced until 1976, as a mere formality of modernization. At the time it was the second oldest constitution in the world, after the American. We had a stable and gradual transition from monarchy to democracy, and a stable and gradual transition from religion to atheism.

I thought a big chunk of Sweden broke off in 1905 and formed their own country. 

Maybe I am incorrect, though, and that was a different Sweden which suffered the schism.  If your Sweden didn't suffer this, then I will concede that your country disproves the "all" portion of my statement about governments losing credibility.  It certainly does not impact the theory itself.

If a single case disproves a theory, then the fact that i am not religious disproves your theory that the US is a religious country.

[grumbler]

I'm not saying Malthus was right. Malthus was wrong, but only because he didnt foresee what I in may earlier post called the "invention and wide-spread use" of contraceptives.

He ignored contraception completely.  He also ignored any possibility of increasing crop yields exponentially.

It is true that there have existed primitive contraceptives for a long time, but these have been expensive, ineffective, cumbersome to use, or all three. Widespread use of contraceptives is quite recent.

Population growth at less than exponential rates is ancient, though, so Malthus was wrong there.

What I refer to as malthusian pressure is the same thing as population pressure.

But, as we have seen, countries act aggressively and wage wars absent population/"malthusian" pressures.  The whole idea that population pressures drive wars is bogus, though it is possible that some wars were fought because of population pressures.

Malthus was making a statement about the perfectibility of society, btw, not on the causes of wars.

[Razgovory]

I thought Scandinavia suffered a  famine in the 19th century.

[grumbler]

Anyway, I must commend miglia for his resilience, even if arguing with grumbler is like arguing with a dirty old pig.

I must commend you for not making your inevitable ad hom until the second page.