Assimilate to Protect

(Hello from Kuala Lumpur)

Many indigenous people groups are in danger of extinction, simply due to the spreading of agriculture and technology. Some of these people choose to adapt to the “modern” lifestyle, but others strive to maintain their ethnic and cultural identity, even if it seems a bit misplaced from a Western view. But inevitably, these cultures and people groups will disappear.

The loss of a culture is almost always sad, but this notion made me think in an evolutionary sense of protecting one’s genetics. In the case of a “doomed” people group, continued isolation will only lead to the dwindling and ultimate disappearance of a genetic pool. However, by intermarrying and possibly losing much of their cultural identity they would at least maintain genetic continuity in the increasingly global human gene pool. Again, I do not find cultural assimilation very tasteful or useful at all. But for example, in the case of China and Tibet, it is interesting to note that China’s attempts at encouraging intermarriage between Chinese and Tibetans is a double-edged sword: it will be successful in eliminating the Tibetian culture, but it will ensure continuity of the Tibetan genes. And from an evolutionary viewpoint this genetic continuity is a success, at least in one way.