Henry Harpending
| Henry Harpending | |
|---|---|
| Born | Henry Cosad Harpending January 13, 1944 Dundee, New York, U.S. |
| Died | April 3, 2016 (aged 72) |
| Residence | Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields |
Anthropology Population genetics |
| Institutions |
University of Utah Pennsylvania State University University of New Mexico |
| Alma mater |
Hamilton College Harvard University |
| Thesis | !Kung hunter-gatherer population structure. (1971) |
| Doctoral advisor | William W. Howells |
| Known for |
The 10,000 Year Explosion Theory of Ashkenazi Intelligence |
Henry Cosad Harpending (January 13, 1944 – April 3, 2016) was an American anthropologist, population geneticist, and distinguished professor at the University of Utah. Harpending received his A.B. degree from Hamilton College and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1972. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Harpending studied genetic and morphometric variation within and between human populations with mathematical models, examining hypotheses such as population growth, divergence, and gene flow.
Harpending did extensive fieldwork in Southern Africa (Botswana, Namibia) and spoke the !Kung language fluently. He died at the age of 72 on April 3, 2016.
In The 10,000 Year Explosion, which he co-authored with Gregory Cochran, Harpending suggests a common belief that human genetic adaptation stopped 40,000 years ago is incorrect and that humans evolved increasingly rapidly in response to the new challenges presented by agriculture and civilization. The result was accelerating evolution which has varied according to new niches or environments that particular populations inhabit.
The final chapter of The 10,000 Year Explosion expands on their paper from the Journal of Biosocial Science on the issue of Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence. Harpending and Cochran argue the cause of the claim of Ashkenazim having higher mean verbal and mathematical intelligence than other ethnic groups (as well as having a relatively high number of genetic diseases, such as Tay-Sachs Disease, Canavan, Niemann-Pick, Gaucher, Familial Dysautonomia, Bloom Syndrome, Fanconi anemia, Cystic Fibrosis and Mucolipidosis IV) is due to the historically isolated population of Jews in Europe.
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