Speed of Technological Development

This is called "The Founder Effect". Basically, a new colony is started bu a sample of individuals from the original group, it will have a slightly different gene pool than the original population due to random effects. Perhaps a higher percentage of redheads joined the colony than would be expected by looking at the percentage of redheads in the original population. From then on, the new colony can be expected to have more redheads in each generation than the original population.

this happens when the selection process is entirely random. However, the colonists for Safehold were not randomly selected. We do know that their was a slection process of some kind. We just don't know what it was. It seems reasonable that above average physical fitness and intelligence would have been factors in the selection process. The biggest problem is that we have no information on how those or any other quality would have been measured.

There is also the fact that the colonists would have been selected from a gene pool that had already been winnowed by a brutal genocidal war. The colonists were being chosen from a group of survivors, which would probably make the base gene pool tougher, smarter and more fit than today's gene pool.

Finally, the effect of all this would be to move the average intelligence, and physical fitness upwards. It would not result in a large population of genius supermen and superwomen hiding in the general population. for that to happen everyone else would hace to get dumber and less physically fit.

RequiteKitty158 wrote:This is my first post here but have been a reader of RFC since 94.

I've wonder about the speed of Tech Development and the general competence level (IQ) of the inhabitance of Safehold for a while but I've always assumed that the mission planners who had the option to control the selection process for the colonist and specifically choose for the best of humanity (they choose the best STOCK for this using the best genetic science they had at the time) and based Off text in OAR marriages may also have been preselected. (predetermined and pre-analysized for best genetic tendencies) to sound like a cold uncaring breeder looking to enlarge my herd with the best stock possible.

hence, a far larger percentage of the humans on safehold every generation are Highly Intelligent Supergenies

I'll buy the argument that the general population of Project Ark was probably more intelligent than the human norm - but physical fitness is a matter of consistent exercise, not genetics.

Proposing that the colonists had the genes for faster, stronger, and quicker physical responses than the human norm makes sense - proposing that your average nobleman or merchant who eats and drinks himself to sleep every night is going to be physically fit due to his superior genes is unrealistic.

Also, due to a limited diet, and probably insufficient food for much of the population during childhood and adolescence, your average Safeholdian is much shorter than Merlin, who is six foot three. Note that Cayleb, who as royalty has had plenty to eat since childhood is also taller than the Safehold norm, and is extremely tall for a Charisian. (Remember Sharley being so excited that she was only shoulder-height to her fiance?) Nimue's PICA was intentionally made to be 5'4" so she could pass as a man or a woman, which says quite a lot about how short Safeholdians tend to be. (Though probably not on Chisholm, since many of the people in the northern areas of Safehold are much taller than your average 5'7" Charisian male.)

The U.S. Army stats for the average height of its recruits are fascinating - WWI was something like 5'8", WWI was 5'10", Vietnam approach six feet, and these days your average soldier is taller than that, so the improved diet available in the past century is causing the general population of Earth to be much taller than it was a century ago. I'd be a giant in the 1850s when Abe Lincoln was considered to be huge, yet he and I are about the same height.

Hi McGuiness,

My experience in the army was that most were rather less; especially since so many are women now, NTM shorter foreign born recruits etc, so the average was a lot less than 6 feet.

I'm 6'2" or was before age caught up with me, now a 1/2" less I think, and those 6' or more were definitely the minority everywhere I went, including Iraq.

L

McGuiness wrote:I'll buy the argument that the general population of Project Ark was probably more intelligent than the human norm - but physical fitness is a matter of consistent exercise, not genetics.

Proposing that the colonists had the genes for faster, stronger, and quicker physical responses than the human norm makes sense - proposing that your average nobleman or merchant who eats and drinks himself to sleep every night is going to be physically fit due to his superior genes is unrealistic.

Also, due to a limited diet, and probably insufficient food for much of the population during childhood and adolescence, your average Safeholdian is much shorter than Merlin, who is six foot three. Note that Cayleb, who as royalty has had plenty to eat since childhood is also taller than the Safehold norm, and is extremely tall for a Charisian. (Remember Sharley being so excited that she was only shoulder-height to her fiance?) Nimue's PICA was intentionally made to be 5'4" so she could pass as a man or a woman, which says quite a lot about how short Safeholdians tend to be. (Though probably not on Chisholm, since many of the people in the northern areas of Safehold are much taller than your average 5'7" Charisian male.)

The U.S. Army stats for the average height of its recruits are fascinating - WWI was something like 5'8", WWI was 5'10", Vietnam approach six feet, and these days your average soldier is taller than that, so the improved diet available in the past century is causing the general population of Earth to be much taller than it was a century ago. I'd be a giant in the 1850s when Abe Lincoln was considered to be huge, yet he and I are about the same height.

Great thread... For what it's worth, I'll offer five thoughts:
1. The average educational level on Safehold seems to be pretty high. Granted, this is Church driven, but nonetheless it seems to me that you're starting with a pretty good foundation.
2. The "College" in Charis has been in place for (now) two generations (Caleb's and Haarald's) and is well placed as a center of excellence.
3. Implementation of a more efficient mathematical system removed (IMHO) a huge roadblock to progress (and perhaps more importantly?) to the rate of progress.
4. The patent acceptance - nay... encouragement of change by the Church of Charis seems to have overcome many of the "cultural" barriers (at least in the Charisian Empire). I also get the sense that innovation was tacitly accepted in Haven and Howard as well - so long as the "contributions" to the Church were sufficient to "grease the skids."
5. And finally... Remember that much of the innovation is driven by what I would call "guided experimentation." Not that I'm in any way an expert in the history of innovation, but it seems to me that there were 99 failures for every 1 success. If (through Owl) that number can be artificially driven down to a ratio of 20:1 or even 10:1, then the apparent rate of development would be nothing less than phenomenal! How many failed paths (with all the associated "wasted time") are avoided when members of the Inner Circle can take what is merely a "good idea" and can quickly research it to see how it was done on Earth, study the entire (potentially multi-decade) development path, and "guide" subsequent experimentation to ensure success quickly...

[quote]But even the invention of gunpowder in the first place strikes me as highly suspicious - there doesn't seem to be a reason for Safehold to have an experimental-ish "alchemical" tradition in the first place, with the Writ's information.[quote="SWM"]

IIRC, in reality, the Chinese invented gunpowder centuries before any guns were invented.

It is not likely that gunpowder was included in Writ since Merlin improved the recipe. Unless someone was cutting costs by charcoal adulteration - come to think of it that might be likely in Harchong! Of course, Writ information would be likely to have been available to more than Harchong.

If Harchong came up with something new, Langhorn's no tech vision is really, really impossible

WeberFan wrote:4. The patent acceptance - nay... encouragement of change by the Church of Charis seems to have overcome many of the "cultural" barriers (at least in the Charisian Empire). I also get the sense that innovation was tacitly accepted in Haven and Howard as well - so long as the "contributions" to the Church were sufficient to "grease the skids."

IMHO, the US patent system was a major factor in producing our own culture of innovation. At present, modification is being made to change the person getting the patent from the one first inventing to the one first filing.

IMnotHO, this is a bad change. Innovation is expensive, and the dream of success due to owning a good patent has helped many through the trials and costs.

Didn't Heinlein have an alternate universe where the US celebrated "The year they killed the lawyers?" Wishful thinking on RAH's part, perhaps.

DDHvi wrote:Didn't Heinlein have an alternate universe where the US celebrated "The year they killed the lawyers?" Wishful thinking on RAH's part, perhaps.

Yeah. You can't get rid of lawyers until you get rid of laws. So long as you have laws, you're going to need people who are familiar with the law, and there will be people who argue what the law means.

Heck, stone aged tribes have lawyers even if they're called something like "tribal elders" or "keepers of wisdom" or some other fancy title.

DDHvi wrote:

But even the invention of gunpowder in the first place strikes me as highly suspicious - there doesn't seem to be a reason for Safehold to have an experimental-ish "alchemical" tradition in the first place, with the Writ's information.

IIRC, in reality, the Chinese invented gunpowder centuries before any guns were invented.

It is not likely that gunpowder was included in Writ since Merlin improved the recipe. Unless someone was cutting costs by charcoal adulteration - come to think of it that might be likely in Harchong! Of course, Writ information would be likely to have been available to more than Harchong.

If Harchong came up with something new, Langhorn's no tech vision is really, really impossible

And that is what Shan-Wei said all along.

Hi DDHiv,

It was Heinlein's "The Number of the Beast".

We can at least dream, can't we?

L

DDHvi wrote:

WeberFan wrote:4. The patent acceptance - nay... encouragement of change by the Church of Charis seems to have overcome many of the "cultural" barriers (at least in the Charisian Empire). I also get the sense that innovation was tacitly accepted in Haven and Howard as well - so long as the "contributions" to the Church were sufficient to "grease the skids."

IMHO, the US patent system was a major factor in producing our own culture of innovation. At present, modification is being made to change the person getting the patent from the one first inventing to the one first filing.

IMnotHO, this is a bad change. Innovation is expensive, and the dream of success due to owning a good patent has helped many through the trials and costs.

Didn't Heinlein have an alternate universe where the US celebrated "The year they killed the lawyers?" Wishful thinking on RAH's part, perhaps.

WeberFan wrote:5. And finally... Remember that much of the innovation is driven by what I would call "guided experimentation." Not that I'm in any way an expert in the history of innovation, but it seems to me that there were 99 failures for every 1 success. If (through Owl) that number can be artificially driven down to a ratio of 20:1 or even 10:1, then the apparent rate of development would be nothing less than phenomenal! How many failed paths (with all the associated "wasted time") are avoided when members of the Inner Circle can take what is merely a "good idea" and can quickly research it to see how it was done on Earth, study the entire (potentially multi-decade) development path, and "guide" subsequent experimentation to ensure success quickly...

They also have going for them that those 10 or 20 failures will not make them get discouraged and give up for another generation or so, since certain people know something along these lines will work and can keep nudging inventors along.