By the way, this guy Clark has Darwinian evolution wrong. Suppose that upper-class people and lower-class people don't have babies together (and don't mix their cultures).
Clark asserts, reasonably, that upper-class folks lived longer and bred more than lower-class ones. Well, the fact is that evolution would work faster for the lower-class ones, because fewer of them would be surviving to produce children while their population stayed roughly the same or grew. That means that the ones who survived to have kids were tougher, more adapted to their environment. Much of that adaptation -- but not all -- was due to genes. Cultural "evolution" would reinforce this result, creating communities and traditions that would allow survival and even prosperity (until the tax man came). The poor would be more adapted... ... than the upper classes. The latter's affluence would allow a lot of maladapted kids to survive to have kids. All sorts of problems would persist, like the hemophilia that afflicted the European royal families before (and after?) World War I. In general, genetic evolution would be slowed. (Inbreeding might cause genetic drift causing beneficial mutations, but it also produces negative mutations and limit variation, one of the engines of evolution.) In addition, they would develop and perfect a culture of domination, i.e., the kind of spoiled sense of entitlement you see in Dubya. The sense of entitlement works fine, until the domination ends, in which case you're more vulnerable. Notice also that this culture is not the "democratic" one that Clark talks about. It's the unity of the privileged, defending themselves against the poor. Anyway, the classes _do_ mix their genes and cultures, despite the assumption I made at the start. With all the lords raping the peasant girls, the likely difference between the classes would be more cultural than genetic. (not an evolution expert. Corrections requested.) -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
